African Studies Centre Leiden, The Netherlands The Nigeria-Biafra war, popular culture and agitation for sovereignty of a Biafran nation ‘Rantimi Jays Julius-Adeoye ASC Working Paper 138 / 2017 1 African Studies Centre Leiden P.O. Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden The Netherlands Telephone +31-71-5273372 Website www.ascleiden.nl E-mail
[email protected] [email protected] © Senior Lecturer, Theatre and Film Studies, Redeemer’s University, Nigeria, LeidenASA Visiting Fellow 2017, March 2017 2 Abstract The date 6 July 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the war considered as one of the worst in recent human history, the Nigeria-Biafra war. My paper focuses on the representation of this war in popular culture – with an emphasis on film, fictional and non-fictional literature. It interrogates the role that fictional and non-fictional narration play in the collective and individual memory of Nigerians in general and the Igbos in particular. It also looks at the link between the depiction of the war in popular culture and the renewed agitation for the nationhood of Biafra, as since the 2000s, there has been renewed campaigning by young people of Igbo ethnicity for the creation of the Republic of Biafra. This research particularly concentrates on two organizations that are involved in this struggle: the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). It is my position that popular culture constitutes important material for the study and understanding of historical events and periods of time, while it also enhances our understanding of the ways in which these past events may have an influence in the present.