Biafra in the film archives
What personal and collective memory is evoked when we encounter films from a historical period?
What personal and collective memory is evoked when we encounter films from a historical period?
The playwright Mfoniso Udofia is trying to debunk the “typical” understanding of Africa, and specifically Nigeria, in her work.
By volume, the most significant body of writing on Biafra is neither history nor fiction, but memoir.
Since the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), by the operatives of the Nigerian
Igbo nationalist groups have the right to self-determine whether they want to be part of Nigeria or form their own independent republic.
If being Nigerian meant anything, the presidency wouldn’t be rotated every eight years between the North and South or along tribal lines.
How does rhetoric of a 1960’s failed secessionist state in Nigeria flow into a sleepy industrial city in southern China, amongst young Nigerian merchants, none of whom lived through the war themselves?
After nearly fifty years, the real impact of the Biafran war on Nigeria remains to be measured, free from political gamesmanship.