the presence of the past: youth, memory making and the politics of self-determination in...
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The presence of the past:youth, memory making and thepolitics of self-determination insoutheastern NigeriaGodwin OnuohaPublished online: 02 Jul 2012.
To cite this article: Godwin Onuoha (2013) The presence of the past: youth, memorymaking and the politics of self-determination in southeastern Nigeria, Ethnic and RacialStudies, 36:12, 2182-2199, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2012.699087
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The presence of the past: youth,
memory making and the politics of
self-determination in southeastern Nigeria
Godwin Onuoha
(First submission December 2011; First published June 2012)
AbstractThis article focuses on recent reconstructions of Igbo ‘memory’ by theMovement for the Actualization of the Sovereign state of Biafra(MASSOB). MASSOB is a second-generation Igbo separatist movementthat draws on a collection of ‘memory repertoires’ to agitate for the self-determination and exit of the Igbo ethnic group from the Nigerian stateinto an alternative political and administrative arrangement known as theRepublic of Biafra. The core issues relate to dual narratives generated bythe Nigerian�Biafran War. While the state shapes the official history,memories and narratives of the war to suit its own vision, interests andpolitics, MASSOB contests these official views as the sole legitimateframework for remembering and interpreting the war, but still connects tothe war as a war of Igbo national liberation. These contestations providethe context for the enactment of memory claims and counterclaims, andtheir association with political violence in contemporary Nigeria.
Keywords: MASSOB; youth; memory politics; self-determination; Igbo; Nigeria.
Introduction
Memories of the past pose a major obstacle to reconciling dividedpopulations, constructing a durable peace and embarking on a viablenation-building project in most post-conflict societies. Representationsof the past through memory remain a subject of intense scholarlydebate and critical to the symbolic constitution of social groups andidentities. Memories of persecution, suffering and marginalization cansustain group identities, and even after festering for years or decadescan translate into a basis for future violence. As the proverbial
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2013Vol. 36, No. 12, 2182�2199, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2012.699087
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‘double-edged sword’, memory practices can either be harnessed infostering post-conflict reconciliation and overcoming religious, ethnic,social and political cleavages, or be deployed in perpetuating andhardening deep-seated conflicting positions. Memory repertoires andpractices like commemoration and memorials, and ‘sites of memory’like cemeteries, museums, flags, anthems, uniforms and currencies aresometimes deployed in a biased manner that intends to support theclaims and interests of particular groups to the detriment of others.This tendency throws up contending historical narratives that areclosely linked to a group’s identity and interests, and is critical forfostering social cohesion, citizenship and national identity.
Spurred by multidisciplinary insights from history, sociology,literary criticism, anthropology, psychology, art history, politicalscience and philosophy, Olick and Robbins (1998), Halbwachs(1992) and Climo and Cattell (2002) have extended the boundariesof memory studies linking it to a host of adjectival appellations likecollective memory, cultural memory, historical memory, local memory,official memory, public memory, popular memory, social memory,autobiographical memory, shared memory, custom, myth, heritage,roots and tradition. This, according to Climo and Cattell (2002), p. 2),reveals the extent to which memory may be provisional, negotiatedand contested, forgotten, suppressed or recovered, invented, revised orreinvented. ‘Memory politics’ or the ‘politics of memory’ has beendeeply implicated in a host of contested issues relating to culture,truth, history, identity struggles and nation-building in well-researchedcontexts such as the Shoah, the Vietnam War, the two World Wars, theKorean War and other war memory projects.
Despite the extensive attention received by the Nigerian Civil War inthe literature (Harneit-Sievers et al. 1997; Amadiume 2000, pp. 38�55;Ikpeze 2000, pp. 90�109; Smith 2005, pp. 30�45; Diamond 2007, pp.339�62), and in the analysis of contemporary Nigerian politics (Ekwe-Ekwe 1990; Uwazurike 1997; Osaghae, Onwudiwe and Suberu 2002),there are still enduring legacies of contested memories linked to thewar. These contestations reflect in the multiple names ascribed to thewar, such as the ‘Nigerian�Biafran Civil War’, ‘Nigerian Civil War’,‘War of National Unity’ and the ‘War against the Infidels’, which is atestament to the diverse political, historical, ethnic and culturalsensitivities of different interests.1 This paper examines the impact ofthe Nigerian�Biafran War memories on Igbo youths, most notablythose born after the war and who connect with the memories of thewar to forge a specific narrative linking the present and the past inthe struggle for Igbo self-determination in Nigeria. Drawing on theactivities of MASSOB, the paper sheds light on the linkages betweenmemory politics, the articulation of nationalist sentiments and ideas,
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and the derivation of specific social and political meaning from thesecontexts.
As a movement steeped in separatist politics, MASSOB deploysa collection of ‘memory repertoires’ in reconstructing historicalmemory, Igbo national identity, and in seeking the self-determinationof the Igbo and exit from the Nigerian state. The movement’s quest forself-determination draws upon a prior idea of statehood, which isrooted in the aborted secessionist attempts of the Igbo-dominatedEastern Region to secede from the Nigerian federation between 1967and 1970. Most members of MASSOB did not experience the war, butthe movement persuasively evokes a sense of collective memory ofIgbo genocide (before and during the war) and perceptions of post-war persecution, deprivation and marginalization, which have allbecome dominant Igbo narratives since the end of the civil war in1970. While the Nigerian state is intent on shaping the official history,memories and narratives of the war to suit its own vision, interests andpolitics, MASSOB still connects to the war as a war of Igbo nationalliberation and rejects official views as the sole and legitimate frame-work for remembering and interpreting the war. The claims andcounterclaims enacted by these contestations provide the setting inwhich ‘memory’ is being played out over time in a political context.Unlike other youth-based ethno-nationalist movements, particularlyfrom the Niger Delta and the Yoruba ethnic group agitating forautonomy within the Nigerian state, MASSOB’s stated objective is toachieve self-determination for the Igbo ethnic group that will culminatein its exit from the Nigerian state into a different administrative andpolitical arrangement, known as the Republic of Biafra. The deploy-ment of Nigerian�Biafran War memory is functional to the extent thatit reinforces both the quest and legitimacy of Igbo nationalism, whilethe aborted secessionist attempt of the Igbo-dominated Eastern Regionfrom the main federation in the late 1960s and the violence thatfollowed the war is used to shore up memories of Igbo liberation effort.
This article is divided into four parts. The first part explores the roleof collective memory in the construction, production and legitimiza-tion of national identity and the nation state, and how particularnational narratives are deployed as a means of fostering socialcohesion and national unity. The next section examines the formationof collective Igbo memory in a post-civil war Nigerian context and thediverse means through which the present is shaped by the past on theone hand, and how the past and the present are intertwined anddeployed in a political context on the other. The third section bringsyouth back into the analysis. It links youth to war memories and thepolitics of self-determination with the aim of teasing out howMASSOB is appropriating memory repertoires in the reinvention ofIgbo nationalist identity and in the struggle for Igbo self-determina-
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tion in Nigeria. The final part sums up the arguments and what thesedevelopments portend for the Nigerian state in its unpredictablesearch for nationhood, legitimacy and national unity.
Memory, identity and nation making
Renan (1990, pp. 8�22) extensively reflects on the nation as ‘a soul, aspiritual principle’ linked to the existence of shared memories, and theproposition that the nation was a ‘daily plebiscite’, the existence ofwhich was based on the craving to live together. His work dwells onthree critical aspects to this endeavour: ‘the possession in common of arich legacy of memories . . . the desire to live together, (and) the will toperpetuate the heritage that one has received in an undivided form.’The articulation of group or national identity is not necessarily basedon actuality, but what members of a group, community or nation canremember and what they can link their memories to. This makesnational history not just a scientific history that forges people together,but a deliberate act of collective remembering or collective amnesia. InRenan’s view, the ritualistic commemoration of myths, symbols,legends, ballads and epic songs might not be entirely true and mightembody some fabricated elements and historical falsehoods, but theyremain real so long as they are perceived as original and authentic.Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) argue that the fabrication of memoriesis linked to the role of constructed versions of the past in modernsocieties by means of the fabricating of historical enactments and therecording of national memories.
Memory as representations of the past of a particular group ofpeople is relevant, both for the present and the future, in constructingor reconstructing, claiming or rejecting group identities, in makingclaims to land and other resources, and in various other issues (Climoand Cattell 2002, p. 33). Olick and Robbins (1998, pp. 123�4) point outthat ‘national and other identities are established and maintainedthrough a variety of mnemonic sites, practices and forms’ and that thecrucial link between memory and identity relates to how we derive ourpersonal and social identities. Identity making may not be achieved orcomplete, rather it is in constant flux, and constitutes an ongoingprocess of construction of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, and of socialgroups (Climo and Cattell 2002, p. 33). The study of memory clearlyshows that it is neither an unchanging carrier of the past into thepresent, nor a thing, but a process that works differently in differentcontexts (Zelizer 1995). While Bruner (1990) and Calhoun (1994)argue that identity is a product of ongoing processes of construction innarrative form, MacIntyre (1984, p. 218) opines that ‘attempts toelucidate the notion of personal identity (and, by extension, groupidentity) independently of, and in isolation from the nations of
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narrative are bound to fail.’ Huyssen (1995, p. 1) alludes to the factthat ‘identities (personal and collective) are the names we give todifferent ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves in, thenarratives of the past.’ The often-cited expression credited to Bellahet al. (1985, p. 153) maintains that:
communities . . . have a history (in an important sense are consti-tuted by their past) and for this reason we can speak of a realcommunity as a ‘community of memory’, one that does not forgetits past. In order not to forget that past, a community is involved inretelling its story, its constitutive narrative.
In exploring the link between ‘memory’ and ‘identity’, Olick andRobbins (1998, p. 123) emphasize the vital aspect of how we acquireour personal and social identities, while Halbwachs (1992) notes therole of family in influencing how we construct the past. Zerubavel(1996) makes a connection on the relationship between ‘mnemonicsocialization’ and ‘mnemonic communities’, a relationship thatproceeds from a premise that holds that we remember not asindividuals, but as members of local and national communities. ForZerubavel (1996, p. 286) ‘all subsequent interpretations of our early‘‘recollections’’ are only interpretations of the way they were originallyexperienced and remembered within the context of our family.’Zerubavel (1996, p. 289) adds that ‘what we ‘‘remember’’ includesmore than just what we have personally experienced’ and ‘much ofwhat we remember we did not experience personally’. This process‘accounts for the sense of pride, pain, or shame we sometimesexperience with regard to events that have happened to groups andcommunities to which we belong long before we joined them’(Zerubavel 1996, p. 290). This reveals the dynamic character ofmemory and identity formation, and involves what Archibald (2002)refers to as a process of continuous reinvention of the self and themodification of stories about self to achieve consistency. Schwartz(1996, p. 278) adds substance to the argument by pointing out that‘mnemonic communities’ maintain ‘mnemonic traditions’, and teachnew generations what to remember and forget through ‘mnemonicsocialization’, the monitoring of ‘mnemonic others’ and the fighting of‘mnemonic battles’. Remembering comes into view as a control systemand raises critical issues, such as: Who to remember? How toremember? Who owns the story, narrative, history, memories andvoice(s)? Which voice(s) should be privileged or ignored?
As part of a larger post-colonial nation-building project and theurgent need to bolster national identity and citizenship, the yearsimmediately after independence witnessed the outright commitment ofnationalist leaders in most African states to the decolonization of
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colonial culture and the evolution of a new national culture based onshared identity. The creation of an official culture provided thepremise for promoting a nationalistic, patriotic culture of the wholethat mediates an assortment of vernacular interests (Anderson 1991,pp. 5�7; Bodnar 1992, pp. 13�4). Post-colonial Africa states erected a‘nationalistic and patriotic culture of the whole’, and exploitedcolonialism as a counterpoint and backdrop against which the politicsof national cultural recovery and rebirth was to occur (Arnoldi 1999,pp. 55�6). The unresolved crisis of state ownership, citizenship andstate legitimacy presented formidable challenges to the state in the firsttwo decades of independence and severely undermined its bid topromote a sense of national unity and the evolution of a nationalproject based on a shared past. This, as Renan (1990) observed, led tothe emergence of counter-discourses and counter-notions of collectivememory, and what Werbner (1998) refers to as a memory crisis thatchallenged mainstream assumptions of national memory and con-stituted centrifugal forces in post-colonial African states.
The making of Igbo memory in post-civil war Nigeria
After independence in 1960, Nigeria’s post-independence stability wasseverely threatened by inter-ethnic rivalries among its constituentethnic groups. This inter-ethnic power struggle was given a muchbroader appeal when it assumed a zero-sum contest and ushered in ahost of other crises like the emergency rule in the Western Region in1962, the census crisis of 1962�3, the election crisis of 1964�5, theintervention of the military in January 1966, and a counter-coup sixmonths later. These developments unleashed ethnic sentiments andchauvinism in different parts of the country and further exposed theultimate limitation to Nigeria’s nation-building project with thesecession and disengagement of the Igbo-dominated Eastern Regionfrom the main federation. The Igbo paid a huge price for the ethnicsentiments and chauvinism that characterized this period with the lossof Igbo lives and properties in different parts of the country. Thedisagreements between General Gowon and Colonel Ojukwu over theinterpretation of the Aburi Accord and the political structure to beadopted in Nigeria meant that the central government lost its effectiveauthority over the Eastern Region leading to the secession of the latterfrom the main federation and declaration of independence as theRepublic of Biafra on 30 May 1967. Consequently, the FederalMilitary Government (FMG) maintained that Biafra was still partof Nigeria, and in July 1967 the Biafran secession led to ‘police action’,then ‘military action’, and finally, to ‘full military action and war’,resulting in its eventual collapse in January 1970 (Osaghae, Onwudiweand Suberu 2002).
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After four decades, the dominant discourse is that the Igbo nation isyet to be re-integrated into the Nigerian state project, and this debatehas attracted extensive discussions in academic literature (Ikpeze 2000;Duruji 2009; Ojukwu 2009). The ‘no winner, no vanquished’ mantra ofthe FMG in 1970, and its decision to implement the institutionalagenda of the ‘Three Rs: Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Recon-struction’ (Onuoha 2011, p.119), were critical attempts to shapememories of the war in the post-civil war Nigerian public space. AsLast (2000, pp. 315�16) notes, the ‘Three Rs’ was a policy aimed atminimizing the public memorializing of the conflict and to restore asemblance of the status quo, and ‘reconciliation at the popular levelwas initially not so much about cancelling hurts as about not allowingthose hurts to stand in the way of everyday life’. The post-civil warNigerian public space came across as one in which people harbouredthe memory of hurt and injury, but did not express them, and thesememories were gradually eased out of the public space and increas-ingly became a property of private memory. This inadvertently fed intothe emergent post-war reconciliation strategy of the FMG, which wastargeted at undermining group peculiarities and differences, andshoring up inter-ethnic cohesion. The FMG pronouncements thatguaranteed the personal safety and security of the Igbo and theirproperties; the right to reside and work anywhere in Nigeria; the re-absorption of public civil servants of Igbo ethnic extraction into thecivil service and the military; and the granting of general amnesty tothe Igbo reinforced this tendency. The ‘Three Rs’ constituted a veritablenew grand narrative in the post-civil war Nigerian public space,coinciding with some remarkable developments such as the advent ofNigeria’s ‘oil boom’ that gave the FMG some leverage to play aprominent role in the redistributive imperatives of its oil economy; aunitary structure that propelled different regional elites to play the‘politics of the centre’; and a supplanting of the regional platforms thatundermined Nigeria’s federal experiment in the first decade ofindependence with twelve states, which all worked in the country’sfavour. Apart from exerting its authority domestically, Nigeria was alsoable to project power in its foreign policy by hosting the Second AllAfrican Games in 1973, the Second World Black and African Festivalof Arts and Culture in 1977, and mobilizing support for liberationmovements across the continent. All these occurred largely within thecontext of economic prosperity occasioned by the oil boom, relativesecurity, grudging conviviality among its various ethnic groups and aperception of Nigeria being the ‘Great Hope of the Black Race’.
In the post-civil war Nigerian public space, the pursuit of ‘sectional’,‘regional’ or ‘ethnic’ justice had to be abandoned in the interest ofnation building and there were no statements on who had suffered,what had been suffered or who to punish or compensate. For both
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victims and perpetrators, there were no apologies or reparations, andno one was held accountable for any wrongdoing. However, the policyof reconciliation turned out to be unpopular at the grassroots level dueto the obvious failures of implementation, and the absence of a publicspace to address the ‘injustices’ associated with the war led to theemergence of widely incompatible representations of the situation.This was compounded by the fact that the implementation of theFMG’s policy of general amnesty failed to square up with the realityon the ground in many respects when one takes into cognizance the‘Twenty Pound Scandal’, which failed to recognise pre-war depositsmade by the Igbo, the timing for the implementation of theIndigenization Decree and the fact that most officers of Igbo ethnicextraction who fought the war on the Biafran side were not readmittedinto the Nigerian Army but were retired without benefits. It ispertinent to state that the FMG’s policy of reconciliation focused onBiafra’s secessionist attempt and the civil war that followed, depictingthe Biafran secession as an Igbo ethnic rebellion, while on the otherhand, the Igbo perceived the war as a war for the liberation of the Igbonation inevitability foisted on them by a series of events, beginningwith the Jos riots of 1945 to the eve of the war in July 1967. It isdifficult to ascertain whether the FMG’s policy of reconciliation wouldhave produced a different outcome if these fundamental differencesand views had been brought to the fore. But given the prevailingcontext and what the government sought to achieve, partial reconcilia-tion was the only possible outcome and it seemed satisfactory at thetime. This manner of reconciliation allowed group memories of‘injustice’ and ‘hurt’ to flourish in the private realm comprising theprivate domain of kinship, town unions and family networks. Thiscame at a cost, and in the words of Last (2000, p. 317) ‘in keeping it(reconciliation) out of the public domain, the sense of ambivalencewas left unresolved, the scale of anger and resentment still felt couldnot be assessed nor its location identified.’
While it is impossible to dispute the remarkable pace of post-warrecovery in Nigeria, the main issues appeared not to be over post-warrecovery, but about the nature and extent of the recovery and whetherthese should not have been broad-based. In the course of time, whenopen debates about the war began to resurface in the public space, theissue of ‘memory’ became highly contested and diverse, particularlywhen evoked in the struggle over identity, political power andlegitimacy. The Nigerian public space depicts a scenario where despiteattempts by hegemonic groups and political elites to pontificate aboutthe war with a view to controlling the history and interpretations ofthe past, the memories of the civil war are often challenged through‘counter-narratives’ expressed in an overt or covert manner. TheNigerian government’s official position is that the war was triggered by
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an act of Igbo rebellion, and efforts have been made to constructofficial post-war memories and politicize memories of the war to alignwith this perception. This accounts for the plurality of views on theissues and problems that led to the war, the developments anddynamics of its prosecution and the politics and reconciliatory effortsof the post-war era forty years after the end of the war, with obviousimplications for the Nigerian state.
Current Igbo efforts at self-determination have depended largely ona historical narrative within Igbo cultural tradition. Narratives of theIgbo nation embedded in stories and tales constitute a myth of culturalidentity, and it plays a decisive role in defining and producing the Igbonational identity. The formation of this identity was pre-eminent inuniting and mobilizing the Igbo for an independent state in 1967outside the ambits of the Nigerian state. The Igbo narrative isgrounded in a myth that has enabled and strengthened a collectivecultural identity, and has accommodated values and beliefs of its own,ultimately setting up the criteria for uniqueness. A myth in this contextcomprises:
one of the ways in which collectivities . . . more especially na-tions . . . establish and determine the foundations of their own being,their own systems of morality and values . . . a set of beliefs, usuallyput forth as a narrative, held by a community about itself.(Schopflin 1997, p. 19)
The myths surrounding the construction of identity are foundationalin the sense that they ‘deal with the multiple faces of power whichendow a people with their images of selfhood by stating sets of identitycriteria for a people and a community’ (Overing 1997, p. 16).Narratives coalesce and produce the essential elements for the buildingand cohesion of a shared national identity. Where members of acommunity have fought for their freedom and independence, and havebeen subjugated and defeated as in the case of the Igbo ethnicextraction in Nigeria, narratives tend to serve as a rallying point forfuture action. The narratives presented above form the focal pointaround which members of MASSOB and other neo-Biafran move-ments build a collective identity, and it is deployed to defend theirpolitical position and to counter the dominant narrative of theNigerian nation state, portraying it as one that must necessarilyundergo extensive political revisions in order to give its constituentethnic groups the right to self-determination.
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Youth, memory and the politics of self-determination
Issues related to Biafra and Igbo war memory have been forcefullybrought back to the public space in Nigeria’s democratic dispensation.The Igbo ethnic group still harbours perceptions of marginalizationand exclusion that are rooted in Biafra, a situation that hasbeen compounded by the perennial failure of democratic and civicinstitutions to address these concerns, let alone resolve them. Fullyaware that the challenges confronting the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeriais not lost on its younger generation, MASSOB has connected to thehistory of the war and tapped into a narrative that has effectivelylinked the present and the past in the struggle for Igbo self-determination. As a second-generation Igbo separatist movement,MASSOB mostly comprises Igbo youths below the age of forty, mostof whom were born after the Nigerian�Biafran Civil War in 1970, andyoung Igbo adults born before the war who are above forty years ormiddle-aged. Most Igbo youths who make up the movement did notsuffer the brutalities of the war; some did as children but could hardlygive a vivid account of their experiences, except for the fact that mostwere raised in a difficult and unique post-war Nigerian context thatthey perceived as offering little or no opportunity for self-actualiza-tion. The narrative of the Igbo nation describes a ‘glorious’ past, but isintricately linked to the present, affording its members the opportunityto reconnect with the memories of past events in order to form theirown political identity. There are obvious differences in the aggregationof individual expectations within the movement that stem from thefact that while the older generation of MASSOB membership relatesto the emancipation of the Igbo not necessarily as an immediateproject, but as a long-term project,2 the younger generation sees Igboemancipation as an immediate project.3
Youth mobilization remains central to the rise of nationalistmovements and shared memories passed across generations are criticalto forging collective identities (Smith 1986; Anderson 1991). AsMannheim (1952 [1928]) points out, political and social occurrencesconfigure youth culture through critical shared experience during itsformative years. By ranking several historical events in terms of theirperceived significance, Schuman and Scott (1989) note that memoryplays out differently in different generations, but that the period ofadolescence and early adulthood that is often linked to ‘youth’ is theprimary period for the generational imprinting of political memories.Extant literature on youth in Africa draws an inevitable link tocontemporary social processes like ‘ethnic militia’ movements, ‘vigi-lantism’ and the phenomenon of ‘child soldiers’ (Diouf 1996; Durham2000; Gore and Pratten 2003; Nolte 2004), and others have attemptedto reverse this tendency to criminalize youth (Momoh 2000). To
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understand youth as a category that ‘spearheads contemporarypolitical contests between the politics of identity and citizenship’(Gore and Pratten 2003, p. 212), it is necessary ‘to connect ourunderstanding of youth to ways in which social and physicalmaturation intersects with perhaps the most salient identity on thecontinent, which is ethnicity’ (Adebanwi 2005, p. 347). Linking thepast to the present requires not only ‘reinventing’ or ‘reinterpreting’the past, but redefining the present to fit with the newly reconceivedshape of the past; therefore, MASSOB’s views about the presentbecome crucial in this enterprise.
Since the end of the civil war there has been a collective Igbomemory boom in Nigeria anchored on references of the genocideperpetrated by the Nigerian state on the Igbo before and during thewar. Stories of individuals who experienced the war form an importantbase for both personal and social identity, and this serves as amobilizing tool, for both the eyewitnesses of the war and those bornafter the war. This is buttressed by Climo (1995) and Ishino’s (1995)assertion that memories shared with others allow those who did notactively participate in the events to incorporate them indirectly intotheir memory collection. This tendency is clearly portrayed in theobjective conditions of the life of Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, the leaderand founder of MASSOB, whose personal experiences as shared bymany Igbo youths predisposed him to embark on the struggle for theresuscitation of the Biafran dream. His life history aptly draws fromperceptions of limitations placed on him as an Igbo in the Nigerianstate, a narrative that is explicitly outlined in his autobiography, TheStruggle for Freedom. Given Uwazuruike’s position as the leader ofMASSOB, his autobiography and memoirs have played a crucial rolein mobilizing Igbo youths, a development that lends credence toConnerton’s (1989) assertion that memoirs and autobiographies offamous citizens and political elites are worth remembering owing totheir propensity to make radical changes in society.
The Nigerian state, despite its inherent division along ethnic,regional, religious and generational lines, has often exhibited tenden-cies to dominate memory production, although without completesuccess. Inherent in government actions are symbolic practices and thereliance on narratives that tend to convey and reaffirm legitimacy. AsHunt (1984) points out, legitimacy, in a sense, implies a generalagreement on signs and symbols. MASSOB has adopted counter-images and symbols and a particular version of Igbo history asvehicles for establishing its claim to self-determination. This hasinvolved the use of commemorations, anniversaries, flags and Biafranartefacts to articulate alternative versions of Igbo identity and to claima unique place in the Nigerian state. The reinvention of politicalsymbols aims at a narrative of binary opposites that articulates the
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repression of Igbo memory vis-a-vis an oppressive Nigerian state,while expressing accurately the ideals, principles and MASSOB’s claimfor self-determination.
MASSOB’s deployment of memory politics contests the legitimacyof Nigerian state and challenges the official memories of the war, and‘who’ or ‘what’ to be commemorated. Since its advent in 1999,the movement has outrightly rejected the official commemorationsrelating to the civil war, such as the official Armed Forces Remem-brance Day and the other monuments relating to the war, butcommemorates the annual anniversary of the founding of the Republicof Biafra on 30 May 1967. The public commemorations are carriedout in observable ceremonies emphasizing the message that thesacrifice for Igbo sovereign nationhood was not in vain. Thesecommemorations are always disrupted by State Security Servicesand the Nigerian Police Force, but more importantly, they havebecome rituals characterized by a rule-governed activity of a symboliccharacter that draws the attention of its participants to objects ofthoughts and feelings that they hold to be of special significance(Lukes 1975). These practices have engendered political goals, likeorganizational integration, legitimation, construction of solidarity andinculcation of political beliefs (Kertzer 1991, p. 87), and invariably‘channels emotions, guides cognition, organises social groups, and byproviding a sense of continuity, links the past with the present and thepresent with the future’ (Kertzer 1988, pp. 9�10).
As a potent symbol and emblem of national or group identity, thedeployment of flags and emblems by MASSOB serves as a criticalmemory repertoire that symbolizes a significant event in its past andconjures up notions of ultimate statehood and unity. The choice of analternative flag by MASSOB reflects the crisis of citizenship, nation-hood and state legitimacy in Nigeria. Since May 2000, when MASSOBsymbolically hoisted the green�red�black Biafran flag and officiallypresented the Declaration of Demand for a Sovereign State of Biafrafrom the People and Government of Nigeria, the flag has remainedcritical to its activities. The Biafran flag has come to be a powerfulsymbol and reminder of Biafran nation and Igbo nationalism. Therehave been various successful and unsuccessful attempts to hoist theBiafran flag in major roads, streets, billboards and strategic places inthe southeastern states of Nigeria. Members of the movement carrythe Biafran flag to show their allegiance and patriotism to the questfor self-determination, and these events are always marked by clashesbetween the movement and State Security Services (SSS). One of themost important representations of Biafra is the emblem of the Land ofthe Rising Sun that serves as a crucial reminder of the aborted questfor Igbo self-determination. The Rising Sun, which has eleven stars, isbelieved to represent the eleven tribes of Israel, and the Igbo regard
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themselves as one of the lost tribes (the twelfth) missing somewhere inAfrica.
MASSOB uses a proliferation of poorly produced literature,pamphlets, newspapers, handbills, posters and banners, among othermaterials, as rallying symbols and as a means of claiming thesoutheastern urban space for its cause. The saturation of thesematerials with outright political messages in the public transformsthe public space, streets and major roads in the region into a contestedpolitical space. The dotting of several strategic spaces with thesematerials reflecting the movement’s aims and objectives means thatpublic spaces are taken over by political messages, and the public isforced to consume them because they cannot be avoided. The publicconstitutes the ‘willing’ and ‘unwilling’ consumer of MASSOB politicsand propaganda. While the former are those who advocate andsupport the movement’s quest for self-determination, the latter arethose who are forced to encounter these materials even when they seethem as objects of political propaganda in a political drama beyondtheir control.
The use of powerful symbols, images and objects to give meaning tothe quest for self-determination is central to the reproduction andstrengthening of MASSOB’s radical quest for self-determination. Inseveral raids conducted by state security agencies on the movement’shideouts across the southeastern states, Biafran military uniforms,belts, umbrellas, currencies, stickers, pictures of Biafran soldiers inmilitary uniforms in training camps, Biafran documents, sewingmachines and an almanac of Biafran hierarchy have been discovered.These images and objects are critical in the sense that they areconsumed, manipulated and displayed in such a manner that it createsan environment of political contestation. MASSOB activists are notonly intent on making the quest for Igbo self-determination visiblewithin Nigeria, but they also intend to be reckoned with globally andin the international community. Hence, in addition to political protestsand civil disobedience, images and objects are appropriated as effectiveways of getting their message across to the domestic and globalaudience.
Biafran T-shirts, cardigans, mufflers and face caps constitutecontemporary items of resistance against the Nigerian state and areworn by MASSOB activists who engage in protests and demonstra-tions in streets, town halls and in other public spaces. Such Biafranitems are portrayed against the overall background of the Biafrancolour (green�red�black), and the strong preference for this attire isevident in the movement as they display a confrontational attitude andstance in their quest for self-determination. The preference for thisrelatively confrontational strategy is indicative of the radical stance ofthe movement against the state, a tendency that resonates with other
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youth-dominated nationalist groups nationally and globally. Thewearing of this attire indicates not only a social choice of consump-tion, but also a political choice based on their interpretation andreaction to certain developments within the Nigeria state, and the needto locate their sense of identity within such contexts. These garmentshave become popular national symbols of protest and remembrance inthe public spaces across the entire region and are used to convey theircause or message, epitomize their struggle and reclaim their identity.
Pictures of imprisoned and murdered members of MASSOB arecritical to political rallies and protests, and members of the movementalso display pictures of Biafran soldiers in uniform. The death ofBiafran activists is interpreted as a symbolic offering to the Igbonation and an example of devotion, readiness and ability to pay theultimate price for a supreme national ideal. Pictures of Igbo heroesand other eminent Igbo personalities have also been deployed byMASSOB in the social reproduction of an indomitable Igbo spirit.Some of the prominent Igbo personalities that are referenced includeOlaudah Equiano (c. 1745�97), also known as Gustavus Vassa. Hewas believed to be Igbo and was captured as a slave at a young age. Heeventually bought his freedom and became one of the most prominentAfricans involved in the British movement for the abolition of the slavetrade. Some others include Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904�96), a foremostnationalist politician in the struggle for Nigeria’s independence andthe pride and hope of the Igbo nation; Chinua Achebe (1930�?), theauthor of Things Fall Apart and Africa’s most acclaimed and fluentwriter of the English language; and Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu (1933�2011), who led Biafran secession from Nigeria between 1967 and 1970.The manipulation and display of these pictures and reference to thesepersonalities lends the struggle and the movement a human face,encourages pride and dignity, prioritizes Igbo cultural nationalism andendorses the quest for self-determination. The heroes and personalitiesto be commemorated are chosen to reflect the agenda of MASSOBand reflect the movement’s vision of Igbo national identity.
Conclusion
The core argument advanced in this paper is that coming to terms witha painful past is critical to the task of nation building and thelegitimacy of a government, and serves as a basis for social cohesionwithin nation states that need to find collective meaning in suchmemories. Failure to achieve this milestone leads to the alienation oflarge swathes of the population and a situation where futuregenerations tap into the past to link current grievances. The silencingof popular memory in the aftermath of the Nigerian�Biafran War in1970 has been revisited at a real political cost to the Nigerian state.
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This has provided a painfully familiar context for the politicization ofmemory by MASSOB, and its linkages with a long history of perceivedIgbo marginalization and persecution in the Nigerian public space.The process of forging a collective memory is complex and unpredict-able, but nationalist elites forge memories through the sustenance andrenewal of traditions, myths and symbols. This process often hinges onfabrications and distortions, based on political and ideologicalconcerns, and the need to forge a new political project. The omissionof actual facts in the construction of national memory is certainly nota new phenomenon, and as Renan (1990), Hobsbawm and Terence(1983), and Anderson (1991) have all postulated, it is a practice repletein the formation of national memory in every context. The criticalissue in the Nigerian context is the fact that the Nigerian�Biafran Warwas not just any other event in Nigerian history, but occupies a criticalplace in the historical continuum of the Nigerian state and itsmemory-making project that transcends the state to include itsdifferent ethnic constituencies. The truly intriguing point stems fromthe fact that in one breath the FMG pronounced the ‘no winner, novanquished’ mantra and the ‘Three Rs’ policy to preserve thecontinued existence of Nigeria as a corporate entity in the post-warera, and in another breath the same FMG demonstrated anuncharacteristic unwillingness to follow through with the implementa-tion of these policies and extend economic justice to all ethnicextractions, particularly the Igbo ethnic group that had sought toexit the Nigerian federation.
While relativist perspectives on memory often problematize thecapacity to incorporate all shades of events, meanings and actors inthe construction of national memory, post-war memory making inNigeria must incorporate national and sectional perspectives to betruly collective, meaningful and representative. Cases of successfulpost-war narratives and memory constructions often allow sectionalor group memories to be interpreted and understood within a broaderand wider national narrative. A disconnect between sectional and the(collective) national memory points to the failure and ineffectivenessof the latter. It pertinently elicits the need to abandon and revisit suchnational memories, or risk the obvious possibility of a lapse intocontinuous disagreements, counter-discourses and counter-notions ofa particular narrative. Presently, what has emerged is a situation wherethe politics of war memory have fuelled generational responses and atimely opposition that has successfully tapped into the deep percep-tions of grievance, marginalization and exclusion of the Igbo nationfrom the benefits of citizenship and socio-economic rights within theNigerian polity. MASSOB has suffered several splits since itsemergence in 1999, but in each case, the splinter factions have alwaysadopted a radical brand of Igbo nationalism that is inherently
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confrontational and anti-establishment. The critical juncture in whichthe Igbo youths presently find themselves in Nigeria feeds into theemergent forms of Igbo nationalism and greatly enriches the debatesaround the need for the establishment of an enduring and cohesivebasis for a democratic federal nation state. This is necessary if theNigerian project is to be guaranteed a meaningful future in the twenty-first century.
Notes
1. The depiction of the war as the ‘Nigerian�Biafran War’ captures the views of those who
saw the Republic of Biafra as an independent entity between 1967 and 1970 by virtue of the
fact that it had its own institutions of governance (army, territory, currency, flag and anthem)
and was officially recognized by other African countries like Ivory Coast, Gabon,
Zambia and Tanzania. The ‘Nigerian Civil War’ is the official name recognized by the
government and linked to official narratives of the war. The ‘War of National Unity’ was
adopted in official circles to align with the pronouncement of the ‘Reconciliation,
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction’ programme. The ‘War against Infidels’ was a product
of the largely religious dimension of the war as perceived by both the predominantly Muslim
North who wanted the Koran to be dipped into sea with the complete conquest of the entire
country; and the predominantly Christian East who saw it as a war between David and
Goliath (see Walls 1978; interview granted by Paddy Davies on the BBC documentary
‘Biafra: Fighting a War without Guns’ in July 1995. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/
programmes/p00frgy2).
2. In the words of MASSOB’s area administrator in Lagos, Mr Emmanuel Onyeme: ‘The
realisation of the Biafran dream may not be achieved immediately, but my present
engagement with the struggle is meant to ensure that my children will enjoy the fruits of
emancipation’ (personal communication, 26 January 2009).
3. Chuks, a Lagos-based member of the movement, reiterated the views of the younger
generation of MASSOB members by stating: ‘All we want is Biafra and total independence
now’ (personal communication, 19 January 2009).
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GODWIN ONUOHA is African Research Fellow in the Democracy,Governance and Service Delivery Programme of the Human SciencesResearch Council, Pretoria, South Africa.ADDRESS: Department, Governance and Service Delivery Pro-gramme, Human Sciences Research Council, 134 Pretorius Street,Private Bag X41, Pretoria, South Africa 0001.Email: [email protected]
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