Journal articles on the topic 'Politics and literature – Nigeria'

Religious and ethnic identity clashes laid the structure of the Nigerian state in 1914, which transmogrified into and characterized the struggle for control of power and distribution of national resources. This paper explores the nature and manifestation of these conflicts since 1999. It seeks to find out if ethno-religious struggles led to the emergence of major conflicts in Nigeria since 1999, their impact on human insecurity, and the influence of politics on the conflicts. This inquiry is designed in line with a one-shot case study, while literature survey and ex post facto methods were adopted as methods of data collection. Trend analysis is adopted for data analysis. Analysis reveals that ethno-religious struggles were the primary progenitor of conflicts in Nigeria since 1999, and have debilitating consequences while politics exacerbated ethno-religious conflicts. Upholding Nigeria's circular state and implementing the National Political Reforms Conference Report is the panacea for ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria.

Tanure Ojaide and Niyi Òsundare are among the foremost politically committed Nigerian poets at present. The overriding concern in virtually all their literary works is commenting on the politics of the season. In Òsundare's words, poetry is “man meaning to man.” For Ojaide, a creative writer is not “an airplant” that is not situated in a place. Both writers envision literature should have political message. Thus, in Òsundare's collection (1986) and Tanure Ojaide's (1998) the major aesthetic focus is eco-poetry, which interrogates the politics behind oil exploration in Nigeria as well as its consequences on our environment. Both writers refract this with what Òsundare calls “semantics of terrestiality”: i.e. poetry for the earth. Eco-poetry deals with environmental politics and ecological implications of humankind's activities on the planet. Armed with this poetic commitment, both writers unearth commodification of socio-economic relations, environmental/ecological dissonance, leadership malaise and endangered Nigerian environment mediated through (global) capitalism. Both writers maintain that eco-poetry is a platform for upturning environmental justice; and for decrying man's unbridled materialist pursuits. Thus, the preoccupation of this paper is to explore how both poetry collections: and interrogate the despicable state of Nigeria's environment as a consequence of global capitalism.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the institutional politics of law enforcement in Nigeria by focusing on illegal drug control since the mid 1980s. It assesses the available academic research on law enforcement governance, and contrasts it with an in-depth case study of drug law enforcement. The case study confirms views of the politicised nature of law enforcement. However, it goes beyond the patron–client centred approach to politics prevalent in the literature on African policing. The article adds an institutional dimension to the study of law enforcement governance, highlighting processes of centralisation, exclusion and shifting bureaucratic interests that have been central to the development of Nigerian drug law enforcement. It is based on previously inaccessible data from inside Nigerian drug law enforcement.

AbstractThis article argues against the long-standing instinct to read African politics in terms of programmatic versus patrimonial politics. Unlike the assumptions of much of the current quantitative literature, there are substantive political struggles that go beyond ‘public goods good, private goods bad’. Scholarly framings serve to obscure the essentially contested nature of what counts as legitimate distribution. This article uses the recent political history of the Lagos Model in south-west Nigeria to show that the idea of patrimonial versus programmatic politics does not stand outside of politics but is in itself a politically constructed distinction. In adopting it a priori as scholars we commit ourselves to seeing the world through the eyes of a specific, often elite, constituency that makes up only part of the rich landscape of normative political contestation in Nigeria. Finally, the example of a large-scale empowerment scheme in Oyo State shows the complexity of politicians’ attempts to render distribution legitimate to different audiences at once.

<div><p><em>The connection of Southern Cameroons to the Nigerian Federation by Britain after the First World War, worked to the disadvantage of Southern Cameroons’ sovereignty and political ambitions. With her international status as a Trust Territory, Southern Cameroons was marginalized by the colonial administration which failed to recognize her as a separate territory within the Nigerian Federation. Under such dispensation, Southern Cameroonians felt that for such a Nigerian connection to be of any benefit to the territory, it should be granted an autonomous regional status in line with the existing regions in Nigeria. This strain of relations caused Cameroonians to animate Nigeria political scene with series of events which became very instrumental in influencing the direction and nature of the evolution of the Nigerian federation. This feud for regional autonomy which dominated Nigerian politics was undertaken by pressures groups, political parties, and at individual levels through vocal voices, petitions, conferences and walkouts which expressed their grievances. The paper argues that the granting of quasi and full regional status in 1954 and 1959 respectively to Southern Cameroons was a consequence of their demonstrations. On this score Nigeria rose from three to four regions under colonial rule. From this paradigm we conclude that the history of the evolution of Nigerian federation can never be complete without the Southern Cameroons factor. Archival data and analyses of existing literature have provided evidence for this conclusion.</em></p></div>

The global spread of Salafism, though it began in the 1960s and 1970s, only started to attract significant attention from scholars and analysts outside of Islamic studies as well as journalists, politicians, and the general public following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda Central. After the attacks, Salafism—or, as it was pejoratively labeled by its critics inside and outside of the Islamic tradition, “Wahhabism”—was accused of being the ideological basis of all expressions of Sunni militancy from North America and Europe to West and East Africa, the Arab world, and into Asia. According to this narrative, Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Za- wahiri, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other Sunni jihadis were merely putting into action the commands of medieval ‘ulama such as Ibn Taymiyya, the eighteenth century Najdi Hanbali Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and modern revolutionary ideologues like Sayyid Qutb and ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam. To eradicate terrorism, you must eliminate or neuter Salafism, say its critics. The reality, of course, is far more complex than this simplistic nar- rative purports. Salafism, though its adherents share the same core set of creedal beliefs and methodological approaches toward the interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith and Sunni legal canon, comes in many forms, from the scholastic and hierarchical Salafism of the ‘ulama in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority countries to the decentralized, self-described Salafi groups in Europe and North America who cluster around a single char- ismatic preacher who often has limited formal religious education. What unifies these different expressions of Salafism is a core canon of religious and legal texts and set of scholars who are widely respected and referenced in Salafi circles. Thurston grounds his fieldwork and text-based analysis of Salafism in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and home to one of the world’s largest single Muslim national populations, through the lens of this canon, which he defines as a “communally negotiated set of texts that is governed by rules of interpretation and appropriation” (1). He argues fur- ther that in the history of Nigerian Salafism, one can trace the major stages that the global Salafi movement has navigated as it spread from the Arab Middle East to what are erroneously often seen as “peripheral” areas of the Islamic world, Africa and parts of Asia. The book is based on extensive fieldwork in Nigeria including interviews with key Nigerian Salafi scholars and other leading figures as well as a wide range of textual primary sourc- es including British and Nigerian archival documents, international and national news media reports, leaked US embassy cables, and a significant number of religious lectures and sermons and writings by Nigerian Salafis in Arabic and Hausa. In Chapter One, Thurston argues that the Salafi canon gives individ- ual and groups of Salafis a sense of identity and membership in a unique and, to them, superior religious community that is linked closely to their understanding and reading of sacred history and the revered figures of the Prophet Muhammad and the Ṣaḥāba. Salafism as an intellectual current, theology, and methodological approach is transmitted through this can- on which serves not only as a vehicle for proselytization but also a rule- book through which the boundaries of what is and is not “Salafism” are determined by its adherents and leading authorities. The book’s analytical framework and approach toward understanding Salafism, which rests on seeing it as a textual tradition, runs counter to the popular but problematic tendency in much of the existing discussion and even scholarly literature on Salafism that defines it as a literalist, one-dimensional, and puritani- cal creed with a singular focus on the Qur’an and hadith canon. Salafis, Thurston argues, do not simply derive religious and legal rulings in linear fashion from the Qur’an and Prophetic Sunna but rather engage in a co- herent and uniform process of aligning today’s Salafi community with a set of normative practices and beliefs laid out by key Salafi scholars from the recent past. Thurston divides the emergence of a distinct “Salafi” current within Sunnis into two phases. The first stretches from 1880 to 1950, as Sun- ni scholars from around the Muslim-majority world whose approaches shared a common hadith-centered methodology came into closer contact. The second is from the 1960s through the present, as key Salafi institutions (such as the Islamic University of Medina and other Saudi Salafi bodies) were founded and began attracting and (perhaps most importantly) fund- ing and sponsoring Sunni students from countries such as Nigeria to come study in Saudi Arabia, where they were deeply embedded in the Salafi tra- dition before returning to their home countries where, in turn, they spread Salafism among local Muslims. Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, as with other regions such as Yemen’s northern Sa‘ada governorate, proved to be a fertile ground for Salafism in large part because it enabled local Muslims from more humble social backgrounds to challenge the longtime domi- nance of hereditary ruling families and the established religious class. In northern Nigeria the latter was and continues to be dominated by Sufi or- ders and their shaykhs whose long-running claim to communal leadership faced new and substantive theological and resource challenges following the return of Nigerian seminary students from Saudi Arabia’s Salafi scho- lastic institutions in the 1990s and early 2000s. In Chapters Two and Three, Thurston traces the history of Nigerian and other African students in Saudi Arabia, which significantly expanded following the 1961 founding of the Islamic University of Medina (which remains the preeminent Salafi seminary and university in the world) and after active outreach across the Sunni Muslim world by the Saudi govern- ment and Salafi religious elite to attract students through lucrative funding and scholarship packages. The process of developing an African Salafism was not one-dimensional or imposed from the top-down by Saudi Salafi elites, but instead saw Nigerian and other African Salafi students partici- pate actively in shaping and theorizing Salafi da‘wa that took into account the specifics of each African country and Islamic religious and social envi- ronment. In Nigeria and other parts of West and East Africa, this included considering the historically dominant position of Sufi orders and popular practices such as devotion to saints and grave and shrine visitation. African and Saudi Salafis also forged relationships with local African partners, in- cluding powerful political figures such as Ahmadu Bello and his religious adviser Abubakar Gumi, by attracting them with the benefits of establishing ties with wealthy international Islamic organizations founded and backed by the Saudi state, including the Muslim World League. Nigerian Salafis returning from their studies in Saudi Arabia actively promoted their Salafi canon among local Muslims, waging an aggressive proselytization campaign that sought to chip away at the dominance of traditional political and religious elites, the Sufi shaykhs. This process is covered in Chapter Four. Drawing on key sets of legal and exegetical writ- ings by Ibn Taymiyya, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, and other Salafi scholars, Nigerian Salafis sought to introduce a framework—represented by the canon—through which their students and adherents approach re- ligious interpretation and practice. By mastering one’s understanding and ability to correctly interpret scripture and the hadith, Salafis believe, one will also live a more ethical life based on a core set of “Salafi” principles that govern not only religious but also political, social, and economic life. Salaf- ism, Thurston argues, drawing on the work of Terje Østebø on Ethiopian Salafism, becomes localized within a specific environment.As part of their da‘wa campaigns, Nigerian Salafis have utilized media and new technology to debate their rivals and critics as well as to broad- en their own influence over Nigerian Muslims and national society more broadly, actions analyzed in Chapter Five. Using the Internet, video and audio recorded sermons and religious lectures, books and pamphlets, and oral proselytization and preaching, Nigerian Salafis, like other Muslim ac- tivists and groups, see in media and technology an extension of the phys- ical infrastructure provided by institutions such as mosques and religious schools. This media/cyber infrastructure is as, if not increasingly more, valuable as the control of physical space because it allows for the rapid spread of ideas beyond what would have historically been possible for local religious preachers and missionaries. Instead of preaching political revo- lution, Nigerian Salafi activists sought to win greater access to the media including radio airtime because they believed this would ultimately lead to the triumph of their religious message despite the power of skeptical to downright hostile local audiences among the Sufi orders and non-Salafis dedicated to the Maliki juridical canon.In the realm of politics, the subject of Chapter Six, Nigeria’s Salafis base their political ideology on the core tenets of the Salafi creed and canon, tenets which cast Salafism as being not only the purest but the only true version of Islam, and require of Salafis to establish moral reform of a way- ward Muslim society. Salafi scholars seek to bring about social, political, and religious reform, which collectively represent a “return” to the Prophet Muhammad’s Islam, by speaking truth to power and advising and repri- manding, as necessary, Muslim political rulers. In navigating the multi-po- lar and complex realm of national and regional politics, Thurston argues, Nigerian Salafi scholars educated in Saudi Arabia unwittingly opened the door to cruder and more extreme, militant voices of figures lacking the same level of study of the Salafi canon or Sunni Islam generally. The most infamous of the latter is “Boko Haram,” the jihadi-insurgent group today based around Lake Chad in Nigeria, Chad, and Niger, which calls itself Jama‘at Ahl al-Sunna li-l-Da‘wa wa-l-Jihad and is led by the bombastic Abubakar Shekau. Boko Haram, under the leadership first of the revivalist preacher Mu- hammad Yusuf and then Shekau, is covered at length in the book’s third and final part, which is composed of two chapters. Yusuf, unlike mainstream Nigerian Salafis, sought to weaponize the Salafi canon against the state in- stead of using it as a tool to bring about desired reforms. Drawing on the writings of influential Arab jihadi ideologues including Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and the apocalyptic revolutionary Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, the lat- ter of whom participated in the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Yusuf cited key Salafi concepts such as al-walā’ min al-mu’minīn wa-l-bara’ ‘an al-kāfirīn (loyalty to the Believers and disavowal of the Disbelievers) and beliefs about absolute monotheism (tawḥīd) as the basis of his revival- ist preaching. Based on these principle, he claimed, Muslims must not only fulfill their ritual duties such as prayer and fasting during Ramadan but also actively fight “unbelief” (kufr) and “apostasy” (ridda) and bring about God’s rule on earth, following the correct path of the community of the Prophet Abraham (Millat Ibrāhīm) referenced in multiple Qur’anic verses and outlined as a theological project for action by al-Maqdisi in a lengthy book of that name that has had a profound influence on the formation of modern Sunni jihadism. Instead of seeing Boko Haram, particularly under Shekau’s leadership, as a “Salafi” or “jihadi-Salafi” group, Thurston argues it is a case study of how a group that at one point in its history adhered to Salafism can move away from and beyond it. In the case of Shekau and his “post-Salafism,” he writes, the group, like Islamic State, has shifted away from the Salafi canon and toward a jihadism that uses only stripped-down elements from the canon and does so solely to propagate a militaristic form of jihad. Even when referencing historical religious authorities such as Ibn Taymiyya, Thurston points out, Boko Haram and Islamic State leaders and members often do so through the lens of modern Sunni jihadi ideologues like Juhay- man al-‘Utaybi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, figures who have come to form a Sunni jihadi canon of texts, intellectuals, and ideologues. Shekau, in short, has given up canonical Salafism and moved toward a more bombastic and scholastically more heterodox and less-Salafi-than- jihadi creed of political violence. Thurston also pushes back against the often crude stereotyping of Af- rican Islamic traditions and movements that sees African Muslims as being defined by their “syncretic” mix of traditional African religious traditions and “orthodox” Islam, the latter usually a stand-in for “Arab” and “Middle Eastern” Islam. Islam and Islamic movements in Africa have developed in social and political environments that are not mirrors to the dominant models of the Arab world (in particular, Egypt). He convincingly points out that analysis of all forms of African Islamic social and political mobi- lization through a Middle East and Egypt-heavy lens obscures much more than it elucidates. The book includes useful glossaries of key individuals and Arabic terms referenced in the text as well as a translation of a sermon by the late, revered Salafi scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani that is part of the mainstream Salafi canon. Extensive in its coverage of the his- tory, evolution, and sociopolitical and religious development of Salafism in Nigeria as well as the key role played by Saudi Salafi universities and religious institutions and quasi-state NGOs, the book expands the schol- arly literature on Salafism, Islam in Africa, and political Islam and Islamic social movements. It also contributing to ongoing debates and discussions on approaches to the study of the role of texts and textual traditions in the formation of individual and communal religious identity. Christopher AnzaloneResearch Fellow, International Security ProgramBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University& PhD candidate, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University

This article examines the politics of public policies characterised by increased securitisation of Nigeria’s national boundary from 2014 to 2017. While the regulation appears on paper to discourage transborder crime, capital outflow and sustain a favourable balance of payment, the existing armoury of West African border literature argues otherwise. What is new in the transborder dynamics of West Africa? What informs government’s border policies in Nigeria? In answering these questions, this study provides a template for a reassessment of the gap between borderlands theory and policy in West Africa. The approach is comparative based on the critical analysis of oral interviews, government trade records, newspaper reports and the extant literature. The article provides a platform for rethinking of the nexus between governance and development in West Africa from the securitisation and neo-patrimonial perspectives. It concludes that effective border management in Nigeria is set aback by misguided and dysfunctional elitist-centred regulations that are devoid of the realities on the ground.

Abstract Beyond its entertainment value, every piece of creative literature has something more to say which reading between the lines often has a way of revealing. This is true of the novel Purple Hibiscus by the award-winning Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. While his novel says something about the family, politics, post-colonial history and religious realities such as priesthood, mission, Mary, and the Eucharist, this paper looks at what it can tell us about liturgical inculturation and its implications for the Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria. It is hoped that the paper would help to continue, in the spirit of interdisciplinarity, the conversation on the nexus between Ecclesiology and Creative Literature.

Nigeria is a nation of several unique ethnic nationalities with diverse cultures. Cultural diversity has been identified as one of the factors responsible for growing civil unrest, insecurity and hate speeches in different parts of Nigeria. Multiculturalism is a common experience in several Nigerian states and the Nigerian education system. Efforts to inculcate intercultural competence among the members of the numerous ethnic groups and cultural identities in the country have been in form of legislation, convocation of national conferences and certain ‘political concessions’ to different ethnic groups. In spite of these efforts, very little has been achieved. The concern of this study is to discuss how education, through the tool of literature-in-English, can be engaged to teach intercultural communicative competence in multicultural classrooms. Recommendations were made on how to use literature-in-English to facilitate cross-cultural competence in Nigeria.

Nigeria is a nation of several unique ethnic nationalities with diverse cultures. Cultural diversity has been identified as one of the factors responsible for growing civil unrest, insecurity and hate speeches in different parts of Nigeria. Multiculturalism is a common experience in several Nigerian states and the Nigerian education system. Efforts to inculcate intercultural competence among the members of the numerous ethnic groups and cultural identities in the country have been in form of legislation, convocation of national conferences and certain ‘political concessions’ to different ethnic groups. In spite of these efforts, very little has been achieved. The concern of this study is to discuss how education, through the tool of literature-in-English, can be engaged to teach intercultural communicative competence in multicultural classrooms. Recommendations were made on how to use literature-in-English to facilitate cross-cultural competence in Nigeria.

AbstractThis article reconstructs the controversies following the release of the figures from Nigeria's 1963 population census. As the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliament and for the distribution of resources, the census is a valuable entry point into postcolonial Nigeria's political culture. After presenting an overview of how the Africanist literature has conceptualized the politics of population counting, the article analyses the role of the press in constructing the meaning and implications of the 1963 count. In contrast with the literature's emphasis on identification, categorization, and enumeration, our focus is on how the census results informed a broader range of visual and textual narratives. It is argued that analysing the multiple ways in which demographic sources shape debates about trust, identity, and the state in the public sphere results in a richer understanding of the politics of counting people and narrows the gap between demographic and cultural history.

Until the second half of the twentieth century, the role of religion in Africa was profoundly neglected. There were no university centers devoted to the study of religion in Africa; there was only a handful of scholars who focused primarily on religious studies and most of them were not historians; and there were relatively few serious empirical studies on Christianity, Islam, and African traditional religions. This paucity of rigorous research began to be remedied in the 1960s and by the last decade of the twentieth century, the body of literature on religion in Africa had expanded significantly. The burgeoning research and serious coverage of the role of religion in African societies has initially drawn great impetus from university centers located in the West and in various parts of Africa that were committed to demonstrating that Africa has a rich history even before European contact. Accordingly scholars associated with such university centers have since the 1960s acquired and systematically catalogued private religious manuscripts and written numerous pan-African, regional, national, and local studies on diverse topics including spirit mediumship, witchcraft, African systems of thought, African evangelists and catechists, Mahdism, Pentecostalism, slavery, conversion, African religious diasporas and their impact on host societies, and religion and politics. Although the three works under review here deal with the role of religion in an African context, they mainly contribute to addressing three major questions in the study of religion and politics: How do Islam and other religious orientations shape public support for democracy? What is the primary cause of conflict or religious violence? What strategies should be employed to resolve such conflicts and violence?

This paper illuminates the marginalization or absenting of the female from transformational processes in Nigeria evident in male-authored works, specifically the novel. This has engendered the woman writer’s creative response to the need for consciousness raising towards female capabilities, by redefining the female as an achiever in multiple transformational spaces—cultural, social, economic, educational, political. The paper argues that literature has played and is still playing a major role in female consciousness raising towards the transformation of Nigerian society.Consciousness denotes awareness. Thus, to be conscious is to attain a state of awareness. Given that “the locus of consciousness [is] the psyche,” consciousness raising should re-educate and re-structure the psyche towards a growing awareness. Transformation connotes change in all spheres of life—the cultural, social, economic, educational, political, etc.

The degree of decentralization among federalist countries differs and this invariably demonstrates the dynamics of federalism in practice. The idea of federal system of government demands that there should be constitutional division of powers among the different tiers of government. To this end, in Nigeria, the federal, state and local government have their powers embedded in the constitution. However, the Nigerian constitution created much incertitude which allows local government to merely operate based on the reserved rights, disposition, prescription and discretion of the higher tiers of government. These constitutional uncertainties have no doubt created intergovernmental challenges and conflicts on areas of; tax jurisdiction, revenue allocation, fund transfers, illegal removal of government officials, autonomy, and inconsistent local government elections among others. Beyond these plaints which have been expressed in copious literature, this study tries to take further steps in analyzing how Nigeria’s intergovernmental status has impeded the operation and performance of primary healthcare system, which has invariably brought about poor health outcomes in the country, as evident in her pitiable health indicators. This work therefore establishes a nexus between local government decision space and primary healthcare systems in the country.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to sonographically explore kleptocracy in Nigeria’s nascent democracy and evaluate how democracy can mitigate kleptocratic behavior amongst Nigerian political elite for a positive social change using sonic therapeutic intervention lens. Design/methodology/approach The author inductively generated data through document analysis in this qualitative study. Findings The results of the study showed that kleptocracy has been an age-long politico-financial crime in Nigeria. The author proffered sonic therapeutic intervention to simultaneously enhance democratic values and mitigate kleptocracy among the Nigerian leaders. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the study stemmed from the fact that it cannot be generalized. Practical implications The practical implications of the study stemmed from the fact that any leader can take advantage of the research findings and apply the recommendations to themselves for personal transformation without incurring any costs. Social implications The social implication of the study is rooted in the fact that if the Nigerian leadership implement the recommendation(s) of the study, there will be a positive social change in the country inasmuch as financial crime will be mitigated. Originality/value The originality of the study stemmed from the fact that this inquiry filled the gap in financial crime literature and there was no such study ever conducted in the discipline.

Especially since the execution of the writer and Ogoni activist, Ken Saro–Wiwa, international attention has been drawn to the plight of the Niger Delta. Oil-rich but cynically plundered and exploited, the Niger Delta has become symbolic of the Nigerian nation itself, fabulously endowed yet, paradoxically, virtually a beggar nation. This accounts in part for the increasing fascination of a growing number of Nigerian poets, Deltans and non-Deltans alike, with the representative plight of the Niger Delta. In , the first published volume of the emergent Nigerian writer Uche Peter Umez, Nigeria's characteristic social ills are etched in memorable lines. But Umez's special focus is on the Niger Delta. Given his own position as a non-Deltan from a part of Igboland that has been the target of punitive cartography, this concern foregrounds the varied dimensions of Nigeria's oil politics.

Wazobia, the name of the female king in Tess Onwueme’s play The Reign of Wazobia, is a neologism derived from Yorùbá, Igbó, and Hausa respectively, the three dominant languages in Nigeria. Motivated by the relevance of Onwueme’s lexical selection and the socio-political contexts in which the play is set, the essay relies on pragmatic contexts of language usage to analyse the coinage of the name to ascertain whether it dramatizes a political attempt to advocate unity between the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria. The essay also interrogates Wazobia’s dual gender status, and the feminist implications of the fact that she does not rule as a woman but as either a man or an androgynous figure. Wazobia’s dual gender and the illegal extension of her three-year regency raise a number of questions, some of which appear to contradict Onwueme’s well-articulated feminist stance. The essay shows that the neologism of Wazobia is largely restricted to a feminist stance, canvassing intra-gender unity among all Nigerian women as a prerequisite for attaining power and emergence into politics and spaces of leadership. Wazobia’s gender duality is interpreted as Onwueme’s rejection of gender-associated restrictions. This dual status also embodies socio-political implications for unity in the male/female divide, and the Igbóo/Hausa/Yorùbá division. The work interprets the favourable treatment of Wazobia’s tyranny as Onwueme’s feminist bias and political aspirations for women.

Several studies have demonstrated the impact of oil in Nigeria, with recent literature showing that modern Nigeria can hardly be understood without oil. There is now an abundance of literature to present an overview of the subject. In this first piece, the modest intention is to indicate the range of literature as well as identify the broad themes. An attempt is also made to locate the themes in their historical context in order to indicate some of the major changes in the literature. Subsequent essays will identify the paradigmatic shifts in the literature, as well as the major gaps that exist. In addition, we hope to argue in another essay that large bodies of work exist to sustain reliable comparative studies.The introduction to this essay sets out the themes to be discussed, and each receives separate attention. These themes include the impact of the oil industry on Nigeria's workers, environment, and communities within the oil rich Niger Delta. They also include the impact of oil revenue on Nigeria's foreign policy, national development, and political stability. An examination of the literature from the 1950s to the present reveals several clear patterns of change. The literature begins with an optimistic view of the oil industry, shifts toward in-depth discussions during the 1970s and 1980s on the impact of the oil shock, and currently resides on issues of environmental destruction and human rights violations incurred from the oil industry. The synthesis presented here privileges research-based essays and books.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the lack of political willingness in Nigeria as a challenge to combating fraud among public employees. This study is a qualitative approach. The sources of data collection involve government reports, newspapers and interviews. In all, 12 participants were employed for the study. The study found that a lack of political willingness in Nigeria shows a persistent challenge to combat fraud. Our findings suggest that (1) political intervention, (2) party system or political party and (3) lack of commitment from the government make fraudulent practices in Nigerian public sector (NPS) perennial. Thus, it has hindered the effort to combat fraud in NPS. This study has practical implications for regulators (like CBN), and anti-corruption bodies such as EFCC, ICPC, AMCON, and CCB. The study could perhaps redirect their efforts and eases the way of mitigating fraudulent practices in Nigeria's public sector. The study also has an academic contribution to the body of knowledge and inFraudsight to the literature. This paper is original and unique in its form and has the value on fraud prevention, detection of corruption, combating the contemporary fraud cases in the Nigerian public sector, and useful to those who might cherish its standing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the lack of political willingness in Nigeria as a challenge to combating fraud among public employees. This study is a qualitative approach. The sources of data collection involve government reports, newspapers, and interviews. In all, 12 participants were employed for the study. The study found that a lack of political willingness in Nigeria shows a persistent challenge to combat fraud. Our findings suggest that (1) political intervention, (2) party system or political party and (3) lack of commitment from the government make fraudulent practices in Nigerian public sector (NPS) perennial. Thus, it has hindered the effort to combat fraud in NPS. This study has practical implications for regulators (like CBN), and anti-corruption bodies such as EFCC, ICPC, AMCON, and CCB. The study could perhaps redirect their efforts and eases the way of mitigating fraudulent practices in Nigeria's public sector. The study also has an academic contribution to the body of knowledge and insight to the literature. This paper is original and unique in its form and has the value on fraud prevention, detection of corruption, combating the contemporary fraud cases in the Nigerian public sector, and useful to those who might cherish its standing.

African literature has strong relation with colonialism, not only because they had ever been colonized but also because of civil war. Civil Peace (1971), a short story written by Chinua Achebe, tells about how Nigerian survive and have to struggle to live after Nigerian Civil War. It is about the effects of the war on the people, and the “civil peace” that followed. The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July 1967–15 January 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted annexation of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. The conflict was the result of economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the various peoples of Nigeria. Knowing the relation between the story and the Nigerian Civil War, it is assured that there is a history depicted in Civil Peace. In this article, the writer portrays the history and the phenomenon of colonization in Nigeria by using new historical and postcolonial criticism approaches.Keywords: history, colonization, civil war

Nigerian literature takes "matter" from the realities of Nigerian living conditions and value systems in the past and present. In the Nigerian society the writer, be it a novelist, dramatist or poet is a sensitive "questioner" and reformer; as all literature in a way is criticism of the human condition obtainable in the society it mirrors. The writer often cannot help exposing the bad and the ugly in man and society. Thus much of Nigerian literature is a deploration of the harsh and inhuman condition in which the majority of Nigerians live in i.e. poverty, misery, political oppression, economic exploitation, excesses of the affluent, liquidation of humane Nigerian traditional values, and all forms of injustices which seem to be the lot of a large majority in most Nigerian societies.In drama, novel, poetry or short - story, the writer's dialogue with his physical and human environment comes out as a mirror in which his people and society can see what they look like. Every image painted by a skillful artist is expressed or put into writing / print, becomes public property and leaves itself open for evaluation by those who read and understand the language and expression. There is therefore a need to identify the thematic preoccupation of Nigeria literature which is the focus of this paper with a view to identifying their peculiarities with textual references.

This paper examined the structural challenges and local government development in Nigeria. Local governments system in Nigeria, has taken different forms from one period to the other. There were series of reforms in the Nigerian local government system aimed at addressing the structural deficiency inherent in the third tier of government in Nigerian federation. Suffice it to say that, the development of local government in Nigeria is almost becoming an illusion as local governments faced with multifarious structural challenges which serve as impediments to its development. The study that relied on secondary data sources through a comprehensive review of relevant literature on the subject of discussion. The paper identified constitutional crises, undue political interference amongst others as major constraints to local government development in Nigeria. The paper submits that there is need to restructure the present local government system in Nigeria by going back to multi-tier local government in the 1950’s. Areas of contribution to its development were also identified and conclude that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should be amended to enable State Governments and the various State Houses of Assembly loosen their firm grip on the local governments in order to allow the local government authorities take initiative that will enhance its growth and development.

Indonesia-Nigeria cooperation resumed since President Gus Dur made an official visit to Nigeria in 2000. Indonesia relations became increasingly constructive by creating several trade agreements with the Nigerian government and formulating Indonesia-Africa Forum (IAF) is a real constructive strategy in focusing on Indonesia’s Foreign Policy toward the Africa region. There are more than 15 Indonesian companies operating in Nigeria and Nigeria was Indonesia's largest trade partner in Africa with a total volume of trade at USD 1.5 billion in 2019. In the oil sector, Indonesia has a trade deficit with Nigeria but not in the non-oil sector, Nigeria became the entry point for Indonesian products to other African regions. This research is qualitative research using a political cooperation concept as an analytical tool by looking at the dynamics of the Indonesia-Nigeria relationship in the framework of strategic cooperation. The data is gained from a focused review of relevant theories, literature, and previous research findings of the discussed topic. Besides, the data were taken from books, journals, reports, and websites.

The African continent today is laced with some of the most intractable conflicts, most of them based on ethnic nationalism. More often than not, this has led to poor governance, unequal distribution of resources, state collapse, high attrition of human resources, economic decline, and inter-ethnic clashes. This essay seeks to examine Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's through the lens of ethnic conflict. It begins by tracing the history and manifestations of ethnic stereotypes and ethnic cleavage in African imaginaries. The essay then argues that group loyalty in Nigeria led to the creation of 'biafranization' or 'fear of the Igbo factor' in the Hausa–Fulani and the various other ethnic groups that sympathized with them; a fear that crystallized into a thirty-month state-sponsored bulwark campaign aimed at finding a 'final solution' to a 'problem population'. Finally, the essay contends that Adichie's anatomizes the impact of ethnic cleavage on the civilian Igbo population during the Nigeria–Biafra civil war. Adichie, I argue, participates in an ongoing re-invention of how Africans can extinguish the psychology of fear that they are endangered species when they live side by side with people who do not belong to their 'tribe'.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges of accountability and development in Nigeria. In the literature, corruption is seen as an indicator of a lack of political accountability in most countries of the world, especially in less developed countries such as Nigeria. The Nigerian Government has taken several actions to address the problems of bad governance and corruption that have impeded economic development, but unfortunately these measures have not yielded the desired results. Design/methodology/approach Thus, this study examined accountability and developmental issues in Nigeria using secondary data and then made use of the auto-regressive distributed lag econometric technique to analyze the data. Findings The results from the study found that a rise in total government expenditure poses a danger of reducing Nigeria’s economic development in the long run and that control of corruption and political (the institutional variables) has a direct and significant effect on Nigeria’s economic development. Originality/value Therefore, upon these findings, this paper recommended that for Nigeria to experience development, corruption should be eliminated, and the Nigerian Government should spend on viable projects and economic activities that will be beneficial to the populace and the society at large and hence bring about economic development. Accountability is the hallmark of a prudent government that ensures efficient management of resources and transparency in the utilization of funds by the government. The absence of accountability mechanism allows corruption to thrive, which hinders the developmental process.

One of the advanced areas of the Global English research is that of non-native varieties including Nigerian English (NE) as one of the most representative varieties in Africa. But literature analysis on NE reveals that in spite of the growing interest of linguists to the study of this variety there is no coherent program of its research and description. In this paper, a history of the NE research is traced in the context of the history of English in Nigeria. The aim of the paper is in eliciting the lacunae in overall representation of this variety and in outlining prospects for its further research. Literature analysis makes it possible to distinguish three periods in the description and research of English in Nigeria: pre-linguistic, political and linguistic; these periods correlate with the stages in the history of English in Nigeria. During pre-linguistic period (the end of the 18th c. – the end of the 19th c.) the presence of English in Nigeria and a rather widespread use of English-based pidgins are mentioned in a few works on Western Africa and in rare samples of private correspondence. During political period (the end of the 19th c. – the middle of the 20th c.) English is implemented into educational system, it is gaining recognition in the country, local literature in English is developing, and linguistic debates on the characteristics and status of NE are taking place. During linguistic period investigations of structural and systemic parameters and characteristics of NE are being performed. NE is also included into the program of English worldwide comparative studies (The International Corpus of English). This study shows that there is a hiatus in the area of lexicography, both practical and theoretical. A systematic and comprehensive investigation of the NE evolution is on the research agenda as well.

The Nigerian-South African relationship is couched in the paradigm of intricate interdependence. The elements that brought the two African major powers closer include political, cultural, and economic dimensions. Therefore, any dissimilarity of interest between both countries would ruin their relationship and implicate the whole African Union concept that unites Abuja/Pretoria relations. Over 100 South African companies permeate the Nigerian market in several economic sectors and most are successfully operating in Nigeria. Nigerian companies such as First Bank, among others, are also operating in South Africa. As long as South Africa and Nigeria are both dominant powers in their respective sub-regions, a threat like xenophobia needs to be eradicated and coordinate some effective policies for Africa's development. The study employed a qualitative method and library sources, past literature on different xenophobic trends noted in the journal articles, books, and others, on the South African xenophobia and its implications on Nigeria/South African relationship. The study adopted the frustration-aggression theory and it found that incessant xenophobic attacks on Nigerian nationals and other foreigners in South Africa are based on prejudices. The study went further with suggestion to provide some panacea to the catastrophe of South African xenophobia.

This essay investigates the development of European-style military music as practised in Nigeria with regard to the influence of its indegenization processes by its practitioners on the Nigerian soil. The areas in which the development is discussed include the new roles and functions of performance, the new thematic sources of military music arrangers, instrumentation, the stylistic and technical bases for orchestration as well as the overall institution of military music in Nigeria. It also raises an argument on the parameters for judging the African identity in a contemporary Nigerian military music composition and those of its allied genres. The essay concludes that, by virtue of its new contexts of performance as well as performance structure, Nigerian military music has shifted from being a substratum of the European music tradition in Nigeria to being a substratum of contemporary music on the Nigerian music scene.

This research discusses the environmental pollution by the capital in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria and identifies two historical agents that have the potential to harmonize their social power through a common language that may create a new social and political agency. We argue that the working class and the community-based social movements are necessary but not sufficient agents of transformation in the Nigerian oil-dependent capitalist economy. The cooperation between the global and local sites of resistance is an imperative: a synergy and deliberate action by the conglomerate of trade unions, community-based social movements, nongovernmental organizations, local and global activists, nurtures the potential to transform the capitalist domination, exploitation, and expropriation in Nigeria. Using secondary literature sources, we re-visit the conversation on the role of capital and the pollution of environment in Nigeria through the concept of “Movement of Movements”.

In analyzing the motivations behind the formation of insurgent groups and their activities against the state, academic debates have been sharply divided. On the one hand are scholars who emphasize insurgency as fallout of religious activities, while on the other hand are those who prioritize geostrategic politics or political marginalization as the root cause. Either claim, however, is only valid in part and obscures a holistic understanding of insurgency as a political phenomenon. Using Boko Haram as a case study, this article interrogates literatures on the aforementioned perspectives and highlights the empirical inadequacies in emphasizing one perspective at the expense of the other. This study suggests that only a synergized and balanced consideration of both perspectives can broaden the understanding of the motivations behind the emergence of Boko Haram as one of the world’s deadliest insurgent groups.

Right from the period of colonialism the herd or cult of the national bourgeoisie has been consistent in its chicanery of reifying, alienating and approximating the social existence of the peasants, the working class and other oppressed social strata. They operate the political culture from various levels of fetishisms as politicians, businessmen, professionals, religious prelates, feudal oligarchies and cultic forces. Set against the masses is the conglomerate of the class referred to by Wole Soyinka as the “self-consolidating regurgitative lumpen Mafiadom of the military, the old politicians and business enterprises” (The Man Died, London, Andre Deutsche Ltd., 1972, p. 181). This class consists of those that Frantz Fanon refers to as the conduit pipes and errand boys of international monopoly capital.

AbstractThe existence of the Ogoni ethnic group is taken for granted in the literature that has grown out of the minority rights and environmentalist campaigns of the 1990s. This article departs from this tradition by engaging the historical development of the Ogoni ethnic group, taking as its point of departure elite politics in the context of colonial categories and post-colonial politics. With comparative data on the development of ethnic groups in Nigeria, it shows how elite politics and state structures and administrative decisions influenced the development of the Ogoni ethnic group and the identity it purveys. It also shows that differing interests in oil with unequal power bases spurred rigid positions that served to facilitate or constrain the execution of the Ogoni identity-building project.

PurposeSex work migration involves a huge number of females from Nigeria, and has attracted concerns within and across the country. To add to ongoing conversations about responsible migration, our review underscores the prevalence of sex work migration in Edo State, Nigeria, the drivers and interventions.Design/methodology/approachThe review adopted exhaustive search terms coined with the aid of “Boolean Operators”. Search terms were entered into several search engines and databases to elicit peer-reviewed and grey literature within sex work migration and human trafficking for commercial sex. An output of 578 studies was recorded with 76 (43 academic papers and 33 grey literature) meeting the inclusion criteria.FindingsThe study acknowledged wide-spread prevalence of sex work migration involving Nigerian females who are largely from Edo State. It achieved a prioritization of the factors that drive sex work migration based on how frequent they were mentioned in reviewed literature: economic (64.4%), cultural (46%), educational (20%), globalization (14.5%) and political factors (13.2%). Several interventions were highlighted together with their several limitations which include funding, absence of grass-roots engagement, dearth of appropriate professionals, corruption, weak political will, among others. A combination of domestic and international interventions was encouraged, and social workers were found to be needful.Originality/valueOur systematic review is the first on this subject, as none was found throughout our search. It seeks to inform policy measures and programmes, as well as horizontal efforts poised to tackle the rising figures of sex work migrants and attendant consequences in Nigeria.

Political economy studies control and survival in social life. It is simply defined as the study of production and exchange and how these activities relate with the state and its laws. It is interested in how politics interacts with economics. Extensive essays and texts on the political economy of the film industry in general, and of Hollywood in particular abound. Such studies on Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry, remains scarce. But in recent times, authors, both indigenous and foreign, are beginning to give increased attention to the struggle for power and control within the industry. This study is interested in how economic activities in Nollywood interact with the law and government. It searches existent scholarship to interrogate what has been discussed on aspects of the political economy of the industry. It discusses these studies under production, distribution and consumption. It reviews other important industry matters like policies, interrogating briefly the place of MOPICON in the political economy of Nollywood. This review forms an important document for research on Nollywood, to curb and forestall consistent repetition of studies within Nollywood scholarship.

To win the support of the electorates, Nigerian politicians engage diverse resources during electoral campaigns. Some of these resources include political jingles. This study examines political discursive practices and their socio-cognitive functions in the political jingles of the 2015 general elections in Nigeria. This is to illuminate the politicians’ sociopolitical evaluations of the electorates. The data for this study comprise 50 political jingles of the presidential campaigns of the two major political parties in the country, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the main opposition party, the All Progressive Congress (APC). This study is anchored on linguistic and literary theoretical perspectives using Critical Discourse Analysis and Sociology of Literature, respectively, to reveal the inherent meanings in, and socio-cultural implications of, the discourse of the sampled political jingles. Data analysis identifies political jingles as face-saving, assertive and educative acts. It also notes that implicatures, names, lexemes, religious allusions, evidentiality and code-switching are ideologically employed in the political jingles to enhance the politicians’ personalities and acceptance among the electorates.

After two decades of the return to civil rule, the not too impressive scorecard of Nigerian democracy has raised concerns and questions demanding answers as to why the country is still struggling with the delivery of democratic governance and dividends such as; social welfare, justice, even-federal development as well as equal access to national resources. The paper inspects carefully, those factors that have and are hindering the success of democracy and democratic governance in Nigeria especially at the local government level. In doing this, related literatures were reviewed while the Structural Functionalist theory is adopted as the theoretical model or frame work and the collection of data was carried out through the secondary source. The study reveals that democracy in Nigeria especially at the local government level has not done up to its expectation due largely to corruption, partisan politics, upper governmental interference, lack of local government autonomy, among others. It therefore recommends that among other things, the local governments should be granted it constitutional autonomy in powers and functions, the fight against corruption should be stretched to the local government areas while Local government officials are made accountable to the local residence and that the leaders should be more ethical in their political pursue

This paper focuses on Musa Idris Okpanachi’s poetry: The Eaters of the Living (2007), From the Margins of Paradise (2012), and Music of the Dead (2016). Nigeria, even after the military had relinquished power over a decade ago, is still faced with the issues that provoked the trope of protest in much of the poetry published between the mid-eighties and late nineties. Okpanachi’s poetry revisits these issues, demonstrating that democracy has been no less horrifying than military despotism. Dark, haunting images of blood, corpses, and cemetery recur in all three collections, depicting the regularity of death in the nation. I argue that Okpanachi employs funereal imagery to comment on the state’s morbid relationship with its citizenry. The Nigerian state is represented as murderous, so death fulfills its political objective. I conclude that although Okpanachi articulates a cynical commentary on postcolonial Nigeria, he marshals his creative energies to illuminate the political moment of his time.

This article is a study of the influence of social media on political participation of youths in Nigeria through a review of the methodology, research themes and theoretical trends. The research method was a content analysis of forty-four relevant empirical articles. Findings showed that the predominant themes were political participation, social media and ethnicity. Most of the reviewed studies employed surveys, desktop research or critical review of literature as their research method. Most reviewed studies either adopted quantitative or qualitative research method and without a theoretical framework. It was evident that many studies in the global north did not link political participation to ethnicity, unlike those that were carried out in Nigeria. In addition, there were few studies on the influence of social media on the political participation of youths. Consequently, research in this area has to contextualize the Nigerian experience, adopt a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative research methods with a strong theoretical base.

This paper advances the scholarly position that skills development is imperative for Nigeria in an era of intense globalization. It argues that skills development is the key for Nigeria’s socio-economic development, considering the country’s political-economic history, current social, economic, cultural, environmental, and health problems it faces and the demands of a fast-globalizing world. However, its central concern is that successive Nigerian governments have been rhetorical about developing skills. The country is not lacking policy, legal and institutional frameworks on skills development; yet skills shortages abound. The paper explores the concept of skills development, its relevance in the age of globalization; the role of the State in skills development, and the contradictions which have played out in the performance of this role, using Nigeria as a case study. It also provides answers to the following critical questions: Why has the issue of skills development become problematic in Nigeria despite the country’s rich natural, material, and human resources? And what are the contradictions that could be identified in national aspirations on skills development? The paper is based on qualitative research, and the researchers undertake a critical analysis of literature on the subject matter. A connection is established between skills development and the issue of governance in Nigeria in a conceptual framework for analysis.

Literature on leadership in Nigeria from the perspective of 1 Kings 3 is hard to find. In the pericope, Solomon was the successor to David in leadership. Solomon kept to the promises and good plans of his predecessor. The pericope shows the roles of godfathers in political leadership. This narrative is of great importance to Nigeria’s leadership challenges in the political arena. This article examines 1 Kings 3:3-14 and its relevance to the leadership challenges in Nigeria. Nigeria is a country where leaders blackmail their predecessors and surround themselves with sycophants and godfathers. Over the years literature has focused on Nigeria’s leadership challenges from the political, sociological and psychological angles. This study provides a theological response to Nigeria’s leadership challenges.

Nigerian government expenditure has been on an increasing trend over the years, and its contribution to sustainable economic development; promoting long-term output and employment has generated controversial issues in the literature. Against this background, this study analyses the impact of both productive and non-productive government expenditure on output and employment in Nigeria using the Vector Error Correction Model, The long-run equations for output and employment are established. The joint short and long-run causality was also investigated. The study shows a contrary result to theoretical predictions; Nigeria's long-run growth is not promoting by productive government expenditure. Furthermore, there is joint short and long-run causality between employment and government expenditure channels. Evidence from the output equation indicates no joint long and short-run causality. The implication of this result shows that government expenditure either productive or non-productive, has not improved the economy, although there is an increase in employment generation through the non-productive channel, which has not promoted broad-based growth. For the Nigerian government to improve the situation, the study recommends a critical assessment of public expenditure through the cost-benefit approach.

This article examines the importance of the internal structural dynamics of the military in the analysis of transitions from nondemocratic rule and in democratic consolidation. The authors argues that factors endogenous to the military—including variations in the size of the officer corps, solidarity among graduating classes from the military academy, and promotional prospects—are important determinants of the political behavior of militaries. As a case study, military structure and politics during Indonesia's recent transition from nondemocratic rule and current consolidation of democracy are explored in detail. While the ongoing interaction between civilians and the military is acknowledged, systematic structural features are identified as being important for understanding the behavior of the Indonesian military between 1998 and 2001. The authors compare and contrast the study of Indonesia with other cases in the literature on transitions—including Ghana, Nigeria, Portugal, and Thailand—and discuss resulting implications for the study of transitions and consolidations.

The use of terror as a ratio for resolving internal fundamental differences is not uncommon in neo-colonial societies. This is not saying that flashes of same are not recogn ised in the developed environment. The prevalence of this alternative appears as old as the political history of Nigeria. This work underscores the theoretical and historical basis of rebellion in Nigeria primarily focusing on the rise, fundamental philosophy and the vision of the Boko Haramists. The central thesis of this work is that Boko Haram activities have negative effects on Nigeria’s external image and fundamentally, it exposes the nature and dynamics of Nigeria’s security problems. The work contributes in part to the literature on this issue but significantly, it situates the problems within strategic logic which amplifies the degeneration of the problems and the incessant rebellion against the Nigerian State.

AbstractWhen the Nigeria-Biafra civil war ended in July 1970, the Commander in Chief of the Federal Army, General Yakubu Gowon, declared that there was “no victor no vanquished” and, consequently, drew an iron curtain on a painful historical moment. This closure foreclosed further engagements with the events of the war in a manner that imposed a “code of silence” on its historiography. However, in the face of this silence and the silencing of public remembrances, private remembrances have continued to bloom. And in recent times, these remembrance(s) have fertilized a virulent demand for secession. I argue that literary accounts of the conflict question its ‘closure’ through what I call ‘lack of return.’ Relying on Van der Merwe and Gobodo-Madikizela’s conception of narratives as spaces of healing, I engage in a close reading of one fictional account—Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy—and two memoirs—Achebe’s There Was a Country and Chukwurah’s The Last Train to Biafra—to examine how narratives of Biafra call attention to the persistent freshness of the wounds and trauma of the war by creating stories that lack denouement. I find that in these texts, the silencing of ordnance doesn’t herald a return home—whether spatially or mentally. Consequently, these stories could be read as palimpsests that reveal a need for spaces of narrative engagements, abreaction, and healing.