From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart—a long-awaited memoir of coming of age in a fragile new nation, and its destruction in a tragic civil war For more than forty years, Chinua Achebe maintained a considered silence on the events of the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Decades in the making, There Was a Country is a towering account of one of modern Africa’s most disastrous events, from a writer whose words and courage left an enduring stamp on world literature. A marriage of history and memoir, vivid firsthand observation and decades of research and reflection, There Was a Country is a work whose wisdom and compassion remind us of Chinua Achebe’s place as one of the great literary and moral voices of our age.

The Republic of Biafra lasted for less than three years, but the war over its secession would contort Nigeria for decades to come. Samuel Fury Childs Daly examines the history of the Nigerian Civil War and its aftermath from an uncommon vantage point – the courtroom. Wartime Biafra was glutted with firearms, wracked by famine, and administered by a government that buckled under the weight of the conflict. In these dangerous conditions, many people survived by engaging in fraud, extortion, and armed violence. When the fighting ended in 1970, these survival tactics endured, even though Biafra itself disappeared from the map. Based on research using an original archive of legal records and oral histories, Daly catalogues how people navigated conditions of extreme hardship on the war front, and shows how the conditions of the Nigerian Civil War paved the way for the country's long experience of crime that was to follow.

In 1966, several waves of rioting in northern Nigeria culminated in the brutal massacre of thousands of easterners by their northern Nigerian counterparts. Sensing that their safety could no longer be guaranteed, the easterners fled to the eastern region and established an independent nation called Biafra. Refusing to accept her sovereignty, Nigeria waged a thirty-month war against Biafra, targeting air assaults at civilian locations, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of children, women, and the elderly. Nigeria used land and sea blockade to prevent relief food from reaching hungry masses in Biafra and thousands of children died from a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor. At the end of it all in 1970, two million people had perished.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987) was the leader of Nigeria's Action Group party and the first indigenous Premier of Western Nigeria. He campaigned heavily for developmental change and implemented free primary education and child healthcare policies across the Western Region. Awolowo began work on this autobiography in 1957, at a time when Nigeria's request for self-government had been refused. The work was completed in 1960, the year Nigeria gained its long-awaited independence. Accordingly, this autobiography is dedicated to a 'new and free Nigeria', with the trust that its people will enjoy 'a more abundant life'. This determined, self-made leader here describes his youth, education and politics. He writes of his hope that this tale of stubborn perseverance can become 'a source of inspiration' in itself, and indeed, this account will fascinate anyone with an interest in Africa, the history and politics of Western Nigeria, or a love of insightful political autobiography. (Amazon website).

This book investigates the dynamics and challenges of ethnicity and elite politics in Nigeria.

'Nigeria’s Resource Wars' reflects on the diversity of conflicts over access to, and allocation of, resources in Nigeria. From the devastating effects of crude oil exploration in the Niger Delta to desertification caused by climate change, and illegal gold mining in Zamfara, to mention a few, Nigeria faces new dimensions of resource-related struggles. The ravaging effects of these resource conflicts between crop farmers and Fulani herders in Nigeria’s Middlebelt and states across Southern Nigeria call for urgent scholarly interventions; with the Fulani cattle breeders’ onslaught altering the histories of many Nigerian families through deaths, loss of homes and investments, and permanent physical incapacity. Currently, there is an almost total breakdown of interethnic relations, with political commentators acknowledging that Nigeria has never been so divided as it presently is in its history. The struggles have now degenerated into kidnaps, armed robbery, and incessant targeted and random killings across the country; compounding the already complex problem of insecurity in Nigeria. The chapters in this volume engage with these issues, presenting the different arguments on resource conflicts in Nigeria. They draw insights from similar conflicts in Nigeria’s colonial/post-independence past and events from around the world to proffer possible solutions to resource-related confrontations in Africa. By offering a collection of different intellectual perspectives on resource conflicts in Nigeria, this volume will be an important reference material for understanding the diversity of thought patterns that underpin the struggle and policy approaches towards resolving conflict situations in Africa. This volume will be of considerable interest to scholars of Africa, researchers in the humanities, social sciences, and conflict studies, and policymakers interested in understanding the resource crisis in Africa.