The book Suksuku Revisited . . . is a diverse collection of the stories, folk tales, and ma?umdla dza dza that the Bura people of Northeastern Nigeria use to transmit their cultural milieu, belief systems, and the supernatural to their youth. The book is permeated with how the tribe interacts with and is solely dependent upon the power and magnanimous symbiotic character of the creator, Hyel Ka?a (Grandpa/Ma God). This is most obvious in chapters 1, 7, and 9. At other times, the tribe uses animals to express those values and social mores they intend to pass on; these are reflected in chapters 6, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 26, and 29. Social conflicts are often resolved through the supernatural or other arcane powers of the shaman, such as in chapters, 2, 8, 10, 24, 27, and 28. Suksuku Revisited . . . opens a doorwhich, until now, may have been closed to the outsiderinto the tribal thoughts of the Bura people with regard to their conception of creation, the supernatural, and the symbiotic relationship between the creator and his people.

Araba(separation) was a word first used by rioters at a Bauchi demonstration signaling the Northern peoples desire to break from the federal republic of Nigeria. The catalyst for its first use was the cold-blooded murder of some prominent Northern elites, including the Premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, by predominantly Igbo officers, on January 15, 1966 Araba became a rallying cry for the Norths disaffection with the state of affairs after Irons promulgation of the obnoxious decree No 34, making Nigeria a unitary state. In some quarters, it became resonant and synonymous with the rampant killing of Igbos in the North. These killings (similar things were happening to Northerners in the East) necessitated the mass movement of Igbos to the East and Northerners to the Northern territories. The Norths disaffection with decree No 34 led to the overthrow of Irons regime by predominantly Northern officers, led by, amongst others, M. Muhammed. However, military decorum and Northern political leadership demanded Muhammed defer to Gowon, even though Gowon was never part of the coup plan or a strong supporter of it. Indeed, if anything, he tried to quell it. The abrogation of decree No 34 and the creation of the twelve-state structure by Gowon was the final straw that broke the camels back for Ojukwu, who consequently proclaimed his territorys secession from Nigeria and the creation of an independent republic of Biafra formed out of the Eastern states. The seed for a bloody civil war was thus cast, and for four years the East felt the worst for it. However, the magnanimity of a blanket amnesty given to all the rebel soldiers at the end of hostilities was admirable, and an intelligent piece of statecraft, responsible for the easy and smooth absorption of those in the East into the economic and political life of the country.

This book has been in the making since my days at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, in the Faculty of Education. I had always wanted to produce a book that is small and easy enough to read and yet succinct to meet the needs of the undergraduate or graduate students in Education who are preparing for their sessional exams! The book has undergone considerable revisions to meet that target goal. In part these revisions have been necessitated by the geometric increase in our knowledge of general psychology, as well as science, in the last two decades. This is to say nothing of the psychology of learning. The increase in our knowledge- base has further been doubled by the new technology of the Internet. Some have even argued that, the availability of the Internet has rendered the publishing of such books redundant. However, I’m convinced that books would continue to play a central role in our lives for the foreseeable future. I had wanted to include most of the material that psychologists subsume under the heading of learning. I have tried to include important topics as well as new developments in the field that I believe an undergraduate student will find useful. Also included are “cultural Implications”, which are applications of the general topic in a classroom setting in the relevant culture.

Almost half a century has passed since the Nigerian Civil War ended. But memories die hard, because a million or more people perished in that internecine struggle, the majority women and children, who were starved to death. Biafra’s war was modern Africa’s first extended conflict. It lasted almost three years and was based largely on ethnic, by inference, tribal grounds. It involved, on the one side, a largely Christian or animist southeastern quadrant of Nigeria which called itself Biafra, pitted militarily against the country’s more populous and preponderant Islamic north. These divisions – almost always brutal – persist. Not a week goes by without reports coming in of Christian communities or individuals persecuted by Islamic zealots. It was also a conflict that saw significant Cold War involvement: the Soviets (and Britain) siding and supplying Federal Nigeria with weapons, aircraft and expertise and several Western states – Portugal, South Africa and France especially – providing clandestine help to the rebel state. For that reason alone, this book is an important contribution towards understanding Nigeria’s ethnic divisions, which are no better today than they were then. Biafra was the first of a series of religious wars that threaten to engulf much of Africa. Similar conflicts have recently taken place in the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Southern Sudan, the Central African Republic, Senegal (Cassamance), both Congo Republics and elsewhere. As the war progressed, Biafra also attracted mercenary involvement, many of whom arriving from the Congo which had already seen much turmoil. Western pilots were hired by Lagos and they flew the first Soviet MiG-17 jet fighters to have played an active role in a ‘Western’ war. Al Venter spent time covering this struggle. He left the rebel enclave in December 1969, only weeks before it ended and claims the distinction of being the only foreign correspondent to have been rocketed by both sides: first by Biafra’s tiny Swedish-built Minicon fighter planes while he was on a ship lying at anchor in Warri harbour and thereafter, by MiG jets flown by mercenaries. Among his colleagues inside the beleaguered territory were the celebrated Italian photographer Romano Cagnoni as well as Frederick Forsyth who originally reported for the BBC and then resigned because of the partisan, pro-Nigerian stance taken by Whitehall. He briefly shared quarters with French photographer Giles Caron who was later killed in Cambodia. Prior to that Venter had been working for John Holt in Lagos. It is interesting that his office at the time was at Ikeja International Airport (Murtala Muhammed today) where the second Nigerian army mutiny was plotted and from where it was launched. From this perspective he had a proverbial ‘ringside seat’ of the tribal divisions that followed as hostilities escalated. Venter took numerous photos while on this West African assignment, both in Nigeria while he was based there and later in Biafra itself. Others come from various sources, including some from the same mercenary pilots who originally targeted him from the air.

One of the great tragedies of Africa is not only the fact that a million people mostly civilians and a large proportion of them children died in one of Africas first post-independence wars, but that until it happened the world thought Nigeria was immune from the wasting disease of tribalism. It certainly was not because the Biafran War is still the most expansive tribal conflagration that the continent has experienced barring perhaps the ongoing Great Lakes conflict involving the forces of East and West, only this time, with the British siding with the Soviets.Worse, some of the religious differences that emerged before and after that dreadful carnage are still with us today. During the course of hostilities that lasted almost four years, a lot of other shortcomings surfaced in Africas most populous nation, including the kind of corruption that, until then, had always been linked to countries rich in oil. Disunity, incompetence and instability from which Nigeria never really recovered also emerged. Two bloody army coups followed after the rebels capitulated, together with an appalling series of massacres, mostly of southern Christians by Muslim northerners. Half a century later the slaughter continues.

The Politics of Biafra is a reflection on the importance of history in addressing present realities and the future co-existence of Nigeria's multi ethnic society. It analyzes the ideological struggles and conflict in Biafra during the war with Nigeria from 1967-1970, the impact of the war and the relevance of those struggles to the current agitations for a new state of Biafra. In this historical and analytical work, the author observes that nearly fifty years after the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war in 1970, Nigeria remains confronted with the Biafra dilemma. No matter its pretensions, Nigeria will at some point have to reform its present pseudo federal arrangement to create a more inclusive, equitable and proper federal structure. If not, the country will continue to face epileptic developmental thrusts, militancy in the Niger Delta and a ruinous intensifying clamor for self-determination by disadvantaged ethnic groups, especially the Igbo. Appendix - Three part essay by Professor Chukwuma Soludo.

Intended for a broad audience, Colonial Mentality in Africa explores the lingering effects of colonization in present day Africa. Despite the independence of all African nations from their former colonizers mental slavery still persists. This new work explores the social climate of Africa and the thriving "colonial mentality". The book explores issues such as matriarchy, religion, tradition and values, law, the influence of Islam, and government.

Not quite four months after the Western Region's election of October 10, 1965, did the localized mayhem in that Region find its way furiously into the center of the nation on January 15, 1966! It was like a whirl-wind of nothing but anarchy and lawlessness. The serious aftermath of the marred and rigged election was that it acted as the last straw that broke the Carmel's back, providing immediate reason for the army to overthrow the government of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. Anarchy ensued; a counter coup led to the death of Major-General Ironsi. Callous barbarous massacre of thousands of easterners in the North followed. With their lives in jeopardy, easterners fled for safety to eastern region; refugee crisis followed. To guarantee their safety, easterners seceded from Nigeria and on May 30th 1967, formed an independent and sovereign nation of the Republic of Biafra. Determined to bring Easterners back, on July 6, 1967 Nigeria invaded Biafra; waged a gruesome thirty-month-civil war against Biafra. Nigeria blockaded Biafra on land, sea and air, to prevent food from entering Biafra. A malnutrition disease, Kwashiorkor that caused the deaths of thousands of Biafrans, followed. Nigeria bombed Biafran civilians, killing thousands. On January 12, 1970 the war ended leaving more than three million people dead in a war that was totally avoidable!