This year marks the 50th year anniversary of the Nigerian Civil War- perhaps the most defining event in Nigerian Post Independence History. The war, the result of two coups and turmoil which saw about a million Igbos forced to return home, led to the secession of the Republic of Biafra led by the 33-year-old Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. The war will last from 1967 to 1970 but its impact has been felt over the years particularly by the Igbos who were decimated economically by the war.
There has been a general lack of state-sanctioned reflection on the war owing to the misguided belief that complete erasure is the only way through which national unity can be protected. However, that has only resulted in creating distrust and volatility which tends to be exploited in times of political sensitivity like we tend to see during elections when ethnic violence is encouraged.
As a storyteller with a conscience, Ifeoma Chukwuogo bucks this with the release of her No Victors documentary. In the video, we see a cast of characters who were not alive during the war discuss the process of understanding the war and its impact on the larger Nigerian society. The rest of the cast also talk about the legacies of the war on some of their loved ones who went through the war in real-time.