Issue

No. 26 (2018): Afrika Zamani: An Annual Journal of African History

5 - Youth Activism and Ethnic Violence in Nigeria: From Decolonisation to the Nigeria-Biafra War

https://doi.org/10.57054/az.vi26.1772
Gloria Chuku

Corresponding Author(s) : Gloria Chuku

chuku@umbc.edu

Afrika Zamani, No. 26 (2018): Afrika Zamani: An Annual Journal of African History

Abstract

Scholarship on violent conflicts in Africa has often constructed two images of the youth: the powerless victims deprived of any human agency and the ruthless perpetrators of acts of violence seen in many cases of child soldiers, armed militias, rapists and looters. Relying on interviews, archival materials and other sources, this article examines youth activities in Nigeria during the decolonisation politics and the first decade of independence, including the Nigeria-Biafra War and post-war period, focusing on ethnic violence and survival. It argues that the politicisation of ethnicity and resource distribution in Nigeria unleashed chains of violence that culminated in the thirty-month devastating war; and that in terms of the pre-war, wartime, and post-war events, Nigerian youth have played complex and varied roles that make it difficult to classify them as either actors or victims of the violent conflicts in the country.

Keywords

Youth Activism Ethnic Violence Nigeria Biafra War
Gloria Chuku. (2022). 5 - Youth Activism and Ethnic Violence in Nigeria: From Decolonisation to the Nigeria-Biafra War. Afrika Zamani, (26). https://doi.org/10.57054/az.vi26.1772
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Author Biography

Gloria Chuku

Professor, Department of Africana Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 

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