Nigerians CD/SD

'Coffin for Head of State', all I need to say! 'Expensive Shit'!

Good vacation spot for Shell employees. Or possibly not.

Endless corruption and failure to trade on great resources (natural and human) = direct product of the civil war, not much spoken of, true, but not forgotten either, or overcome. It was a calamity for all Africa, the exact last gasp of the Pan-African Liberation Ideal.

A country of enormous potential, only coming close to fulfilling it in football.

Is the war that important as a cause of Nigeria's current problems? It happened a long time ago, and if everyone's forgotten about it it can hardly be said to have left a destructive legacy of bitterness.

well, I think it's a pretty big claim: "everyone's forgotten it"... the political system has totally never recovered, it still just lurches from miliary takeover to military-approved civilian buseines-man puppet. if there'd been some happy period in-between, then sure, but there never was...

It's not THAT that long ago. I can remember the posters of starving Biafran children (and I was a kid a long way away): any Nigerian adult my age or over — which is to say abt half the adults who are active citizens, certainly anyone 40-60, will still have VERY clear memories of crimes from that time, committed by both sides. There's still big big religious tension/discrimination there — which wuz a partial reason for the war — but also a huge popular suspicion of the political-intellectual class who favoured the Biafran secession. They're the ppl who've most of all been intimidated out of govt. ever since, in favour of sleazy tycoons or army strongmen.

Problem is, yes, this is a kind of peace, and yes, probably it is an improvement on the still-sore aftermath of other civil wars elsewhere. But the actual root issues — the reason for the Biafran secession — have not REALLY been dealt with; are still basically there.

I bow to your superior knowledge, although I have a vague memory of there already being a military ruler when the Biafran war started. Or was it a military coup that precipitated secession?

my sources for thinking Nigeria had got over its war well was i) a recent article on the country on the BBC news site and ii) Professor Ali A Mazrui said so on his TV documentry about Africa. But I think Prof Mazrui was peddling an anti-Biafran line, so anything he says on Nigeria might be a bit suspect.

My knowledge v.v.v.rusty to be honest, DV: I think y're right, a military coup DID precipitate Biafra... Mazrui a bit glib to my mind, but geez, he's paid to know what he's talking abt, which I'm certainly not. Close friend was in Brit Embassy in Lagos throughout 80s, when I wrote a lot abt Af.music, so most of above prob.comes via him. There was a big piece (ten-part) on AIDS in Africa in the Village Voice last year: Fela Kuti's brother (forget name, something Ransome-Kuti, I guess) is or was Surgeon General; that's where I updated 80s grasp (if I did). It wasn't a very optimistic piece.