A POLITICAL ECONOMY EXPLANATION OF THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR
A POLITICAL ECONOMY EXPLANATION OF THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR
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Date
2007-10
Authors
TEDHEKE, MOSES EROMEDOGHENE UKPENUMEWU
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Abstract
The problem of seeing the post – independence crises that resulted in the Nigeria Civil
War in geo-ethnic or geo-strategic terms have pervaded most if not all, Nigerian
analysts of the crises which led to the shooting war of 1967 to 1970. This exercise in
obscurantism and agnosticism has dominated most of the studies of the Nigerian Civil
War. As a result of this reductionism we have decided to reinterpret most of the liberal /
bourgeois literatures on the Nigerian Civil War whose emphasis has been on primordial
explanatory variables as the primary explanatory variables of the Nigerian Civil War.
We have found out in this research dissertation that the primordial explanatory
variables are secondary variables or ideological cover for the sectional chauvinists and
veritable tools in the hands of imperialism to continue the plunder of Nigerian human
and material resources. Thus those who continue to hold on to these tools of analysis
are consciously and unconsciously aiding the dynamics of imperialists and the interest
of their local collaborators – the comprador bourgeoisie. We have found out in this
research work that this mutual interdependence between the imperialist bourgeoisie
and the Nigerian comprador bourgeoisie in the dehumanising exploitation of the
working people and the surplus transfer regimes has been the fundamental basis of the
Nigerian immediate post independence crises that gave birth to the Nigerian Civil War.
As such, the Civil War cannot be explained away in other terms outside the economy,
its class character and class relations. In this respect, therefore, ethnic or primordial
explanations of the Nigerian crises of the First Republic and indeed the Nigerian Civil
War are nothing but a cover for class formation. It was equally the nature and structure
of the Nigerian economy and its lack of industrial base that have had the paralytic
effects on the post independence political crises that led to the demise of the First
Republic, the coup and counter coup that heralded the Civil War and the shooting war
itself. The economic demands of the Korean War boom of 1953/54 in international
commodity market and the collapse of world commodity prices resulted in the collapse
of the bases of the regional enclave economies hence their deadly, intra-bourgeois
struggles for federal power by the regionalised comprador bourgeoisie of the First
Republic. At this point in time, as the regional economies were collapsing, that of the
centre was appreciating as a result of crude oil discoveries. The do or die struggles
between the regionalised dominant classes in the First Republic, therefore, finds
meaning in the post Korean War economic misfortunes that befell the unproductive
comprador bourgeoise and the landed aristocracy. The decomposition of Nigeria
politics in the First Republic, the remaking of the political map and post independence
coalition and indeed the First Republic crises, and the coup and counter coup and the
Civil War were products of the economic crisis of the international post Korean War
burst of regional primary commodity products from 1955/56 through to the First
Republic and its final demise. The alignment and realignment of forces forced on the
agenda the rapid sliding of the precipice into the Civil War on July 6, 1967 when the
shooting war began. However, the rebel invasion of Mid-West and its threat on Lagos
and Western States on August 9, 1967 led to a major realignment of forces during the
Civil War. It forced the fence sitting Mid-Western and Western states to the side of the
Northern dominant landed aristocracy/comprador bourgeoisie against the Eastern
comprador bourgeoisie and it also led to the transformation of the war from a Northern
versus Eastern comprador bourgeoisie at war to a truly Nigerian Civil War. It equally
changed the tempo and strategy of the war from a “Police Action” to a Total War. The
economic interests in the Civil War made the struggle for the oil producing areas
assumed a high degree of intensity. This interest of Euro-American imperialism is
based on crude oil the king – pin of modern industries. However, for Nigeria and indeed
victorious war coalition it became the entrenchment of the comprador political
economy. Thus we lost the Civil War in its development dynamics as all war
improvisations were not harnessed for national development. Indeed the resolution of
the national question. in terms of nation building was not achieved, The Nigerian Civil
War whether won by either sides to the war cannot be said to be a progressive war.
Description
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL,
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEGREE
IN POLITICAL SCIENCE/POLITICAL ECONOMY
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES, FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, AHMADU BELLO
UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
Keywords
POLITICAL,, ECONOMY,, EXPLANATION,, NIGERIAN,, CIVIL WAR