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Article contents
“Hell was let loose on the country”: The Social History of Military Technology in the Republic of Biafra
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2018
Abstract:
The problem of armed crime in late twentieth-century Nigeria was closely connected to the events of the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970). Legal records from the secessionist Republic of Biafra reveal how violent crime emerged as part of the military confrontation between Biafra and Nigeria. The wide availability of firearms, the Biafran state’s diminishing ability to enforce the law, and the gradual collapse of Biafra’s economy under the pressure of a Nigerian blockade made Biafran soldiers and civilians reliant on their weapons to obtain food and fuel, make claims to property, and settle disputes with one another. Criminal legal records illustrate how military technologies shape interactions and relationships in the places where they are deployed, and how those dynamics can endure after the war comes to an end. This speaks to larger theoretical questions about the symbolic and functional meanings of guns during and after wartime.
Résumé:
Le problème des crimes armés au Nigeria à la fin du XXe siècle a été étroitement lié aux événements de la guerre civile nigériane entre 1967 & 1970. Les documents juridiques de la République du Biafra sécessionniste révèlent comment les crimes violents ont émergé dans le cadre de l’affrontement militaire entre le Biafra et le Nigeria. La large disponibilité d’armes à feu, la capacité diminuer du Biafra de faire respecter la Loi et l’effondrement progressif de son économie sous la pression d’un blocus nigérian ont rendu civils et soldats du Biafra tributaire de leurs armes pour obtenir vivres et carburant, ainsi que faire des revendications de propriété et régler les différends entre eux. Les casiers judiciaires sous étude illustrent comment les technologies militaires forment les interactions et les relations dans les endroits où elles sont utilisées et de quelle manière cette dynamique perdure après que la guerre soit achevée. Cette exploration soulève des questions théoriques plus vastes sur la signification symbolique et fonctionnelle des armes pendant et après la guerre.
Keywords
- Type
- Forum on Crime and Punishment
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © African Studies Association 2018
References
References
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Enugu State High Court (ESHC) Uncatalogued collectionGoogle Scholar
Nigerian National Archives, Enugu (NNAE) MINJUST; BCAGoogle Scholar
South African National Defence Force Archive, Pretoria (SANDF) CSI GP 15; MIL INT GP 6Google Scholar
National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew (NAUK) FCO; DO; PREM; ODGoogle Scholar
French Diplomatic Archives, Nantes (CADN) 332PO/1Google Scholar
Aderinto, Saheed. 2018. Guns and Society: Firearms, Culture, and Public Order in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1960. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Joe, et al. 2017. “Gun owners, ethics, and the problem of evil: A response to the Las Vegas shooting.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (3):39–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun, ed. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arene, E. O. 1997. The “Biafran” Scientists: The Development of an African Indigenous Technology. Lagos: Arnet Ventures.Google Scholar
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Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John L.. 2016. The Truth About Crime: Sovereignty, Knowledge, Social Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dambazu, A. B. 1994. Law and Criminality in Nigeria: An Analytical Discourse. Ibadan: University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Patrick Ediomi. 1995. “Use of Propaganda in Civil War: The Biafra Experience.” Doctoral diss., London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Dike, Kenneth Onwuka. 1981. Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–1885. Westport: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
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Ellis, Stephen. 2007. The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Garrison, Lloyd. 9 March 1969. “Ingenuity of Scientists Provides Biafra With Gasoline and Arms.” The New York Times.Google Scholar
Glaser, Clive. 2008. “Violent Crime in South Africa: Historical Perspectives.” South African Historical Journal 60 (3): 334–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Timothy. 1969. The Smugglers: An Investigation into the World of the Contemporary Smuggler. New York: Walker and Company.Google Scholar
Griffin, Christopher. 2015. “French Military Policy in the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 26 (1): 114–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harneit-Sievers, Axel. 2006. Constructions of Belonging: Igbo Communities and the Nigerian State in the Twentieth Century. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Hecht, Gabrielle. 2012. Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hellweg, Joseph. 2011. Hunting the Ethical State: The Benkadi Movement of Côte d’Ivoire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Danny. 2011. War Machines: Young Men and Violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Igbo, E. U. M. 2007. Introduction to Criminology. Nsukka: University of Nigeria Press.Google Scholar
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Lan, David. 1985. Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
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Macola, Giacomo. 2015. The Gun in Central Africa: A History of Technology and Politics. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Marks, Shula, and Atmore, Anthony. 1971. “Firearms in Southern Africa: A Survey.” Journal of African History 12 (4): 517–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathew, Johan. 2016. Margins of the Market: Trafficking and Capitalism Across the Arabian Sea. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mavhunga, Clapperton. 2003. “Firearms Diffusion, Exotic and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the Lowveld Frontier, South Eastern Zimbabwe, 1870–1920.” Comparative Technology Transfer and Society 1 (2): 201–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mavhunga, Clapperton. 2017. “The Language of Science, Technology, and Innovation: A Chimurenga Way of Seeing from Dzimbahwe.” In What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?, edited by Mavhunga, Clapperton Chakanetsa, 45–62. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mbachu, Ozoemenam. 2009. Operations Research and Biafran Scientists: A Study in Defence and National Security. Kaduna: Medusa.Google Scholar
Moyd, Michelle R. 2014. Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in East Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Nwokeji, G. Ugo. 2010. The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Okezie, Ben. 2002. Dark Clouds: Confessions of Notorious Armed Robbers in Nigeria. Lagos: Brane Communications Nigeria.Google Scholar
Omaka, Arua Oko. 2016. The Biafran Humanitarian Crisis: International Human Rights and Joint Church Aid. Madison, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press.Google Scholar
Onyegbula, Godwin Alaoma. 2005. The Memoirs of the Nigerian-Biafran Bureaucrat: An Account of Life in Biafra and Within Nigeria. Ibadan: Spectrum.Google Scholar
Oragwu, Felix N. C. 1989. “Scientific and Technological Aspects of the War-Machine in Biafra.” In Nigeria Since Independence: The First Twenty-Five Years, Volume VI, edited by Tamuno, Tekena N. and Ukpabi, Samson C., 213–33. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar
Osseo-Asare, Abena Dove. 2014. Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Kristin. 2014. Speculative Markets: Drug Circuits and Derivative Life in Nigeria. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratten, David. 2007. The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rotimi, Kemi. 2001. The Police in a Federal State: The Nigerian Experience. Ibadan: College Press.Google Scholar
Serlin, David. 2017. “Confronting African Histories of Technology: A Conversation with Keith Breckenridge and Gabrielle Hecht.” Radical History Review 2017 (127): 87–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smaldone, Joseph P. 1977. Warfare in the Sokoto Caliphate: Historical and Sociological Perspectives. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Storey, William K. 2008. Guns, Race, and Power in Colonial South Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tamuno, Tekena. 1989. “Trends in Policy: The Police and Prisons.” In Nigeria Since Independence: The First Twenty-Five Years, Volume IV, edited by Tamuno, Tekena and Atanda, J. A., 84–111. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar
Thayer, George. 1969. The War Business: The International Trade in Armaments. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Tilley, Helen. 2011. Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ugwuoke, C. U. 2010. Criminology: Explaining Crime in the Nigerian Context. Nsukka: Great AP Express.Google Scholar
Ukaegbu, Chikwendu Christian. 2011. “War and the Making of an Organic Scientific and Technological Intelligentsia: The Case of Biafran Scientists in the Nigeria-Biafra War.” In Against All Odds: The Igbo Experience in Postcolonial Nigeria, edited by Nwauwa, Apollos O. and Korieh, Chima J.. Glassboro, N.J.: Goldline and Jacobs.Google Scholar
White, Luise. 2009. “Heading for the Gun”: Skills and Sophistication in an African Guerrilla War.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 51 (2): 236–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar