IRONY OF REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGY: EXPLORING THE COMPLEXITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS OF THE BIAFRA WAR IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

Abstract

This paper is predicated on a fictionalised aspect of the Nigerian civil war and/or the Nigerian-Biafran war, which took place from 1967 to 1970, and which actually fragilised the socio-political structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Drawing from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, it examines the ironically ever-widening gap between idealistic revolutionary expectations and pragmatic outcomes of the Nigerian civil war. It argues that a combination of foreseen and unforeseen factors thwarted the Eastern Region’s attempt to create an independent ‘Igbo nation’ known as ‘The Republic of Biafra’. The aspiration to create an ethno-nationalist Igbo state failed because the separatist army could not defeat the well-equipped federal army; the armed struggle was spontaneous and poorly planned; the army’s leadership was plagued by scandalous ills; and the army ultimately turned against the population it sought to liberate from the Nigerian federation. Based on these reasons, the paper demonstrates how the irony of the Biafra struggle for political autonomy, propelled by the Igbo community’s appetite for self-determination, eventually led to a calamitous civil war that caused extensive suffering, which invariably highlights the ineffectiveness of violent conflict as a means to self-determination. Therefore, reading Adichie (2006) from the point of view of the ironic twist of the Biafran war affords us the vantage point from which to question the continuous rise of ethno-nationalist-led independence struggles being waged by predominantly uniformed ethnic groups in postcolonial multi-ethnic societies, especially in Africa. The discussions engage with the key new historicism’s concept of: referentiality and the postcolonial concept of resistance.