Seven years after Nigeria won independence from the UK – and 15 years into the reign of Queen Elizabeth II – civil war broke out in the former British colony.
On one side was the Nigerian government, desperate to preserve the multi-ethnic state that had been cobbled together by Britain’s colonial administration. On the other were the Biafra separatists who sought autonomy for Nigeria’s Igbo people, an ethnic minority originally from the country’s south who faced persecution and pogroms in the north. With control over Nigeria’s oil production at stake, former colonial superpowers jostled for influence, not least the UK.
