Artists in the Graphics Department and Audio Visual Unit

To establish a foundation for this line of inquiry, an examination of the types of materials artists produced and their modes of production is necessary. Artists worked across Biafra’s civil service departments, but predominantly found employment in the Ministry of Information’s Graphics Department and the Propaganda Directorate’s Audio Visual Unit. Both of these offices moved constantly as Biafra’s capital cities relocated after they fell to Nigerian forces.

The Graphics Department had twenty-three artist staff members, including Chuks Anyanwu, a prominent graphic artist and cartoonist, and B. O. Njelita, then an undergraduate. The department’s overall purview was publicity and propaganda, and they made posters, pamphlets, charts, maps, cards, and book covers (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 30). Artists had forty-eight hours to complete each job order, which came from the department’s management. Once the preferable design was agreed upon, a single artist expanded the thumbnail into a layout and then sent it back to the art director for a final round of feedback before the finalized image was produced using one of the department’s two printing presses: an offset press and a silk-screen press (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 30).

Artists in the Graphics Department felt galvanized by their opportunity to contribute to the Biafran war effort. The 1966 massacres followed by the war had deeply affected their lives. Njelita, for example, spent the first year of his higher education at Ahmadu Bello University in Northern Nigeria but had to transfer to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in the East because of the riots. His displacement from the North followed by the interruption of his studies at his new university because of the war is indicative of how violence disrupted the traditional career and educational avenues available to artists. Working in propaganda units gave them the dual opportunities of continuing to create art and contributing to their new nation. They were so dedicated that, according to Graphics Department superintendent Fred Okechukwu, they often worked overtime without expectations of pay (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 33). Moreover, artists enjoyed a feeling of community and fellowship as they worked toward a shared vision of the future.

The Audio Visual Unit in the Directorate of Propaganda created posters, pamphlets, greeting cards, brochures, cartoons, calendars, and the illustrated monthly magazine Biafra Time (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 36). Its staff included the now well-known artists Obiora Udechukwu, Bons Nwabiani, and Paul Igboanugo. Like Njelita, Udechukwu and Nwabiani transferred to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from Ahmadu Bello University after their first year in order to escape the violence in the North. Similar to the Graphics Department, the Audio Visual Unit’s work was fast-paced to reflect the newest propaganda strategies and messaging. The director met regularly with the heads of the Propaganda Directorate and the Ministry of Information to stay up to date. In order to finish the desired materials in time, artists often worked long hours, sometimes as late as 3:00 a.m. (Udechukwu, interview, Canton, March 4, 2017). To produce a poster, they made mock-ups and designs, determined the color and lay-out, and then transferred it to the printer, who created the stencils and printed the finished product (Igboanugo, interview, 2017).

The Audio Visual Unit experienced a paucity of materials (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 37), a result of Nigeria’s economic blockade. Moreover, as it moved from the capital cities of Enugu to Aba to Umuahia, equipment had to be abandoned. Artists creatively used what they had at their disposal: they dipped sticks in ink to apply to the backs of cartons that they used for paper, and they mixed emulsion paint with ink for pigment to screen print the posters (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 38). By the time the unit relocated from Umuahia to Umuaka-Orlu towards the end of the war in 1969, they used a secondary school as their office (Igboanugo, interview, 2017). In Obodo-Ukwu, the site of their last headquarters, they had access to only one Stetna lithographic press in a field and printed posters in the open air (Udechukwu, interview, 2017). These adverse working conditions did not stifle artists’ creativity or commitment, and in fact, it seemed to have heightened their camaraderie. They often socialized during breaks and mingled regardless of age and status, discussing ideas, sharing production techniques, and inspiring each other (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 38).

Orders for materials and their subjects came from upper-level management, but artists had creative leeway in how they interpreted these directives. As Udechukwu’s published wartime sketches demonstrate (see Okeke-Agulu Reference Okeke-Agulu2016), they experimented with how to most effectively convey the themes they were tasked with promoting. For inspiration, they drew from the dynamic history of anticolonial political cartooning in Nigeria, with Ayo Ajayi and Akinola Lasekan as important precedents (Okereke Reference Okereke1979; Inyang Reference Inyang2018), as well as posters from World War I and II, the Spanish Civil War, and the Chinese Revolution (Inyang Reference Inyang2018 and Reference Inyang and Korieh2021b; Inyang and Nnamdi Reference Inyang and Nnamdi2019; Davies Reference Davies1995). These conflicts’ underlying propagandistic messages, and the media used to disseminate them, overlapped with Biafra’s and provided examples with proven effectiveness to draw from.

Biafran propaganda materials remain largely unattributed. The collaborative structures and fast-paced environments of the Graphics Department and the Audio Visual Unit meant that artists almost never signed their work. Many maintained individual practices, drawing and painting to the best of their abilities with limited supplies and constant movement, but this was also seen as a tool to help the Biafran cause. Artists sent their wartime art—depicting scenes from the 1966 massacres, emaciated refugees, and air raid victims (many of the same themes found in propaganda)—to West Germany to be part of an exhibition co-organized by the seminal modern artist Uche Okeke and pro-Biafran journalist Ruth Bowert to raise funds for Biafra. Artists also joined creative groups that aimed to foster a distinctly Biafran cultural sphere through poetry, the visual arts, and theater. The categories of “art” and “propaganda” were blurred; both were seen as necessary and overlapping facets of Biafran nation-building. As Okeke wrote in an essay that accompanied the German exhibition, national survival was a prerequisite to creative output (Okeke and Bowert Reference Okeke and Bowert1969, n.p.). With an eye towards this future, the artists’ goal in propaganda units was to construct the Biafran nation by promoting nationalism and cultivating a national consciousness in viewers.

Currency and Maps: Creating a Multi-Ethnic Nation

As an emerging nation, Biafra had to quickly manufacture and promote its statehood and prove that it had a viable existence. In line with Hutchinson’s assertion about war and nationalism, it used the context of armed conflict to do so. An example of this was through its currency, designed by the artist Simon Okeke and released by Ojukwu in January 1968.Footnote ¹ Although the creation of new banknotes was actually a rushed response to Nigeria’s own roll out of new naira to economically undermine Biafra, Biafran press and radio trumpeted Biafra’s currency as representing its “final break” with Nigeria (Biafra National Newstalks 1968, 107). With the goal of having this currency circulate in large numbers, exchanging hands as evidence of an independent economy and the authority of the Biafran government (Owen Reference Owen2009, 580), the banknotes’ everyday use helped to solidify nationalist symbols and national heritage.Footnote ² Okeke pulled from different histories and traditions to create a visual vocabulary that articulated Biafran nationhood. His currency designs are examples of an artistic project fully integrated with Biafra’s nation-building program.

First issued were the one pound and five-shilling notes. In 1969, a second set followed with a redesign and the addition of several more denominations (ten shillings, five pounds, and ten pounds), as well as three pence, six pence, one shilling, two and a half shillings, and one crown coins. All of the notes and almost all of the coins featured the rising sun and the palm tree. The sun appeared on Biafra’s flag and the national anthem was called “Land of the Rising Sun.” Interpolating in these various forms, the rising sun was a metonym for the Biafran state. The palm tree represented Biafra’s palm oil production, its second most important export after petroleum oil, which was also featured on Biafran currency with an oil refinery on the ten-shilling note.

On the back of the first issue of the one-pound note (Figure 1), Okeke’s imagery brings together different cultural and political insignia. Most prominently, he includes the Biafran coat of arms, which repurposed that of the former Eastern Region. It is flanked by two leopards in the rampant pose, in pointed distinction to the two horses that flank Nigeria’s. The leopard has been an important symbol of leadership in Eastern Nigeria since the civilization at Igbo-Ukwu in the tenth century (Cole and Aniakor Reference Cole and Aniakor1984, 23). Furthermore, the eagle in the coat of arms clutches an elephant tusk, a component of title holders’ regalia. Thus, an emblem of the modern nation state rooted in European heraldic traditions is shot through with symbolism that resonates with the way the Igbo people historically represent political power. To reiterate the importance of indigenous culture to conceptions of the nation, the banknote includes an ornate version of the ceremonial staff a title holder uses to invoke his ancestors. The five-shilling note (Figure 2) similarly forged a link between Biafra’s present and perceived past by including a manila that rings its “5/-” label and a patterned background featuring cowrie shells, both precolonial forms of currency. These symbols place the region’s historic economy in a continuum with that of the present nation state.

Figure 1.

Back of Biafra’s one pound note (first issue), designed by Simon Okeke, 1968. Image courtesy of Henry Ibekwe.

Figure 2.

Back of Biafra’s five shilling note (first issue), designed by Simon Okeke, 1968.

The evocation of cultural heritage to inform a modern identity was one that aligned with Okeke’s artistic sensibilities. As a student at the Nigerian College of Art, Science, and Technology (now Ahmadu Bello University), he was a member of the Zaria Art Society from 1959 to 1960. The Society, which included Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko, Yusuf Grillo, and Bruce Onobrakpeya, developed an artistic framework members called “Natural Synthesis,” which sought to merge Nigerian cultural forms and styles with European ones. At the cusp of Nigerian independence, these young artists envisioned “Natural Synthesis” as creating the foundation for an artistic identity appropriate for their new nation (see Okeke-Agulu Reference Okeke-Agulu2015). Now, with the promise of Nigeria broken for Biafran artists, Okeke channeled the tenets of “Natural Synthesis” into creating a Biafran national identity.

Okeke’s five-shilling note also references the Biafran people: the back features four young women who represent four ethnic groups in Biafra: Igbo, Ibibio, Efik, and Annang (Okereke Reference Okereke1979, 90). Biafra was often characterized as an Igbo nation in the Nigerian and international press, and the privileging of the Igbo majority, which was approximately two-thirds of the population (Daly Reference Daly2020b, 41), sometimes surfaced in Biafran material culture as evident by Okeke’s use of Igbo cultural symbolism in Biafra’s national currency. For the most part, however, Biafran propaganda worked against this conflation since Biafra saw itself as a multi-ethnic state. The government-issued booklet Introducing Biafra, which outlined the new nation’s identity, emphasized the connectivity between the multiple ethnic groups in the region. It detailed their cultural similarities and the centuries-long ties between them, creating a mythic past of inter-ethnic cooperation and harmony (Government of the Republic of Biafra 1967, 11–17). Ojukwu reiterated this message in the Ahiara Declaration, stating “All Biafrans are brothers and sisters bound together by ties of geography, trade, inter-marriage and culture and by their common misfortune in Nigeria and their present experience of armed struggle … there is no justification for anyone to introduce into the Biafran Fatherland divisions based on ethnic origin … To do so would be unpatriotic” (Reference Ojukwu1969, 39). Defining Biafra as a multi-ethnic state and not an Igbo nation was a priority for the government, especially since its oil producing areas were in the coastal region where peoples such as the Ibibio, Efik, and Annang were indigenes.

Additional visual materials further promoted Biafra as a multi-ethnic polity. One poster (Figure 3) features a chain labeled with different ethnic groups surrounding the borders of a Biafran map. The ethnicities connect together to define the contours of the nation, which is colored green. While this may have been done to refer to Biafra’s wealth, resources, and promising future—as the green on Biafra’s flag symbolized (Achebe Reference Achebe2012, 151)—it also immediately calls forth Nigeria’s green and white flag. Perhaps this was intended to transfer Nigeria’s claim of being a multi-ethnic state—often emphasized in its propaganda to contrast itself with a hegemonically Igbo Biafra—onto Biafra itself. Nonetheless, while the poster declares that the ethnicities are “all Biafrans” and “all links in one chain,” Biafra’s reality was much more complex. Despite the vision presented in this poster, Okeke’s currency, Introducing Biafra, and the Ahiara Declaration, Biafra never received widespread minority support. In an attempt to sequester rumblings of disunity or tension, these materials and Ojukwu’s speech put forth an image of multi-ethnic consensus and buy-in.

Figure 3.

“All Biafrans,” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

The poster also reflects the importance maps had for the promotion of Biafran nationhood, since they were a way to visualize disputed national borders. While the chain remains unbroken in the image, Biafra’s southeastern region—where the majority of non-Igbo people lived—quickly became captured and reabsorbed into Nigeria. The remainder of Biafra that existed during much of the war was the Igbo heartland, a landlocked region in the middle of the original Biafran territory. These reduced borders never appeared in propaganda images. While people felt the loss of territory in their daily lives, as they moved to escape the incoming Nigerian army, the maps that they encountered in posters, calendars, and other materials presented the Biafra with its original borders that would exist after the successful war effort. Much like the Ahiara Declaration, these maps represented the ideal rather than the reality.

Victims and Refugees: Creating an Identity

Hutchinson claims that war gives a state the opportunity to construct a national identity, and the primary way that Biafra sought to establish a common identity amongst its citizens was by evoking shared suffering. Propaganda in all media called forth the memory of the 1966 massacres to establish an origin point for the country and position Biafrans as victims of a Nigerian genocidal policy against them. The images of massacre victims were the fulcrum around which Biafra explained its existence, and the visage of the emaciated refugee became representative of the entire Biafran populace.

On the whole, Biafrans saw themselves as the victims of violence and injustice so extreme that it caused them to break away from Nigeria. Met with no protection or apology from the Nigerian government for the 1966 massacres, they saw no other alternative than secession in order to protect themselves. As Obiora Udechukwu has said, “The people who supported Biafra were … saying it was wrong to slaughter innocent people (interview, Canton, December 16, 2013). The massacres not only caused the deaths of thousands of people, but they also caused extreme trauma for the hundreds of thousands of survivors who fled and the relatives and friends to whom they returned. However, the violence and displacement, according to John de St. Jorre, were not enough to provoke wholesale secession: “It was only when their horrific detail had been hammered home in a pervasive and gifted propaganda campaign … reinforcing fears of mass killing and forging a solidarity unprecedented in history, that the East was ready to pull out and to fight for its newly won independence” (Reference de St. Jorre1972, 104). Materials like Nigerian Pogrom Crisis 1966 did much to stoke secessionist sentiment. Within the book’s pages, a photograph of a decapitated corpse appeared as a testament to the massacres’ brutality. This shocking image circulated around the East in the months leading up to the war and achieved an iconic status within the budding Biafran consciousness.

During the war itself, images—including the headless corpse—in various media kept the memory of the massacres fresh. For example, the headless corpse was the subject of a popular play performed by the Armed Forces Entertainment Group. When Biafra celebrated its one-year anniversary, the headless corpse was again revived to stir the Biafran imaginary. The Leopard (the magazine for Biafra’s armed forces) featured it on its front page with the headline proclaiming, “Digging Up the Past? Yes!” (1968, 1), and the article below told the soldiers that the body “was probably your own relation.” Indeed, the headless corpse became a synecdoche for all massacre victims in an anniversary stamp designed by Simon Okeke (Figure 4).Footnote ³ The stamp, produced to circulate in Biafra and internationally, foreshortens the corpse’s body and legs so that the arm and hand jut out into the viewer’s space. A mound invoking a tomb rises above, drenched at the top in red that turns into speckles to mirror the rivulets of blood on the body. This red is further carried into Biafra’s flag, which symbolizes the blood of the massacre victims (Achebe Reference Achebe2012, 151). Through this symbolism, the death and victimization that catalyzed Biafra’s declaration of independence is directly linked to the continued existence of the nation.

Figure 4.

First Independence Anniversary Stamp featuring the headless corpse, 1968. Image courtesy of Henry Ibekwe.

Out of the five stamps in the first anniversary collection to which this one belonged, three brought viewers back to the 1966 massacres (Inyang Reference Inyang2021a, 1219). This emphasis reflects the way that Biafra used stamps, which Inyang has described as “quintessential repositories of national histories” (Reference Inyang2021a, 1215), to solidify national narratives and consciousness. Launched the same day as Biafra’s currency, the stamps were meant to testify to Biafra’s status as a nation with a working infrastructure. On a symbolic level, they reinforced the banknotes’ nation-building iconography by putting forth an identity rooted in a shared tragedy suffered by proto-Biafrans.

The trauma at the heart of Biafra’s existence also appeared in propaganda posters. In “Thank You … Fight On” (Figure 5), soldiers run across a field, the rising sun breaking over the horizon, spurred by a throng of men and women identified as representing “the voice of 30,000 Biafrans massacred in the pogrom.” Linking the massacre victims to the rising sun and to the soldiers through the use of yellow, the poster presents the massacres, Biafra, and the war as a continuation of events. The conflict is positioned as a righteous fight to avenge those who have been killed and to protect those who are still alive. Moreover, the use of the word “pogrom” makes an overt reference to the persecution of the Jewish people and the creation of Israel, a parallel that was made by Biafrans and their supporters, most prominently by Tanzania’s president Julius Nyerere in a public recognition of Biafra in London’s Observer in April 1968 (reproduced in the Biafran press and heralded on its airwaves). Biafra, as conceptualized and promoted by this poster, is the promised land where its people can live free of oppression.

Figure 5.

”Thank You | Fight On!,” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern–Bowert Archives, Iwalewa–Haus, University of Bayreuth.

The massacres and Nigeria’s brutal method of waging war, which included starving Biafrans through a blockade and targeting markets and hospitals in air raids, became framed almost immediately as genocide. The Ministry of Information published multiple booklets detailing Nigeria’s genocidal policy against Biafrans and constantly aired broadcasts on the subject (see Appraisals Committee 1969). Indeed, Roy Doron (Reference Doron2014) has shown that a primary objective for propagandists, as they stated in their internal documents, was to convince Biafrans that the war was one of survival. The conflict was steadfastly positioned and whole-heartedly believed to be a struggle not only for the existence of the nation, but also for the people within it.

The poster “Gowon Hates You!” (Figure 6) makes the Nigerian threat visceral. In this black and white image, a severely injured man covered in bandages emerges from a blast, one arm in a sling and the other holding a crutch. His bandaged head and face frame a grimace. He explicitly recalls the maimed and bandaged people featured in Nigerian Pogrom Crisis 1966. The poster’s text lays the blame of the man’s—and by extension Biafra’s—suffering squarely on General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s Head of State, who was ruthlessly villainized in Biafra’s press and propaganda. It addresses its viewers so that they can recognize Nigeria’s so-called war for unity as genocide and understand that they were targeted for persecution.

Figure 6.

“Gowon Hates You!,” Poster, n.d. John De St. Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972).

This strategy of directly appealing to the viewer was often utilized in artist-produced propaganda. In another poster, in eye-catching yellow and blue and featuring a lone emaciated child, text boldly proclaims, “Orphaned? Nigerians did it!” (Figure 7). Designed to elicit an emotional response, the question evokes massacre and air raid victims in viewers’ minds. Working in tandem with this, the image of the young boy embodies the suffering of the starving populace. His elongated arms and angular shoulders emphasize his boniness. As the curvilinear lines around his abdomen indicate, he has a swollen belly, a sign of kwashiorkor. This disease caused by malnutrition plagued Biafran children, and the boy’s listless gaze, sunken eyes, and gaunt cheekbones underscore his condition. Such a child was a common sight for Biafrans, and looking at him within the context of the poster’s question led viewers to understand how he is doubly victimized—he lost his parents to pre-war violence and now might die himself due to Nigeria’s wartime policies. Going through their own wartime travails, Biafrans would identify with the boy, the deceased parents, or both, furthering national consciousness by creating the awareness that they were all victims of Nigerian cruelty.

Figure 7.

“Orphaned? Nigerians Did It!,” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

No one was untouched by suffering, and Biafra became a nation of refugees as people fled wartime violence and tried to remain in Biafra. Artists, often displaced themselves, proliferated images of refugees through posters. As Ernest Renan asserts in his musings on nationalism, “Suffering in common unifies more than joy does” (Reference Renan, Thom and Bhabha1990, 19) and refugees became the faces of this common suffering. They were visual shorthand representations of wartime hardship, since almost all Biafrans could relate to their plight. The iconicity of the Biafran refugee is most explicit in Obiora Udechukwu’s poster “Help … The Biafran Mother and Child,” in which a woman stands in front of the Biafran yellow sun with her baby swaddled on her back (Figure 8).Footnote ⁴ The mother’s shoulders jut up angularly and Udechukwu makes her collar bones clearly visible despite the rest of her body being in shadow, attributes that signify her extreme hunger. Yet, he imbues her with a stoic quality as she marches on. He further combines this with words calling for support: she and her child reflect Biafra’s current reality—but it does not have to be permanent. Public opinion polls show that Biafrans understood the need to sacrifice for the war effort (Appraisals Committee 1968, 13). The poster underscores that viewers’ suffering was in the service of a promising future, symbolized by the radiating sun.

Figure 8.

“Help | The Biafran Mother and Child,” Attributed to Obiora Udechukwu, Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

The North, Nigerianism, and Neocolonialism: Creating an Enemy

From a national identity of communal suffering at the hands of a genocidal enemy, it was easy for Biafran propaganda to cultivate an “us vs. them” mentality towards Nigeria. Independence was positioned as not only necessary for survival but also as a way for Biafrans to overcome Nigeria’s flaws. These included the “backwardness” of an entire region, weak government, and disunity. Biafra, painting Nigerian society and politics as beyond redemption, claimed it was determined not to repeat Nigeria’s mistakes and presented itself as a modern foil to Nigeria’s regressionism. This strategy aligns with Hutchinson’s assertion that national identity is solidified during wartime through its differentiation with the enemy. Moreover, Biafra characterized Nigeria as a pawn in Britain’s neocolonial ambitions, and thus declared itself as an anticolonial beacon on the African continent.

The main perpetrators of the 1966 massacres were people who belonged to the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group. That they are largely Muslim, while Eastern ethnicities are predominantly Christian, gave the Biafran government license to give the conflict a religious dimension (see Omenka Reference Omenka2010). In the “Thank You … Fight On” poster, a cross forms the background of the group of massacre victims. This detail would not have been lost on a Biafran viewership: the dead are Christians, and it implies that Nigeria’s alleged genocide against Biafrans is religiously motivated. A similar strategy appears in the anniversary stamp, in which a cross rises from the left side of the mound behind the decapitated corpse, identifying Biafra as a Christian nation. In the Ahiara Declaration, Ojukwu positioned Biafra as “one of the few African states untainted by Islam,” which he described as a menacing force that had steadily expanded across Africa and evolved to function “not just as religious but as a cover for [Arabs’ and Muslims’] insatiable territorial ambitions” (Ojukwu Reference Ojukwu1969, 12–13). This Islamophobia had been festering since the build-up to the war. Even though Nigeria was led by a fellow Christian (Gowon), Ojukwu and Biafran propagandists sometimes characterized the conflict as having jihadist elements.

Even before the war, visual materials consolidated an emerging national consciousness that was committed to simultaneously combatting a Northern region bent on the East’s destruction and cultivating a political vision distinct from the ills of Nigeria. In April 1967, the Nigerian Outlook (soon renamed the Biafran Sun) ran an image of a multi-ethnic coalition of Easterners, proudly displaying their identities on placards and wearing Western-style clothes, driving away a terrified man wearing an alasho (a Hausa turban) and the robes of an emir (Figure 9). Here, a proto-Biafra is already cementing itself as a progressive Christian nation responding to Islamic and Northern aggression. At the same time, Biafra is positioned as dispelling negative Nigerian attributes. The robed Northern elite represents the political hegemony that Biafrans saw as having completely corrupted the promise of independent Nigeria.

Figure 9.

“Together We Fight,” Nigerian Outlook, April 6, 1967.

During the conflict, more images reinforced this type of messaging. Because of their roles in the massacres, the entire culture of the Hausa-Fulani was vilified over Biafran airwaves and in newspapers. A radio broadcast for the Biafran radio program “To Talk of Many Things” describes the Fulani as a power-hungry but weak people who used “subversive tactics” to build an empire. They had been able to manipulate all the “lazy and unpatriotic people such as the Yoruba and Hausas” to gain control of Nigeria, but stood no chance against Biafra, since “Biafrans have all it takes—moral, spiritual and material—to counter the machinations of the Fulani” (“Subversion in the Expansion of Fulani Power” n.d.). These statements and their corresponding visual materials promoted stereotypes. A pernicious cartoon signed by Chuks Anyanwu for the internationally circulated Biafran Newsletter, for example, draws upon the stereotype of Northerners as largely uneducated by having a man wearing a Hausa cap and robes rue Biafra’s secession in poor English. Following strategies utilized by propaganda in previous twentieth-century conflicts, particularly World War I and World War II, these stereotypes dehumanized the enemy and encouraged viewers to define themselves in opposition to them.

In conjunction with these anti-Northern messages, the media called for Biafrans to eschew negative social and political traits, which it called “Nigerianism.” In the Ahiara Declaration, Ojukwu had an entire section dedicated to “Shaking off Nigerianism,” which included political corruption, putting oneself before one’s country, inept leadership, and institutional weaknesses. Propaganda characterized the Nigerian government as having no real authority, and furthermore, oppressing and attacking its own citizens. Radio broadcasts portrayed Gowon as a leader in name only who was waging a genocidal war without the people’s consent. Radio bulletins and newspaper articles reported on riots in Northern and Western Nigeria that resulted in hundreds of deaths (Biafran National Newstalks, n.d.; The Mirror 1969). Nigerianism had led to the crumbling of the nation, a process that continued even as Nigeria fought for unity.

In contrast to Nigeria’s disfunction, internal violence, and fractured nationalism, Biafran media emphasized that the Biafran war of independence was spurred by the will of its people, and Biafrans were firmly behind their leader. But as the conflict dragged on and Nigeria regained territory, it tried to coax Biafrans back by dropping leaflets that promised safety and stability in a reunited Nigeria. Biafran propagandists had to combat these overtures and convince their war-weary people that these assurances were nothing more than a perpetuation of Nigeria’s deceit. In one poster (Figure 10), a stream of men, women, and children decry Nigeria’s “fake promises” and continue to stand united against the enemy. The Biafran people, this poster conveyed, need to remain resolute against Nigerianism in all of its forms. Moreover, the figures are not emaciated refugees; they are a robust and multi-ethnic group (a man in the foreground wears a hat common in Biafra’s coastal minority region). They visualize the text’s claim that “Biafra still provides for all” as a functioning multi-ethnic state that cares for its citizens, which ran counter to Biafra’s reality of reduced borders and reliance on humanitarian organizations to feed its people. But through the yellow accents, the poster makes a connection to the rising sun, the symbol of becoming for the Biafran nation.

Figure 10.

“To Hell with Enemy Fake Promises!” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

Viewers could further reconcile their reality with the aspirations visualized by the poster because of consistent propagandistic messaging. As Douglas Anthony has explained, “The narratives combined to present the war as simultaneously a desperate battle for Biafra’s survival and an occasion for the emergence of a visionary society threatened precisely because it dared to move boldly forward” (Reference Anthony2010, 45). The cultivation of stereotypes and anti-Nigerianism furthered Biafra’s characterization of itself as Christian, progressive, and just, in opposition to Islamic, reactionary, and corrupt Nigeria. And Biafra’s acute suffering was because of its revolutionary promise. The Ahiara Declaration emphasized this line of thinking. Ojukwu portrayed Biafra as such a radical challenge to the world order that both sides of the Cold War divide, with their imperialist intentions, wanted to see Biafra fail. Moreover, he proclaimed, the world was willing to look the other way as Biafra asserted its right to self-determination since “white peoples … are still far from accepting that what can be good for them can also be good for blacks” (Reference Ojukwu1969, 11). In this fight against global racist structures, Biafra presented itself as finally fulfilling the anti-colonial ideal of a truly independent African state.

Biafra thus labeled its international enemies as neocolonial forces dedicated to ensuring the continuation the West’s hegemony. In the poster “What the Enemy Wants … Permanent Subjugation of Biafra” (Figure 11), a Euro-American man sits on a chair smoking a cigarette as two men coded as Yoruba and Hausa through their garments, headwear, and scarification look up at him obediently. In front of them lies a prone body. The nonchalant Euro-American man is positioned as the neocolonial overlord above the kneeling Nigerians who grovel for his approval. Nigeria is portrayed as a puppet of imperialism that follows the bidding of Western powers, even if it means killing fellow Africans. Colored with red, they all have blood on their hands.

Figure 11.

“What the Enemy Wants…,” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

Cartoons by the dozens reinforced similar ideas. In one by Chinwe Ezeani (Figure 12), one of two women artists who worked in the Audio Visual Unit, a demonic figure symbolizing Nigeria stuffs his pants with warheads.Footnote ⁵ Neocolonial fat cats representing the USSR and the UK approach “Nigeria” carrying huge satchels of military aid. “Nigeria,” overconfident in its perceived military strength and international allies, holds up a gun in a victorious gesture. However, he gets hit smack in the forehead with an ogbunigwe, a homemade Biafran explosive device invented by the scientists and engineers in Biafra’s innovative Research and Production Department. It is thrown by a small child holding the Biafran flag, the personification of the scrappy little country that dares to stand up to the superpower bullies and their pawn. In all, the cartoon sends the message that despite the military might and neocolonial intentions of Nigeria and its allies, Biafra has the gumption and resolve to succeed. When contrasted with their enemies in this way, Biafrans were able to see themselves with pride as the determined underdog in a righteous David versus Goliath struggle.

Figure 12.

Chinwe Ezeani, cartoon, n.d. Image courtesy of Dr. Etiido Effiongwilliam Inyang.

Revolutionaries and Patriots: Creating a Citizenry

Standing as a beacon against imperialist enemies, this revolutionary nation needed revolutionary citizens. As Ojukwu proclaimed in the Ahiara Declaration, “The Biafran Revolution is the People’s Revolution. Who are the People? you ask. The farmer, the trader, the clerk, the businessman, the housewife, the student, the civil servant, the soldier, you and I are the people” (Reference Ojukwu1969, 24). Every person from all social strata was conceived of as an important cog in the civic machinery that could make Biafra a reality. Moreover, Ojukwu outlined specific traits that the people of the revolution should possess: they should be patriotic, honorable, caring of others, truthful, responsible, brave, law abiding, conscientious, and progressive (Reference Ojukwu1969, 50–51). Biafran citizens were defined as those who shared the same ideology and commitments (Daly Reference Daly2020a and Reference Daly2020b).

Importantly, these citizens did not merely need to exist but also needed to be able to visualize and recognize each other. Thus, propagandists had to disseminate models of these ideal citizens. They did so by promoting images of a Biafran citizenry that contrasted with “Nigerianism.” While Nigerians were “weak,” “subversive,” “lazy,” and “unpatriotic,” Biafrans were united, vigilant, community-oriented, and committed to programs that would lead to postwar self-sufficiency. These characteristics, combined with related wartime social rituals, forged a sense of commonality amongst Biafrans, which Hutchinson identifies as a crux of armed conflict’s relationship with nationalism. Biafrans could see themselves as bound together through a shared national consciousness and the shared task of supporting their nation.

After Biafra’s independence, the government established the magazine Biafra Time to cultivate a national readership, designed and printed by the Propaganda Directorate’s Audio Visual Unit. The magazine’s first issue gave a full picture of the Biafran “imagined community:” four pages of letters to the editor proclaimed Biafrans’ support for their country and its war effort; an article rehearses Biafra’s journey to and fight for its independence, while introducing readers to regional administrators; theater arts, music, and sports sections give overviews of the important figures in these fields; articles detail Biafran gains in education initiatives and technological advances in wartime weaponry; another article explains Ojukwu’s introduction of Biafran currency; and in a review, an academic discusses a recent book on international territorial law. The Biafra promoted in these pages is one that remembers its history and why it went to war, and whose populace ensures that it is at the cutting edge of technological and educational development and can maintain entertainment, art, and intellectual pursuits during armed conflict. And it is foremost a Biafra of fiercely patriotic citizens.

Nestled as an insert within the issue are reproductions of propaganda posters that present a vision of the dual citizen and soldier vigilance necessary for the continuation of this nation. The last poster in the series depicts a focused Biafran soldier towering over a manic yet diminished Nigerian soldier, so undisciplined that he casts his gun aside as he charges—an example of “Nigerianism”—accompanied by the text “Courage Endurance Win Victory” (Figure 13). While the “courage” and “endurance” are attached to the heroic Biafran soldier, non-combatant viewers would have likely understood that these traits equally apply to them. Radio broadcasts, articles, and slogans urged Biafran citizens to remain strong in the face of wartime hardship and fear. Moreover, the text in the poster right before in the series reads “Bombs or no bombs / Shelling or no shelling / Biafrans must stay – to fight the foe.” The order of these posters is not a coincidence. Together, they present a united front of soldiers and civilians equally dedicated to a win-the-war effort.

Figure 13.

“Courage Endurance Win Victory!,” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

This connection between soldiers and citizenry is made explicit in the poster “Vigilance Goes with Victory” (Figure 14). Although the figure is that of a soldier with his gun at the ready, the text calls upon all Biafrans to “look out for the enemy.” Biafran civilians are encouraged to identify with the soldier through the use of color. The green of the soldier’s fatigues visually connects to the green of the word “victory,” while the orange of his skin is the same as “vigilance” and the text box addressed to the general populace. While the soldier fights on the warfront, civilians keep the home front safe from Biafra’s enemies, including saboteurs, the “agents” alluded to in the poster’s text. A saboteur was anyone who undermined the Biafran war effort, and to be labeled one within Biafra’s national consciousness was a grave insult (and quite dangerous). This nationalist tactic was highly effective, since it allowed the Biafran government to deflect blame for its military failures while implicitly enforcing social control.

Figure 14.

“Vigilance Goes With Victory,” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

The threat of saboteurs was visualized by propagandists throughout the conflict. Within a month after Biafra’s independence, Chuks Anyanwu was already calling for vigilance against this internal enemy through a cartoon of a saboteur as a well-to-do Biafran with a hidden agenda (Figure 15). On his way to work as a seemingly productive member of Biafran society, the man’s shadow betrays him as an enemy agent. It emerges in the guise of a soldier to blight out the rest of the cityscape, insinuating that saboteurs can cause just as much damage as the Nigerian military. The cartoon emphasizes that a saboteur could be anybody, which underscored the need to be an ever-watchful citizen in order to identify one. These posters and the cartoon urging strength and vigilance with a promise of victory promote a national consciousness in which all Biafrans could claim important roles in the fight towards an imminent postwar era.

Figure 15.

Chuks Anyanwu, “The Enemy’s Shadow,” Biafra Sun, July 13, 1967.

Biafrans were also encouraged to support their fellow citizens. While images of refugees forged a common identity through suffering, press and visuals promoted communal self-help. As multiple posters attest, “refugee week” programs encouraged people to come together to assist the less fortunate. In one such poster (Figure 16), a disembodied hand pouring a pap or milk-like mixture into the bowl of a dejected child invites viewers to imagine themselves as such a giver. Often, posters advertised specific fundraising efforts, likely released with other promotional materials. For example, a poster calling for clothing donations may have appeared concurrently with an announcement in the Biafran Sun for “Clothe the Refugee Week,” in which the president of a refugee commission for Umuahia “urged all Biafrans to continue to do their best for their suffering brothers and sisters” (1969b, 2). Less than four months later, Ojukwu declared that the ideal Biafran acted as “his brother’s keeper” in the Ahiara Declaration (Reference Ojukwu1969, 50). Refugee week initiatives and their accompanying posters presented Biafrans with opportunities to be exemplary citizens while providing social rituals to take part in. It also helped viewers reconcile the largely aspirational visions of Biafra they saw in posters with their daily reality; if they could aid (or be aided by) their fellow Biafrans, everyone could collectively change Biafra from a nation of refugees into one of healthy citizens as visualized in Figure 10. Promoting charity within Biafra signaled that it wanted to pivot from defining itself through communal suffering to reimagining itself as a state at the vanguard of achieving true African liberation.

Figure 16.

“Refugee Week Biafra Help Feed the Refugees,” Poster, n.d. Ruth Stummern-Bowert Archives, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth.

In January 1969, the government undertook a significant move towards its postwar future by launching the Biafran Land Army as part of the Emergency Food Production Program to combat the extreme food shortages Biafrans faced. Ojukwu celebrated the Land Army in the Ahiara Declaration, touting it as an example of “putting the revolution into practice” (Reference Ojukwu1969, 49). He further told his people, as reported in the Biafra Sun (1969a, n.p.), that it would help combat Gowon’s weapon of famine and must be met with an urgency paralleling a response to military aggression. Accordingly, the slogan “Operation Turn the Earth and Bury Gowon,” variations of which appeared in artist-produced propaganda posters, accompanied the Land Army’s roll-out. The Emergency Food Production Program encouraged all Biafrans to farm their own lands, and the Land Army recruited people between the ages of twelve and forty-five to work on land acquisitioned by the federal government with special attention paid to the creation of refugee farms (Okigbo Reference Okigbo1969). It was a way for refugees to feed themselves and earn a livelihood while transforming from dependents of the state to productive workers that furthered the state’s goals. The Land Army thus became a way to shift the narrative of suffering to one of self-reliance. By taking part in agricultural production, refugees and housed civilians alike could help their country be less dependent on foreign aid groups and move closer to true decolonial independence. As numerous posters demonstrate, the government enacted a strong push to educate its citizens about the Land Army and establish their common roles within it. This achieved mixed results; the Appraisals Committee found that just over half of Biafrans polled understood how Land Army food would be distributed (n.d.: 28–29), but it did penetrate Biafran national consciousnesses, as people could recall the program and its general goal decades later (Harneit-Sievers, Ahazuem, and Emezue Reference Harneit-Sievers, Ahazuem and Emezue1997, 51–52).

Agriculture was positioned as a personal act of commitment to Biafra. One poster asks, “Are You a True Biafran?” and if so, to “Cultivate More Food for Survival.” A visually uninteresting poster that merely portrays mounds of tilled earth, its punch comes from its blunt question and the implication behind it. Coupled with claims in the Biafra Sun (1969c, 4) that over 500 volunteers from one town alone joined the Land Army, it probably seemed to the poster’s viewer that all “true Biafrans” were indeed signing up for the initiative. As the Land Army’s mission made clear, it cut across Biafran professions and social classes—it was a truly pan-Biafran program. In its ideal form, it served as a common act of patriotism shared by all Biafrans, through which they contributed to the betterment of the imagined community.

Moreover, establishing the Land Army was an urgent issue for the Biafran government since growing food was seen as a way to combat the genocidal policy of Nigeria and its neocolonial allies. In one poster, bold text accompanies the lush leaves of melon crops proclaiming, “Britain and Nigeria want us to starve to death” and that “to fight this genocide” one must “grow more food.” The enemy is defined and how to defeat this enemy is promoted: farming was a way for individual Biafrans to stand up to an imperialism bent on their destruction. Thus, in the national consciousness it emerged that a civilian who farmed to help feed his government and fellow citizens contributes just as much to the war effort and Biafra’s survival as a soldier does.

This involvement was necessary for postwar nation building. Uche Okeke’s poster “Farm Save Biafra” (Figure 17) presents a utopian vision of the Land Army and its potential.Footnote ⁶ Okeke was the main theorist behind “Natural Synthesis” (also practiced by Simon Okeke), and his art found inspiration in uli, a form of body and wall painting practiced by Igbo women (see Okeke-Agulu Reference Okeke-Agulu2015, 184–96). In his poster, Okeke utilizes uli’s linearity and use of negative space to depict beans, a yam, an onion, corn, and bananas, among other produce. This abundant cornucopia gives viewers a goal to set their sights on: if Biafrans could successfully counter the Nigerian blockade by farming, Biafra could transform into a land of plenty with a thriving society. When the war was won and the Biafran state is consolidated, all Biafrans could say they did their part. This is the Biafra that the Ahiara Declaration envisioned.

Figure 17.

Uche Okeke, “Farm Save Biafra,” Poster, 1969.