Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has remarked that the Nigeria Federal government prohibiting history from school curriculums will not kill the memories of the Biafran War.
The Biafran War, otherwise known as the Nigerian Civil War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state. The leader of the secessionist state, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Ojukwu had declared Biafra’s independence from Nigeria. The war the fought between Ojukwu and Nigeria’s Gen. Yakubu Gowon in 1967. The war ended on January 15, 1970, with two to three million people reportedly killed on the Biafran side.
The federal government had removed history studies from primary and secondary schools’ curriculums from the 2009/2010 academic session, partly because of the clamour for the restoration of the Republic of Biafra because of the perceived marginalisation in the South-East and South-South regions, by certain youths.
But Wole Soyinka, who spoke at the 24th edition of the Lagos Book and Arts Festival organised by Book Kraft, on Sunday November 20, had said that memories of the Biafran agitation cannot be wiped away from the people.
