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ABSTRACT
The role of sport in the processes of state building, development, and postconflict reconstruction is a subject of considerable debate and disagreement. This article engages with this debate with attention to a case study of how a footbal club-Enugu Rangers International FC-helped to advance reconstruction and state building after the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War, which ended in 1970. It argues that sport can be a significant catalyst in establishing the conditions necessary for the pursuit of development.
INTRODUCTION
Less than seven years after attaining independence, Nigeria, a country comprising over 389 ethnic nationalities and more than 500 language groups, descended into internal armed conflict.2 This conflict centered on a region dominated by the Igbo, Nigeria's third largest ethnic group, and its efforts to proclaim a sovereign homeland of Biafra. Biafra declared secession on May 30, 1967 but armed conflict did not begin until July 6, 1967 and ended on January 15, 1970.4 The Biafran War, as the Nigerian Civil War would come to be known, overlapped with the Six-Day War in the Middle East, the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, and the Prague Spring in what was then Czechoslovakia. It is credited for its enduring legacy on post-colonial humanitarianism.5 Estimates of the casualty count at the end of the war exceed 3 million, including at least 1.5 million lost to starvation.6
Although mostly defined in geo-ethnic terms, the Biafran War was fought over the terms of post-colonial state formation and development in Nigeria. George Kieh argues that "the secessionists believed that the establishment of an ethnically distinct, independent, and sovereign state was the sine qua non for bringing development to the Igbo people."7 At the end of the conflict, their eastern homeland was in ruins. The Nigerian government pronounced a policy of "no victor, no vanquished," which was followed by a widely touted program of Rehabilitation, Reconstruction, and Reintegration (3-Rs).8 This was regarded as "a farce" by many of the survivors of the war in the southeast.9 Further reinforcing post-conflict alienation and undermining reconstruction, the government prohibited open discussion of the war and its aftermath, denying survivors "the right to tell their own truth and expose the wounds of the past, which remain hidden in Nigeria's body politic."10
With limited avenues for pursuing...