ABSTRACT
The demographics of Zaire, the vastness of the country, the fact that a major incident in one region could take place without having any real impact on events elsewhere, all played a vitally important role in the practice of politics. Michael Schatzberg recounts instances of soldiers from Haute-Zaire threatening villagers in Bas-Zaire with genocide. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu’s ideal of a people’s army “rising from the spirit of the people” could not have been further from what Nigeria managed to produce in the decades following Biafra’s defeat. Nigeria’s army left power, disgraced, undoubtedly enriched, and above all isolated from the people whose lives and livelihoods it was supposed to protect, but for which it in fact represented the greatest single threat. The failure of the state has been felt most dramatically when it has not only used its military structure to rule, but has also sought to infect civil soc.
