ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a background to the importance and necessity of post-civil war demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) in Nigeria by examining the transformation of the nature and size of the combatant population between 1967 and 1970. It discusses the composition and weaponry of the Nigerian Armed Forces before the war, the ethnic dimension to the location of its installations and the use of mercenaries. The chapter also discusses the nature and weaponry of the Biafran armed forces at the onset of the civil war, the mobilisation for war on both sides, arms acquisition and purchase by both sides during the war. It illustrates how the socio-economic, cultural and political factors that led to the civil war played a role in the death of the Biafran cause. Mercenaries are more interested in earning easy money than losing their lives for a cause to which they hold no allegiance whatsoever.
