ABSTRACT
This chapter, by filmmaker and writer Didi Cheeka, critically examines the tension between oral tradition and digital archives in preserving and reclaiming Nigeria's contested post-independence history in the aftermath of the Biafra-Nigeria war. While highlighting the resilience of oral transmission as a means of resisting political forgetting, Cheeka equally acknowledges the possibilities of digitization. Yet, as he argues with regard to colonial-era audiovisual materials, digitization projects also risk perpetuating colonial narratives and erasing historical memory. Against this backdrop, the essay probes the ethical implications of engaging with colonial-era and postcolonial (or post–civil war) audiovisual materials, advocating for their transformation through reediting and recontextualization—an approach that both recognizes the traumas of the past and affirms the potential for resistance through popular memory.
