From Biafra War, to Boko Haram, and to Fulani Herdsmen: Re-Interrogating Nigeria's Worsening Ethnic Conflict

This paper aimed to provide an Afrocentric spyglass of the broader analysis of Nigeria's continuing ethnic tensions. It is a historical landmark to the broader scholarly discussion and critical overview of the three most important causals of contemporary ethnic tensions in Africa's biggest economy (Nigeria). The limited scholarly literature about how the Nigerian ethnic tensions have evolved because of poor leadership and governance, especially from the Biafra War to now Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen heavily informed the undertaking of this research paper. The latter three are important political aspects of the Nigerian federal government and mainstream media attention, giving them heavyweight scholarly attention. This paper argues that ethnic tensions in Nigeria are not new as they come partly out of the Biafra war which marked the continued offensive of ethnic tractions. The latter argument is advanced to deal with the two objectives of the research paper namely (i) Analyse the Biafra War, Fulani Herdsmen and inter-link them with the Boko Haram whilst (ii) highlighting how the ongoing Ethnic tension in Nigeria is because of the poor leadership and governance. This argument is realised by the deployment of document review and thematic content analysis of the prevailing scholarly works.