ABSTRACT
Nigeria belongs to a comity of nations which means that she is not an island. The 30 months civil war which occurred between 1967 and 1970 exposed the fragility of her foreign policy with other countries of the world. There is the need to re-examine the impact of the civil war on Nigeria’s foreign policy. The objectives of this research is to: Analyze the major events that took place outside Nigeria during the civil war and how it changed the way Nigerian leaders conduct external relations. The study relied much on primary sources especially government publications, correspondence and interviews. The study revealed that the various ethnic groups in Nigeria need one another; so also, that Nigeria should harness the lessons of the civil war to build her foreign policy with other world countries, especially in the West African sub-region.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The Nigerian civil war took place from 2ndJuly, 1967 to 15th January, 1970.The war was fought between the then Eastern region of Nigeria and the rest of the Country. The unfortunate war erupted as a result of bad leadership which was compounded by a coup led by Igbo military officers on January 15, 19661. The immediate cause of the civil war itself can be identified as the coup and the counter coup of 1966, which altered the political equation and destroyed the fragile trust existing among the major ethnic groups. There were retributive and sporadic-massacre of the people of Eastern region, especially the Igbo and the pogrom on them was indiscriminate. As a means of holding the country together, the Federal military government created twelve states from the original four regions in May 19672. The former Eastern Region under Lt. Col. Ojukwu saw the state creations by a decree without consultation and the massacre of the Igbo as the last straw, and therefore declared the Region an independent state of Biafra. The federal government saw this as an act of secession. Several meetings were held to resolve the issue peacefully without success. To avoid disintegration of the country, the federal government had no other option of bringing the Region back to the main fold other than the application of force. The war could therefore be said to have been fought to reunify the country. According to Njuko, while the federal government forces expected a quick win, the Biafra forces saw the war as that of survival and were prepared to fight to the last man3. By August 1967, Biafra extended the war to the Mid-western region with the aim to relieve pressure on the northern front and to threaten the federal.
