THE RED CROSS AND THE NIGERIA CIVIL WAR

The Nigerian civil war was a cataclysm that rocked the emergent Nigerian state from 1967 to 1970. The 30 months civil war was preceded by a configuration of pre-independence and post-independence crises. 1 The Origins of the civil war could be located in a complexity of factors ranging from the remote which includes the military coups d’état of January 15, and July 29, 1966. Other remote factors are the regional election crisis in Western Nigeria in 1965; the Tiv riots of 1964; the Federal Elections of 1964; the killings of the Igbos living in Northern Nigeria from May to September. The structural imbalance of the Nigerian federation; and, most importantly, the asymmetrical distribution of power among the various ethnic and geopolitical groups.
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