Nigerian History
Efuru was published in 1966. Nigeria had gained its independence from Britain in 1960. On January 15, 1966, the Nigerian coup d’état happened in which Nigerian soldiers led by Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna killed 22 people including the Prime Minister of Nigeria, many senior politicians, many senior Army officials (including their wives), and sentinels on protective duty. The Nigerian Civil War (also called the Biafran War and the Nigerian-Biafran War) began on July 6, 1967 and ended on January 15, 1970. It a war fought between the government of Nigeria and the secessionist state of Biafra; the conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions which preceded Britain’s formal decolonization of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included a military coup, a counter-coup, and persecution of Igbo living in northern Nigeria. Control over the lucrative oil production in the Niger Delta played a vital strategic role. The Biafrans represented nationalist aspirations of the Igbo people, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the Northern-dominated federal government; they attempted to leave Nigeria.
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Nwapa identified as an Igbo, an ethnic group in south-central and southeastern Nigeria who led the secession of the Republic of Biafra. They were defeated by the government of Nigeria. Nwapa has said that “After the war in 1970, things changed a great deal in Nigeria. During the war, ... women saw themselves playing roles that they never thought they could play. They saw themselves across the enemy lines, trying to trade, trying to feed their children and caring for their husbands. At the end of the war, you could not restrict them any more. They started enjoying their economic independence. So what they tolerated before the war, they could no longer tolerate.”
Efuru is set in a rural Igbo village in the late 1940s and early 1950s (before independence from Britain, the Nigerian coup d’état, and the Nigerian Civil War).
Efuru is set in a rural Igbo village in the late 1940s and early 1950s (before independence from Britain, the Nigerian coup d’état, and the Nigerian Civil War).
1960
1966 1967 1970 |
Nigeria gains its independence from Britain Nigerian coup d’état; Efuru is published Nigerian Civil War begins Nigerian Civil War ends |