Biafran Money, Memes and Mobility

When I spoke with Mr. Sylvester in Lagos in 2017, he was nearing seventy years old. He opened a worn hymnbook on his desk and, from between its pages, pulled out one of the Biafran notes. Since finding them in 2008, he liked to keep them close by. Examining it in his hands, he said, “At the end of the war, they told people to deposit their [Biafran] money into the bank, and then only gave them ten [Nigerian] pounds in return, thinking that they could suppress the Igbo.” Only a few notes remained from his father’s cupboard because Mr. Sylvester’s children had taken them over the years and given them to their friends. Mr. Sylvester did not seem bothered by this. On the contrary, he was pleased that his children were excited to talk about Biafra with their peers.

In the past two decades, Biafran notes from the 1960s have resurfaced as memorabilia, artefact and, controversially, as currency in Nigeria. Although the federal government ordered for its destruction at the end of the war, Biafran money remains one of the more pervasive material artefacts from the 1960s Biafran state. It can be readily found in local curio markets, online sites like eBay, and private family collections, like Mr. Sylvester’s. Most recently, in the past two decades, controversies have flourished surrounding the revival and usage of Biafran money in markets in eastern Nigeria.

But money is only one of an array of Biafran symbols that have emerged as Biafran commemoration movements and political secessionist activism have swelled in the last few decades. Online images and memes promoting Biafran agitations pulse through social media and often feature photo-shopped images such as Biafran passports, embassies, airlines, athletes, and other material objects that have come to symbolize a modern nation.