Post-Conflict Transitional Justice and Historical Reconciliation in Nigeria: An Original Framework for the Biafra War Legacy

This dissertation develops an original transitional justice and historical reconciliation framework specifically adapted to the unresolved legacy of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970, addressing the theoretical and practical gap created by Nigeria's decision to pursue a policy of no victor, no vanquished national reconciliation without transitional justice mechanisms. Over five decades after the war's end, the absence of a formal transitional justice process has left unresolved historical grievances that continue to fuel Igbo separatist sentiment, distrust of federal institutions, and the persistence of Biafran memory as a mobilising political resource. The dissertation employs a multi-method design across three phases: systematic review of transitional justice scholarship in African post-conflict contexts; a primary empirical study combining a representative survey of 800 adult South East Nigerians with 60 in-depth interviews with war survivors, political leaders, and civil society reconciliation advocates across Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu, and Ebonyi States; and comparative case analysis of four African transitional justice experiences including South Africa, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Mozambique. The Transitional Justice Theory, the Truth and Reconciliation Framework, and the Historical Dialogue Framework by Bar-Tal jointly provide the theoretical anchors. The dissertation proposes the Deferred Transitional Justice Model, which specifies conditions under which delayed transitional justice processes can effectively address historical grievances in contexts where immediate post-conflict justice was politically foreclosed. Keywords: transitional justice, Biafra War, historical reconciliation, South East Nigeria, deferred justice.