The Nigerian Civil War evokes images of ethno-regional strife followed by simmering ethnic tension. However, political perspectives on the legacies of Biafra tend to gloss over the more integrative and constructive economic effects of the Civil War and its aftermath. While the Nigerian Civil War devastated Igbo business activities across Nigeria, and precipitated a mass return of Igbo migrants to their home area, it also laid the foundation for a consolidation and rapid development of Igbo

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... mal enterprise, which has had integrative rather than divisive social and economic consequences for Nigeria as a whole. Operating below the radar of political competition, the demands of informal enterprise development have nurtured strong inter-ethnic and inter-regional links between the Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and other Nigerian as well as non-Nigerian groups. With a particular focus on Igbo informal manufacturing, long-distance trading networks and informal money changing, this paper will consider the role of the informal economy in the development of popular structures of national unity. It will also show that these processes of economic integration from below have increasingly been strained by political struggles from above, creating a tide of violence and ethnic polarization that, even more than the Civil War, threatens to unravel the underlying social fabric of Nigerian nationhood. Résumé La guerre civile nigériane évoque des images de conflits ethno-régionaux suivis d'une tension ethnique latente. Toutefois, les perspectives politiques sur l'héritage du Biafra ont tendance à se dissimuler dans les effets économiques plus intégratifs et constructifs de la guerre civile et ses séquelles. Si la guerre civile nigériane a anéanti les activités économiques igbo à travers le Nigéria et a Chap 3 Meagher.pmd