The Biafran war ended in 1970, but for many Nigerians, it never really stopped. It is whispered at funerals, hinted at in the silences between generations. Now, a Grammy-winning music video director, Michael Orabiyi, is turning his lens onto the conflict that claimed his grandfather. The question is: can he find a story that was deliberately erased?
Orabiyi, whose visual work has shaped the global sound of Afrobeats, is not known for quiet retrospectives. He is a man of movement and colour. But his latest project, a documentary tentatively titled 'The Missing Peace', is a personal excavation. His grandfather, a former soldier in the Biafran army, refused to speak about the war for decades. He died leaving only fragments: a photograph, a medal, a name of a town that no longer exists on any map.
This is not merely a family history. Orabiyi’s search is part of a wider cultural shift. A generation of Nigerians in the diaspora, raised on stories of resilience but starved of detail, are demanding to know what happened. The war, which killed up to three million people mostly from starvation, was a taboo subject for years. The government of the time suppressed any attempt at remembrance. Even now, there is no official memorial in Nigeria.
Orabiyi’s approach is distinctly modern. He is using social media to crowd source footage and testimony from survivors and their families. ‘I want to find the human cost,’ he said in a recent interview. ‘Not the generals, not the politics. The people who carried the rice, the women who hid the children.’ His Grammy wins have given him a platform. He is using it not for clout, but for accountability.
It is a delicate task. Memory in post-war societies is never neutral. There are accusations of bias, of reviving old wounds. The Nigerian government, under pressure from separatist groups in the southeast, has been wary of any cultural production that might rekindle Biafran sentiment. Orabiyi insists his film is about reconciliation, not division. ‘I am not trying to win a war. I am trying to understand why my grandfather had to bury his past.’
But the social psychology here is complex. The need to know collides with the need to forget. For Orabiyi, the search is also about identity. He was born in London, raised between two cultures. ‘I am Nigerian, but I carry the shadow of a war I never saw. That is the inheritance of the diaspora.’ His work reflects a broader trend among second- and third-generation immigrants: the quest to fill the gaps left by parents who only told half stories.
On the ground in Nigeria, the reception is mixed. Some see it as a valuable act of remembrance. Others worry that media attention will deepen ethnic divisions. Orabiyi is undeterred. He has spent two years tracking down former soldiers, reading declassified British documents, and learning Igbo. The result, he hopes, will be something more than a documentary. It will be a key to a locked room.
The film is still in production, but the journey has already changed him. ‘I used to think my grandfather was ashamed,’ he says. ‘Now I think he was protecting a truth too heavy for one man to carry.’ If Orabiyi succeeds, he will not only honour his grandfather. He will give a generation permission to speak.
