FORGOTTEN VETERANS OF THE FORGOTTEN ARMY: THE STATUS OF NORTHERN NIGERIAN EX-SERVICEMEN AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Abstract

In the African Military historiography, the place of ex-servicemen has largely been neglected for quite some time. This might not be far from the fact that after the Second World War, the British colonial government and the military authorities did not accord these veterans their proper place in post-war society. This paper uses both primary and secondary materials to explore the vestiges of the colonial ingratitude to the people that sacrificed their youthful valor and defended the British colonial empire from imminent collapse in the hands of Imperial Japan and Italian Fascists in Southeast Asia and East Africa respectively. The paper maintains that Northern Nigerian troops in particular and the Royal West African Frontier Force (WAFF) in general had played a vital role in the survival of the British Empire in East Africa and the Far East, but when the war ended they were not rewarded as appropriate. This led to the general neglect and suffering of these veterans in the colonial and post-colonial periods because the majority of them were not appropriately demobilized and reintegrated into their societies by both the colonial government and the post-colonial Nigerian regimes.