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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Wartime propaganda, devious officialdom, and the challenge of nationalism during the Second World War in Nigeria |
Author: | Mordi, Emmanuel Nwafor |
Year: | 2009 |
Periodical: | Nordic Journal of African Studies (ISSN 1459-9465) |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 3 |
Pages: | 235-257 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Nigeria Great Britain |
Subjects: | propaganda nationalism World War II colonialism |
External link: | https://njas.fi/njas/article/view/220/208 |
Abstract: | War propaganda during the Second World War in colonial Nigeria, preceded by local protestations of loyalty and support of Britain, was inappropriately focused, discredited as lies, and unable either to stem the movement towards self-government or to sustain Nigerians' acceptance of the colonial State as a viable framework for the achievement of an enduring welfare and political freedom. Relying on archival sources previously ignored by scholars, this paper challenges the conventional wisdom that war propaganda in Africa profoundly affected the elite, who appropriated British propaganda as a weapon to undermine the colonial State. It argues that the effect of war propaganda was practically nil, eclipsed by a surging nationalism purveyed by the nationalist press, whose 'subversive propaganda' the State frantically sought to counter in the postwar period. In short, at the end of the war, the colonial regime abandoned this failed propaganda strategy in search of a robust no-bones-about-it abrasive propaganda approach. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract] |