Nearly 60 years after Nigeria’s civil war started, the war’s legacy still holds Nigeria hostage. The memory of the war between Nigeria and its breakaway south-eastern region which called itself Biafra, is simultaneously a cause for national disunity and national unity. Yet there is no agreement on what caused the war. Although the war started in 1967, most are not aware that the long road to war started 14 years earlier.

In this episode (the first of two episodes about the Nigerian civil war), social historian and filmmaker Ed Keazor joined me to discuss the long term causes of the war that have been overlooked for several decades.

The Oyo Empire was the most famous and powerful of the Yoruba kingdoms in West Africa. The Oyo Empire’s history is box office! It had regicide, revolutions, intrigue, ancestral curses, a scheming court official that engineered the death of four kings he worked for, and back stabbing that Game of Thrones would be proud of! Aside from its high stakes, cut throat drama, Oyo also had one of the most sophisticated government systems of any pre-colonial African state. It had a separation of powers, checks and balances between the different branches of its government, and appointed foreign ambassadors nicknamed “the king’s eyes” to keep watch over conquered foreign vassal states and its provinces.

In this episode, writer and Oyo Empire expert Tunde Leye (author of two books about the Oyo Empire: "Afonja The Rise" and "Afonja The Fall") joins me to discuss the Oyo Empire’s spectacular rise and fall.

The Benin Kingdom (in modern-day Nigeria) was one of West Africa’s most sophisticated and powerful states. Its government had inter-continental diplomatic relations with European countries, a powerful military, and a brilliant guild of artists who made the "Benin Bronze" sculptures that were so technically brilliant that an astonished curator at the British Museum said: "there is absolutely nothing like them in any other part of the world".

The sculptures were actually a side show in a wider cat and mouse game between the British colonial officer James Phillips and the King of Benin. Phillips insisted on visiting Benin (despite Benin's king repeatedly telling him that he was not welcome). When Phillips ignored the King of Benin's objections and travelled to Benin in January 1897 with a group of British military officers, Benin's people interpreted his visit as an invasion. Phillips triggered consequences far beyond the wildest imagination of himself, the British government, and the King of Benin. Find out how British history and African history intertwined.