Surviving Biafra: The War We Still Don’t Talk About

Nigeria’s Civil War is one of the most consequential chapters in the country’s history. But for many of us, what we know about it comes in fragments: something our parents mentioned, a story from a grandparent, a history lesson that never quite explained the human cost.

In this episode, we sit down with filmmakers Meji and Leke Alabi-Isama to talk about Surviving Biafra, their documentary that brings those human stories to the forefront through testimonies from people who lived through the war, including soldiers and civilians.

We talk about what it takes to tell a story this complicated, the role of family histories and oral storytelling, and what happens when filmmakers start digging into archives that have been sitting untouched for decades.

We also get into the BBC archives, the challenge of navigating wartime footage and bias, and why preserving these stories matters as the generation that lived through the war gets older.