Beyond Anonymity: Nigerian Participation in World War One Commemoration: 1919-1939

Great War commemoration in West Africa remains poorly understood, and the role of Africans within it has rarely been examined by historians. During the 1920s and 1930s, a series of military and civilian monuments were erected in Nigeria, culminating in the Idumota Cenotaph in Lagos. This article argues that Africans played a significant role in war commemoration, while making their own appropriations and critiques of commemorative discourse. To demonstrate this, it situates itself in relation to the historiography of ceremony in colonial West Africa, as well as an emerging body of research on African forms of remembrance in the early twentieth century. It contends that in order to fully understand African commemoration activities we must move beyond civilian and military sources, and also consider evidence from the West African press and popular culture. Drawing on Nigerian newspapers and cultural sources, as well as the files of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the article demonstrates that for specific groups of Africans, including traditional elites, colonial nationalists, and veterans, Great War commemoration not only constituted an important ceremonial culture, but also a discursive repertoire for related claim-making. By delineating African participation within World War commemoration, this article challenges too great a reliance on European actors and accounts in the historiography of war remembrance in West Africa.