Much of history happens in headlines.

Oil is discovered in Oloibiri. Coup succeeds. Coup fails. Naira replaces the pound sterling. Gowon is overthrown. Fela is jailed. SAP is introduced. June 12 is annulled. Ogoni Nine are executed.

But what often slips through the cracks of history are the forgotten everyday responses that reveal just how far the shockwaves of headline events travelled.

Like Dele Giwa’s death in 1986. For many who know the story, the headline is familiar: Nigeria’s first letter bomb. What’s less commonly recalled is how the country reacted. For weeks, packages were treated with suspicion in banking halls, offices, and at wedding receptions. Dispatch riders faced new hostility. Security guards and secretaries became cannon fodder to their bosses.

The November 1986 Newswatch story about the aftermath of Giwa’s death is the kind of detail that gets lost in the shadow of headline events, but it matters because it helps us understand how people lived through these incidents.

That’s the spirit behind Archivi.ng’s work: to trace the quieter parts of history and build out the fuller story.

What Happened in July 2025

Videos are taking over

• Last month, an episode of Previously in Nigeria, a video series we launched in March, became the first to cross 2,000 likes on Instagram. The story, about the first Miss Nigeria, has been watched nearly 30,000 times and shared by more than 400 people. A small but clear milestone for the series, and a sign that this kind of archival storytelling is finding its audience.
• Mariam leads the work on the series, exploring stories like how Nigeria ended up with 36 states, the rise and fall of Nigeria Airways, the forgotten era of coins, and one memorable failed coup in 1990.
• Another notable July episode was a closer look at War Against Indiscipline (WAI), the controversial 1984 initiative introduced by Muhammadu Buhari, the former head of state who died the same month.
• We’re thinking about new ways to explore Nigerian history using engaging videos. In July, we launched Surviving Old Nigeria, a series that offers a gritty, sometimes chaotic look at how people hustled for their daily bread at different points in Nigerian history. It’s human-centred, emotional, and occasionally funny. You can watch the first and the second episodes to see what I mean.
• We also published a new story in the fourth issue of The Archivist, our quarterly publication. Muhammed spoke with Nneka Benjamin, a witness of the Nigerian Civil War who was only 12 when the first shots were fired in 1967. Her account offers a more personal view of how Radio Biafra shaped the war experience for civilians at a time when everything around them was falling apart.
• We partnered with Enchanted Concerts to spotlight Evi Edna-Ogholi and Alex Zitto, two reggae stars who ruled Nigerian airwaves in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In September, jazz orchestras in Lagos, Toronto, Calgary and Saskatoon will bring their music back to life, alongside classics from Victor Olaiya, Victor Uwaifo, Osita Osadebe and Bobby Benson, in a celebration of Nigeria’s musical greats.

40,000 new pages coming your way

• In July, our digitisation efforts centred on organising and documenting materials related to the Nigerian Civil War, alongside files from our collaboration with Free Knowledge Africa (FKA).
• These files add roughly 40,000 pages to our holdings. The process of sorting, renaming, and preparing them for integration is still ongoing.
• The sorting process meant we stepped back slightly from scanning, prioritising backlog management instead. 
• That said, scanning didn’t stop. Kehinde and Boyega digitised over 7,000 new pages from TELL and African Concord, further expanding our coverage of Nigeria’s print media history to nearly 200,000 pages.

What’s Next: August 2025

For the first time, we are opening our physical doors fully to the public. You’ll be able to step into the heart of our work, meet the team behind it, and see how your support is helping to reshape how memory is made accessible.

It feels like a turning point. A chance to connect, contribute, and shape what comes next. We will need your presence, your questions, and your help to keep building. More details in the next dispatch.

See you on September 1.