This month marks sixty years since the Nigerian Civil War officially ended, with Yakubu Gowon’s declaration of “No victor, no vanquished.” An optimistic attempt to mend a broken nation, but the reality that followed was far more complicated.

When the fighting stopped, rebuilding was deeply personal for those who lived through the war. A young girl in Enugu carried a stool from her home to school because classrooms had no furniture left. A young man returned to Lagos without an arm, a livelihood, or his family. A Nigerian soldier was locked up in a military hospital in Owerri, receiving treatment for a mind broken by what he had seen and done.

Archivi.ng exists to preserve these overlooked human records, helping them find their way back into view, so that we can feel, remember and learn from the past.

Every story we share for you to read, every page we digitise for you to explore, and every discovery we make together is part of how we help rebuild Nigerian memory and understanding.

Funding this work ensures that it continues and that more of Nigerian history remains alive and discoverable for everyone now and in the future.

This is why you should become a member.

What Happened in January 2026

Our archive brought 6,000 new followers to history

• Across Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube, we gained 6,000 new followers. Not a bad way to begin the year. Our stories were viewed nearly five million times, drawing more than 230,000 interactions along the way.
• What drew people in were old stories, resurfacing. A 1976 DRUM report about a Nigerian journalist spying for the CIA. A 1997 P.M. News story on fraudsters who operated a fake CBN office across the road from the real one. A 1991 Vintage People report about a politician who ran into a burning building to save 14 children.
• We also tried something new. We began sharing the words of Nigerians from earlier eras, speaking plainly about the things they worried about and argued over. Tribalism. Elections. Corruption. Music taste. Morality. Money. Power. Reading them now, it’s hard not to notice how familiar those conversations still feel. We publish these quotes across all our social platforms at 5 pm every Friday.
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The scanning ministry is moving

• This month, technical delays slowed down our scanning work, so there isn’t much progress to report.
• But the pause gave us a chance to take stock of what we’ve done so far. Over 230,000 pages of old newspapers and magazines have been digitised. Not all of them are online yet, but they will be soon.
• The last publication we uploaded was The Republic in December. In the newspaper, we found this remarkable court case about Olusegun Obasanjo ordering the assault of a “rude” police officer.

What’s Next: February 2025

We’re exploring new corners of history with this year’s first issue of The Archivist. The issue feels a little more grounded than usual and touches on questions that are still very much part of how Nigerians live today.

I’ll be writing my first Archivist story in a long time, and I’m excited for all the regular people from Nigerian history you’ll meet along the way, in all their complexity.

I won’t get ahead of myself and reveal the theme just yet, but to prepare, you might want to listen to the Ordinary Nigerians in History podcast by Samuel Ishola, produced for The Archivi.ng Fellowship last year.

See you on February 27.