Mr Nicholas Gadimoh

University of Southern Mississippi

Bio

Nicholas Enero Gadimoh is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Southern Mississippi and a Teaching Assistant at the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society. He previously served as a Research Assistant in the Department of History and War Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, where he conducted research on the Nigerian Civil War. His research focuses on African military history, particularly the Nigerian Civil War.

Expanding the Battlefield: Cross-Boundary Military Operations in the Nigerian Civil War

Abstract

This paper examines Biafra's cross-boundary military operations against Nigeria during the Civil War, 1967–1970. Drawing on archival documents, oral history interviews, and contemporaneous press sources, it reconstructs five kinetic categories of attack: naval sabotage, urban bombings, aerial bombardment, ground invasion, and guerrilla raids on oil infrastructure. The paper argues these operations reflected deliberate strategy and tactics, yet accelerated federal mobilization, undermined Biafra's international legitimacy, and helped determine the war's outcome.