QFest @10: Obasanjo, Civil War Memory & Nigeria’s Unfinished Conversation
A Festival Turns Back to a Difficult Past
WHEN the Quramo Festival of Words opens its 10th edition in Lagos, it will do more than celebrate books, writers and storytelling.
The festival will return to one of Nigeria’s most difficult historical subjects: the Nigerian Civil War.
Scheduled from 1st to 3rd October 2026, at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, the festival will bring writers, historians, publishers, cultural practitioners and public figures together under the theme, “Pieces of Us.”
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo will headline the opening conversations. He is expected to deliver the keynote and participate in a fireside discussion with former Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Olasupo Shasore.
The choice of Obasanjo gives the conversation a particular historical dimension.
As a military officer and commander during the war, he was directly involved in the conflict. He later documented his experiences in My Command, one of the books through which his account of the war entered Nigeria’s historical and literary record.
QFest organisers intend to use that experience as a starting point for a wider discussion about history, identity and nation-building.
“When Brothers Fight”
Obasanjo’s conversation will focus on “When Brothers Fight – Civil War (1967–1970): History, Identity & Nation Building.”
The subject is significant because the festival is revisiting the Civil War for the second consecutive year. The 2025 edition also placed the conflict at the centre of its programme.
For festival convener Gbemi Shasore, the repeated conversations reflect a belief that Nigeria has not exhausted the difficult questions surrounding the war.
The organisers argue that silence cannot substitute for historical engagement, particularly when memories of the conflict continue to shape how different communities understand the Nigerian project.
That approach places literature and cultural dialogue in a role that goes beyond entertainment.
Books can preserve individual memories. Public conversations can bring competing experiences into the same space. Historical discussion can also expose how national narratives are constructed, remembered and sometimes contested.
From History to Reconciliation
The festival’s Civil War programme will continue after Obasanjo’s fireside conversation.
A panel titled “The Nigerian Crisis (1967–1970): An Honest Path to Resolution and National Reconciliation” will feature Deji Olatoye, C. Don Adinuba, Richard Mammah and Kadaria Ahmed, with Nze Ed Emeka Keazor as moderator.
Another session, “The Nigerian Civil War: A Dialogue on Justice, Reconciliation and Healing,” will bring Chief Chuck Nduka-Eze into conversation with Ibrahim James Pam.
Together, the sessions will examine the conflict through several lenses.
History will sit alongside justice. Identity will meet reconciliation. Memory will confront the question of healing.
That combination reflects the festival’s broader attempt to move the conversation beyond simply recalling what happened between 1967 and 1970.
Literature as a Record of Memory
The choice of a literary festival as a venue for such discussions is also significant.
Nigeria’s Civil War has generated memoirs, novels, poems, historical studies, films and personal testimonies. Each form can preserve a different dimension of the conflict.
Obasanjo’s My Command, for instance, provides a military perspective. Other writers and historians have approached the war through civilian experiences, regional memory, displacement, hunger, loss and the political circumstances that produced the conflict.
Consequently, a literary festival can create space for perspectives that formal political narratives may not always capture.
QFest’s programme suggests that storytelling will remain central to that effort.
Beyond the War
The 10th edition will not focus exclusively on the Civil War.
Day Two will feature the Quramo Writers Prize, workshops and masterclasses, alongside a discussion on African reading culture and the development of a stronger literary ecosystem.
The programme will also examine the African storyteller, publishing, writing and storytelling as a means of cultural preservation.
That shift broadens the festival’s central question.
If stories help societies remember, then they also influence what future generations inherit.
The Question of Stolen Heritage
Another major conversation will focus on the restitution of African artefacts.
Inspired by Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes, the session “Loot, Restitution and African Heritage” will examine the return of stolen African artefacts. Participants will include Barnaby Phillips, National Commission for Museums and Monuments Director-General Olugbile Holloway and Centre for Black Art and African Civilisation Director-General Aisha Adamu Augie.
The subject connects naturally with the festival’s larger concern with memory.
Just as societies debate how to remember wars, they also debate who has the right to preserve, interpret and possess cultural objects taken from them.
In both cases, history becomes a question of ownership, identity and representation.
A Changing Literary Ecosystem
QFest will also turn its attention to contemporary reading and publishing.
A session titled “Scroll. Click. Read: Digital Publishing, Changing Reading Habits and the Future of Storytelling” will examine how technology is changing the relationship between writers and readers.
That conversation matters in an industry where digital platforms increasingly influence how stories are produced, distributed and consumed.
At the same time, the festival will retain its focus on books and authors through readings and book conversations.
Vamba Sherif, for example, will read from Land of My Fathers and The Emperor’s Son.
Ten Years of Building a Literary Platform
The 2026 festival marks QFest’s 10th edition after nine previous editions. Its programme has consistently combined literature with wider conversations about culture, history and society. Quramo’s own festival archive documents previous editions and related literary activities.
The festival will close with the launch of two novels by recent Quramo Writers Prize winners: The Inheritance of Days by Hubaidat Ishola and What Dreams Are Made Of by Chiziterem Chijoke.
Therefore, the anniversary is not simply a celebration of longevity.
It is also an opportunity to ask what a literary festival can contribute to a society still negotiating its history.
The Conversation Beyond the Festival
QFest cannot, by itself, resolve the historical disagreements surrounding the Civil War.
Nor can a festival conversation replace historical research, public policy or broader national dialogue.
It can, however, create a space where difficult subjects receive sustained attention.
That may be the deeper significance of “Pieces of Us.”
The phrase suggests fragmentation, but also possibility. Individual memories, regional experiences, books, archives and cultural expressions can exist as separate pieces while still forming part of one national story.
As Obasanjo and other speakers return to the years of war, the larger question will therefore extend beyond what happened between 1967 and 1970.
It will ask how Nigeria remembers, what it chooses to discuss, whose experiences enter the national narrative and whether storytelling can help a divided society understand the pieces from which its shared history was built.
