‘Forward Petitions to NEWA for Whatever Guidance and Assistance, if any’: Post-War Demobilisation Conundrum in Nigeria, 1946–1951

Abstract

In this article, the Nigerian Ex-Servicemen’s Welfare Association is critically examined as an institutional mechanism Britain deployed to gauge and regulate the reintegration of Nigerian ex-servicemen into civilian life. It draws on Nigerian archival sources to establish that the demobilisation instrument, wartime recruitment promises and the skills ex-servicemen acquired during their military service had raised their hopes of gainful, post-war resettlement. However, the Nigerian Ex-Servicemen’s Welfare Association, formed in 1946 by the government and led by British military personnel, became a buffer between ex-servicemen and the government and part of the regulatory officialdom that hampered the processing of the veterans’ petitions.