Reluctant Nationalists: World War II Veterans and Postwar Nationalism in Nigeria, 1945–1960.

The deliberate efforts of Nigerian World War II veterans to advance their material interests amid the wave of radical anticolonial nationalism helped them to mediate colonial rule in Nigeria. Most literature on World War II and nationalism in Nigeria portrays veterans as objects of nationalist mobilization. Drawing on colonial records and newspapers from archives in Nigeria and the United States, this paper argues that Nigerian veterans were far more interested in their social and material interests than being objects of radical anticolonial nationalist mobilization in postwar Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]