New Online Histories from Memorial Portrait Photographs of Nigerian Nationalists Posted on Social Media

Social media photographs are powerful tools for articulating various forms of identities and selfhood. However, literature on African photography has paid little attention to a specific genre of social media images: memorial photographs. In this article, I examine how memorial portrait photos of Nigeria's nationalists shared on three Nigerian Facebook pages ("Nigeria Nostalgia Project 1960-1980," "Tudun Tsira," and "Asiri") generate massive online responses that challenge official histories and identities of Nigeria. I analyzed 500 comments and interviewed 150 commenters over three years. I found that first, the photos revealed users' disaffection with Nigeria's flag independence when contrasted with current political events; secondly, the photos elicit subtle feelings of nostalgia that problematized the concept of Nigeria's unity; thirdly, commenters' identification with each nationalist as one of their ethnic heroes never undermined a collective verdict that all the nationalists are national heroes; and lastly, many comments linked sartorial choices to ethnic politics. I argue that these photos produce a new online history that challenges official visual narratives disseminated through government archives.