Can Igbo nationalism resurrect a Biafran state?

The attempt by Igbo nationalists to secede from Nigeria and create a separate state of Biafra ended on Jan. 30, 1970. It is barely remembered by most people outside Africa.

Yet it was a vicious and bloody war, that dragged on for almost three years, killed some two million people, and inflicted massive destruction of property and the environment.

Nigeria attained independence from Britain in 1960 as a Federation of three regions (East, North and West).

In the North, a Muslim HausaFulani elite controlled the politics of the region. In the West, Yoruba interests predominated. In the East, the largely Christian Igbo were the dominant group. Though there were hundreds of smaller ethnic peoples in Nigeria, the politics of the country involved a struggle between the elites of these three largest nationalities for the control of power at the centre. Post-independence politics was characterised by suspicion, fear and domination. The period from 1960–1966 saw increasingly violent struggles by region-based elites, each endeavouring to maintain or attain political dominance.

The background to the secessionist revolt by the Igbo can be traced to the aftermath of the January 1966 coup, led by Igbo officers.

It resulted in a counter-coup in July 1966, which restored Northern control of the federation under the leadership of Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon. A massacre of thousands of Igbos and other Easterners living in the North followed two months later.

Much of the Igbo intelligentsia and political class, under the leadership of Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu now became committed to the secession of the Eastern region from the Federation. The declaration of independence of Biafra on May 30, 1967 led to the war.

Political developments in Nigeria since the end of the civil war continue to polarise the country, with the South constantly accusing the North of political domination.

As for the Igbo, it has paved the way for the resurgence of a secessionist agenda by various groups. The emergence in 1999 of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), led by Chief Ralph Nwazuruike, was due to the persistence of bitter memories of the civil war, lack of security of Igbo lives and properties, and perceived marginalisation of the Igbo in the distribution of national power and economic resources. MASSOB advocates the disintegration of the federation and periodically engages the Nigerian security agencies in battles. The Nigerian government responded through clampdowns and detentions.

In 2005, it pronounced MASSOB an extremist group, arrested several of its members, and jailed Uwazuruike on treason charges. He was released in 2007.

That year, MASSOB re-introduced the old Biafran currency into circulation, and two years later launched the “Biafran International Passport.”

In 2011, Uwazuruike and 280 MASSOB members were arrested while attending a function in honour of Ojukwu. There were further arrests, and shootings, of members in 2015, in various locations, as MOSSAB members were marking their 16th anniversary.

With the 2015 election victory of Muhammadu Buhari, a Northern Fulani Muslim, secessionist threats and violence have increased.

As a military officer, Buhari had participated in the civil war of 1967–1970. As a result, he is regarded as having the blood of Igbo people on his hands. Between August 2015 and August 2016, Nigeria’s military killed at least 150 pro-Biafran protesters, according to Amnesty International, warning the actual numbers killed could be much higher.

This past May, Nigerian police arrested 47 members of MASSOB and the allied Biafra Independence Movement (BIM) in Abia. Uwazuruike was sentenced to one month in prison. Another separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), emerged in 2012. Its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is facing treason charges. He also runs the London-based Radio Biafra.

The nationalists have not provided a clear delineation of the geographical boundaries of the proposed state of Biafra. At times, Biafra is portrayed as being within the five traditional states populated by the Igbo -- Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

Others want to include all Igbospeaking areas in Nigeria; Igbos comprise more than 30 per cent of the population in Rivers and Delta states. Yet others extend it to include all the territories within the former Eastern Region.

Even Igbo leaders who do not believe in the policies of the separatists say they have succeeded in drawing attention to the continued marginalisation of the Igbo people by Nigeria.