As Biafra anniversary looms, so do concerns, hopes

NIGERIA tomorrow will mark 50 years since the declaration of an independent Republic of Biafra plunged the country into a civil war, amid renewed tensions and fresh calls for a separate state.

The main pro-independence groups – the Indigenous People of Biafra, and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra – have called for a day of reflection.

People in the southeast have been urged to stay at home to commemorate the secession, which happened on May 30 1967.

But many fear an eruption of violence and Nigeria’s security forces have said they are on red alert in hotspots in the former republic, such as Aba and Onitsha, where protests last year turned bloody.

In 1970, after nearly three years of fighting, Biafran soldiers who were under equipped and outnumbered 10 to one by federal troops, laid down their arms.

The conflict caused an estimated million deaths, many of them caused by starvation after the secessionist region was blockaded.

With surrender went their dreams of a separate state for the Igbo people, who are the majority in the southeast.

Half a century later, Biafra remains an extremely sensitive subject in Nigeria.

“Nigeria did nothing for us since the end of the war. We have no roads, no infrastructures, no jobs. It’s time to achieve what our fathers started,” John Ahaneku, 48, said.

Igbo frustrations have grown over the decades.

During the long years of military government after the end of the war, they felt excluded from economic and political power. Both have been dominated by the two other main ethnic groups in the country.

But it was only after the return to democracy in 1999 that secessionist aspirations began to resurface.

The current main pro-independence groups want a referendum on self-determination. They accuse the former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari – a northern Muslim who was elected civilian president in 2015 – of violently repressing their freedom of expression. — AFP