In early June 2021, Nigeria came to international attention when it banned Twitter.
The move came after the platform deleted a tweet from the country's president
that referred to the Biafra War in the 1960s and suggested the government would
again resort to force to crack down on resurgent separatist sentiment.
So, what exactly is the Biafran independence movement?
And why is Nigeria increasingly nervous about it
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Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and here I take an
informed look at international relations, conflict and the origins of countries.
What happens when an attempted secession is defeated?
In some cases, the territory is reincorporated and the country
forges a new path with little or no further talk of separatism.
However, in some instances, while the effort to break away is quashed,
resentment may linger and the campaign eventually resurfaces, perhaps even several decades later.
One of the most interesting and potentially important examples of a
resurgent secessionist movement is the Biafran independence campaign in southeast Nigeria.
In the late 1960s, the country fought one of the bloodiest civil wars
in modern history to quell the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra.
Over the course of two and a half years, millions of lives were lost
before the breakaway territory was defeated and re-incorporated into the federation.
And yet, over 50 years on from those events, pro-independence sentiment
is again rising and increasingly poses a risk of a return to serious conflict.
So, what's behind the current Biafra independence movement?
And just how much of a challenge does it really pose?
Nigeria lies in West Africa.
With around 200 million inhabitants, it's the continent's most populous country.
While it includes numerous ethnic groups, the most significant of the predominantly
muslim Hausa and Fulani in the north, the Christian and Muslim Yoruba in the southwest,
and a predominantly christian Igbo, based in the south east.
I've covered much of the background to Biafra and the Biafran War in another
video and so I won't go into a lot of detail about it here.
I have put a link above and in the description below.
However, by way of introduction, the story starts with British colonisation in the 19th century.
Initially divided into two distinct colonies - the Muslim-dominated Northern Nigerian Protectorate
and the predominantly Christian Southern Nigerian Protectorate - the two were merged in 1914.
In 1954, the country was formally constituted as a federation made up of three regions roughly
aligned with the main ethnic groups: the Hausa-Fulani dominated Northern Region,
Yoruba-dominated Western Region, and the Igbo-dominated Eastern Region.
Four years later, in 1960, Nigeria officially became independent.
However, tensions soon emerged.
Following disputed elections, a military coup was launched by southern officers in January 1966
that resulted in the assassination of many of the country's leading political figures,
including the popular premier of the Northern Region.
As thousands of ethnic Igbo living in the north were murdered in reprisal attacks,
over a million others fled south to the safety of
the Eastern Region - in turn prompting calls for the territory to break away.
Although a deal on a looser federal arrangement was supposedly reached between Eastern leadership
and the federal government in early 1967, the federal government soon appeared to renege on
the deal by announcing a plan to divide the country's three regions into 12 new parts.
Seen as an obvious attempt to undermine the East, the region's leader, Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu,
declared independence on 30 May 1967.
Just under six weeks later, the government launched a full-scale
invasion to put down the secession.
The ensuing war - known as the Biafran War
or the Nigerian Civil War - would become a humanitarian catastrophe.
As well as those killed in the fighting, it's estimated that between
one and three million people died of hunger as supplies to the breakaway region were cut off.
By January 1970, the Nigerian government - supported by key international allies
including Britain and the Soviet Union - had defeated the last pockets of resistance.
On 15 January 1970, the Republic of Biafra ceased to exist.
In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, the Federal Government called for national unity.
In a famous speech, the country's leader, General Yakubu Gowon,
insisted that there were "no victors and no vanquished".
This led to a policy centred on the so-called "Three R's":
reintegration, reconciliation and reconstruction.
Meanwhile, the scale of the defeat and the traumatic memories of war,
seemed to ensure that Igbo independence sentiment was kept in check.
However, by the late 1990s this was all starting to change.
In part, it was down to the passage of time.
As memories faded, new generations had emerged with no direct experience of the conflict.
But it also had deeper roots.
Many felt that despite the government's official "Three R's" policy,
the Igbo continued to face hostility and discrimination.
Despite being one of the three main groups in the country,
they were systematically shut out of key jobs, including the highest political offices.
Moreover, many argued that the government had deliberately neglected economic development in the
region, with lower levels of federal funding than other regions and few infrastructure projects.
Another issue was the emergence of conflict in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.
Although the Delta - most of which fell within the territory claimed
by Biafra - had become the largest oil producing region in Sub-Saharan Africa,
little of the resulting revenue fed through to local communities.
At the same time, they experienced huge environmental damage.
It was this sense of general marginalisation, coupled with the exploitation and repression
in the Delta, that appeared to kickstart the revival of the Biafran independence movement.
In 1999, the Movement for the Actualization of the
Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was established to lead efforts to break awa.
In the years that followed, a number of
other groups would also emerge; some of them offshoots of MASSOB.
The most significant of these was the Indigenous People of Biafra - IPOB.
Founded in 2012 by Nnamdi Kanu, a charismatic figure based in Britain, his media outlet,
Radio Biafra, has now become a leading voice for the Biafran independence movement.
From the start, the Nigerian Government cracked down on neo-Biafran sentiment.
As well as frequent clashes with pro-independent supporters, in 2005
MASSOB membership was outlawed, and in 2007 its leader Ralph Uwazuruike was arrested.
However, the start of the current tensions can be traced back to a
couple of key developments that occurred in 2015.
The first of these was the election of a new nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari.
A former general and military ruler hailing from the Muslim North,
he barely hid his intention to focus on the areas that had supported him.
And he also made it clear that he would come down hard on the country's growing number of
insurgencies and separatist movements, including pro-Biafran organisations.
The second key factor was the arrest of the IPOB leader,
Nnamdi Kanu, during a trip to Nigeria in October 2015.
Facing charges of sedition and treason, which carries the death penalty in Nigeria,
his supporters took to the streets in a series of protests.
These eventually erupted into violence and harsh repression by government forces,
including what Amnesty International termed the deliberate use of deadly force.
Although Kanu was eventually released on bail, in April 2017, and has left Nigeria,
this all strengthened IPOB's standing.
Later that year, it was officially designated a terrorist organisation by the Nigerian Government;
although Kanu insisted that it was dedicated to using peaceful means to secure its primary goal
of a referendum on Biafran independence.
Since then, tensions in the southeast have been driven by yet another crisis:
the so-called Herder-Farmer Conflict, or Herder War.
As climate change has led to greater desertification in the north,
so Muslim Fulani cattle herders have increasingly pressed south into lands held by settled farmers.
This has led to the deaths of over 10,000 people,
and has seen many tens of thousands more displaced.
As the herders encroached on Igbo territory,
President Buhari - himself a Fulani - has been accused of not doing enough to stop the attacks.
Following a series of deadly clashes towards the end of 2020,
IPOB announced the establishment of an armed wing, the Eastern Security Network.
Although it insists it was done to fend off herder attacks,
it's led to further violence with government forces.
It was this rising violence that sparked the offending tweet by President Buhari
that was later removed and led to Nigeria's decision to ban twitter.
So, where does the independence movement now stand?
Quite apart from the fierce opposition it faces from the Federal Government,
it also appears to face a number of internal challenges.
As is so often the case with independence movements,
opinion is divided within the Igbo community.
Aside from the apparent differences of approach between MASSOB and the
now more dominant IPOB, there are other divisions at play.
Most notably, while the independence movement seemingly enjoys growing
support amongst disaffected youth, the Igbo establishment,
especially older members who still remember the war, seem to be far more cautious about,
if not wholly opposed to, independence and the secessionist movements.
Then there are also practical issues.
It's unclear what the boundaries of a Biafran state would be.
While some supporters call for the inclusion of all areas claimed by the Biafran state in the
1960s, others want to focus on a core group of Igbo-dominated states in the southeast.
This is important as independence is opposed by many non-iIbo
who would want to remain a part of Nigeria.
However, focusing solely on these smaller areas
would leave any Biafran state as a landlocked enclave within Nigeria.
It would also leave out most of the key oil producing areas.
But in many ways this is a debate for a later stage.
At the moment, there seems to be little immediate likelihood that the government
will bow to demands for a referendum on independence, let alone permit secession.
Instead, and facing growing separatist challenges elsewhere in the country,
it seems determined to continue its efforts to crack down on Biafran independence sentiment.
Meanwhile, there are also growing fears that IPOB's new militancy
could lead to an increasingly violent new phase in the independence campaign.
The end of a secessionist conflict does not always mean the end of a secessionist movement.
The case of biafra is an important example.
50 years after one of the most brutal separatist conflicts of modern times,
the movement for an independent Biafra is once again gaining ground.
Stoked by a deep sense of marginalization and government neglect,
and feeding off internal tensions between the Muslim North and Christian South,
that's now been exacerbated by a conflict seemingly fed
by climate change, there's a real sense that the tensions in Biafra will continue to rise.
The key question is how the Nigerian Government will now respond.
While one gets the sense that there are many concrete steps
that could still be taken to address the situation,
the recent threats made by the president - threats that were deemed sufficiently serious by Twitter
to be removed - certainly raise the prospect that the government is not planning to back down
and that we could well be on the verge of seeing a return to serious violence in southeast Nigeria.
While a new Biafran War seems unlikely, a major new Biafran conflict is certainly possible.
I hope you found that useful. If so, here are some more videos that you might find interesting.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.