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ABSTRACT
Drawing on Biafra as the most critical project in Igbo nationalism in Nigeria, this article examines the interpretations and appropriations of the Nigeria-Biafra War. It focuses on the meaning and significance of the war, and how contemporary neo-Biafran movements have appropriated and transformed the Biafran project into a basis for political action in their bid to resuscitate Igbo ambitions for self-determination. The article expatiates on the deployment of Biafra as a symbolic marker that captures the realization of an authentic Igbo national spirit, the ultimate act of Igbo self-determination and quest for nationhood in the Nigerian state.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Godwin Onuoha serves as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he teaches courses in politics and culture, and Sub-Saharan Africa politics. He was previously the African Humanities Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Princeton University, and an African Research Fellow and Senior Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa. He is a political anthropologist with interdisciplinary research interests that intersects political science, history, social theory and anthropology. He is the author of Challenging the State in Africa: MASSOB and the Crisis of Self-Determination in Nigeria (Munster: LIT Verlag, 2011), and his articles have appeared in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, African Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Review of African Political Economy, and Current Sociology. He is on the editorial board of Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
Notes
1 Major-General Phillip Effiong was an Ibibio (one of the minority ethnic groups in Biafra) and Ojukwu’s second-in-command. After the fall of Owerri, Ojukwu fled and handed over power to him as the Officer Administering the Republic of Biafra.
2 During the Nigeria-Biafra war, Chinua Achebe was a Biafran envoy and was particularly close to the power structures in Biafra. Many non-Igbo believe his views on the war are biased and edges towards a sense of Igbo triumphalism in Nigeria.
3 Neo-Biafran separatist groups were partly inspired by the partial successes of other ethno-nationalist projects in the Niger Delta (Obi, Citation1997, Citation2001; Osaghae, Citation1995, Citation2001; Ukeje, Citation2001), and of the Yoruba ethnic extraction (Adebanwi, Citation2005; Ukeje & Adebanwi, Citation2008).
4 Christian missionary education was introduced into the Southern Protectorates of colonial Nigeria in the 1840s. It began in Lagos and Calabar, and spread to other coastal cities like Onitsha in the mid-nineteenth century. The schools were set up and operated by Christian Missionaries. In the Northern protectorates of Nigeria, which was predominantly Muslim, Christian missionary-style education was prohibited, as religious leaders did not want the missionaries interfering with Islam.
5 The Igbo state Union was launched in 1949 as a successor organization to the Igbo Federal Union formed in 1944. Its aim was to organise the Igbo linguistic group into a political unit and it inherited all the structures of the former organization. Azikiwe’s leadership and his declaration of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ of the Igbo was highly political, and this initiated suspicions from other ethnic groups in Nigeria.
6 See The Nigerian Situation: Facts and Background (Citation1966, p. 25) and Government Statistician (Citation1953–Citation1954) (both cited in Anber, Citation1967, Modernization and political disintegration: Nigeria and the Ibos).
7 These developments formed the superstructure upon institutional and structural foundations laid by British colonial policy. Shortly after the introduction of the Clifford Constitution in 1922, the British adopted a policy of ‘separate development’ the following year, which split the entire territory of Nigeria into two different administrative systems for the next twenty-five years. This enabled the British to cultivate Hausa-Fulani/Islamist identity in the North and regionalize virtually everything in order to promote mutually exclusive identities (See Diamond, Citation1988, p. 28). With the introduction of the Richards Constitution in 1946 and the creation of a new Legislative Council, both Northern and Southern Nigeria were brought together for the first time since 1923. But the three regions that emerged as the administrative and political units of Nigeria were to coincide with the spatial locations of the three major ethnic-nationalities in Nigeria (the Hausa-Fulani in the North; the Yoruba in the West; and the Igbo in the East), a policy which in practice set the stage for the regionalization of the nationalist movement into three mutually antagonistic groups, and ultimately, set the tone for the enduring structure of Nigerian politics.
8 The Hausa and the Fulani are two ethnic groups predominantly situated in the Northern part of Nigeria. Though the groups originated in different parts of West Africa, but a common religion, intermarriage and the adoption of the Hausa language by the Fulani have unified the groups over time. In contemporary Nigerian society and in the literature, they are often referred to collectively as Hausa-Fulani.
9 Apart from the conflicts among the majority ethnic groups, there are conflicts between majority and minority groups as the latter showed no confidence in the ability of the Nigerian state as presently constituted to serve and protect their interests in terms of ensuring a just and equitable access to power and resources. This was particularly witnessed in the relationship between the dominant Igbo ethnic group and minority ethnic groups in the Eastern Region before and after the Nigeria-Biafra War. See Osaghae (Citation2001).
10 It is pertinent to note that at the national level, the FMG was successful in deconstructing Biafra’s secession politically and territorially, and morally and ethically as a rebellion. The situation in Africa was not radically different. By 1969 a year to the end of hostilities, four states (Gabon, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Zambia) had recognized Biafra. But the overwhelming consensus at the official levels of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was that Article III of the organization’s charter guaranteeing the sanctity of territorial borders inherited at independence should be held sacrosanct. The provisions of the charter were implicitly and explicitly invoked by the OAU as a clear rejection of post-independence self-determination claims, the kind of which Biafra represented. At the international level, despite the fact that the conflict had metamorphosed into an international affair, the attention of the international community was much more focused on events in the Middle East (the Six-Day War), the United States preoccupation in Vietnam, and Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia. Britain, France and Portugal ended up supporting different sides in the conflict, but remarkably, the conflict became the only Cold War conflict where the two major super powers ended up supporting the same side. This ruled out any serious reflection on the conflict, let alone any action at the United Nations.
11 Based on the 1963 Population Census of Nigeria, the Eastern Region (which later became the Republic of Biafra) had a population of 12–15 million, out of which the Igbo majority comprised 64%, Efik and Ibibio 17%, Annang 5.5%, Ijaw and Ogoni 7.5%, Ekoi, Yalla and Ukelle 3.4%, and others 2.5%. Some of these minority ethnic groups were critical to the survival of Biafra because of the incipient oil discoveries located in their region and their location on the Atlantic shoreline of Nigeria. Hence, without these minority ethnic groups joining the secession, Biafra’s access to oil in the Niger Delta would be impossible and Biafra would be landlocked. See Nixon (Citation1972, p. 480). Even before independence in 1960, the relationship between the Igbo and the minority ethnic groups in the Eastern Region has been strained. This can be traced back to the immediate aftermath of the Western House of Assembly incident in 1952 where Nnamdi Azikiwe was reduced to the Leader of Opposition. Zik promptly returned to the Eastern House of Assembly and displaced Eyo Ita, an Efik, as the Leader of Government in the Eastern Region. Eyo Ita later formed the National Independence Party that led the clamour for the creation of Cross River, Ogoja and Rivers State (COR) out of the Eastern Region. These developments formed the basis for the troubled relationship between the dominant Igbo ethnic group and the minority ethnic groups in the Eastern Region prior to independence and the war (for a more detailed story see Olusanya (Citation1980).
12 The Indigenization Decree of 1972 reviewed the ownership structure and control of Nigerian enterprises, and compelled foreign companies to sell part of their shares to Nigerians at a time when the Igbo had barely recovered from the effects of the war and were still perceived to be economically emasculated.
13 ‘Twenty Pound Scandal’ and the Banking Obligation (Eastern States) Decree of 1970 did not recognize any deposits made into bank accounts within the former Eastern Region from 30 May 1967 up until 12 January 1970. After the war, the FMG changed its currency and all depositors were given the equivalent of 20 pounds no matter the amount of money they had in the bank.
14 The committee presided over the sale of Igbo properties outside Igboland, and in parts of the former Eastern Region (Port-Harcourt), at ridiculously low prices to indigenes of those states that claimed to have captured them during the war.
15 Structural adjustment was introduced in Nigeria from 1986 to 1993 by the Ibrahim Babangida Military Government to address the country’s economic crisis. Though the adjustment programme was essentially economic in outlook, its breadth and implementation impacted fundamentally on every area of social and political relations, and ultimately, exacerbated ethno-nationalist consciousness. This is because the diminishing resources and opportunities attendant to the adjustment programme intensified competition for jobs, contracts and other benefits, and ethnic connections became the hallmark of negotiations of the period (For a comprehensive discussion, see Osaghae (Citation1995)). Aware of the growing concerns about marginalization, injustice and underdevelopment in the South East, and the dominance of the hegemonic group(s) that controlled federal power and oil resources, there was a push at the Igbo elite level to address the ‘Igbo Question’ and its share of the national patrimony.
16 Some of these groups emerged in the early and mid-1990s and have either ceased to exist (or are dormant) or still remain active. Their existence and activities are gleaned from Nigerian newspapers, author’s fieldwork and interviews.
17 This is a popular form of transportation in many Nigerian cities and urban centres where passengers are conveyed by motorbikes.
18 A significant number of MASSOB sympathizers form part of diaspora Igbo populations in the United States, Europe and in some African countries as shown in the following websites: www.biafraland.com; www.biafranet.com; http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com; www.umuigbousa.org; www.kwenu.com; http://ekwenche.org; http://biafraforum.biafranet.com; http://www.bianu.net; http://igboforum.igbonet.com; http://wazobia.biafranigeria.com.
19 Private communication with Rev. Columba Nnorom of the Igbo Coalition in the Americas and Ekwe Nche Organization on 9 April 2010, Howard University, Washington, DC.
20 See the Report on the Election Boycott, available at: http://www.biafra.cwis.org/pdf/REPORT%20ON%20ELECTION.pdf. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
21 Chief Goddy Uwazuruike (Vice-President of Aka Ikenga) maintained in an interview that the idea of succession resonates with younger generation of Igbo because they did not witness the war (Personal communication, Lagos, 15 January 2009).
22 Personal communication, Lagos, 26 January 2009.
23 Personal communication, Lagos, 19 January 2009.
24 See Omenka (Citation2010, p.369).
25 Depictions of the Igbo as the ‘Jews of Africa’ are amplified by a school of Hamitic historiography that claims the Igbo are descendants of a migrant Israeli tribe.
26 This line of thought has been vigorously pursued by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe who trace Igbo marginalization, persecution and deprivation in Nigeria to the colonial period, covering several pogroms and massacres from 1945, 1953, 1966, and to contemporary attacks on Igbo migrants in different parts of northern Nigeria.