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Biafra ( ;), officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 to 1970. Its territory consisted of the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, predominantly inhabited by the Igbo people ethnic group. Biafra was established on 30 May 1967 by Igbo military officer and Eastern Region governor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu under his presidency, following a series of ethnic tensions and military coups after Nigerian independence in 1960 that culminated in the 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom.
The Nigerian military attempted to reclaim the territory of Biafra, resulting in the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War. Biafra was officially recognized as a sovereign and independent country by Gabon, Duvalier dynasty, Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and Zambia while receiving de facto recognition and covert military support from France, Portugal, Israel, South Africa, and Rhodesia. After nearly three years of war, during which around two million Biafran civilians died, president Ojukwu fled into exile in the Ivory Coast as the Nigerian military approached the capital of Biafra. Philip Effiong became the second president of Biafra, overseeing the surrender of Biafran forces to Nigeria.
Igbo nationalism became a strong political and social force after the civil war. It has grown more militant since the 1990s, calling for the independence of the Biafran people and the establishment of their state. Various Biafran secessionist groups have emerged, such as the Indigenous People of Biafra, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, and the Biafra Zionist Front.
In his personal writings from his travels, the Rev. Charles W. Thomas defined the locations of islands in the Bight of Biafra as "between the parallels of longitude 5° and 9° East and latitude 4° North and 2° South."
Ethnic tension had simmered in Nigeria during discussions of independence, but in the mid-twentieth century, ethnic and religious riots began to occur. In 1945, an ethnic riot also cited as flared up in Jos, in which Hausa-Fulani people targeted Igbo people and left many dead and wounded. Police and army units from Kaduna had to be brought in to restore order. A newspaper article describes the event:
At Jos in 1945, a sudden and savage attack by Northerners took the Easterners completely by surprise, and before the situation could be brought under control, the bodies of Eastern women, men, and children littered the streets and their property worth thousands of pounds reduced to shambles
Three thousand Igbo people were murdered in the Jos riots. In 1953, a similar riot occurred in Kano. A decade later, in 1964 and during the Western political crisis, (1988). 9781349080823 ISBN 9781349080823 the Western Region was divided as Samuel Akintola clashed with Obafemi Awolowo. Widespread reports of fraud tarnished the election's legitimacy. Westerners especially resented the political domination of the Northern People's Congress, many of whose candidates ran unopposed in the election. Violence spread throughout the country, and some began to flee the North and West, some to Dahomey. The apparent domination of the political system by the North and the chaos breaking out across the country motivated elements within the military to consider decisive action. The federal government, dominated by Northern Nigeria, allowed the crisis to unfold with the intention of declaring a state of emergency and placing the Western Region under martial law. This administration of the Nigerian federal government was widely perceived to be corrupt. In January 1966, the situation reached a breaking point. A military coup occurred during which a mixed but predominantly Igbo group of army officers assassinated 30 political leaders, including Nigeria's Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and the Northern premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello. The four most senior officers of Northern origin were also killed. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the President of Igbo extraction, and the favoured Western Region politician Obafemi Awolowo were not killed. The commander of the army, General Aguiyi Ironsi, seized power to maintain order.
In July 1966, northern officers and army units staged a countercoup, killing General Aguiyi Ironsi and several southern officers. The predominantly Muslim officers named a general from a small ethnic group (the Angas) in central Nigeria, General Yakubu Gowon, as the head of the Federal Military Government (FMG). The two coups deepened Nigeria's ethnic tensions. In September 1966, approximately 30,000 Igbo civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands more maimed, had their properties confiscated, and fled the north, and some Northerners were expelled in backlashes in eastern cities.
In January 1967, military leaders Yakubu Gowon and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, as well as senior police officials from each region met in Aburi, Ghana, and agreed on a less centralised union of regions. The Northerners were at odds with this agreement, known as the ; Obafemi Awolowo, the leader of the Western Region, warned that if the Eastern Region seceded, the Western Region would also, which persuaded the Northerners.
After returning to Nigeria, the federal government reneged on the agreement and unilaterally declared the creation of several new states including some that Gerrymandering the Igbos in Biafra.
The FMG attacked Biafra on 6 July 1967. Nigeria's initial efforts were unsuccessful; the Biafrans successfully launched their own offensive and expansion efforts, occupying areas in the mid-Western Region in August 1967. This led to the creation of the Republic of Benin, a short lived puppet-state. However, with the support of the British, American, and Soviet governments, Nigeria turned the tide of the war. By October 1967, the FMG had regained the land after intense fighting. In September 1968, the federal army planned what Gowon described as the "final offensive". Initially, the final offensive was neutralised by Biafran troops. In the latter stages, a Southern FMG offensive managed to break through the fierce resistance.
Due to the proliferation of television and international news organizations, the war found a global audience. 1968 saw the images of malnourished and starving Biafran children reach the mass media of Western countries, leading many non-governmental organisations to become involved to provide humanitarian aid, leading to the Biafran airlift. (2026). 9781108887748 ISBN 9781108887748
After two-and-a-half years of war, during which almost two million Biafran civilians (three-quarters of them small children) died from starvation caused by the total blockade of the region by the Nigerian government, Biafran forces under Nigeria's motto of "No-victor, No-vanquished" surrendered to the Nigerian Federal Military Government (FMG). The surrender was facilitated by the Biafran Vice President and Chief of General Staff, Major General Philip Effiong, who assumed leadership of the Republic of Biafra after the first President, Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, fled to the Ivory Coast. After the surrender of Biafrans, some Igbos who had fled the conflict returned to their properties but were unable to claim them back from new occupants. This became law in the Abandoned Properties Act (28 September 1979). It was purported that at the start of the civil war, Igbos withdrew their funds from Nigerian banks and converted it to the Biafran currency. After the war, bank accounts owned by Biafrans were seized and a Nigerian panel resolved to give every Igbo person an account with only 20 pounds. Federal projects in Biafra were also greatly reduced compared to other parts of Nigeria. In an Intersociety study it was found that Nigerian security forces also extorted approximately $100 million per year from illegal roadblocks and other methods from Igboland – a cultural sub-region of Biafra in what is now southern Nigeria, causing the Igbo citizenry to trust the Nigerian security forces even less than before.
The country's northeast bordered the Benue Hills and mountains that lead to Cameroon. Three major rivers flow from Biafra into the Gulf of Guinea: the Imo River, the Cross River and the Niger River.
The territory of the Republic of Biafra is covered nowadays by the reorganised Nigerian states of Akwa Ibom, Rivers State, Cross River, Bayelsa State, Ebonyi State, Enugu State, Anambra State, Imo State, Abia State, Delta and southern Kogi and Benue states.
Although the government of the United States under the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson maintained an officially neutral stance during the war, there was strong public support for Biafra in the United States. The American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive was founded by American activists to spread pro-Biafran propaganda. U.S. president Richard Nixon was sympathetic to Biafra. Before he won the 1968 election, he accused Nigeria of committing genocide against Biafrans and called for the United States to intervene in the war to support Biafra. However, he was ultimately unsuccessful in his efforts to aid Biafra due to the demands of the Vietnam War.
The bank was first located in Enugu, but due to the ongoing war, it was relocated several times. Biafra attempted to finance the war through foreign exchange. After Nigeria announced its currency would no longer be legal tender (to make way for a new currency), this effort increased. After the announcement, tons of Nigerian bank notes were transported in an effort to acquire foreign exchange. The currency of Biafra had been the Nigerian pound until the Bank of Biafra started printing out its own notes, the Biafran pound. The new currency went public on 28 January 1968, and the Nigerian pound was not accepted as an exchange unit. The first issue of the bank notes included only 5 shillings notes and 1 pound notes. The Bank of Nigeria exchanged only 30 pounds for an individual and 300 pounds for enterprises in the second half of 1968.
In 1969, new notes were introduced: £10, £5, £1, 10Shilling and 5/-.
It is estimated that a total of £115–140 million Biafran pounds were in circulation by the end of the conflict, with a population of about 14 million, approximately £10 per person.
The Biafrans managed to set up a small yet effective air force. The BAF commander was Poland World War II ace Jan Zumbach. Early inventory included four World War II American bombers: two North American B-25 Mitchells, two Douglas B-26 Invaders (Douglas A-26) (one piloted by Zumbach), a converted Douglas DC-3 and one British de Havilland Dove. In 1968 the Sweden pilot Carl Gustaf von Rosen suggested the MiniCOIN project to General Ojukwu. By early 1969, Biafra had assembled five MFI-9Bs in neighbouring Gabon, calling them the "Biafra Babies". They were painted in green camouflage and armed with two Matra Type 122 rocket pods, each being able to carry six 68 mm SNEB anti-armour rockets under each wing and had Swedish WW2 reflex sights from old FFVS J 22s. The six aeroplanes were flown by three Swedish pilots and three Biafran pilots. In September 1969, Biafra acquired four ex-French North American T-6 Texans (T-6G), which were flown to Biafra the following month, with another aircraft lost on the ferry flight. These aircraft flew missions until January 1970 and were flown by Portugal ex-military pilots.
Biafra also had a small improvised navy, but it never gained the success that their air force did. It was headquartered in Kidney Island, Port Harcourt, and commanded by Winifred Anuku. The Biafran Navy was made up of captured craft, converted tugs, and armour-reinforced civilian vessels armed with machine guns or captured 6-pounder guns. It mainly operated in the Niger Delta and along the Niger River.
In their study Smallpox and its Eradication, Frank Fenner and colleagues describe how vaccine supply shortages during the Biafra smallpox campaign led to the development of the ring vaccination technique, later adopted worldwide by the World Health Organization of the United Nations, which led to the early and cost-effective interruption of smallpox transmission in West Africa and elsewhere. Fulltext of Chapter 17, "West and Central Africa", from Smallpox and its eradication (1988), F. Fenner ... et. World Health Organization.
In 2010, researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and University of Nigeria at Nsukka showed that Igbos born in Biafra during the years of the famine were of higher risk of suffering from obesity, hypertension and impaired glucose metabolism compared to controls born a short period after the famine had ended in the early 1970s. The findings are in line with the developmental origin of health and disease hypothesis suggesting that malnutrition in early life is a predisposing factor for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes later in life.
A 2017 paper found that Biafran "women exposed to the war in their growing years exhibit reduced adult stature, increased likelihood of being overweight, earlier age at first birth, and lower educational attainment. Exposure to a primary education program mitigates the impacts of war exposure on education. War-exposed men marry later and have fewer children. War exposure of mothers (but not fathers) has adverse impacts on child growth, survival, and education. Impacts vary with the age of exposure. For mother and child health, the largest impacts stem from adolescent exposure."
On 29 May 2000, the Lagos Guardian newspaper reported that the former president Olusegun Obasanjo commuted to retirement the dismissal of all military persons, soldiers and officers, who fought for the breakaway Republic of Biafra during Nigeria's 1967–1970 civil war. In a national broadcast, he said the decision was based on the belief that "justice must at all times be tempered with mercy".
In July 2006, the Center for World Indigenous Studies reported that government-sanctioned killings were taking place in the southeastern city of Onitsha, because of a shoot-to-kill policy directed toward Biafrans, particularly members of the MASSOB.
The Nigerian federal government accuses MASSOB of violence; MASSOB's leader, Ralph Uwazuruike, was arrested in 2005 and was detained on treason charges. He has since been released and has been rearrested and released more than five times. In 2009, MASSOB leader Chief Uwazuruike launched an unrecognised "Biafran International Passport" and also launched a "Biafra Plate Number" in 2016 in response to persistent demand by some Biafran sympathizers in the diaspora and at home. On 16 June 2012, a Supreme Council of Elders of the Indigenous People of Biafra, another pro-Biafra organisation, was formed. The body is made up of some prominent persons in the Biafra region. They sued the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the right to self-determination. Debe Odumegwu Ojukwu, the eldest son of ex-President / General Ojukwu and a Lagos state-based lawyer was the lead counsel that championed the case.
MASSOB leader Chief Ralph Uwazuruike established Radio Biafra in the United Kingdom in 2009, with Nnamdi Kanu as his radio director; later Kanu was said to have been dismissed from MASSOB because of accusations of supporting violence. The Nigerian Government, through its broadcasting regulators, the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigerian and Nigerian Communications Commission, has sought to clamp down on Radio Biafra with limited success. On 17 November 2015, the Abia state police command seized an Indigenous People of Biafra radio transmitter in Umuahia. On 23 December 2015, Kanu was detained and charged with charges that amounted to treason against the Nigerian state. He was released on bail on 24 April 2017 after spending more than 19 months without trial of his treason charges. Self-determination is not a crime in Nigerian law.
According to the South-East Based Coalition of Human Rights Organisations, security forces under the directive of the federal government have killed 80 members of the Indigenous People of Biafra and their supporters between 30 August 2015 and 9 February 2016 in a renewed clampdown on the campaign. A report by Amnesty International between August 2015 and August 2016, at least 150 pro-Biafran activists overall were killed by Nigerian security forces, with 60 people shot in a period of two days in connection with events marking Biafran Remembrance Day. The Nigerian military killed at least 17 unarmed Biafrans in the city of Onitsha prior to a march on 30 May 2016 commemorating the 49th anniversary of Biafra's 1967 declaration of independence.
Another group is the Biafra Nations League, formerly known as Biafra Nations Youth League, which has its operational base in the Bakassi Peninsula. The group is led by Princewill Chimezie Richard, alias Prince Obuka, and Ebuta Akor Takon (not to be confused wth the group's former deputy, Ebuta Ogar Takon). The group also has a Chief of Staff and operational commander who are both natives of the Bakassi. BNL have recorded a series of security clampdowns, especially in the Bakassi where soldiers of 'Operations Delta Safe' apprehended the National Leader, Princewill, in the Ikang-Cameroon border area on 9 November 2016. During an attempt to mobilise a protest in support of Kanu's release, he was again re-arrested by the Nigeria Police Force in the same area on 16 January 2018 along with 20 of their supporters. Many media outlets reported that BNL is linked to the Ambazonia; although the group confirms this, they denied involvement in violent activities in Cameroon. The Deputy Leader, Ebuta Akor Takon is an Ejagham native, a tribe in Nigeria and also in significant number in Cameroon. BNL, which operates more in the Gulf of Guinea, has links with Dokubo Asari, a former militant leader. About 100 members of the group were reportedly arrested in Bayelsa during a meeting with Dokubo on 18 August 2019.
The Incorporated Trustees of Bilie Human Rights Initiative, representing the Indigenous People of Biafra, have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Attorney General of the Federation, seeking the actualisation of the sovereign state of Biafra by legal means. The Federal High Court, Abuja has fixed 25 February 2019 for hearing the suit.
On 31 July 2020, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra/Biafra Independence Movement (BIM-MASSOB) joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).
Kanu is known as a British political activist known for his advocacy of the contemporary Biafran independence movement. It was declared a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government in 2017 under the Nigerian Terrorism Act but the declaration was nullified by a High Court sitting in Enugu in 2023. As of May 2022, the United Kingdom started denying asylum to members of IPOB who allegedly engaged in human rights abuses, though the UK government clarified that IPOB had not been designated as a terrorist organisation.
IPOB has criticized the Nigerian federal government for poor investment, political alienation, inequitable resource distribution, ethnic marginalization, and heavy military presence, extrajudicial killings in the South-Eastern, South-Central and parts of North-Central regions of the country. The organization rose to prominence in the mid-2010s and is now the largest Biafran independence organization by membership. In recent years, it has gained significant media attention for becoming a frequent target of political crackdowns by the Nigerian government. It also has numerous sites and communication channels serving as the only trusted social apparatus educating and inculcating first-hand information and news to its members.
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is a separatist group in Nigeria that aims to restore the defunct Republic of Biafra, a country which seceded from Nigeria in 1967 prior to the Nigerian Civil War and was subsequently dissolved following its defeat in 1970. Since 2021, IPOB and other Biafran separatist groups have been fighting a low-level guerilla conflict in southeastern Nigeria against the Nigeria. The group was founded in 2012 by Nnamdi Kanu who has been the leader and Uche Mefor, who served as the deputy leader.
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Categories: 1967 Establishments In Nigeria, 1970 Disestablishments In Nigeria, Former Territorial Entities In Africa, Former Countries In Africa, Former Republics, Former Unrecognized Countries, History Of Igboland, Library Of Congress Africa Collection Related, Members Of The Unrepresented Nations And Peoples Organization, Nigerian Civil War, Separatism In Nigeria, States And Territories Disestablished In 1970, States And Territories Established In 1967
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