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By Lizzy Chirkpi
Washington, D.C., has emerged as a new front in Nigeria’s protracted internal political and security debates, following disclosures that both the Federal Government of Nigeria and pro-Biafra separatist groups have retained influential United States lobbying firms to advance rival narratives before American policymakers.
Recent reports, including analyses aired on various news platforms and filings made under the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), indicate that a group identifying itself as the Biafran Republic Government in Exile (BRGIE) entered into a lobbying agreement with the Washington-based firm Madison & Washington.
The contract, valued at about $66,000 per month, is aimed at influencing U.S. officials on issues ranging from alleged “Christian genocide” in Nigeria to calls for sanctions against Nigerian leaders and support for the revival of an independent Biafra.
In response, the Federal Government of Nigeria has moved to counter the separatist push by engaging the Washington firm DCI Group through the Nigerian law firm Aster Legal. The agreement, reportedly worth $750,000 per month, is intended to challenge what Abuja has described as “misleading and dangerous narratives” about religious persecution and state failure in Nigeria.
The engagement is also aimed at reinforcing Nigeria’s strategic partnership with the United States on counter-terrorism, regional stability and energy security.
The intensifying lobbying efforts have once again drawn international attention to the long-simmering Biafra question. The attempt by Nigeria’s former Eastern Region to secede between 1967 and 1970 culminated in a devastating civil war that claimed more than one million lives, many of them civilians who died from famine.
The renewed battle for influence in Washington underscores how domestic political and security disputes in Nigeria are increasingly being internationalised, with competing actors seeking validation and support from key global powers.