Dressed all in white, Nnamdi Kanu took his seat in the Federal High Court
\nin Abuja, Nigeria, on February 9. Though he had been in detention for
\nalmost four months, the 48-year-old activist initially declined requests
\nfrom court officers to agree to have his handcuffs removed. In an act of
\ndefiance, he raised his cuffed hands to the television cameras. It was
\nhard to divine his intention, but the act and his angry expression
\nsuggested that he barely recognized the authority of the court he found
\nhimself in.<\/p>\n
Kanu, a dual British-Nigerian citizen, was arrested in Lagos in October by
\nNigerian intelligence agents during a visit from his home in London. Kanu
\nleads the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist movement
\ncalling for the independence of the southeastern territories that made up
\nBiafra in the late 1960s. He denies all six of the charges against him,
\nwhich include treasonable felony, a charge that carries a possible life
\nsentence. The authorities essentially accuse Kanu of trying to overthrow
\nthe Nigerian head of state by broadcasting secessionist propaganda on
\nRadio Biafra, the underground radio station he runs from London.<\/p>\n
An oil-rich region about the size of the island of Ireland, the former
\nRepublic of Biafra has a history of turmoil and civil unrest. It existed
\nas an independent republic for just two and a half years in the late
\n1960s, after millions of people\u2014mainly from the southern Igbo ethnic
\ngroup\u2014led a movement to secede from the newly independent Nigeria,
\nsparking the civil war of 1967 to 1970, which claimed more than 1 million
\nlives.
\nForty-six years after that war ended, Nigeria is again facing a potential
\nuprising in the southeast. Since Kanu\u2019s arrest in October, a protest
\nmovement has sprung up in Nigeria, with thousands of people identifying as
\nBiafrans demonstrating in the streets across the southeast and as far
\nnorth as Abuja to demand the release of their leader. The demonstrations
\nbegan peacefully but turned bloody in December: According to Associated
\nPress reports, at least 22 protesters and two police officers have been
\nkilled in clashes at pro-Biafra rallies. The Nigerian government has not
\nprovided an official death toll, but Uchenna Asiegbu, a senior IPOB
\nofficial, tells Newsweek that more than 100 civilians have died.<\/p>\n
The rise in tensions between pro-Biafra activists and the Nigerian
\ngovernment comes at a time when Nigeria\u2014Africa\u2019s biggest economy and most
\npopulous nation\u2014is grappling with serious challenges. In recent years, the
\ncountry has struggled to quell an insurgency mounted by Boko Haram, a
\nmilitant group that has killed an estimated 20,000 people since 2009 as it
\nattempts to establish an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria. Although
\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari said in December that Boko Haram had been
\n\u201ctechnically\u201d defeated, the group continues to attack civilians and
\nsecurity forces in Nigeria\u2019s northeast.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, militant groups in the oil-rich Niger Delta have been linked to
\na series of recent attacks on oil and gas facilities in the area, which
\nwas wracked by conflict in the mid-2000s. A Nigerian Cabinet minister said
\nin January that the attacks were costing the country $2.4 million a day.
\nThis instability in both the northeast and the south, combined with
\nplummeting oil prices, has hammered Nigeria\u2019s economy. (Oil revenue
\nconstitutes 35 percent of Nigeria\u2019s gross domestic product, and 90 percent
\nof the country\u2019s export revenue comes from oil.) In December, Buhari said
\nhe expected the country\u2019s budget deficit to double in 2016 and capital
\nexpenditures to triple, as the government tries to revive growth.<\/p>\n
Now, as pro-Biafra groups step up their demands for a breakaway state, the
\nNigerian government has yet another challenge on its hands. Today\u2019s
\npro-Biafra secessionist movement, led mainly by young people with no
\ndirect memory of the civil war, nevertheless shares some of the same
\nconcerns that sparked the original calls for independence. Nigeria was
\nforged in 1914, when British colonialists cobbled together two
\nterritories, hoping to subsidize the poorer north with the resources of
\nthe oil-rich south. The borders of modern-day Nigeria did not reflect the
\nethnic boundaries of different rival kingdoms: the Igbos in the southeast,
\nthe Hausa-Fulani in the north and the Yoruba in the southwest.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT
\nAfter Nigeria declared itself independent of British colonial rule in
\n1960, regional and ethnic tensions erupted in a vicious power struggle. A
\ncoup against the northern-led government in January 1966\u2014seen by the
\nleaders and many people from the north of the country as a plot led by the
\nIgbos\u2014prompted the northerners to seize back power. Mobs from communities
\nin the north of the country then killed tens of thousands of Igbos; many
\nIgbos living in various parts of Nigeria fled to their eastern homeland.
\nThe following year, military officer Odumegwu Ojukwu annexed the southeast
\nand declared the independent Republic of Biafra. That marked the start of
\nNigeria\u2019s bloody civil war, which ended in 1970 after Nigeria blockaded
\nBiafra\u2019s border and hundreds of thousands of people starved to death. The
\nBiafran troops surrendered.<\/p>\n
Nearly half a century later, many of the same rivalries and fears of
\npersecution that set off the war still linger. After Nigeria returned to
\ndemocratic rule in 1999 after decades of rule by military juntas\u2014excluding
\none four-year stretch that began in 1979\u2014the Movement for the
\nActualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra was founded with the aim of
\nrestoring the state of Biafra. But the IPOB, established 10 years later,
\nhas since become the premier pro-Biafra movement; it claims to have some
\n20 million members and 95 branches across the world. It has even opened
\nits first Biafran embassy in northern Spain\u2019s Basque country, chosen
\nbecause of the region\u2019s historic struggle for independence.<\/p>\n
Kanu, who was elected IPOB leader in September 2015, has been hailed as
\nthe restorer of the Biafran nation. \u201cNnamdi Kanu is ordained to take us to
\nthe Biafran promised land,\u201d says Asiegbu. \u201cHe is the chosen one.\u201d Kanu\u2019s
\ncritics say that the secessionist leader is a promoter of hate speech and
\npropaganda. At an event in May 2014 to commemorate the 1967 declaration of
\nthe Republic of Biafra, Kanu reportedly told a group of IPOB members and
\ncivil war veterans: \u201cWe shall fight until we get Biafra. If they don\u2019t
\ngive us Biafra, no human being will remain alive in Nigeria by that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nigeria\u2019s president has said relatively little on the subject of Kanu\u2019s
\narrest or the Biafran issue. I n December, Buhari told journalists that
\nKanu had entered the country without a passport\u2014a claim Kanu disputes.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a treasonable felony against him, and I hope the court will
\nlisten to the case,\u201d Buhari said. Since then, the president has kept
\nsilent, and the government has declined repeated requests from Newsweek
\nfor further comment.<\/p>\n
With pro-Biafra protesters rallying around Kanu\u2019s arrest, the outcome of
\nthe trial could heighten tensions between the activists and the
\ngovernment. \u201cThe significance of Kanu\u2019s trial can only be determined by
\nwhat follows after,\u201d says Manji Cheto, an Africa analyst at U.K.-based
\nrisk consultancy Teneo Intelligence. \u201cShould IPOB react violently, it
\ncould potentially be a tipping point for the Biafra agitation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dressed all in white, Nnamdi Kanu took his seat in the Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria, on February 9. Though he had been in detention for almost four months,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n