Nigeria still haunted by ghosts of Biafra

UGA, Nigeria – A new road runs where the old rebel air strip used to be.

The only signs of its role in the Biafra war that almost split Nigeria 39 years ago are patches of runway – worn jagged by age and erosion – partly obscured by creeping bush. At a checkpoint at what used to be the middle of the runway, heavily armed and grim-looking soldiers search passing vehicles and people for weapons and signs of membership of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, which since 1999 has been trying to revive the campaign for independence in south-eastern Nigeria.Flights into the Uga air strip, deep in a forest belt, helped sustain for 30 months the first, failed attempt by the main Igbo ethnic group of this region to create an independent Biafra Republic between 1967-1970.Between one million and three million people are estimated to have died, mostly through starvation, in a war that drew international attention.Even today, “Biafra” and “hunger” are linked in the minds of many around the world who may not even know where the fighting took place.STRIKING A CHORD MASSOB, led by 48-year-old lawyer Ralph Uwazurike, has struck chords among many Igbo – but most of them are too young to have witnessed the horrors of Biafra.Clashes between federal security forces and MASSOB militants, though, have rekindled fear among Igbos who remember the war.Igbos claim they have been treated like second-class citizens and discriminated against since their defeat in the civil war.”It is not an accident that no Igbo man has been at the top in the military or security services since the end of the war despite our large population,” said 25-year-old MASSOB activist, Uche Okpala.”Everything done in Nigeria by the powers that be is done to our disadvantage,” he said.”So we might as well have our separate country since we’re not wanted in Nigeria.”President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government has not hidden its concern at the growing influence of the estimated two million-strong MASSOB, among the most vociferous of several separatist movements increasingly questioning the unity of Africa’s most populous country.Uwazurike was arrested last year and, along with other ethnic and militia leaders, currently faces trial for treason.Uwazurike’s followers have grown increasingly militant since his arrest.Street clashes with the police have grown more frequent across south-eastern Nigeria, claiming dozens of lives.Witnesses have reported the emergence of arms-bearing cadres of MASSOB in recent times despite the group’s claim of non-violence.Troops were ordered in against the group in July as violent clashes between the separatists and police in the city of Onitsha spilled over into surrounding rural towns, including Uga.Soldiers working with police have restored a semblance of order following what rights groups and residents described as a heavy-handed crackdown.But tension remains high as the soldiers fan out into rural communities like Uga in search of MASSOB members.ETHNICITY Igbos are one of the three biggest of Nigeria’s more than 250 ethnic groups.The Igbos, the Hausa-Fulani of the north and the Yoruba of the southwest number each number more than 40 million in a country cccprone to cracking along ethnic and religious lines.When military officers, most of them Igbo, toppled a northern-dominated civilian government six years after independence in 1966, it set off a bitter, ethnic power struggle.In the political violence that followed an estimated 50 000 Igbos were massacred in northern cities and the Igbo military officer leading the government was toppled and killed by northern officers.Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, who had been appointed military governor of the southeast after the first coup, refused to recognise the new, northern-dominated military government.Backed by aggrieved fellow Igbos, he declared an independent state of Biafra, named after the Bight of Biafra, the Atlantic bay in the region’s south.While Ojukwu’s secession was declared in the heat of the passion that followed the events of the 1960s, Uwazurike’s MASSOB began with non-violent protests against perceived discrimination.Despite government promises of national reconciliation, no Igbo has risen to the top of the military or the police since the Biafra war ended and the region appears to have benefited less from infrastructure development when compared to the north and the southwest.Uwazurike, the MASSOB leader, considers Ojukwu his personal hero and inspiration.There are Igbos who fear the separatist stance stirs the suspicions of other ethnic groups, and could bring military reprisals.”Anybody who is talking of Biafra needs to have his head examined,” said Sylvester Obi, a 62-year-old retired civil engineer and resident of Uga.During the war, Uga was the target of daily air raids by the Nigerian air force.In Onitsha, the entire Fegge district, considered a MASSOB stronghold, was emptied of its estimated 30 000 residents for several weeks in August following rumours the military planned to bombard the place after repeated clashes there with separatists.People only returned after the local governor went on radio and television to reassure them of their safety, said Fegge resident Emeka Ahurudike.”When some MASSOB members attempted to reopen their office in Fegge they were attacked by an angry mob,” said Ahurudike.Two separatists were killed by the war-weary mob, he said.The separatist unrest feeds into other volatile currents that have been heating up across Nigeria in recent years.The nation is even more unsettled these days because general elections planned for next year mean politicians are more likely to play up ethnic and other divisions in hopes of building support.VOLATILE In the nearby Niger delta oil region, militancy is growing among the Ijaw ethnic group.Attacks on oil installations and hostage-taking targeting oil workers have cut more than a quarter of Nigeria’s oil production this year.Oil had partly fuelled the civil war in the late 1960s after then rebel leader Ojukwu included the delta’s oil fields in Biafra.But the ethnic minorities in the delta, fearing Igbo domination, did not back Biafra.Now, both the majority Igbo and the minority groups of the entire oil-producing southeast, including the Niger Delta, share a common feeling of having been oppressed by federal might.Demands in the southeast range from greater local control of power and wealth to outright secession.MASSOB claims the entire oil-rich Niger Delta as part of its proposed Biafra territory.Ojukwu, an Oxford-trained historian, spent 13 years in exile after the war and returned after a pardon, publicly committed to a united Nigeria.He leads the All Progressive Grand Alliance, a political party that has been successful in the region.While often stressing he is not a member of MASSOB, the 72-year-old Ojukwu does not distance himself from its aspirations.He told reporters recently: “Biafra is always an alternative.”Nampa-APAt a checkpoint at what used to be the middle of the runway, heavily armed and grim-looking soldiers search passing vehicles and people for weapons and signs of membership of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, which since 1999 has been trying to revive the campaign for independence in south-eastern Nigeria.Flights into the Uga air strip, deep in a forest belt, helped sustain for 30 months the first, failed attempt by the main Igbo ethnic group of this region to create an independent Biafra Republic between 1967-1970.Between one million and three million people are estimated to have died, mostly through starvation, in a war that drew international attention.Even today, “Biafra” and “hunger” are linked in the minds of many around the world who may not even know where the fighting took place.STRIKING A CHORD MASSOB, led by 48-year-old lawyer Ralph Uwazurike, has struck chords among many Igbo – but most of them are too young to have witnessed the horrors of Biafra.Clashes between federal security forces and MASSOB militants, though, have rekindled fear among Igbos who remember the war.Igbos claim they have been treated like second-class citizens and discriminated against since their defeat in the civil war.”It is not an accident that no Igbo man has been at the top in the military or security services since the end of the war despite our large population,” said 25-year-old MASSOB activist, Uche Okpala.”Everything done in Nigeria by the powers that be is done to our disadvantage,” he said.”So we might as well have our separate country since we’re not wanted in Nigeria.”President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government has not hidden its concern at the growing influence of the estimated two million-strong MASSOB, among the most vociferous of several separatist movements increasingly questioning the unity of Africa’s most populous country.Uwazurike was arrested last year and, along with other ethnic and militia leaders, currently faces trial for treason.Uwazurike’s followers have grown increasingly militant since his arrest.Street clashes with the police have grown more frequent across south-eastern Nigeria, claiming dozens of lives.Witnesses have reported the emergence of arms-bearing cadres of MASSOB in recent times despite the group’s claim of non-violence.Troops were ordered in against the group in July as violent clashes between the separatists and police in the city of Onitsha spilled over into surrounding rural towns, including Uga.Soldiers working with police have restored a semblance of order following what rights groups and residents described as a heavy-handed crackdown.But tension remains high as the soldiers fan out into rural communities like Uga in search of MASSOB members.ETHNICITY Igbos are one of the three biggest of Nigeria’s more than 250 ethnic groups.The Igbos, the Hausa-Fulani of the north and the Yoruba of the southwest number each number more than 40 million in a country cccprone to cracking along ethnic and religious lines.When military officers, most of them Igbo, toppled a northern-dominated civilian government six years after independence in 1966, it set off a bitter, ethnic power struggle.In the political violence that followed an estimated 50 000 Igbos were massacred in northern cities and the Igbo military officer leading the government was toppled and killed by northern officers.Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, who had been appointed military governor of the southeast after the first coup, refused to recognise the new, northern-dominated military government.Backed by aggrieved fellow Igbos, he declared an independent state of Biafra, named after the Bight of Biafra, the Atlantic bay in the region’s south.While Ojukwu’s secession was declared in the heat of the passion that followed the events of the 1960s, Uwazurike’s MASSOB began with non-violent protests against perceived discrimination.Despite government promises of national reconciliation, no Igbo has risen to the top of the military or the police since the Biafra war ended and the region appears to have benefited less from infrastructure development when compared to the north and the southwest.Uwazurike, the MASSOB leader, considers Ojukwu his personal hero and inspiration.There are Igbos who fear the separatist stance stirs the suspicions of other ethnic groups, and could bring military reprisals.”Anybody who is talking of Biafra needs to have his head examined,” said Sylvester Obi, a 62-year-old retired civil engineer and resident of Uga.During the war, Uga was the target of daily air raids by the Nigerian air force.In Onitsha, the entire Fegge district, considered a MASSOB stronghold, was emptied of its estimated 30 000 residents for several weeks in August following rumours the military planned to bombard the place after repeated clashes there with separatists.People only returned after the local governor went on radio and television to reassure them of their safety, said Fegge resident Emeka Ahurudike.”When some MASSOB members attempted to reopen their office in Fegge they were attacked by an angry mob,” said Ahurudike.Two separatists were killed by the war-weary mob, he said.The separatist unrest feeds into other volatile currents that have been heating up across Nigeria in recent years.The nation is even more unsettled these days because general elections planned for next year mean politicians are more likely to play up ethnic and other divisions in hopes of building support.VOLATILE In the nearby Niger delta oil region, militancy is growing among the Ijaw ethnic group.Attacks on oil installations and hostage-taking targeting oil workers have cut more than a quarter of Nigeria’s oil production this year.Oil had partly fuelled the civil war in the late 1960s after then rebel leader Ojukwu included the delta’s oil fields in Biafra.But the ethnic minorities in the delta, fearing Igbo domination, did not back Biafra.Now, both the majority Igbo and the minority groups of the entire oil-producing southeast, including the Niger Delta, share a common feeling of having been oppressed by federal might.Demands in the southeast range from greater local control of power and wealth to outright secession.MASSOB claims the entire oil-rich Niger Delta as part of its proposed Biafra territory.Ojukwu, an Oxford-trained historian, spent 13 years in exile after the war and returned after a pardon, publicly committed to a united Nigeria.He leads the All Progressive Grand Alliance, a political party that has been successful in the region.While often stressing he is not a member of MASSOB, the 72-year-old Ojukwu does not distance himself from its aspirations.He told reporters recently: “Biafra is always an alternative.”Nampa-AP