African Kingdoms

Biafra (Africa)
AD 1967 - 1970

West African States All Modern States All African States Early Africa (Intro) Egypt

The modern African republic of Nigeria is located on the southern coast of West Africa, along the Gulf of Guinea. The state is bordered to the east by Cameroon, to the north-east by Chad, to the north by Niger, and to the west by Benin, and with a capital at Abuja, virtually dead-centre in the country.

With the advent of independence from Britain in 1960 and a transition process which was completed in 1963, Nigeria's Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa initially led a coalition government. However, in 1961, the Nigerian region of South Cameroon decided to join the neighbouring republic of Cameroon, while North Cameroon remained within Nigeria.

On 24 May 1966 the parliamentary system was abolished when a 'Federal Republic of Nigeria' was declared. This was the country's first coup, but it immediately set a precedent which would be repeated time and time again until the end of the twentieth century.

In the following year, 1967, the country's Ibo-dominated eastern region - comprising three states - seceded as the 'Republic of Biafra'. This succession was generally not internationally recognised. Its claimed areas had lain outside the former Benin empire and Sokoto caliphate, and its people felt that they could not be dominated by these more populous regions. But Nigeria had the bigger military - which actually governed the state itself - and a determination to quash this 'rebellion'.

The resultant war caused an estimated one million civilian deaths, mostly amongst starving children and the elderly, and more than a hundred thousand deaths amongst military forces on both sides. It was also one of the first 'tv wars' alongside that of Vietnam, with copious screen coverage appearing on news bulletins around the world.

(Information by Peter Kessler and the John De Cleene Archive, with additional information from Washington Post (2 October 1993, 9 June 1998, Biafra War (27 February 1999), Digest (18 March 2010), Nigeria's neighbors join war on extremists (1 April 2015), and The center of Boko Haram's brutality (19 January 2017)), and from External Links: History of the Newly Elected / Appointed Oba of Benin (Daily Mail - dead link), and BBC Country Profiles, and Nigeria (Rulers.org), and Nigeria (Zárate's Political Collections (ZPC)), and Unforgotten Biafra 50 Years Later (National Library of Medicine), and Nigeria's Ipob faction leader arrested in Finland (BBC).)

1967 - 1970

Biafra president and military leader. Died 2011.

1967

Partially in response to ongoing regional ethnic tension and external attacks in 1966, the Ibo people of three eastern states secede from a troubled Nigeria to form their own independent state. This is known as the 'Republic of Biafra'.

Nigerian troops are seen here in Port Harcourt in 1968, following fierce fighting over one of Biafra's main cities (note the sign, with most of the letters for the word 'freedom' having been removed)

The new republic is not internationally recognised except by a few other African states. Nevertheless the act does spark a bloody and brutal civil war which kills over a million, known as the Biafran War or Nigerian Civil War.

1970

President (8-12 Jan only). Fled to Ivory Coast. Died 2003.

1970

The Washington Post amongst many others covers the military defeat of forces which have been fighting on behalf of the republic of Biafra. They have gradually lost territory and resources until surrender becomes inevitable. The three eastern regions are reintegrated back into their parent state after its leaders surrender.

Those same eastern regions face ongoing problems with deliberate isolation and minimal investment on Nigeria's part. The entire country remains troubled throughout the 1970s-1990s, and former regions of Biafra witness a more militant brand of secessionist by 1994.

In 2009 Boko Haram carried out a spate of attacks on police stations and other government buildings in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in far north-eastern Nigeria, in a continuance of resistance against central Nigerian administration

They each want Biafra to be restored and their number includes the 'Indigenous People of Biafra', the 'Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra', and the 'Biafra Zionist Front'. For the time being, however, these regions and their movements remain part of Nigeria.