Why south-south can’t be part of Biafra


As the agitation for the independent state of Biafra continues, Edet Akpan, a retired major-general from Akwa Ibom State, has explained why it was impossible for the people of the south-south region of the country to be part of it.

Nigeria fought a horrendous three-year-old civil war between 1967 and 1970, to stop Biafra, led mainly by the Igbos in south-east, from seceding.

Today’s Akwa Ibom, and other states in the south-south, were part of the south eastern region at the time, and would have formed the breakaway republic if the secession had succeeded.

Pro-Biafra supporters have staged a series of protests lately, resulting in deadly clampdown by security forces.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra, was arrested in 2015 and has remained in detention for more than one year now, charged for alleged treason.

“Lack of trust has always been on between the Igbo and the minorities,” Mr. Akpan, a former director general of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview in Uyo, Akwa Ibom.

Mr. Akpan said Akwa Ibom and other states in the south-south would prefer to stay in Nigeria, instead of supporting the agitation for Biafra.

Mr. Akpan said the Nigerian state was “a larger entity”, with room for the minorities to maneuver. “It is much better than a region that you don’t feel (that you) belong. If you are suppressed as a minority (in Biafra) where do you cry to?” he said.

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