Since the electoral victory of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2015, the erstwhile fringe secessionist organisation, Indigenous Peoples Of Biafra aka IPOB, has ballooned from an obscure internet celebrity group, to a frontline threat to peace and long-term stability in Nigeria.
Conspiracy theories would have it that the foundations and growth of IPOB doesn’t lie in any sincere desire for the Biafra of the 60’s but rather in opposition to the Buhari administration. This conclusion is wrong. To be able to successfully deal with the dangerous problem that is IPOB, Nigeria’s strategic deciders must first understand where it originates from.
The roots of IPOB, MASSOB (Movement for the Actualisation Of the Sovereign State Of Biafra) and the Biafran Zionist Movement, etc, lie in an idea of Igbo supremacy as an ideology/way of thinking, which predates the Civil War days. This ideology sees the Igbo race as a ‘Special Race’, much like the Nazis saw the Germanic peoples as special. It preaches that the Igbo by virtue of their being Igbo deserve to be treated better than everyone else, and deserve to rule over the rest of the country.
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This was the ideology which drove Capt. Ifeajuna and co to murder the leaders of the non-Igbo regions of Nigeria in the Jan 1966 putsch. This was the belief-system that made the Igbo residents of Northern towns to jubilate wildly at the news of the gruesome murder of the Sardauna of Sokoto. This was the ideology that made Ojukwu constitute himself as an equal to Gen Gowon and the Federal Government before, at, and after Aburi meeting. For the adherents of this ideology, the Igbo either rule over the whole of Nigeria, or they leave Nigeria and rule over the Niger-Delta states. This rule over all or rule over some belief system, was responsible for the decision by Ojukwu and the Igbos to declare a Republic of Biafra including the Efiks, Ibibios, Annang, Ikwerre, Ijaw etc, without bothering to consult with these peoples. This same ideology was responsible for the brutal Biafran occupation of Port-Harcourt during the Civil War, and for the Biafran invasion of the Midwestern Region and its creation of a proxy Republic of Benin.
Even in the remarks of the Igbo political class on the Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB and Biafra agitation issues, one can clearly see this either we rule all or we leave and rule some belief system that sadly has found a stronghold in people of that ethnicity. Now this Igbo Supremacy ideology must be carefully understood, as it is, along with its sister Biafran Zionism ideology, at the heart of the recurrent agitation for Igbo President and Biafra, before a workable solution can be found. However it must be understood, that many Igbos do not see themselves as
