| | Thirty-five years since the end of the Biafran War in Nigeria, ethnic armies and militias are increasingly dotting the political landscape and heightening the temperature of the Nigerian federation. These groups include the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the southwest, the Bakassi Boys in the southeast, the Taliban Nigeria Movement and other pro-Sharia groups in the north, and the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and other natural resource-based militias in the oil-rich south-south. In addition to these movements, new Igbo nationalist movements advocate a revival of the Biafran project. While these Igbo groups generally do not organise or advocate violence, they can offer very radical rhetoric that draws on the hopes and the experiences of the lost Biafran War of secession, as well as on older Igbo war songs: the enyimba enyi spirit. This briefing reports on the revival of Igbo nationalism in Nigeria, including the problems and challenges it presents. |
