The Fracturing of Pro-Biafra Nationalist Movements

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The failure of the state to transcend ethnic politics and guarantee justice and equality among its citizens with multiethnic nationalities has encouraged a series of anti-state resistances in Nigeria. Accordingly, Biafra separatism emerged in Nigeria with a civil war between 1967 and 1970 and remerged with the democratization process in 1999. Most studies on pro-Biafra agitation focus on causes rooted in state-society relations and present the struggle as a unified front, idea, process, people, formation, and organization, without giving attention to the cracks and factions within it. Beyond external pressure, the dichotomy between right wing (moderates) and left wing (radical) members of the movement stood out as the basis for the fracturing. This study seeks to examine how pro-Biafra agitation has risen and declined over time, amid continuous fracturing of resistant movements and the challenging task of maintaining organizational coherence, as evidenced by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).