Bakassi is a peninsula on the Gulf of Guinea. It lies between the Cross River estuary, near the city of Calabar and the Rio del Ray estuary on the east. It is governed by Cameroon, following the transfer of sovereignty from neighbouring Nigeria as a result of a judgment by the International Court of Justice. On 22 November 2007, the Nigerian Senate rejected the transfer, since the Greentree Agreement ceding the area to Cameroon was contrary to Section 12(1) of the 1999 Constitution. Regardless, the territory was completely ceded to Cameroon on 14 August 2008, exactly two years after the first part of it was transferred.
Nigeria is Africa's largest ICT market, accounting for 82% of the continent's telecoms subscribers and 29% of internet usage. Globally, Nigeria ranks 11th in the absolute number of internet users and 7th in the absolute number of mobile phones.
Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised country in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, predominantly inhabited by the Igbo ethnic group. Biafra was established on 30 May 1967 by Igbo military officer and Eastern Region governor C. Odumegwu Ojukwu under his presidency, following a series of ethnic tensions and military coups after Nigerian independence in 1960 that culminated in the 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom. The Nigerian military proceeded to attempt to reclaim the territory of Biafra, resulting in the start of the Nigerian Civil War. Biafra was formally recognised by Gabon, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia while receiving de facto recognition and significant military support from France. After nearly three years of war, during which around two million Biafran civilians died, President Ojukwu fled to Ivory Coast in exile as the Nigerian military was approaching the capital of Biafra. Philip Effiong became the second president of Biafra, and he oversaw the surrender of Biafran forces to Nigeria.
The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian–Biafran War or the Biafran War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967. Nigeria was led by General Yakubu Gowon, while Biafra was led by Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka "Emeka" Odumegwu Ojukwu. Biafra represented the nationalist aspirations of the Igbo ethnic group, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the federal government dominated by the interests of the Muslim Hausa-Fulanis of Northern Nigeria. The conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions which preceded the United Kingdom's formal decolonisation of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included a military coup, a counter-coup, and anti-Igbo pogroms in Northern Nigeria.
The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is a secessionist movement in Nigeria, associated with Igbo nationalism, which supports the recreation of an independent state of Biafra. It was founded in 1999 and is led by an Indian-trained lawyer Ralph Uwazuruike, with headquarters in Okwe, in the Okigwe district of Imo State.
The fall of Enugu was a military conflict between Nigerian and Biafran forces in September and October 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War which centered around Enugu, the capital of the secessionist Republic of Biafra. Nigerian federal forces had made Enugu's capture a priority shortly after war broke out, but their advance stalled at Nsukka. Biafran president and leader Odumegwu Ojukwu, attempted to distract the Nigerian Army by initiating an invasion of Nigeria's Mid-Western Region in August, but the offensive was brought to a halt. Lieutenant Colonel Theophilus Danjuma took charge of the Nigerian forces at the Nsukka front and prepared to advance on Enugu with seven battalions of the 1st Division. Enugu was garrisoned by one brigade led by Colonel Alexander Madiebo and poorly armed civilians called into service. Danjuma decided to launch an offensive with his forces spread over a broad front to make it more difficult for the Biafrans to block them along major roads as had happened up to that point.
The Invasion of Port Harcourt was a military conflict between Nigerian and Biafran military forces.
Operation Tail-Wind was the final military conflict between Nigeria and Biafra. The operation took place in the towns of Owerri and Uli, both of which were captured by Nigerian forces. The operation ended with General Odumegwu Ojukwu fleeing to the Ivory Coast and then president of Biafra Philip Effiong surrendering to Olusegun Obasanjo.
The Biafran Airlift was an international humanitarian relief effort that transported food and medicine to Biafra during the 1967–1970 secession war from Nigeria. It was the largest civilian airlift and, after the Berlin airlift of 1948–49, the largest non-combatant airlift of any kind ever carried out. The airlift was largely a series of joint efforts by Protestant and Catholic church groups, and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), operating civilian and military aircraft with volunteer (mostly) civilian crews and support personnel. Several national governments also supported the effort, mostly behind the scenes. This sustained joint effort, which lasted one and a half times as long as its Berlin predecessor, is estimated to have saved more than a million lives.
The 2014 Enugu State Broadcasting Service Attack took place on June 5, 2014, when about 13 members of the Biafra Zionist Federation militant group attacked the Enugu State Broadcasting Service (ESBS) in an attempt to make a public announcement on radio and television declaring the sovereign state of Biafra.
Nnamdi Okwu Kanu is a British-Nigerian political activist who advocates for the secession and independence of Biafra from Nigeria. He is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which he founded in 2014. The main aim of IPOB is to restore the defunct separatist state of Biafra which existed in Nigeria's Eastern Region during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970.
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is a separatist group in Nigeria that aims to restore the defunct Republic of Biafra, a country which seceded from Nigeria prior to the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970). Since 2021, IPOB and other Biafran separatist groups have been fighting a low-level guerilla conflict in southeastern Nigeria against the Nigerian government. The group was founded in 2012 by Nnamdi Kanu and Uche Mefor. Kanu is known as a British Nigerian political activist known for his advocacy of the contemporary Biafran independence movement. It was deemed a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government in 2017 under the Nigerian Terrorism Act. As of May 2022, the United Kingdom started denying asylum to members of IPOB who engaged in human rights abuses, though the U.K. government clarified that IPOB had not been designated as a terrorist organisation.
Chikaodinaka Sandra Oduah is a Nigerian-American journalist who has worked as a television news producer, correspondent, writer and photographer. She is currently a correspondent for VICE News. Known for her unique human-focused ethnographic reporting style with an anthropological approach, she was awarded a CNN Multichoice African Journalist Award in 2016. Upon the abduction of 276 schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria, she was the first international journalist to visit and spend extensive time in the remote community of Chibok. Her thorough and exclusive coverage of the mass kidnapping won her the Trust Women "Journalist of The Year Award" from the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2014. Oduah's reporting explores culture, history, conflict, human rights, and development to capture the complexities, hopes and everyday realities of Africans and people of African descent.
Chido Onumah is a Nigerian journalist, writer, and rights activist. He has worked for over two decades as a journalist, rights activist and media trainer in Nigeria, Ghana, Canada, India, the US, the Caribbean and Europe. He holds a PhD in Communication and Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, UAB, Spain. Onumah is a columnist with several newspapers.
Kadaria Ahmed is a Nigerian journalist, media entrepreneur, television host and the chief executive officer of RadioNow 95.3FM. She started her career at the BBC in London and has worked in print, radio, television, online and social media platforms.
The Biafran Armed Forces (BAF) were the military of the Nigerian secessionist state of Biafra, which existed from 1967 until 1970.
The Bakassi conflict is an ongoing armed dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula of Cameroon. Originally subject to a border conflict between Cameroon and Nigeria, Bakassi later became affected by insurgencies waged by local separatists against Cameroonian government forces.
The insurgency in Southeastern Nigeria is a military conflict that broke out in the city of Orlu, Imo State, Nigeria on 16 January 2021, when the Nigerian Army moved to crush the paramilitary wing of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the Eastern Security Network (ESN). The conflict escalated after the ESN managed to repulse the initial push by the Nigerian Army, but IPOB ended the initial crisis by unilaterally withdrawing the ESN from Orlu. After a few weeks of quiet, Nigeria launched a military offensive in the area to destroy the ESN. On 19 February 2021, IPOB declared that as of the day before, a state of war existed between Nigeria and Biafra. Three weeks later, another separatist group declared the formation of a Biafran interim government which was subsequently endorsed by IPOB. Since then, the Biafran separatists have begun to form alliances with other separatist groups in Nigeria and Cameroon. Despite these developments, the separatists claimed that their militant operations were mainly aimed at defending local communities from armed herders and bandits instead of fighting the Nigerian government. In late June, IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu was arrested by Interpol and handed over to Nigerian authorities.
The Eastern Security Network (ESN) is the paramilitary organization of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a pro-Biafra separatist movement.
Rita Edochie is a Nigerian film actress.
