Biafra separatism and national security in Nigeria

Abstract

One of the greatest threats confronting the continued unity of Nigeria currently is the issue of Biafra separatism. This movement has been re-enforced, particularly with the separatist agitation of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in such a way that Nigeria’s security environment appears to have become more volatile than ever before. This resulted in the proscription of IPOB which has also generated more national questions than answers, especially because the action was hurriedly taken, and that federal government of Nigeria (FGN) failed to consider it necessary to include other violent and militia groups such as the militant herdsmen in the list of terrorist organizations in the country. Although this failure remains a contentious issue in Nigeria, it does not remove the fact that IPOB and other separatist movements within the South-East and South-South regions seem to constitute threat to national security in the views of both the state and the FGN. While scholars continue to examine the root causes of Biafra separatism, how the movement constitutes threat to national security in Nigeria is yet to be given satisfactory attention in the existing literature. This paper, therefore, aims to address this gap by investigating how IPOB separatist movement constitute threat to national security in Nigeria. National security complex theory was adopted we relied on secondary source of data such as newspaper reports, official documents, journal articles and many others. The paper discovered that, through their anti-establishment rhetorics, IPOB separatist movement constitutes threat to national security. The paper recommends proactive measures to national security through a multi-faceted soft approach.