IGBO TO THE WORLD: THE UNIQUENESS OF NDI IGBO - Onyeji Nnaji

Sometime, in history, for a people to realise themselves and see needs to reorganize themselves towards the actualisation of the goal common to all, they are always made to pass through different ordeals that threaten their existence as a people. Some of the time, this forceful and brutal treatment is usually natural for a people whom nature may have proposed to bring them back to their consciousness. On another case, the brutal treatment results from the hatred nursed against a particular people. In any of these conditions, these inhuman treatments often come to force the people out of their complacency and make them to see needs to reorganize themselves and, probably, think commonly as a people of the same source. To the Igbo race, several inestimable tides - both natural and unnatural - have befallen them; many of which have made the world to ponder on the resilience and dogged lifestyle of this great race. Two great events that left monumental scars on the Igbo were their colonial enslavement and the brutal war fought with the intention to wipe the entire Igbo race out of the planet earth. These two sad events presented the Igbo to the world as a case study to the entire globe. So, to the westerners who told the Igbo story, the Igbo were one people too difficult to be immersed by the colonial powers. To others, the Igbo story was told as a secessionist ethnicity. These false narratives represented the Igbo on the global stage until 1950 onward when Igbo scholars took up the task of telling the Igbo story by the Igbo themselves.

Most remarkable among these renaissance Igbo scholars was Chinua Achebe. Born into a Catholic home in Ogidi, Achebe told the African story with the Igbo language. His works embody the entirety of the Igbo culture filtered into the narrative that showcased the African worldview. For, in his view, the Igbo story is also the African story. He used his literary series to fictionally render the Igbo history from her serene traditional state to the more chaotic period when the society has been deeply affected by colonial infiltration. His master piece, Things Fall apart, embodies almost the entirety of the Igbo history in a fictional style. What is not contained here is shifted to the rest of his literary works.  In this novel, Achebe described the Igbo society as a sophisticated, organized, and deeply religious enclave with carefully established moral codes, legal systems, and cultural traditions. The base of her economy was farming and her social ranking highly competitive as it had depended on merits order than favouritism.

Onyeji Nnaji showcased a similar historical tradition through The Eagles Tribe. Complement to Things fall Apart, the novel portrays the spiritual relationship between the Igbo and their natural world, a relation that goes beyond the visible physical correspondence. Set in a village called Umugo, Nnaji portrays nature as another character in the novel; not just keeping it in the background. He presents nature as a living entity which acts alongside the human characters. That the idea of exploiting nature for their own benefits is unimaginable for the Igbo is apparent in their physical activities and mental positions which are shaped by the surrounding environment. Nnaji shows how the Igbo agricultural life, religious belief, festivals, their ideas about the world and human life are all intertwined with nature. The summary of all the struggles is culture: the language which reveals the belief system of the Igbo race is, in this novel, dramatized as being informed by the people’s culture. Culture itself, as Nnaji tries to argue here, is not separate from the environment since the language that serves as the conveyor of the dominant culture is itself composed of the environment.

The novel presents to us a society orderly organized and controlled by natural law. The communities organized themselves into one bond, both in their minds and actions. With this, the society is conducive and free from certain conspicuous lifestyle that characterize cultural extinct. One unique aspect of the Igbo tradition shown in this latter novel is the fact that it was the Ala goddess who polices the society of various offences. All these affirm the remark by Lord Macaulay on 2nd Feb. 1835, while addressing the British parliament.

… I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I think we will never conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is their religious and cultural heritage. Therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture; for if the Africans think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they become what we want them, a true dominated nation. 

The later parts of these two novels capture, in detail, how this cultural imposition took place and the devastating effects it has on the Igbo tradition generally. Achebe summarized the situation through Obierika’s lamentation that the white man has placed a “sword on everything that holds us together….” While Achebe explored the deceitful lifestyle of missionaries, Nnaji took time to unveil how cultural conflict introduced war for the first time in Igboland. The Igbo did not know war until the days of the colonial imperialists. In a review carried out by Chukwu Shadrack, it was noted that “The Eagles Tribe is the evidence that the act of violent and destruction is the primary instrument the colonial masters use to overtake the Blacks”.

Achebe’s second publication, Arrow of God, discusses another phase of the Igbo history. This time, the Igbo society moved from the popular decentralized state to a more central form with the introduction of a titled Eze as the overhead structure. The Eze was both political and spiritual leader. He controlled every facet of the Igbo society organisations as shown in the novel. In Achebe’s own words, what many critics fail to know and, at times, are not prepared to know is that in Arrow of God, the totality of the society is seen in the eye of one man. The character in this position is Ezeulu. This character was lastly arrested by the imperialists in order to desecrate his sacred position in the eyes of the people’s tradition. When this happened, the society began to shift. We find the consequences of this shifting society in his successive novels such as A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savanah and other non-fictional works. Achebe’s indebtedness to the Igbo historical tradition was not only depicted in writings; he did as well show it openly through his lifestyle and character that no culture or tradition can be more prestigious than the Igbo.

One beauty found with Achebe’s works is their chronological sequencing; his fictional prose works appeared sequentially ordered by their content events and time. This is the uniqueness one can hardly find in the works of other African writers. Others who participated in telling Igbo story to the world in this form fell under those who, perhaps through melancholy, were set to depict the ominous part of the Igbo tradition and its affecting culture. Many in this field saw the Igbo tradition favouring men more than it did to women. To make their views prominent, they showcased the tradition as a barrier to the female development in the Igbo society. 

The aspects of Igbo tradition stressed in most of these literary works are mostly matters connected to marriage. The scholars in this field includes Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Zulu Sofola, John Munonye and lots more. Born in Oguta, Flora Nwapa was known as the mother of modern African literature; she was the first African women whose novel was published in English internationally with her novel Efuru. Nwapa’s first novel, Efuru, was published in 1966. Another remarkable novel by Nwapa is Idu, published in 1970. Other works by her includes One is Enough, Never Again, Women are Different, The Lake Goddess etc.

Zulu Sofola made her own contributions through the play text, Wedluck of the Gods. Born in Iselukwu, Sofola was the first female Nigerian playwright and university lecturer; her works often blended traditional Igbo culture with modern drama.

Most radical among these scholars is Buchi Emecheta. Born in Igbo bi N’uzo (popularly known as Ibuza), Emecheta was a prolific novelist who explored marital themes to criticize the place of women in a traditional Igbo society. Her first and second novels, Second-Class Citizen (1974) and Bride Price (1976) are believed to have resulted from marital experience. The Joys of Motherhood (1979) which became more popular among her works was her third population. 

Here, she directly attacked the tradition that values child-bearing more than the companionship that defines marriage in the western ways. More to her views about the Igbo tradition is the culture that permits a woman to be buried in her father land for not having a mail child. Her voice was obvious through her central character, Nnuego. John Munonye’s The Only Son belongs to Emecheta’s gender ideology.

There are many more contributors who, in one way or the other, had promoted the Igbo culture and tradition through inks. Those who, for one paint or the other are affected by certain traditional practices, have written passionately to seek liberations through expressive art works at one side; there are some writers whom it would be difficult to clearly say that they were defending the culture through their writings or that they were speaking from the point of disappointment. Christopher Okigbo is a very good example of this latter set. Okigbo was one of the most influential African poets of the 20th century, known for his haunting collection, Labyrinths. Labyrinths is celebrated not only for its artistic brilliance but also for the intensity of its themes. Okigbo explored spirituality, identity, sacrifice, and the search for meaning in a rapidly changing post-colonial Igbo landscape.

Born on 16 August 1932 in the town of Ojoto, Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Okigbo was the son of a teacher in Catholic Missionary Schools during the heyday of British colonial rule in Nigeria. Okigbo spent his early years moving to different places. Okigbo shares in the dual metaphysical positions; taking parts in the involvement in the western religion that has overtaken his father and sustaining the innate knowledge of his grandfather whom Okigbo was his incarnate person. His grandfather was the priest of the goddess “Idoto” manifesting in the symbolic ancestral snake widely known in his area as “Eke Idemili” (idemili Python). His father's devout Christianity could not prevent this manifestation. The poem collection titled Labyrinth was published posthumously after the Nigeria Biafra war. “Mother Idoto” was written in 1962, meanwhile Okigbo died in 1967, during the war. He is survived by a daughter, Obiageli Okigbo. From all indications as the words of the poet vividly indicate, it is apparent that the goddess has chosen Okigbo to serve in the place of his grandfather, and that he has been initiated or installed as the priest of the goddess but, due to his pursuit of personal gain, he has wandered away, abandoning the goddess in the forest.

The poem preaches a return to tradition as it shows the punishment of one who wandered away from the tradition and finally returns prodigiously. The poem begins with supplications for a withdrawal of impending judgment (lines 1-13) and ends in the same mood (lines 36-45). The second aspect of the poem presents Okigbo’s personal memories of the initiation/installment for services before he wanders away in search of western education. The third part of the poem covers information about the prodigy of the poem persona believed to be Okigbo himself. He calls himself the “town crier” (one who announces to people about what ought to be done), as we can find in the various lines of “Path of Thunder”. Critics call him the myth maker, while in “Mother Idoto” he refers to himself as a “watchman”. Okigbo’s tragedy, as shown in his verses, follows the cultural pattern. Tradition says that one does not outrun his guardian spirit. The Igbo put it in the following way, Mmadu agbaghi oso yara chi ya”.

The Igbo Extinction Era

Igbo history faced the worst moment during the period when the egalitarian lifestyle of the Igbos became a point for their hatred and possible attempts to exterminate the Igbo race. The seed for this inhuman plan against the Igbo was initiated by the colonial Britain who, for the nature of the anti-colonial battle against Briton, hated the Igbo race with passion. At the time when the colonial masters were departing, a Scottish, Sir. James Robertson, remained behind to facilitate the rigging of the first Nigerian general election to favour the northern part of the country. I did not make this up; Herold Smith echoed this in several of his interviews. From Smith’s view, the activities of Briton ware “illegal”,

I was one of the British officers serving on the headquarters staff in Lagos, chosen by the Governor General, Sir James Robertson, to mastermind the covert action to rig Nigeria's elections. This secret operation hatched in Whitehall was of course a gross betrayal of trust by Prime Ministers Sir Anthony Eden and Mr. Harold Macmillan. The orders which arrived on my desk from the Governor General before the elections for the Western Regional Government in 1956 were quite illegal and in direct contravention of Nigerian and British law (p. 5).

Achebe was sent to the north to conduct the election. There he was forced at gun point to play in their favour. Following this incident, Achebe wrote the novel, A Man of the People predicting a possible military coup and civil war. In 1966, the war ensued, following the pogrom of the Igbo population in the North. Igbo history turned a new phase and a new theme automatically arose for Igbo scholars. Achebe¹ addressed the situation in the following way,

A new situation has thus arisen. One of the writer’s main functions has always been to expose and attack injustice.

Should we keep at the old themes… when new injustices have sprouted all around us? I think not. Today literary artist who does not write about his prevailing social and political condition will likely end up becoming irrelevant (Burden, 138).

This new injustice that sprouted around us gave many writers opportunity to tell the Igbo story about the war; how they saw it, their roles and what they think about the whole situation. Achebe responded directly to this situation with the new theme in the Anthills of the Savannah. To end his carrier in the art of writing, Achebe gave a thorough account of his personal experience during the war. There Was a Country contains Achebe’s thought and experiences about the war. The novel did not treat the war situations thorough to reveal the pains of the victims. What Achebe gave attention to was the roles of the key actors in the war. He revealed the roles of Ojukwu, Gowan, Awolowo and others. There Was a Country is the simplest of Achebe’s works. One sees the scenes changing as the author changes positions from one setting to the other to tell the reader that he is not separate from his story. Achebe’s position in the novel is very clear. For him, the war could have been avoided in the first place. But, in his opinion, the actors refused to put the cost of the war into consideration. He made his point clearly thus,

They never gave themselves the opportunity to actually sit down and discuss their views on the war, but even if such a conversation had taken place, there would likely have been no positive result. At least one thing becomes clear when their respective point of views is juxtaposed and analysed, in their own minds, both Gowon and Ojukwu saw their own positions non-negotiable (p.288).

And, why was the war fought in the first place? Achebe said that the federal government saw the mass killing of the Igbo population in the North and did nothing to stop it. Ojukwu once said the same about the global community, during an interview in London. The world saw what was happening and kept quiet. Bruce Mayrock, a 20-year-old American student, set himself ablaze on May 30, 1969, in front of the United Nations headquarters at New York. He did this to protest the killing of Igbos by the Nigerian Army

during the Biafran war and passed away shortly after. His action was a plea for international intervention. Instead of intervention, international communities were busy raining finance and military aids to Nigeria.

UK particularly provided crucial diplomatic backing and supplied substantial arms to maintain a unified Nigeria and protect economic interests, specifically Shell-BP oil investments. Britain was the primary supplier of weapons to Nigeria; they supported Nigeria with armored tanks, machine guns and other ammunitions. The UK also involved the USSR. for the facilitation of the federal blockade during the Biafran genocide. Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister openly said that for Biafrans to develop arms and fashion Ogbunigwe few months of the war is a clear indication that if they are allowed to be independent, they would rule the world. He also added that dozens of the death bodies alover Igboland would not be an excuse for Britain to give up her decision to fight alongside Nigeria. UK provided Nigeria with whatever that was needed to see that the Igbo people were subdued. That was why, when Ojukwu was interrogated for refusing to take the food sent by Britain, he said, “We can’t collect food from the people that supply our enemies with the weapons to kill us”. They fought alongside the Nigerian army, gave Nigeria arms, fighting jets and other things needed for a total extermination of Ndigbo.

Britain was not along in their support for Nigeria. In fact, almost (if not) all the entire European countries took parts in the extermination attempt on the Igbo race. Even Russia was involved in the war against the Igbo. “Air Raid", by Achebe shows Russian presence in the war when it says that crossing the road to greet a friend is violently interrupted by a strike from the "evil forests of Soviet technology" that cuts a man into half. That was why, in a recurring metatextual element, book-within-a-book, Adichie used the titled, The World Was Silent When We Died to highlight the global indifference towards the Igbo suffering and the importance of storytelling as a tool in reclaiming one's history from foreign narratives.

The real story of the Biafran war was discussed by both Igbo and non-Igbo writers. Isidore Okpewho highlighted the various aspects of the war through his work, The Last Duty. Festus Iyayi gave out time to discuss betrayals in The Hero. Iyayi questions who the true heroes are: those that died in the battle or those who went to villages for the procurement of mundane things? The war revealed some selfish individuals among the Igbo race who gathered themselves and moved into villages to task villagers in the claim of contributing to feed warriors on the field. Among Igbo scholars sprung copies of writings in both prose and in verse. Popular among the Biafran war poems includes the copies of Chinua Achebe and those of Ossie Enekwe. Prominent among Achebe’s Biafran war poem collections include Beware, Soul Brothers (1971) and Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems (1973). While Achebe’s poems served as deeper structural impacts for the Igbo in a Nigeria different from what they used to know, the real futility of life and deepened moral horror was felt in Ossie Enekwe’s poem collections titled, Broken Pots. The title communicates the Igbo situation better than the horror unfolded in the content poems. ‘A broken pot has no “mekwatalism”’, the Igbo often eulogize, shows that the bond amidst the Igbo and the Nigerian state will never be reconsolidated.

Some prose works like Chukwuemeka Ike’s Sunset at Dawn chanted the same course in a way. Chukwuemeka reveals the unpreparedness of the Biafrans for the war. There was no manpower and instrument of war. School boys were circumstantially recruited and trained to fight the more experienced Nigerian army. Many of these half-baked soldiers were flushed out by the Nigerian counterpart. He discussed losses due to the war. several Igbo business men abandoned their businesses and properties in many non-Igbo speaking part of Nigeria. Those who survived the war alive tried to recover their properties, but to no avail. In Port-Harcourt (Igwe Ocha), the seizure of Igbo properties was masterminded by Ken Sarowiwa. While in Abak, Akwa-Ibom, it was Ime Umana (Imesco) who claimed many of the Igbo properties abandoned. Similar situations hold for other parts of the country. The tone of Chukwuemeka Ike’s novel is so heightened that the reader sees the Igbo population in highly degraded and unrecoverable conditions. Igbo did not only lose their properties; they lost huge amount of money to the Nigerian banks. They only thing recovered after the war was N20.00 given to account holder, the millions one had in the bank notwithstanding. In fact, the only thing left for us, after the war, was the “Igbo spirit”.

The seizure of Igbo properties did not only take place in Nigeria. UK also seized a lot of investments and assets belonging to the Igbo up to $6 trillion. Information bothering on this gained prominence in 2026 following the reports which indicated that the UK government was under pressure to review "over £100 billion worth of Biafran assets" which were frozen during the Biafran genocidal war. The breakdown of the amount UK owed Biafrans was carried out by Mike Arnold, a former US Mayor. They are:

* $2.5 trillion for oil revenue from Biafran territory (adjusted for inflation).

* $1.5 trillion for wrongful death compensation (up to 3 million lives).

* $1 trillion for structural damages from 112 years of the "Nigerian contraption".

* $500 billion+ for obstruction of humanitarian aid and arms supply.

Aside these detailed amounts stated above, there still remains another matter ruled against the United Kingdom by the Enugu State High Court ordering the UK to pay £420 million for the 1949 Iva Valley miners massacre.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is another relevant novel containing the Igbo story of the extinction war. Here Adichie tells the Igbo story by exploring such themes relative to the human cost, psychological trauma, and the erosion of idealism during the 1967–1970 War. Adichie shifted focus from political maneuvering to the direct suffering of civilians. The novel depicts graphic violence, such as a woman carrying her daughter's severed head and the indiscriminate shooting of civilians by "vandals". The profound disillusionment found on Adichie’s characters in the novel shows that the war fundamentally altered the psyche of the victims. Another relevant theme explored by Adichie is starvation.

Starvation contributed immensely to the sudden decision to end the war. the Nigerian government was advised by Obafomi Awolowo to employ starvation as a weapon of war. in Jacob’s, The Brutality of Nations quoted in Achebe’s There Was a Country, Awolowo was reported to have advised Gowon to use blockade as a weapon of war against the Igbo. In Jacob’s words, Awolowo said that, “All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder”. This was one main focus of Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun; humanitarian crisis caused by the Nigerian blockade. Characters witness children with kwashiorkor (swollen bellies from protein deficiency) and families so desperate for food that they had to risk death from enemy soldiers. The Igbo history is never complete without the Biafran war account. Not mush is read from books; no individual account is enough to buttress the enormous loss of the war. Not even the 1989 publication of Ojukwu himself, Because I was Involved could detail the events of the war. Greater part of the war story lies in the survivors who only could tell their stories in diverse versions.

Rise After the Fall

The Biafran war changed so many things about the Igbo history. It almost eroded the Igbo history, but for the survivors. The survivors picked themselves from nothing and began to build, setting the past behind them. The infrastructure they used and the fund they expended to build the Igbo race again was only hope and faith that they will still spring up greater again. To press on, the Igbo survivors decided to put everything about Biafra behind them. Those who’s still had confidence in the North moved back to their bases. Story has it (though unverified) that, as they got to the north, many of them were able to recover some of their properties; especially land and building, while every other valuable were either stolen as spoils of war or burnt down. Others moved to Lagos, Port Harcourt, Calabar and many other parts where they had spent their lives before the war. There, some of them saw their properties, but in the possession of another person.

Months later, a new word began to trend as a reference to the Igbo population. It started during the war but not so popular as it was in use in the aftermath of the war. the Northerners gave Igbo people a new name. they call Igbos “Nyamiri”. The reference emanated from the activities of those who could not make it to Igboland before the war gained ground. For fear of being lynched, they gathered themselves and moved to a Hausa leader in Kanu pleading that he protect them. As the nob advanced, the Hausa leader asked them not to kill any of the Igbos. To please the blood-thirsting mob, he assured them that the Igbos would die on their own. It thus happened that, before hunger came, their children were the first to ask for water to drink. Less patiently, they asked for weather in the local tongue, “Nyem mmiri”. Nobody gave them water or food until they all dropped dead one-by-one. So, in the post war, they used it on the Igbo as a pseudonym for the defeated. That was how the term, “Nyamiri” managed to gain expression as the Hausan’s reference for Igbo.

One strategy the Nigerian government employed was to make sure that the Igbo did not rise to prominence again to think of seceding. They removed every federal presence that could bring about explosive development as was found in the Igbo territory before the war. many companies domicile in Igboland were conditionally lifted to Lagos or Kanu/Kaduna. The Igbo were left to toil and rebuild themselves. They renamed Bite of Biafra and unequivocally placed a ban on the name Biafra. This they believed would write off the wrongs and erase the history from people’s mind. This was preceded by the British advice to split the Igbo race and make them ideologically indifferent to the matters of Ndigbo generally. This very strategy yielded success during and after the war. Prior to the war, parts of Imo were calved out to form another state with the Ijaws. They gave them the name, River State. Then, after the war, the same idea was employed to create Delta State; taking the whole of Ezechime tribe off the mainland Igbo geopolitical zone. After splitting the Igbo race, leaving the mainland Igbo with chunk population, then the implementation of the Sir. Ahmadu Bello’s decree followed. Bello’s decree is cited below.

By the time I came here, the northerners were not living to their responsibilities until I began to enlighten them. In actual fact, what it is – is a northerner first. If we can’t get a northerner, then we take an expatriate on contract; if we can’t, then we will employ another Nigerian, but on contract too. This is going to be permanent as I say for as far as I can proceed…" (Real Story; a video documentary by Jide Olanrewaju). 

With the implementation of this decree, the repudiation of Igbo origin by the newly calved out states began. And rather than accept their Igbo heritage, they prefer the view of Benin origin. They were taught to choose Benin instead of Igbo in order to be incorporated in the developmental project of the country. To conform, the Ikwerres began to look for an Akalaka within the Benin history and the Aniomas also looking for any version of Benin history that accommodates the presence of Ezechime. Ikwerre were very fast to become subservient to the Nigerian flurry. They quickly resumed a defection of nomenclature . Before the war ended, they had already begun to change their names, the name of their streets and others; but their culture, tradition and deifications remained indestructible Igbo. In the end, they became Benin men with faces, clothings and spirit of the Igbo men. The last version of their mutative habitation was the change of Obigbo to Oyigbo in 2023.

Less than twenty years, after the war, Igboland grew higher than expected of an abandoned area devastated by war raids. Onitsha was restored as the largest market in West Africa. Ariaria market in the Enyimba city of Aba rose to prominence with art and craft deepened into the production and fashioning of different useful goods. With the proximity of Onitsha, Nnewi rose higher in automobile. Particularly in the importation and assembling of various kinds of motor cycle and their spare parts. Competitions rose again as the concept of “Aku ruo Ulo” became prominent. The apprenticeship business management style became popular. Then, the real egalitarian spirit of Ndigbo was revived once again; but Biafra still echoed in minds due to the unceasing federal absence and abuse of Igbos in various parts of the country. With this threat on, and the Nigerian government keeping mute, it became obvious to the Igbo that the Biafran war was not actually ended as was merely said by Gowon on the day of surrender. These raise the question of whether the Igbo are still part of the nation or that she is a separate entity. This question rekindled the spirit of Biafra again. This time, not through war, but through diplomacy.  

The quest for the freedom of the unreconcilable Igbo race by the Nigerian states resonated among the indigenous through the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), founded by Ralph Uwazuruike. Established in 1999, (MASSOB) was a non-violent organization advocating for the secession of the Southern and Eastern regions. It focused on promoting Igbo nationalism and self-determination through peaceful means. (MASSOB) was also the founder the much-later-recognised "sit-at-home" campaigns to mark Biafra Day. Ralph was later arrested and jailed by the Nigerian government until he was coaxed to accept to play in the Nigerian ways over the struggle before he was released on 26^th October, 2007. After his release, the movement died down until 2012 when the struggle regained strength through the vibratory media broadcast carried out by Nnamdi Okwu Kanu on Radio Biafra.

Kanu changed the narratives and renamed the movement to The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). IPOB is a pro-Biafran separatist organisation in Nigeria that aims to restoring the Republic of Biafra, an independent state for the Igbo people. Nnamdi Kanu, a dual British-Nigerian citizen, was based in London at the time when the struggle fell on his shoulder.

Kanu knew that the problem against the success of the struggle has been the media. To actually overcome this militating factor, he began his struggle through media broadcast all the way from London. Initially, the Nigerian government took his broadcast with no regard. But, little-by-little, his broadcast began to gain momentum among the Igbo people, especially. In October 14^th, 2014, he was arrested by the Nigerian Department of State Service (DSS) in his hotel room at Golden Tulip Essential Hotel in Ikeja, Lagos State. His arrest was actually a plan orchestrated by Kanu Himself, for while he was about to travel, he made open information

about his way. He knew that the arrest would make him more popular by creating awareness about his person to the proposed followers. And it indeed happened. Released in 2017 under stringent bail conditions, the federal government moved in to assassinate him through the Operation Python Dance military inversion. During the over-one-week military inversion of Kanu’s residence in Afarukwu Ibeku, a group of Igbo boys were intercepted by the Nigerian army on their way to Abia State from Port-Harcourt. They were forced to swim in the nearby mud-water. The offence of these boys was only that a Biafran flag was found in their vehicles. Over thirty boys has to pass away that very day because they were agitating for the Biafran state born through referendum. That was when Nigeria suddenly woke up to recognize the mass followership Nnamdi Kanu commands. To the Nigerian State, the only option was to end Kanu’s life and let it serve as deterrent for anybody who dears to raise his head upon the same subject matter in the future. Providence redeemed him from being killed

by the soldiers that besieged his father’s compound. Many of his followers were killed in the process, while he made it out of the place alongside his father and mother.  Later on, in 2021, Kanu was abducted by the Nigerian government and extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria. His case continued to move from one judge to another until 20^th November, 2025 when he was unlawfully sentenced to life imprisonment by a Yoruba judge, James Omotoso. But he did not give up as his lawyers continued with the case and proceeded to the Appeal court where he had earlier been vindicated and acquitted.

Kanu’s abduction sent a shocking wave across the entire Igboland. His abduction too was riddled by false information. Malami, who later testified that he never knew that the process of kidnapping Kanu was against international law, was published in June 2021 on PM News saying that Kanu was arrested in Czech Republic. According to the news, Malami was reported to have claimed that the Federal Government organized a fake IPOB’s ESN fund raising in Czech and Nnamdi Kanu was lured to chair the occasion. Later on, the news disappeared from the internet and a new venue was heard. This time, they said he was abducted in Kenya.  Meanwhile, before his abduction, he had projected another leader in the person of Simon Ekpa. Simon was a Finnish politician and Biafran political activist. As Kanu had earlier announced, Simon took the struggle to a new dimension. Simon Ekpa became active in the "Biafra independence movement" in 2019. He was noticed by the Nigerian media after he posted a video showing that Nigerian soldiers had been killed by Boko Haram.

But Simon actually became made up to involve himself in the struggle after the attack in his community by massive numbers of armed men in the Nigerian army uniform. According to simon himself, the soldiers killed fathers, mothers and children. He testified of a survivor of the attack who lost parents and siblings and managed to find his way to libya through divine help. He also narrated the event where the Nigerian army attacked IPOB member while they were praying and killed them helplessly. According to Ekpa, the Nigerian security agencies that carried out the attack gathered the bodies of the victims inside a ditch and poured acid on them to elude every form of recognition. But one person managed to escape when he was thought to have died. Videos of all these murderous attacks by the military gave him no further chance to consider the dangers that the struggle entails.

Following the provision of the United Nation chatter, Ekpa declared "full activation" of the Biafran Government in Exile (BGIE) in August 2022. He was at the point of redeclaring the United State of Biafra when he was arrested and detained by the Finish authority in November, 2024 and was accused of promoting terrorism in Nigeria through his powerful broadcast. 

But this arrest did not stop the redeclaration on the same month. On 29^th November, the same year, the United States of Biafra was officially redeclared in Finland by Dr. Ngozi Orabueze, the then Chief of Staff in the established BIGIE.

Upon redeclaring the United States of Biafra in the absence of Simon Ekpa, Ngozi Orabueze asumned the office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Conclusion:

From the discussion so far, it is apparent that the Igbo race have come a long way to get to her present state. We have seen wars of different kinds and survived them. Worst of it all was the Biafran war fought with the primary intention to totally obliterate the Igbo race. It did not succeed, and the remnants had always bounced back like a synthetic rubber. The only success it had on us was that it ended up dividing the great race into parts, notionally. The Igbo became divided into those who know themselves as Igbo and those who are Igbo but denied their ancestry. To this end, it becomes necessary to clarify views on who is Igbo and who is not. The Igbo is he who bears Igbo name/surname, whose place of origin bears Igbo name, who speaks any of the versions of Igbo language whether he thinks like the Igbo or not; the distance of his homeland from the east notwithstanding. Those who lack these qualifications can be simplified as the non-Igbo.

Distance is not a barrier; for, if history is traced carefully, it would be a surprise to uncover that the distant Igbos had originated from the Igbo core. We have Igbo people in Bioko Island; there are other diaspora Igbos who may not be competent in the use of the Igbo language but could trace their sources to the Igbo race. With the help of the social media, Igbo recovery is a wave that has overtaken the globe. With this, those who had earlier repudiated their stance as Igbo are currently embracing the one hallowed race, the Igbo. Igbo is one everywhere and no Igbo is greater than the other; that is why the Igbo eulogise the term, “Igbo bu Igbo”. Every Igbo-speaking people had come from the great Igbo race at one time or the other in the past. The task ahead is to trace those subsidiary Igbos to their mega sources.  Afigbo had undertaken this task and stopped on the way. James Onwuejeogwu had contributed but a little, due to his overconcentration on the Nri hegemony. There are many others as mentioned at the preface. What I have tried to achieve is to discuss those forgotten parts of our history as Ndi gboo.