, 1584) (Royal Cartographer of France) 1770) " (1676)
Early modern period maps of Africa from the 15th to the 19th centuries, drawn from accounts written by explorers and travellers, show references to Biafar, Biafara, Biafra, and Biafares. According to the maps, the European travellers used the word
Biafara to describe the region of today's West Cameroon, including an area around today's Equatorial Guinea. Between 1731 and 1754, German bookseller and publisher
Johann Heinrich Zedler published his encyclopedia
Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon, in which he mentioned the exact geographical location of the capital of Biafara, namely alongside the river
Rio dos Camaroes in today's Cameroon, at a latitude of 6 degrees 10 minutes. The words
Biafara and
Biafares also appear on maps from the 18th century in the area around Senegal and Gambia. In his personal writings from his travels, the Rev. Charles W. Thomas defined the locations of islands in the
Bight of Biafra as "between the parallels of
longitude 5° and
9° East and
latitude 4° North and
2° South."
Under independent Nigeria In 1960,
Nigeria became independent from the
United Kingdom. As with many other new African states, the country's borders did not reflect earlier ethnic, cultural, religious, or political boundaries. Consequently, the northern region of the country has a
Muslim majority, primarily encompassing the territory of the indigenous
Sokoto Caliphate. The southern population is predominantly
Christian, mainly encompassing the territory of the indigenous
Yoruba and Igbo states in the west and east, respectively. Following independence, Nigeria was demarcated primarily along ethnic lines: a
Hausa and
Fulani majority in the north, a
Yoruba majority in the West, and an
Igbo majority in the East. Ethnic tension had simmered in Nigeria during discussions of independence, but in the mid-twentieth century, ethnic and religious riots began to occur. In 1945, an
ethnic riot flared up in
Jos, in which Hausa-Fulani people targeted Igbo people and left at least two dead and wounded. Police and army units from Kaduna had to be brought in to restore order. In 1953, a
similar riot occurred in
Kano. A decade later, in 1964 and during the Western political crisis, the Western Region was divided as
Ladoke Akintola clashed with
Obafemi Awolowo. Widespread reports of fraud tarnished
the election's legitimacy. Westerners especially resented the political domination of the
Northern People's Congress, many of whose candidates ran unopposed in the election. Violence spread throughout the country, and some began to flee the North and West, some to
Dahomey. The apparent domination of the political system by the North and the chaos breaking out across the country motivated elements within the military to consider decisive action. The federal government, dominated by Northern Nigeria, allowed the crisis to unfold with the intention of declaring a state of emergency and placing the Western Region under martial law. This administration of the Nigerian federal government was widely perceived to be corrupt. In January 1966, the situation reached a breaking point. A
military coup occurred during which a mixed but predominantly Igbo group of army officers assassinated 30 political leaders, including Nigeria's Prime Minister, Sir
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and the Northern premier, Sir
Ahmadu Bello. The four most senior officers of Northern origin were also killed.
Nnamdi Azikiwe, the President of Igbo extraction, and the favoured Western Region politician
Obafemi Awolowo were not killed. The commander of the army,
General Aguiyi Ironsi, seized power to maintain order. In July 1966, northern officers and army units staged a countercoup, killing Ironsi and several southern officers. The predominantly Muslim officers named a general from a small ethnic group (the Angas) in central Nigeria, General
Yakubu "Jack" Gowon, as the head of the Federal Military Government (FMG). The two coups deepened Nigeria's ethnic tensions. In September 1966,
approximately 30,000 Igbo civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands more maimed, had their properties confiscated, and fled the north, and some Northerners were expelled in backlashes in eastern cities. In January 1967, Gowon and
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, as well as senior police officials from each region met in
Aburi, Ghana, and agreed on a less centralised union of regions. The Northerners were at odds with this agreement, known as the
Aburi Accords.
Obafemi Awolowo, the leader of the Western Region, warned that if the Eastern Region seceded, the Western Region would also, which persuaded the Northerners. It is believed this was one of the major factors that sparked the war. The large amount of oil in the region also created conflict, as oil was already becoming a major component of the Nigerian economy. Biafra was ill-equipped for war, with fewer army personnel and less equipment than the Nigerian military, but had advantages over the Nigerian state as they were fighting in their homeland and had the support of most Biafrans. The FMG attacked Biafra on 6 July 1967. Nigeria's initial efforts were unsuccessful; the Biafrans successfully launched their own offensive and expansion efforts, occupying areas in the
mid-Western Region in August 1967. This led to the creation of the
Republic of Benin, a short lived puppet-state. However, with the support of the British, American, and Soviet governments, Nigeria turned the tide of the war. By October 1967, the FMG had regained the land after intense fighting. In September 1968, the federal army planned what Gowon described as the "final offensive". Initially, the final offensive was neutralised by Biafran troops. In the latter stages, a Southern FMG offensive managed to break through the fierce resistance. After two-and-a-half years of war, during which almost two million Biafran civilians (three-quarters of them small children) died from starvation caused by the total
blockade of the region by the Nigerian government, Biafran forces under Nigeria's motto of "No-victor, No-vanquished" surrendered to the FMG. The surrender was facilitated by the Biafran Vice President and Chief of General Staff, Major General
Philip Effiong, who assumed leadership of the Republic of Biafra after Ojukwu, fled to the
Ivory Coast. After the surrender of Biafra, some Igbos who had fled the conflict returned to their properties but were unable to claim them back from new occupants. This became law in the Abandoned Properties Act (28 September 1979). It was purported that at the start of the civil war, Igbos withdrew their funds from Nigerian banks and converted it to the Biafran currency. After the war, bank accounts owned by Biafrans were seized and a Nigerian panel resolved to give every Igbo person an account with only 20 pounds. Federal projects in Biafra were also greatly reduced compared to other parts of Nigeria. In an Intersociety study it was found that Nigerian security forces also extorted approximately $100 million per year from illegal roadblocks and other methods from
Igboland – a cultural sub-region of Biafra in what is now southern Nigeria, causing the Igbo citizenry to trust the Nigerian security forces even less than before. ==Geography==