By John Campbell Fighting between government forces and an Igbo separatist group risks adding yet another challenge for the Buhari admin...
By John Campbell
Fighting between government forces and an Igbo separatist
group risks adding yet another challenge for the Buhari administration. The
emergence of an Igbo paramilitary force highlights the growing breakdown of any
federal government monopoly on the use of force in the face of multiple
security challenges.
Even in good times, security is fragile in the former
Biafra. Insecurity has multiple dimensions. The Igbo people are Nigeria's third
largest ethnic group. They were the losers in the 1967–70 civil war in which
they tried to establish a separate, Igbo-dominated state, Biafra. Many Igbo
continue to believe that they are disadvantaged in Nigeria, and there continues
to be residual support for Biafran independence, though not among the Igbo
"establishment." Conflict over land and water, once largely
restricted to the Middle Belt, is spreading to the south, where it frequently
acquires ethnic and religious overtones. Many Igbo—mostly Christian—believe
they are targeted by the Muslim Fulani herdsmen bringing their flocks south in
search of better pastures. Criminal activity is widespread and often the Igbo
attribute it to the Fulani.
Many residents of the former Biafra are alienated from the
federal government and see the Buhari administration as Muslim-dominated and as
enabling Fulani atrocities. Added to this mix is Nnamdi Kanu's Indigenous
People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist movement that reflects and facilitates
popular discontent. The federal government, recalling the civil war, is
bitterly opposed to Igbo separatism, as is most of the Igbo establishment. The
government has long sought to defang the IPOB and silence Kanu, sometimes
through illegal or quasi-legal methods. He, in turn, has used alleged Fulani
depredations as a means of attacking the Buhari administration.
Starting in August 2020, violence between IPOB and the
federal police and the army has escalated. In that month, the Nigerian police
killed up to twenty-one civilians at an IPOB meeting in Enugu State. In
response, the IPOB promised retaliation and urged its members to practice
self-defense. In December, Kanu announced the establishment of a paramilitary
wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), allegedly to protect the Igbo against
the Fulani.
For the federal government, a non-state sanctioned,
paramilitary organization in the old Biafran heartland was unacceptable, and it
moved against ESN camps. In late January 2021, serious fighting broke out in
the town of Orlu in Imo State, leading to significant numbers of displaced
persons. Fighting stopped when Kanu declared a cease-fire, saying that he was
redirecting ESN efforts against "Fulani raiders." (He also claimed that
the federal forces had withdrawn from Orlu.)
Supporters of the ESN, including in the Igbo diaspora,
justify it as being like Miyetti Allah in the north and Amotekun in Yorubaland
in the west. Both are paramilitary operations outside the federal government's
legal purview but with some ambiguous level of government approval. The north
and the west were on the winning side in the civil war, and that may help
account for the federal government's greater tolerance for their paramilitary
organizations than for one associated with the Igbo.
The escalating fighting in IPOB strongholds carries the risk
of radicalizing the population and building support for the IPOB. Credible
evidence suggests police assaulted residents in Orlu, and some police
perpetrators have been arrested. The commissioner of police for Imo State has
apologized. But as recently as December 2020, IPOB was saying that ESN forces
were merely a "vigilante" group protecting the Igbo against the
Fulani. Now Kanu has an organized wing, the ESN, and believes he has the
authority to order a cease-fire in a fight with federal forces. Violence is
escalating, and the outcome is unpredictable.
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