Nigerian-born American lecturer, Uju Anya, says “the Biafrans” would have successfully separated and formed their own country if Britain had not interfered and supported the Nigerian Army.
Newsbreak.ng reports that speaking in an interview with Punch, Prof. Anya blamed the Nigerian-Biafran war casualty figures on the European nation.
“The Biafrans would have successfully separated and formed their own country if the British had not interfered and supported the Nigerian army, funding them.
“So, the British caused this genocide by making sure that the people that were trying to separate were squashed,” she said.
The Biafran War began in July 1966 and ended in 1970 after more than a million people had been killed, mostly from starvation. But despite that, calls for secession remain strong in Nigeria’s southeastern regions.
The effects of the war linger and there are still calls being made for secession of the country’s oil-rich southeastern region, where the Igbo people live.
Many people accuse the government of failing to invest in the southeast since the end of the war in 1970, blighting development. Some see it as a punishment for the conflict.
Support for secession has increased since the first arrest in late 2015 of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the pro-independence Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, a proscribed organisation.
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