The terrorism conviction and life sentence handed down by the Federal High Court in Abuja on Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, brings an end to a ten-year legal battle. But it opens up a larger political and security question for Nigeria.
Kanu has long championed the secession of Nigeria’s south-east region, a demand the Nigerian constitution forbids. The last major attempt at secession, in 1967, triggered a 30-month civil war that killed over one million people, mostly Igbo civilians.
Kanu’s campaign for Biafra as an independent Igbo state is rooted in decades of perceived political marginalisation and unresolved historical grievances of the Igbo.
