Dream of free Biafra revives in southeast Nigeria

ONITSHA, Nigeria, July 11 (Reuters) Down a dark, narrow alley in the heart of West Africa's biggest market, sheltered in his tiny wooden stall, a trader draws out a wad of crisp bank notes printed with the words ''One Biafran Pound''.

Manchikah can't buy anything with the currency because it was only accepted from 1967 to 1970 in a chunk of southeastern Nigeria that tried and failed to secede under the name of Biafra. He risks arrest for keeping a stash of it.

Yet for him, the worthless money represents the hope of a better future for the Ibo, Nigeria's third-largest ethnic group whose home region is the southeast.

''We are keeping it because we are going to have our freedom, and we will use it,'' he says.

''We want Biafra. We need Biafra. We are suffering in this Nigeria!'' he adds, raising his voice as he warms to his subject.

Dozens of others gather around, shouting their agreement, and within minutes they burst into song in the Ibo language.

These young men, like many Ibo, are angry because they feel that their people have been marginalised by successive Nigerian Governments ever since the Biafran forces surrendered to the Nigerian army in 1970 after a war that killed a million Ibo.

They are bitter at the fact that no Ibo has ruled Nigeria since 1966 and they accuse the two bigger tribes, the Hausa in the north and the Yoruba in the southwest, of monopolising power and the riches of Nigeria's multibillion-dollar oil industry.

Traders in Onitsha see decades of neglect in their city, a sprawling maze of slums and muddy alleyways strewn with rubbish, with scarce electricity and no clean water. That other parts of Nigeria are equally derelict offers little comfort.

SEPARATISTS Against this backdrop, the idea of an independent Ibo homeland has regained strength in recent years.

A separatist group, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), formed in 1999 and has drawn increasing support, especially among young people.

''We have many graduates in Biafra but many of them are in the market pushing wheelbarrows because they don't have anything else,'' said Gladys Okechukwu, a 24-year-old member.

''We should have our own country so everyone can have the opportunity to show what they can do,'' she said.

MASSOB says it is unarmed and has devised a 25-stage plan to achieve its goal peacefully. The stages include measures like the reintroduction of the Biafran currency and flag.

But many Nigerians, including among the Ibo, are sceptical that this strategy could ever result in an independent Biafra.

Authorities accuse MASSOB members of numerous acts of violence, which the group denies. Its leader, arrested last October, is facing trial for treason and hundreds of other activists have been arrested, but the group is defiant.

''If the Nigerian government intimidates us, it makes us more popular,'' said a member who gave his name as Moshe Ben Israel.

The Ibo, who have the reputation of being brilliant traders, see themselves as the victims of persecution by other tribes jealous of their business success. Many draw comparisons with anti-Semitism and consider themselves ''the Jews of Nigeria''.

An underlying problem that fuels the separatist aspirations of some Ibo is Nigeria's long history of inter-ethnic violence.

One of the events that precipitated the Biafran war was a series of massacres of Ibo in the north in 1966, mostly committed by Hausa who were angry over a failed coup in January that year that was perceived as being Ibo-led.

''A GLASS CAGE'' The rivalry between the Ibo and the Hausa has religious undertones. The Hausa are predominantly Muslim while the Ibo are almost all Christians. But like most ethnic violence in Nigeria, the clashes between them are often fuelled by politicians.

The latest example was in February, when Hausa killed dozens of Ibo in northern cities. In Onitsha, Ibo retaliated by killing about 100 Hausa and driving hundreds of other from the city.

Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, who as military governor of the southeast declared Biafran independence and then led the Biafran forces, says the Ibo have to struggle to break out of ''a glass cage'' hindering their progress within Nigerian society.

''I look at the MASSOB experiment and I say it might have a chance,'' Ojukwu, a charismatic figure now in his 70s, said in an interview at his home in Enugu, the old capital of Biafra.

''What is the alternative? Do you allow Nigeria to trample on the freedoms of about one third of the population? Do you accept the humiliation of being second class citizens and having enforced limits on your progress?'' For a group of veterans who were crippled in the war and now live by the side of the Enugu-Onitsha expressway, waiting in wheelchairs for motorists to stop and give them money, the young radicals offer hope that their struggle was not in vain.

''For 40 years no one heard about Biafra but now it's gradually coming up again. One day it will reach the high heaven and God will grant us our freedom,'' said Joseph Akani, who was paralysed from the waist down by a Nigerian bullet in 1968.

''We have suffered enough. Unless Biafra comes we have nowhere to lay our heads.'' REUTERS DKB RK0958