Nigeria: Their election boycott fell flat. What now for the Biafra separatists?
The Nigerian government claims the secessionist group IPOB is “dead and gone”. Its supporters beg to differ.
Protesters put up posters calling for the boycott of the Anambra governorship election. Credit: Radio Biafra.
When an influential secessionist group called on people to boycott Anambra state’s election, many people expected the worst.
Ahead of the governorship poll on 18 November, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) insisted that no election would take place unless Nigeria’s federal government agreed to hold an independence referendum for certain south-eastern states. A week before the election, IPOB supporters stepped up this campaign, marching on the streets and vowing to disrupt the election.
“If you vote you will die. Don’t go out, stay in your house. If you vote on November 18, you will die,” one of the protesters threatened in a video that soon went viral.
Nigerians therefore awaited the November poll with bated breath. IPOB has shown itself to be popular and its calls for a separate state of Biafra have significant support in the region. However, on the day itself, the process went ahead smoothly.
“The election was gladly peaceful”, says Chinedu Asadu, a Nigerian journalist who covered the election. Shortly after the vote, the incumbent Willie Obiano was declared the winner by a comfortable margin.
What happened? And what does this mean for the Biafran secessionists’ struggle going forwards?
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No referendum, no election
It was under leader Nnamdi Kanu that IPOB originally vowed to disrupt elections. “If the Federal Government does not agree with us on a date for referendum, there will be no elections in the Southeast,” he said in June. “We are starting with Anambra come November this year.”
In July, a group of Biafra separatists confronted the Anambra governor at his church, chanting “No referendum, no election”.
Since September, however, Kanu has been missing. Meanwhile, IPOB’s strategy softened a little over time. “It wasn’t unanimously agreed that elections won’t be held,” says political analyst Ifeanyi Onyekere.
The promise to disrupt elections thus shifted into a less radical demand for a boycott. Through a combination of door-to-door mobilisation, SMS messaging and printed flyers, IPOB tried to persuade people to stay away from the ballot box to show their displeasure at the government. A couple weeks before the vote, police raided a printing press where IPOB members were producing pamphlets with messages such as “call for referendum is not call for war” and “anyone who insists on participating in the Anambra election will be doing so at his or her own risk”.
At the same time, many IPOB supporters continued to issue threats around what might happen on 18 November.
On the day itself, there was some hesitation amongst voters. “In some polling booths, voters came late. In some places accreditation of voters started two three hours after the proper election schedule; they wanted to know that the place is safe before voting,” says Asadu.
However, in part due to the heavy security presence, the process occurred with little incident. Turnout was low at a mere 22%. But this was not unusual. In 2013, turnout was just 24%.
Total failure?
In the wake of failed boycott, Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed claimed that IPOB is “dead and gone” and that the successful election was its death knell. “I think what that proved is that IPOB does not represent the good people of Anambra state or any state in the south east,” he said.
Onyekere agrees the boycott was “a total failure”and suggests that the group’s momentum may be fading in the absence of Kanu. Following successful elections in Anambra and also Enugu earlier in November, he says IPOB may “die a natural death”.
However, the analyst claims that the “majority of this population” still backs the idea of Biafran independence even if they are not necessarily official IPOB supporters.
Sopuru Amah, a registered member of the group, similarly emphasises the campaign’s ongoing support. He attributes the failure of the boycott not to IPOB’s waning popularity, but disagreement over this particular strategy.
“If someone decides to vote will you stop him?” he says. “In a family like this, there’s no way you’ll expect everyone to reason the same way. Some people love the idea of Biafra but they didn’t buy into the idea of boycotting the election.”
Amah also disagrees with the suggestion that IPOB cannot survive without its charismatic leader. “When Kanu was in prison [from October 2015 to April 2017], IPOB was doing well and he has established a well-structured leadership who can pilot IPOB’s affairs in his absence,” he says.
Although its protest around the Anambra election fell flat, Amah warns against writing off the group just yet, claiming more actions are in the offing.
“We are under a command and they are the ones to tell us what to do next,” he says.
Sorry, IPOB never said or planned to disrupt Nigeria’s election, instead it maintained that supporters will not participate. I believe you did report from proxy. This is not fair. Kindly learn to give eye witness account or your credibility is at stake
Who writes this sort of thing? That election was so successfully boycotted that local politicians determined to save their parties’ faces were going house to house attempting to lure out the people with the offer of monetary inducement. It’s naive of anyone, particularly the government to in any way claim Biafrans are not determined to gain their freedom. It’s as deceitful as claiming that Nigeria is fighting corruption, or that Nigeria is not economically prostrate, or that boko haram is not ravaging the north eastern Nigeria. This circle of false reports and commentaries cannot serve any useful purpose for Nigeria. Let Nigeria federal government recognize the real presence of Biafra freedom agitators and seek for ways to meet them, otherwise, Nigeria will continue to be hurt so badly by their current approach of feigning ignorance or assumption that those people especially IPOB, don’t command the following of their people.
A lie is a false statement made with a deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth, misinformation or misrepresentation intended for mischief, treachery or cheating. The practice of communicating lies is called lying, and a person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar. That the Anambra state election boycott as called for by IPOB fell flat, is the lie of the century coming as usual from the chronic liar of all times, from the very pit of hell and who is often referred to in the scriptures as Satan the devil and the father of all lies. Unless of course the one does not really understand or see what transpired as it were. The truth was that there was the desire to achieve 100% boycott which really would be impossible as we know that even the some of the Angels rebelled against God. And God allowed or chased them out of the country, sorry kingdom. There was nothing done or allowed to be done physically to stop or to disrupt the election. And how do you measure win or success in an election or fight where the electorate or opponent decided you are not worthy his fight or interest and ignored you largely via a boycott. You went ahead to push him aside stood by yourself unchallenged and then shout to claim victory. How do you regard the victory of an incumbent, who scored less than 150,000 votes in the entire state of about 4.5 million people with more than half of it as eligible/registered electorate. And the total vote cast for all the candidates that participated put together was less than 500,000 or about 20% of the electorate, most of which were interested and helpless core family/party members/friends and not the independent real electorate who boycotted or rather voted against the election and the govn. Is that a true democracy or an electoral success. Does it mean that even if only the close family and friends of Willy Obiana voted in the elections one would still call that an election and him winner. But remember, Democracy is govt of the people (the electorate), by the people and for the people and not that of just family ans friends in the entire state. There is a story about a hawk who trained and sent his child to go hunt for a fowl (Chick) to eat. The child hawk returned with a duckling and said without any fight or friction at all. The mother told the child hawk that this which got got so easily without any real challenge was abnormal and not a good one and that by the honour and pride of a hawk it has to be jettisoned as ugly and not good. That is the situation here. What the people at large have said or stated by the boycott which was by about 80%, an “A” success, has to be acknowledged if not considered. Obiano has only picked what the people ignored with justification by way of rejection. It is not the true or real mandate, and he is in the best position to do this with his incumbency and home family/party and friends advantage. Else APC would have taken it by the second advantage of being the overall party in power via INEC, the military etc. This is why they took a close second in this type of results. Most of the people of PDP or UPP etc. who would have really won the election were rather with the electorate majority on the boycott. So there was no real election in my view and the real people did not vote nor care about who is on the saddle, whether APGA APC or PDP. They want something else and that is freedom from oppression and marginalization which I do not see them abandoning the quest for anything.
Good day my people of barfian it is inclubet we want to be free but we are doing ourselves just look at the zoo government called Nigeria our peoples is die because of zoo President let no what we can do our leader they are eating our birth right they children no one is Nigeria so called zoo government I am not happy let us come together as one umbrella think u
The facts about No votes in Anambara state election was that low shows that IPOB no election campaign worked and the massive boycott means the people of indigenous people of Biafra have spoken with one voice that they are not part of Nigeria are ready to take the matter of political affairs into their own hands and announce to the rest world a date of Referndum and exit from Nigeria very imminent in the their own hands.