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Daily News on Wars in the World and on New States
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The songs of protesters calling for an independent state of Biafra are growing louder by the day in southeastern Nigeria. As the volume increases, so do the tensions within the region.
Agitation for the Biafra region to become an independent state has been growing. In the late 1960s, an attempt by the region to secede from Nigeria to form an independent state led to the Nigerian civil war which lasted for 30 months.
More than 45 years ago, Nigeria was nearly divided by a bloody civil war that led to the deaths of over a million people. Now, a revival in secessionist sentiment in southeastern Nigeria, among supporters of the historical state of Biafra, threatens to undermine President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision of a united Nigeria and spill over into regional violence.
Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of southern Nigeria in recent weeks following the arrest of a prominent pro-Biafran activist, who has been accused by Nigerian authorities of hate speech and treason. As well as demanding their colleague’s release, some protesters are calling for the establishment of an independent Biafra once again.
Somaliland, a slim slice of Somali-inhabited territory on the southern shore of the Gulf of Aden, ticks almost all the boxes of statehood. It has its own currency, a reasonably effective bureaucracy and a trained army and police force.
The government, located in the capital city of Hargeisa, maintains a respectable degree of control over its territory: the country is, by and large, peaceful, in stark contrast to Somalia to the south—where bombings and a rampage through a popular hotel in the capital killed at least 14 people at the weekend.
The results of the Scottish independence referendum are in, and the answer is a resounding “no.”
The referendum asked only a single question: Should Scotland become an independent country? Scottish voters have decided, by a large margin, that it should not. After all of the ballots were counted, “no” had taken 55.3% of the vote, and “yes” only 44.7%.
Polling stations across Scotland will open at 7am today as the country embarks on the biggest vote in its history.
More than four million people are registered to cast their votes across 32 local authority areas.