Every May 30, a rally is held in Tel Aviv marking the day Biafra gained its independence, remembering those who were killed and calling for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, the persecuted political leader who is most associated with the Biafran independence movement.
Biafra was a region in Nigeria that gained its independence after a rebellion in 1967 by Igbo officers. With the declaration of independence, Nigeria invaded Biafra and flanked it from all sides. At the end of a war that claimed the lives of millions of citizens, including 1.5 million Biafran children, its independence was revoked and it returned to being part of the Nigerian Republic. Nnamdi Kanu, the political leader of the independence movement, was born in September 1967, the year of the rebellion, into a well-known family, and is most associated with the struggle for renewed Biafran independence.
Kanu has said in the past in interviews that there are 70 million Biafrans in the world and 50 million of them are Jews. He elaborated on the Jewish customs they observe: circumcision, prayer, wearing a kippah, reading the Torah, fasting and holidays. According to the Biafran Jews, they are descendants of Eri, Gad’s fifth son, which connects them to Jewish forefather Jacob.
According to tradition, even before the exodus from Egypt, Eri fled with his family and another subgroup of Jews through North Africa and arrived at the Anambra Valley, in today’s southern Nigeria. There they established their temple and maintained the customs of Judaism for thousands of years. With the spread of British colonialism, Christian missionaries appeared as in other African sites and sought to strip the Ibo of their religion.
(Photo: Jaroslav Moravcik / Shutterstock)
One of the rally’s organizers said that the missionaries succeeded in obscuring the connection of the Ibo people to their Judaism and even made them feel ashamed of their religion. She said the Ibo are not interested in Israel, but want to establish their own Jewish state in Nigeria.
Attempts to Islamize the population
The Israeli writer Shaul Maizlish, who serves as the chairman of “Friends of the Biafra People”, emphasizes in a conversation with Ynet that he spoke with Kanu many times and he repeatedly asserted that he is not interested in moving his community to Israel. Although he has an apartment in Harish and could have made aliyah, he chose to stay in Nigeria, close to his people. “He is loyal to his religion, loyal to his people, and his great dream is to establish an entity in which the African Jews will live in a lifestyle befitting the descendants of the Gad tribe,” explained Maizlish.
Maizlish said the Biafran Jews are still persecuted for being Jewish. “One of the groups that bother the Ibo is the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram that threatens them, and they sometimes carry out attacks with machetes. The lives of the Biafran Jews have become hell.” Often, they report attempts to Islamize them with exile being the other option given by the terror organization.
The Biafrans still place most of the blame for the loss of their independence on colonial Britain. “Although they officially left the country in 1948, they actually remained in it until today – because of the oil, of course,” Nwosu explains. “In the civil war of 1967, Britain supported the Nigerians, and the Biafrans lost their independence.”
The Soviet Union then also stood by the Nigerians. South Africa and Israel assisted the Biafrans through the transfer of arms and ammunition. The Biafrans believe that Britain’s support enables the Nigerians’ continued abuse and their refusal to grant independence to a Jewish-Biafrian state.
The Biafran Martin Luther King
When he was 20, Nnamdi Kanu traveled from Nigeria to London, where he studied communications and founded a radio station called “Radio Biafra.” Through broadcasts, he reached the homes of tens of millions of people, and his calls for silent protest similar to Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi appeared in prominent newspapers around the world. Nigeria accused him of treason and his organization, the IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra), was designated as a terrorist organization.
(Photo: IPOB Israel)
According to the BBC report, former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to “crush” the organization. In 2015, Kanu was put on trial and held in custody for 19 months. He arrived at the court wearing a kippah and a tallit, and stated that he was Jewish. After his release on bail of 300 million nairas (about $800 thousand), the Nigerian army showed up at his parents’ house to execute him. The riots that broke out around the house led to the deaths of 28 Biafrans, but Kanu’s men managed to get him out of the country.
The Biafran leader began to travel around the world and try to promote his vision, and during one of his trips he also visited Israel. He lectured at Tel Aviv University, met with Knesset members, and reiterated his demand for a referendum in Nigeria on Biafra’s independence.
About three years ago, on June 18, 2021, Kanu arrived in Kenya with his British passport, where he was arrested by the authorities and extradited to Nigeria. Due to his health condition, the extradition was done in an expedited process. His brother Kingsley later said the incident was nothing short of kidnapping. Kanu’s family blames Britain for knowing what happened in Nigeria and Kenya while not addressing it.
Meanwhile, Kanu’s associates are very worried about his fate and fear that the Nigerian authorities are planning to execute him. Meanwhile, his supporters send him medication from Israel, at their own expense, due to suspicions of maltreatment in custody. Biafrans think it is Israel’s duty to protect Jews around the world and prevent Kanu’s execution. They claim that Bifran dissidents are going through brutal oppression by local authorities with Britain’s consent.
Maizlish expects support from the religious perspective. “I believe that the first and necessary step is to demand the rabbis to recognize the Jewishness of the Ibo people. Tens of thousands of them have the relevant documents, they have dozens of synagogues, they are not afraid to march with Israeli flags with extraordinary courage, and the prices they pay are unimaginable. We have relations with Nigeria, and we are obligated on the most basic Jewish, moral and human level to take care of them.”