Trump’s return sparks renewed hope among Nigerian separatists

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ABUJA, NIGERIA — As U.S. Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump pre­pares for his sec­ond inau­gu­ra­tion on Jan. 20, thou­sands of miles away in Nige­ria his return to pow­er has reignit­ed hope among Biafra seces­sion­ists. Some view him as a pos­si­ble ally in their decades-long bat­tle for auton­o­my – though at least one ana­lyst thinks they should low­er their expectations.

On the morn­ing of Nov. 6, Odi­na­ka Nwankwo, a retired foot­baller, sat on his porch in south­east Nigeria’s Anam­bra state lis­ten­ing to the results of the U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on his tran­sis­tor radio.

After a few hours, the news broke that Repub­li­can can­di­date Don­ald Trump had defeat­ed oppo­nent Kamala Harris.

Nwankwo, a sup­port­er of the Biafra seces­sion­ist move­ment, said jubi­la­tion imme­di­ate­ly erupted.

“We know that Trump can go straight to them and tell them — resolve this issue of Biafra, if they want to be free, let them be free,” Nwankwo said. “I think that’s the why the south­east is excit­ed about his com­ing, not that he will give the south­east Biafra, but at least he [is] blunt about issues because he does­n’t know how to play politics.”

Trump won both the elec­toral col­lege and pop­u­lar vote to become the 47th U.S. president-elect.

Biafra’s sep­a­ratist com­mu­ni­ties are now express­ing hope that Trump’s pres­i­den­cy, which begins on Jan. 20, could be a turn­ing point for their movement.

Ifeanyi Oko­roafor is a res­i­dent of Imo State in south­east Nigeria.

“Mar­gin­al­iza­tion is sub­jec­tion and it will nev­er end until seces­sion comes,” Oko­roafor said. “The world is talk­ing about Trump com­ing in and because Amer­i­ca is a force in world pow­er they can dic­tate cer­tain things that will hap­pen else­where. It may not be that easy though. Trump because he’s Repub­li­can and their man­ner of doing things is what the peo­ple are seeing.”

The Biafra move­ment has sought inde­pen­dence from Nige­ria for decades.

A 1967 seces­sion attempt led to a bru­tal civ­il war that last­ed three years and killed over 1 mil­lion peo­ple, most­ly from starvation.

Crit­ics say that when it comes to Trump, Biafran activists may be too optimistic.

Ahmed Buhari, a Niger­ian polit­i­cal ana­lyst, said that it’s unclear why Trump would be inter­est­ed in the issue.

“Trump has clear­ly defined him­self as that pres­i­dent who puts Amer­i­ca first, so for him to sup­port any mis­sion, it will have to be clear how it’s going to ben­e­fit the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” Buhari said. “Until that is prop­er­ly defined, he might not be inter­est­ed in hav­ing that con­ver­sa­tion with the Biafran people.”

But Biafra sup­port­er and human rights lawyer Prince Man­dela hopes Trump will put pres­sure on Nigeria’s author­i­ties to address Biafra’s con­cerns, includ­ing the release of activist leader Nnam­di Kanu, who’s been held by author­i­ties against court orders grant­i­ng him bail.

“Don­ald Trump is some­one that kicks against the breach of fun­da­men­tal human rights,” Man­dela said. “So, a man like Don­ald Trump com­ing to pow­er might one way or the oth­er … help reduce some of the persecutions.”

Dur­ing his first term, Trump queried then-Niger­ian pres­i­dent Muham­madu Buhari about vio­lence against Chris­tians in Nige­ria — an issue Biafrans often frame as vital to their struggle.

Beyond that, Trump seemed to pay lit­tle atten­tion to Nige­ria or Africa as a whole. Biafran seces­sion­ists are hop­ing that this time around, their issue can make it onto Trump’s agenda.