WI: Biafra becomes independent

[Circle of Willis]

The Biafran War is something of a meme on account of how jumbled up its warring sides' backers were, and less humorously it was also the site of a major famine. In one corner you had Nigeria, which had just gone through two coups within six months and violent pogroms targeted at the Igbo ethnic group, considered to have been among the main beneficiaries of the first coup, resulting in 8-30,000 deaths and the flight of another million Igbos to the southeast; and on the other you had the secessionist Biafran Republic located in said southeast, dominated by the Igbos and containing much of Nigeria's oil resources.

Historically the war ended in a Nigerian victory, although there are still some Biafran nationalists even to this day. Ethnic and religious tensions in Nigeria itself from before the war, of which the Igbos & Biafran nationalism are only one part, don't seem to have abated - the Igbo are mostly Christians with a political tradition of local democracy, in opposition to the Muslim northern Nigerians from the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate & other emirates, and the latter's countercoup in 1966 was the immediate trigger for the Biafran declaration of independence alongside the aforementioned massacres of Igbo in the north - and if anything, it's intensified in the last 20 years or so. But, what if Biafra had managed to win its independence? Could such an outcome at minimum presage the breakdown of Nigeria into additional smaller ethnostates (a Yorubaland or Sokoto, for example) or even encourage the breakdown of the post-colonial borders across Africa?

 

[WolfBear]

Rump Nigeria becomes dominated by Muslims and is also hurt due to the loss of its likely Igbo cognitive elite. AFAIK, the Igbos are the Jews of Sub-Saharan Africa.

And Yes, this could also result in Yorubaland likewise breaking away from Nigeria, in which case Nigeria simply becomes a neo-Sokoto Caliphate without an actual Caliph.

 

[Skallagrim]

What @WolfBear said.

Biafra is going to do great, something like Yorubaland is going to do okay, and Sokoto (rump-Nigeria, maybe with an actual name change) is going to suck immensely.

There is the unpleasant possibility that you get more radical Islamic agitation in Niger, Northern Burkina Faso, Northern Mali and Northern Chad, earlier than in OTL. Then you basically get a much earlier, Africa-based ISIS equivalent.

Optimistically, since the USA, the UK and the USSR all backed Nigeria against Biafra, one might hope that they'd learn from such a development. That they'd refrain from backing Islamic loonies in proxy wars, because it can go terribly wrong.

Realistically, they'll learn nothing from it, and keep doing the same stupid things.

 

[gral]

I think the Biafran success would inspire other separatist movements throughout Africa - international backing for Nigeria(and the fate of Biafra) showed everyone that the superpowers and most of the great powers wanted borders to remain unchanged in Africa.

 

[Circle of Willis]

I think the biggest risk to the independent Biafra's prosperity going forward would be the resource curse - that is, their possession of the lion's share of Nigerian oil turns them into a corrupt rentier state, a Qatar or Venezuela of Africa or even a bigger Equatorial Guinea if things go particularly wrong. But as has been said, I don't think that's too likely. The Igbo are relatively well-off and well-educated compared to other Nigerians (indeed as Henry Kissinger put it, the 'Jews of West Africa'), have a strong democratic cultural tradition, and their leaders Ojukwu & Effiong didn't seem to be anywhere near Macias Nguema-tier brutality & megalomania. If they can capitalize on the 1970s oil boom (stepping up as an alternative supplier for the US during the oil crisis, maybe? Nixon was sympathetic to their cause after all), use it to the advantage of their relatively small population (13 & a half million people, IIRC) and avoid the usual pitfalls of oil-rich Third World states, becoming Botswana on steroids is probably the least of what they can accomplish.

I think there was too much bad blood between the Yoruba and Igbo to unite into one 'southern Nigeria' to counter the north at this point. But, they will still have a common enemy in nu-Sokoto and an obvious fault line in said enemy to exploit - the Middle Belt, where resources & livelihoods are fiercely contested between Muslim Hausa-Fulani herders and Christian sedentary farmers belonging to the autochthnous ethnic groups (Berom, Tiv, etc.) to this day. Could see either or both Yorubaland & Biafra expanding north by grabbing the Christian parts of the Middle Belt for themselves, which would impoverish and radicalize nu-Sokoto even further.

Yes - the effects of a successful Biafran secession on the rest of Africa would be fascinating. Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia is literally right next door, for starters. And Nigeria not only losing Biafra, but falling apart further along ethnic & religious lines would definitely set a precedent that disrupting the colonial borders (ahem, 'stability in Africa') in favor of self-determination can both be done and is not necessarily going to spell disaster for the newly emergent countries. What a Biafran victory might mean for South Africa & Rhodesia is intriguing as well, since both backed Biafra: at the very least, having another quasi-friendly African state in their corner as Malawi had been (but far richer and with much greater potential than Malawi!) can't hurt, right?

 

[WolfBear]

I think the biggest risk to the independent Biafra's prosperity going forward would be the resource curse - that is, their possession of the lion's share of Nigerian oil turns them into a corrupt rentier state, a Qatar or Venezuela of Africa or even a bigger Equatorial Guinea if things go particularly wrong. But as has been said, I don't think that's too likely. The Igbo are relatively well-off and well-educated compared to other Nigerians (indeed as Henry Kissinger put it, the 'Jews of West Africa'), have a strong democratic cultural tradition, and their leaders Ojukwu & Effiong didn't seem to be anywhere near Macias Nguema-tier brutality & megalomania. If they can capitalize on the 1970s oil boom (stepping up as an alternative supplier for the US during the oil crisis, maybe? Nixon was sympathetic to their cause after all), use it to the advantage of their relatively small population (13 & a half million people, IIRC) and avoid the usual pitfalls of oil-rich Third World states, becoming Botswana on steroids is probably the least of what they can accomplish.

I think there was too much bad blood between the Yoruba and Igbo to unite into one 'southern Nigeria' to counter the north at this point. But, they will still have a common enemy in nu-Sokoto and an obvious fault line in said enemy to exploit - the Middle Belt, where resources & livelihoods are fiercely contested between Muslim Hausa-Fulani herders and Christian sedentary farmers belonging to the autochthnous ethnic groups (Berom, Tiv, etc.) to this day. Could see either or both Yorubaland & Biafra expanding north by grabbing the Christian parts of the Middle Belt for themselves, which would impoverish and radicalize nu-Sokoto even further.

Yes - the effects of a successful Biafran secession on the rest of Africa would be fascinating. Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia is literally right next door, for starters. And Nigeria not only losing Biafra, but falling apart further along ethnic & religious lines would definitely set a precedent that disrupting the colonial borders (ahem, 'stability in Africa') in favor of self-determination can both be done and is not necessarily going to spell disaster for the newly emergent countries. What a Biafran victory might mean for South Africa & Rhodesia is intriguing as well, since both backed Biafra: at the very least, having another quasi-friendly African state in their corner as Malawi had been (but far richer and with much greater potential than Malawi!) can't hurt, right?

Norway has managed to deal with the resource curse pretty well, as have both Russia and Kazakhstan.

 

[Skallagrim]

Norway has managed to deal with the resource curse pretty well, as have both Russia and Kazakhstan.

Norway and Russia were both pretty well-developed first-tier nations before the internal combustion engine was ever invented. (Russia had a vast, under-developed East, but this may be regarded as its equivalent to a colonial empire -- or, perhaps somewhat more accurately, to America's sparsely-populated Western regions.)

Kazakhstan, meanwhile.... well, have you looked at the news recently?

 

[WolfBear]

Norway and Russia were both pretty well-developed first-tier nations before the internal combustion engine was ever invented. (Russia had a vast, under-developed East, but this may be regarded as its equivalent to a colonial empire -- or, perhaps somewhat more accurately, to America's sparsely-populated Western regions.)

Kazakhstan, meanwhile.... well, have you looked at the news recently?

Yeah, Kazakhstan was stable for 30 years before finally imploding right now.

 

[WolfBear]

@Circle of Willis As a side note, I wonder if an independent Sokoto could eventually become an African version of ISIS. Seriously. Religious radicalism isn't exactly rare in northern Nigeria today and if an African version of ISIS does subsequently develop there, I wonder if it could subsequently attempt to expand into other countries such as Niger and/or Cameroon. This could, of course, trigger a war between Sokoto and France since France still believes in the Francafrique concept:

Françafrique - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Of course, this could mean even more jihadist Muslim terrorist attacks against France and French people!

 

[Circle of Willis]

@Circle of Willis As a side note, I wonder if an independent Sokoto could eventually become an African version of ISIS. Seriously. Religious radicalism isn't exactly rare in northern Nigeria today and if an African version of ISIS does subsequently develop there, I wonder if it could subsequently attempt to expand into other countries such as Niger and/or Cameroon. This could, of course, trigger a war between Sokoto and France since France still believes in the Francafrique concept:

Françafrique - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Of course, this could mean even more jihadist Muslim terrorist attacks against France and French people!

Well, France was one of Biafra's most important backers, so this would absolutely make sense from a 'we must get revenge' perspective on the part of Sokoto. As @Skallagrim mentioned earlier, the countries near northern Nigeria all also have 'problem regions' plagued by Islamist rebels. On top of that, Mali and Niger also have ethnic issues in the form of the occasional Tuareg rebellion, and in the timeframe of the Biafran War Mali has only just beaten down one such rising a few short years before the Biafrans went & won their independence in this scenario.

So yeah, I can bet that at least Sokoto's northern neighbors are going to have quite the hot Tuareg-shaped potato on their hands, especially if the example of Biafran independence motivates them to go all-out as has been discussed for African secessionist movements in general earlier in this thread. And I wouldn't at all put it past Sokoto to not only meddle in these conflicts to spite France, but to also possibly exploit the Tuareg nationalists in the same way that Islamists did the successful Tuareg rising in 2012 IRL: backstab them & eat up their territories within moments of victory, if one is achieved.

Who knows, maybe Sokoto wouldn't be that ambitious. Maybe they'd at most content themselves with ruling southern Mali & Niger while letting the Tuaregs have their own states to the north. Or maybe France will just bomb them to slag and successfully contain them with its network of Francophone proxies + Biafra. But in any case, I don't see the direly poor, resource-bereft and increasingly radicalized Sokoto being a success story, nor is it likely to ever reconcile with the French who have supported Biafran secession and ringed it with rival states. Like other poor, backward, isolated (with the loss of Yorubaland and Biafra, Sokoto has no coastline at all) countries riven by turmoil, it'll most likely evolve into a hub & exporter of terrorism especially as Islamic terrorism really starts to take off in the mid-to-late '70s, and one with no shortage of conveniently obvious and rather weak targets all around it - no need to fly a plane into the Eiffel Tower when you can go for the presidential palace in Niamey for greater personal benefit.

 

[WolfBear]

Well, France was one of Biafra's most important backers, so this would absolutely make sense from a 'we must get revenge' perspective on the part of Sokoto. As @Skallagrim mentioned earlier, the countries near northern Nigeria all also have 'problem regions' plagued by Islamist rebels. On top of that, Mali and Niger also have ethnic issues in the form of the occasional Tuareg rebellion, and in the timeframe of the Biafran War Mali has only just beaten down one such rising a few short years before the Biafrans went & won their independence in this scenario.

So yeah, I can bet that at least Sokoto's northern neighbors are going to have quite the hot Tuareg-shaped potato on their hands, especially if the example of Biafran independence motivates them to go all-out as has been discussed for African secessionist movements in general earlier in this thread. And I wouldn't at all put it past Sokoto to not only meddle in these conflicts to spite France, but to also possibly exploit the Tuareg nationalists in the same way that Islamists did the successful Tuareg rising in 2012 IRL: backstab them & eat up their territories within moments of victory, if one is achieved.

Who knows, maybe Sokoto wouldn't be that ambitious. Maybe they'd at most content themselves with ruling southern Mali & Niger while letting the Tuaregs have their own states to the north. Or maybe France will just bomb them to slag and successfully contain them with its network of Francophone proxies + Biafra. But in any case, I don't see the direly poor, resource-bereft and increasingly radicalized Sokoto being a success story, nor is it likely to ever reconcile with the French who have supported Biafran secession and ringed it with rival states. Like other poor, backward, isolated (with the loss of Yorubaland and Biafra, Sokoto has no coastline at all) countries riven by turmoil, it'll most likely evolve into a hub & exporter of terrorism especially as Islamic terrorism really starts to take off in the mid-to-late '70s, and one with no shortage of conveniently obvious and rather weak targets all around it - no need to fly a plane into the Eiffel Tower when you can go for the presidential palace in Niamey for greater personal benefit.

What I find interesting, frankly, is that Sokoto was a relative success story in the late 19th century and yet would be a total shithole in the late 20th century. What changed?