Umuahia, Nigeria - Nnamdi Kanu waves his hand and puffs in frustration: "Nothing seems to be working in Nigeria. There is pain and hardship everywhere. What we're fighting [for] is not self-determination for the sake of it. It's because Nigeria is not functioning and can never function."

The leader of a group demanding the secession of southeastern Nigeria is speaking exclusively to Al Jazeera in the parlour of his father's home in the southeastern city of Umuahia.

It's the first time he has spoken to an international media outlet since he was granted bail on health grounds last month. His bail conditions prohibit him from being in a crowd of more than 10 people, leaving the country and giving media interviews.

But when asked if he is worried that he will get in trouble with the Nigerian authorities for speaking to Al Jazeera he scoffs, "I don't care," and rolls his eyes.

"I can't go outside to call for a press conference. I can't go on Biafra Radio to broadcast. I can't allow large [groups of] people to basically congregate outside to see me … it's like asking me not to breathe," he says.

On the other side of the parlour door, dozens of people are waiting to see Kanu. A throng of young men dressed in black guard the compound. They refer to Kanu as, "our supreme leader" or "his royal highness".

Kanu left Nigeria to study economics and politics at the London Metropolitan University and started Radio Biafra, an obscure, niche, London-based radio station in 2009.

In one broadcast, Kanu said: "We have one thing in common, all of us that believe in Biafra, one thing we have in common, a pathological hatred for Nigeria. I cannot begin to put into words how much I hate Nigeria."

Over the past two years, Kanu's status has risen.

Today, he's a highly visible activist and leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) organisation, and after being imprisoned in the Nigerian capital of Abuja for nearly two years on treasonable felony charges, he has now returned home.

"Kanu is my saviour," says Sopuru Amah, a senior student at one of Nigeria's oldest universities, the University of Nigeria in the southeastern city of Nsukka.

"Just like Jesus was sent to save the world, Kanu was sent by God himself to save the Igbo people."

Nigeria's ethnic politics

With an estimated population of more than 180 million, Nigeria is often called the "giant of Africa". The complexity of Nigeria's population is compounded by its ethnic diversity. Around 250 ethnic groups, each with their own languages, reside in Nigeria. With a myriad of ethnicities dotted across the landscape, three major groups tend to emerge in national dialogue due to their sheer numbers: the Yoruba, from the southwest; the Hausa-Fulani in the north and the Igbo from the southeast.

Pro-Biafrans say the federal Nigerian government is discriminating and marginalising them, the Igbo people.

"I'm not allowed to contest for the presidency of Nigeria because I'm Igbo. I'm not allowed to aspire to become the inspector general of police because I'm Igbo. I'm not allowed to become chief of army staff because I'm Igbo. What sort of stupid country is that?" Kanu asks. "Why would any idiot want me to be in that sort of country?"

In Kanu's mind, Umuahia does not exist in Nigeria. It is in Biafra and he is waiting for the world to acknowledge it.

Since the 1964 appointment of the first indigenous Nigerian as the head of the Nigerian Police Force, known as the inspector general, more than a dozen officers have held the post. Two of them have been Igbo. In a lineup of almost two-dozen chiefs of army staff, the highest-ranking military officer in the Nigerian army, two have come from southeastern Nigeria.

Perceptions of marginalisation

"The southeast feels it has been politically marginalised. There is a point to that. It has been shrunken from being one of the three major regions of the country to now being virtually a minority with the smallest number of states of the six zones in the federation," explains Nnamdi Obasi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

He says that there has only been one Igbo president and one Igbo vice president since Nigeria declared independence from the UK in 1960.

Pro-Biafrans also complain that the federal government is not funding enough infrastructure development in the region, despite a recent announcement by the federal Minister of Power, Works and Housing that road construction will be completed in the southeast.

The southeastern region of Nigeria has five states, while other regions have more.

"They certainly are at a disadvantaged position now," Obasi says. "The political configuration of the country ensures that less federal allocation gets to the southeast."

Nigeria's national economics is closely tied to its politics. Nigeria is a highly centralised federalism that relies on revenue from oil sales. Money trickles down from the central government and more money flows towards regions that have more state and local governments.

A recent poll conducted by SBM Intelligence, a local research group, found that the pro-Biafra movement is gaining popularity in the southeast and that this growth could be a reaction to the perception that the region is marginalised and economically deprived.

"So the Nigerian government has to be seen clearly as carrying the region along," Cheta Nwanze, a lead researcher at SBM Intelligence, says.

But pro-Biafrans like Amah have written off the Nigerian federal government and, in particular, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

"Buhari hates the southeast because we didn't vote for him," says Chukwudi Diru, a taxi driver with a mini Biafran flag taped to the dashboard of his 2003 car.

In his landmark 2015 election victory, Buhari garnered the least amount of votes in the southernmost and southeastern region.

Buhari commented on this during a visit to the United States shortly after his win. During an address at the United States Institute of Peace, Buhari responded to a participant in the audience who asked how he would bring development to the oil-rich Niger Delta region in the south, which has suffered decades of environmental degradation due to oil spills and oil bunkering.

"I hope you have a copy of the election results," Buhari responded to the woman. "Naturally, the constituencies that gave me 97 percent cannot, in all honesty, be treated [in the same way] on some issues with constituencies that gave me five percent. I think this is a political reality."

Buhari's soundbite has been tagged and re-posted across Nigeria's social media spaces.

"To be honest, things like the president's 97 percent and five percent comment only helped add further fuel to the fire that the southeast is being marginalised," Nwanze says.

And that fire is already burning in the southeast. On storefronts along the streets of Umuahia, photos of Nnamdi Kanu and Odumegwu Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, the leader of the short-lived Republic of Biafra (1967-1970) are pasted on wooden doorframes.

At the campus of Amah's university, more students are reading pro-Biafran books and followers of Kanu hold "evangelism" meetings to preach the gospel of pro-Biafra.

At crowded bus stations in town, Kanu's voice booms from loudspeakers. Many people here mark May 30 as Biafra Remembrance Day. ..........


http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/05/50-years-nigeria-biafra-secessionist-movement-170529151102396.html

biafra everywhr u go.... .i luv it

Good

soon, the rest of d world will start campaigning for an independent Biafra.

Ok

we done dey make it happen , nothing is Impossible.

Good luck

buhari please continue ruling the zoo indefinitely, you are helping Biafra materialize more quickly than we thought

Biafra is the real deal. God will give it to his children.

God give me an idea that will go viral like Biafra in my life time