Biafra in the context of "1966 anti-Igbo pogrom"

The Eastern Region was an administrative region in Nigeria, dating back originally from the division of the colony Southern Nigeria in 1954. Its first capital was Calabar. The capital was later moved to Enugu and the second capital was Umuahia. The region was officially divided in 1967 into three new states, the East-Central State, Rivers State and South-Eastern State. East-Central State had its capital at Enugu, which is now part of Enugu State.

The region had the country's third-, fourth- and fifth-largest indigenous ethnic groups including Igbo, Ibibio and Ijaw, respectively. It was what later became Biafra, which was in rebellion from 1967 to 1970.

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwulisten (4 November 1933 – 26 November 2011) was a Nigerian military officer and political figure who served as President of Biafra from 1967 to 1970. As the military governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria, which he declared as the independent state of Biafra, Ojukwu led the Biafran forces during the Nigerian Civil War against the Nigerian government forces.

Born in Zungeru, British Nigeria to Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, a wealthy Igbo businessman, Ojukwu was educated at King's College, Lagos and Epsom College in Surrey, England. He proceeded to Lincoln College, Oxford University where he obtained a master's degree in Modern History in 1955. He returned to Nigeria to serve as an administrative officer and would later join the Nigerian army. Following the independence of Nigeria in 1960, a group of military officers overthrew Nigeria's civilian government in the 1966 Nigerian coup d'état and Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi became the head of state. Ironsi appointed Ojukwu as military governor of the Eastern Region mostly dominated by the Igbo tribe.

The blockade of Biafra by the Nigerian federal government during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970) resulted in a famine that ultimately cost at least a million lives and ended with the capitulation of the secessionist state of Biafra.

The blockade and the ensuing humanitarian crisis stimulated worldwide mobilization and widespread debate about the concept of genocide. It also stimulated widespread debate about whether or not it was appropriate to describe the events which occurred in Biafra as a genocide. Ultimately, it contributed to reform in the law of blockade to protect civilians and the prohibition of starvation as a method of warfare in the 1977 amendments to the Geneva Conventions.

Chief Olusegun Matthew Okikiola Ogunboye Aremu Obasanjo GCFR (// ; Yoruba: Olúṣẹ́gun Ọbásanjọ́ [ōlúʃɛ́ɡũ̄ ɔ̄básã̄d͡ʒɔ́] ; born c. 5 March 1937) is a Nigerian politician, statesman, agriculturalist, and former army general who served as Nigeria's military dictator from 1976 to 1979 and later as its president from 1999 to 2007. Ideologically a Nigerian nationalist, he was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from 1998 to 2015, and since 2018.

Born in the village of Ibogun-Olaogun to a farming family of the Owu branch of the Yoruba, Obasanjo was educated largely in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He joined the Nigerian Army and specialised in engineering and served in the Congo, Britain, and India, rising to the rank of Major. In the late 1960s, he played a major role in combating Biafran separatists during the Nigerian Civil War, accepting their surrender in 1970. In 1975, a military coup established a junta with Obasanjo as part of its ruling triumvirate. After the triumvirate's leader, Murtala Muhammed, was assassinated the following year, the Supreme Military Council appointed Obasanjo as Head of State. Continuing Murtala's policies, Obasanjo oversaw budgetary cut-backs and an expansion of access to free school education. Increasingly aligning Nigeria with the United States, he also emphasised support for groups opposing white minority rule in southern Africa. Committed to restoring democracy, Obasanjo oversaw the 1979 election, after which he transferred control of Nigeria to the newly elected civilian president, Shehu Shagari. Obasanjo then retired to Ota, Ogun, where he became a farmer, published four books, and took part in international initiatives to end various African conflicts.