History of Igboland

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 23. Chapters: Biafra, Igbo clans, Wars involving Igboland, Nigerian Civil War, The Igbo in the Atlantic slave trade, Igbo Women's War, Rolf Steiner, Ahiara Declaration, Anglo-Aro War, Philip Effiong, Aro-Ibibio Wars, Ekumeku Movement, Timeline of Igbo history, Aro History, Bight of Bonny, Postage stamps and postal history of Biafra, Origins of the Igbo people, Republic of Benin, Umuokpara, Biafran pound, Land of the Rising Sun, List of birds on stamps of Biafra, Flag of Biafra, Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, Flag of the Republic of Benin, Ngwa, Izzi people, Ezza, Mgbo. Excerpt: The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July 1967-15 January 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. The conflict was the result of economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the various peoples of Nigeria. As with many other African nations, Nigeria was an artificial structure initiated by the British which had neglected to consider religious, linguistic, and ethnic differences. Nigeria, which gained independence from Britain in 1960, had at that time a population of 60 million people consisting of nearly 300 differing ethnic and cultural groups. The causes of the Nigerian civil war were diverse. More than fifty years earlier, Great Britain carved an area out of West Africa containing hundreds of different ethnic groups and unified it, calling it Nigeria. Although the area contained many different groups, the three predominant groups were the Igbo, which formed between 60-70% of the population in the southeast, the Hausa-Fulani, which formed about 65% of the peoples in the northern part of the territory; the Yoruba, which formed about 75% of the population in the southwestern part. The semi-feudal and Islamic Hausa-Fulani in the North were traditionally ruled by an autocratic, conservative Islamic hierarchy consisting of Emirs who, in turn, owed their allegiance to a supreme Sultan. This Sultan was regarded as the source of all political power and religious authority. The Yoruba political system in the southwest, like that of the Hausa-Fulani, also consisted of a series of monarchs being the Oba. The Yoruba monarchs, however, were less autocratic than those in the North, and the political and social system of the Yoruba accordingly allowed for greater upward mobility based on acquired rather than inherited wealth and title. The Igbo in the southeast, in contrast to the two other groups, lived mostly in mostly autonomous