BIAFRA NEWS : The Biafra movement is well equipped with weaponry and other defense technology

 

Moreover, Nigerian and Cameroonian security forces have repeatedly violated human rights to quell the protests. Consequently, Biafra and Ambazonia loyalists have found common ground in each other’s movements.

Daniel, the Ambazonian deputy defense chief, acknowledged the potential regional impact of the alliance but said that after almost five years of low-level armed conflict in Cameroon, there was no other choice. “We have been very careful in our association with the Biafra movement, because we didn’t want to destabilize the region, but we have been cornered,” he said from his base in Hong Kong. “The Nigerians have failed to act, the international community has failed to act, so we have no other choice but to get into an alliance that can better our chances to defend ourselves.”

The Biafra movement is well equipped with weaponry and other defense technology from Nigeria’s large black market. A Biafra-Ambazonia weapons exchange will bolster the Anglophone separatist movement, which has suffered in recent months from a severe lack of financial support from the diaspora, perhaps due to waning interest, pervasive human rights abuses carried out by separatist groups against civilians, or major divisions in the diaspora leadership. (Various separatist leaders deny that financial support has waned; however, fighters and aid workers on the ground confirm that extortion of “war taxes” and kidnap-for-ransom schemes are now the main income source to support ongoing fighting.) For its part, the Ambazonia movement says it will share lessons in making the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon “ungovernable,” a tactic that has largely been achieved.

The successful joining of the two increasingly violent groups is likely to trigger a heightened response from both Cameroonian and Nigerian armed forces, which already work together to counter a Boko Haram insurgency in the northern regions of both countries. Nigeria has also aided the Cameroonian government in attempts to suppress the Anglophone uprising. In 2018, Nigerian security forces located, arrested, and extradited 10 Cameroonian separatist leaders residing in the country. The previous year, Nigerian security forces arrested more than 30 other Anglophone activists.

The Nigerian and Cameroonian militaries are well equipped and well trained, as both countries receive military support and training from foreign governments including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom for anti-terrorism efforts. In an open letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, published in local media outlets, the Biafran leader Kanu requested that the U.S. government suspend arms sales to Nigeria, citing human rights abuses and “Buhari’s draconian measures” to put down peaceful pro-Biafran protests.

Observers have previously suggested that the Cameroonian government has rerouted U.S.-origin military equipment and U.S.-trained military personnel from the fight against Boko Haram in Cameroon’s Far North region to the Anglophone conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions—and in 2019, the U.S. government reduced military spending to Cameroon over human rights abuses.