The United Kingdom has categorised the Indigenous People of  Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist group and said its members deserve no protection under its asylum and humanitarian policies. 

The decision that was made earlier this month gives strong backing to the Buhari regime and could worsen the military-separatist clashes raging in Nigeria’s South-East. The regime has been cracking down on the region’s population under the guise of hunting IPOB members, with thousands of deaths recorded across five Igbo-dominated states in recent months. 

UK authorities said IPOB’s documented history of violence informed the decision, but did not emphasise the government’s violence that has been described as disproportionate by rights groups like Amnesty International.

“IPOB is proscribed as a terrorist group by the Nigerian government, and members of the group and its paramilitary wing – the Eastern Security Network (created in December 2020) – have reportedly committed human rights violations in Nigeria (see Indigenous People of ‘Biafra’ (IPOB) and various media articles in Activities and Clashes between state and IPOB),”  the UK said in its latest update on separatist groups published this week. 

“If a person has been involved with IPOB (and/or an affiliated group), MASSOB or any other ‘Biafran’ group that incites or uses violence to achieve its aims, decision makers must consider whether one (or more) of the exclusion clauses under the Refugee Convention is applicable. 
“Persons who commit human rights violations must not be granted asylum. 2.2.4 If the person is excluded from the Refugee Convention, they will also be excluded from a grant of humanitarian protection,” the government added.

The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is also another group seeking the breakaway of the Igbo ethnic group from Nigeria on the grounds of exclusion and corruption by the central government. The group, while not officially the predecessor of IPOB, has been less active than the latter. 

Questions about how the UK sees IPOB have flared since June 2021 when its leader Nnamdi Kanu was abducted by Nigerian mercenaries while travelling in Nairobi. He was carrying a British passport on the trip, which prompted his lawyers and family members to intensify pressure on the British government to do something about the abduction, which they say violates the international law on extraordinary renditions. 

A spokesman for IPOB did not immediately return a request seeking comments about the latest UK designation of the group, which was a reversal of a 2020 policy that encouraged granting asylum to IPOB separatist members fleeing to the UK to seek refuge.

The decision has all but granted the Buhari regime a long-sought moral backing from the West in its ruthless deployment of the military against IPOB elements, which frequently spilt to everyday civilians across the region. The Canadian government has labelled the Nigerian military as a criminal organisation with a history of genocides. 

The Buhari regime gazetted IPOB as a terrorist group in 2017, well before the group’s armed elements started making headlines for untold atrocities. International groups at the time warned that the government’s decision was high-handed and a pretext to escalate violence in the region, which has claimed marginalisation under Mr Buhari.