![]() It is an international organisation that unites many Igbo communities, particularly on the issue of seceding from the Nigerian state. The leader of this group is Nnamdi Kanu, a British Nigerian. Later on, another group, with the same agenda, known as Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) emerged in 2012. The first one is the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which was established after Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999 by Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, who holds degrees in Political Science from Punjab University, India and Law from Bombay University, India. At the forefront of this desire are two prominent associations. On the other hand, there are some Igbo people who want nothing less than outright independence from Nigeria. For mainstream Igbo cultural organisations such as Ohaneze-Ndi-Igbo, Aka Ikenga, Mkpoko Igbo, Eastern Mandate Union (EMU), Odenigbo Forum, South East Movement (SEM), Igbo National Assembly (INA), Ndi Igbo Liberation Forum, Igbo Salvation Front (ISF), Igbo Redemption Council (IRC), Igbo People’s Congress (IPC) and the Igbo Question Movement (IQM), on the one hand, the solution is not in secession but instituting ‘true federalism’ as a national stabilising factor and enabling situation for Igbo socio-political growth. Many Igbo people have not forgotten their sufferings and have proffered different solutions to their alleged marginalisation. This seems to be the situation of Igbo people with regard to the Nigeria-Biafra War. She, further, said that grievances and divisions associated with such wars may be so intense that they are unlikely to subside long after the wars. ![]() This buttresses what Walter ( 2004) said about wars that inflict high costs on people that they could exacerbate animosity and create a strong desire for retribution even after the war ends. The dissatisfaction amongst the people of Igboland over the state of governance in Nigeria has renewed the agitations for self-determination and secession. They claim that they are systematically excluded from the affairs of the country, especially in government appointments, setting of infrastructures and in the sharing of the resources. Fifty years after the war, the people of Igboland still claim that they have not been fully integrated into the Nigerian society. During that time, the Nigerian government made attempts to rehabilitate the people and the region in what has been termed, ‘the rhetoric of “No victor, No vanquished” and “Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Reintegration” (the 3Rs)’ (Ibeanu, Orji & Iwuamadi 2016:16) without much impact. On the 15th of January 1970, the Biafran War, also known as the Nigerian Civil War, which began on 6th of July 1967 between the government of Nigeria and the secessionist state of Biafra, came to an end, with the Igbo people being devastated. This would make them more relevant in the country’s affairs than they are currently. This study concluded that instead of seeking for independence from Nigeria, the Igbo people need to be mindful of their resilient communal spirit and reinforce it in all spheres of life. It was found that Igbo people have really done well for themselves despite the seeming marginalisation by sticking to their resilient spirit. This was carried out by interviewing some members of Igbo society, observing and interpreting events in Igbo society and as documented in literatures. The methodology used in this article is a qualitative phenomenological method. It considers Igbo communal spirit as a veritable panacea against the recent agitations for secession by the people as that would guarantee Igbo people an ample space to operate in Nigeria. The aim of this article was to study the Igbo communal system as the bedrock of Igbo progress, especially in the past 50 years and recommends it as the basic principle of Igbo survival in Nigeria. This notwithstanding the people with their communal spirit, which saw them through the civil war, have continued to cement their survival resolve in the post-war era. Since then, they have allegedly been marginalised on a continuous basis by the Nigerian government. They were confronted with the challenges of beginning life afresh from scratch with almost nothing. The Igbo people survived a civil war that raged between 19 and that devastated their land and reduced their population because of more than three million deaths.
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