The Aburi Accord and the Sacred Doctrine of UTI Possidetis: A Panacea for Igbo-phobia?

Abstract

The quest for self-determination by the people of old Eastern region of Nigeria, historically crystallised in the Biafra movement, represents one of Africa's most protracted and contentious political conflicts. This paper argues that the failure to implement the 1967 Aburi Accord constitutes a foundational betrayal that legitimises the contemporary grievance, while the subsequent rigid application of the uti possidetis principle has served to entrench a state of what can be termed 'Igbo-phobia'—a systemic political, economic, and security marginalisation. Through an international law lens, the paper deconstructs the tension between the right to self-determination and the inviolability of colonial borders. It examines the Aburi Accord as a failed historical precedent for a political settlement and analyses the incarceration of Nnamdi Kanu as a symptom of the continued refusal to engage with this underlying grievance. Critiquing the Nigerian state's inflexible unitary-federalism, the paper proposes the transplantation of the United Kingdom's "country within a country" model as a constitutional panacea. This model, offering internal self-determination through a confederal or highly devolved structure, is presented as a viable mechanism to address Igbo-phobia within the framework of a single, yet more flexible, Nigerian sovereignty, thereby fulfilling the spirit of self-determination without derogating from the letter of uti possidetis.