An IPOB official reportedly met US Senator Ted Cruz in 2024 to discuss Biafra independence and alleged persecution of Christians in Nigeria
In 2024, Ogechukwu Nkere, the self-styled “finance minister” of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), reportedly met with United States Senator Ted Cruz to discuss Biafra’s push for independence, according to a report from THECABLE. IPOB seeks the excision of a Biafra nation from Nigeria’s south-east.
The group was proscribed by the Nigerian government in 2017 and labelled a “militant terrorist organisation” after its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), was linked to killings and violence.
Simon Ekpa, a self-proclaimed disciple of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, who is serving a six-year prison sentence in Finland for inciting terrorism, said in an X post that Nkere briefed Cruz on Biafra’s progress, including a self-referendum, the Nigerian government’s persecution of Biafrans, and alleged ties to Islamic terrorist groups. “At the end of the meeting, Minister Nkere handed the Senator the Biafra charter and Biafra pin,” Ekpa added.
Cruz has been advocating for sanctions and military action in Nigeria over claims of ongoing Christian persecution. TheCable found that much of the data cited by US lawmakers came from the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), a pro-Christian civil rights group, but its figures were deemed false by the outlet’s fact-checking arm.
US President Donald Trump has previously threatened to intervene in Nigeria “guns-a-blazing to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorist thugs attacking our cherished Christians!”