Anti-Igbo sentiment

Anti-Igbo sentiment refers to the existence of hostility against Igbo people, or their culture.

During the beginning years of Nigeria's colonial independence, the Igbo people increasingly were perceived as a disproportionately-favored ethnic group with affluence and multi-regionalistic opportunity because the Igbo had been employed within the colony by the colonial authorities and in the public sector in regions throughout Nigeria. This aroused the ire of others toward the Igbo.

This was emphasized by the short-lived government of Gen. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, whose military junta consisted mostly of Igbo and who abolished the federated regions; this led to his assassination in a counter-coup led primarily by Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba participants. It was followed by the massacre of thousands of Igbo in pogroms in the two aforementioned regions, which drove millions of Igbos to their homeland in Eastern Region; ethnic relations deteriorated rapidly, and a separate republic of Biafra was declared in 1967, leading to the Biafran War.

The 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom was a series of massacres directed at Igbo and other people of southern Nigerian origin living in northern Nigeria starting in May 1966 and reaching a peak after 29 September 1966. During this period 30,000-50,000 Igbo civilians were murdered throughout northern Nigeria by Hausa–Fulani soldiers and civilians who sought revenge for the 1966 Nigerian coup d'état, carried out by six Majors and three Captains, and resulted in the deaths of 11 Nigerian politicians and army officers. These events led to the secession of the eastern Nigerian region and the declaration of the Republic of Biafra, which ultimately led to the Nigeria-Biafra war. The 1966 massacres of southern Nigerians have been described as a holocaust by some authors and have variously been described as riots, pogroms or genocide.

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