Isaac Adaka Boro – The Ijaw Soldier Who Declared The Secession Of Niger Delta Republic

The January 15, 1966 coup led by an Igbo military officer – Kaduna Nzeogwu, altered the Nigerian political system. Fifty four years after the brutal coup and the counter-coup six months after, Nigeria is yet to heal from the consequences of the action of a group of aggrieved officers.

The coup widely believed to be an Igbo coup against the north and other ethnic groups claimed the lives of Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Minister of Finance, Okotie Eboh, Premier of Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola among others while Nnamdi Azikwe, an Igbo man was spared.

The list of casualties gave some credence to the claim that it was planned by the Igbos against other ethnic groups but many Igbo scholars including late Chinua Achebe have dispelled this claim. Six months after the coup, another group of young northern military officers staged a counter coup. It was in July 1966. This incident would later snowball into a declaration of secession by the Igbos.

But before the declaration of Biafra Republic, a group of young men from a minority ethnic group – the Ijaws, who also frowned at the January 1966 coup had declared their independence from Nigeria. This is the story of what happened.

The Ijaws, with an estimated population of 15 million people, inhabit Ondo, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Akwa Ibom and Rivers state in the oil-rich Niger Delta area of Nigeria. According to the account of Ambassador Boladei Igali, Isaac Adaka Boro who was in his late 20s then, had questioned the legitimacy of the violent coup that toppled the government and needless show of disrespect for the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions.

Five weeks later he proclaimed the republic of Niger Delta. Across the world, secession is not new. Branches and units within a state at one point or the other always counter each other and make moves to breakaway. Bangladesh, South Sudan, Panama, Uruguay, and many other countries were born through acts of secession. Recently, Catalonia has also been making moves to secede from Spain.

Although it has failed in Nigeria in the past, the two secession attempts of 1966 and 1967 hold an important part in the country’s history. The first was declared in February 1966 by Isaac Boro at age 27 while Chukwuemeka Ojukwu declared the second secession in May 1967 at age 33.




The Man Isaac Adaka Boro

True to his nickname – Adaka which means Lion in Ijaw – Boro was a radical and restless freedom fighter. Born September 10, 1938, in Oloibiri (Bayelsa) where crude oil was first discovered in Nigeria, his father, Pepple Boro, was a school headmaster and in his autobiography – ‘Twelve-day revolution’, Boro described how he moved with his parents to different towns whenever his father was transferred to head a school.

“Before I was old enough to know my surroundings, I was already in a city called Port Harcourt where my father was again the headmaster of another mission school. This was in the early forties. The next environment where I found myself was in my hometown, Kaiama. My father had been sent there to head a school yet again,” he wrote.

After secondary school in Warri, present-day Delta state, like his father, he took up a teaching job before later joining the police force. In 1961, he obtained a scholarship from the Eastern Regional Government to study at the University of Nigeria (UNN).

After two failed attempts, Boro emerged Students’ Union Government President for the 1964/65 session. His popularity soared. He claimed that ‘tribalism’, which relegated the Ijaw to the position of ‘strangers’ within their own region, was the cause of his two failed attempts to become Students’ Union President.




The 12-day Niger Delta Republic

When he left UNN in 1965, Boro moved to Lagos, where with other Ijaw like-minds, Samuel Owonaro (son of the first Ijaw person to write a History of the Ijaw), and Nottingham Dick, he founded a political movement, called the Integrated WXYZ, which advocated greater control of the benefits of oil wealth for the Ijaw.

Boro, who was said to have a strong admiration for Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa (the ‘protector’ of all Ijaws according to Boro), strongly condemned the coup that led to his assassination and said Ironsi’s emergence as Head of State convinced him that revolution was the only way out for the Ijaw. He advocated a rejection of the new regime.

On February 23, 1966, a few weeks after the January 1966 military coup and after training hundreds of young men in a militia camp behind his father’s compound in Kaiama, Boro and his comrades made history by proclaiming the Niger Delta Republic which lasted for only 12 days.

His proclamation was the first time the unity of Nigeria would be put to test and it was forcefully restricted by the federal government under General Aguiyi Ironsi and the Governor of the Eastern region Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, who ironically, would make the same move a year later.

Boro’s younger brother, David told The Punch in a recent interview that their father was aware of the plan, even if he did not approve. ‘‘Our father advised him against it and told him to face his studies because he was a student.”

He was so radical and courageous that as a student, he dragged the Federal Government to court seeking the nullification of the 1963 general election. When he proclaimed the Niger Delta Republic in February 1966, Boro argued that the region where the nation’s wealth comes from had suffered years of neglect and underdevelopment. He also condemned the suppression of minority ethnic groups and the January 15, 1966 coup.



In his declaration speech he said:

“Today is a great day, not only in your lives but also in the history of the Niger Delta. Perhaps, it will be the greatest day for a very long time. This is not because we are going to bring the heavens down, but because we are going to demonstrate to the world what and how we feel about oppression.”

Boro added:

“Remember your 70-year-old grandmother who still farms before she eats; remember also your poverty-stricken people; remember, too, your petroleum which is being pumped out daily from your veins; and then fight for your freedom.”

He had envisioned a Niger Delta Republic economically independent to transform its landscape with its resources which many believed were being used to develop other regions at the expense of the Niger Delta. Boro also wanted to draw attention to the plight of the Niger Delta region and set it free from the dominance of other major ethnic groups.

Some historians have argued that Boro’s proclamation and advocacy were more of a provocation than a genuine succession attempt. South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar, Ruth First as quoted by Kathryn Nwajiaku, was also of the opinion that Boro and his men were in league with senior Northern officers, and had wanted to use the threat of revolution to trigger the imposition of a state of emergency by the Northern-led Federal government prior to the first coup.

David, his younger brother confirms this, saying his brother received support from the North before the declaration, “Isaac Boro did not just start the 12-Day Revolution and decided to declare a Niger Delta Republic. There was some degree of encouragement from the North.”

Boro himself admitted to having close ties with the Balewa government.

On the likelihood of success, Boro had said:

“As for success, it was … better to call the attention of the world to the fact that the inhabitants of the Niger Delta in Nigeria were feeling very uncomfortable… Let the success be a magnanimous grant from Lord Providence.”





Imprisoned, Then Released to Fight

The confrontation between the NDVF and the Nigerian forces which is widely known as ‘The Twelve-day Revolution’ led to the death of over 150 people.

The armed militia led by Boro was overpowered by the Nigerian forces, while Boro and Samuel Owonaru who was the Chief of Staff of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force and other leaders of the militia group were arrested and charged for treason.

When they appeared before Justice Phil-Ebosie of the Port Harcourt High Court. They were sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life in jail.

“And honestly speaking, looking back today, he did the right thing,” David said. “If he had not made the move at that time, the Ijaw people would not have been politically emancipated.”

In August 1967, after Ojukwu declared the Biafran Republic, Boro and his comrades were released by the Yakubu Gowon-government and enlisted in the Nigerian Army to fight in the civil war on the side of the Nigerian government against Biafra. Boro was allowed to recruit his own force of about 1,000 soldiers whom ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo described as “ill-disciplined, hurriedly and poorly trained Rivers men,” in his book ‘My Command’.

Before the end of the war, Boro was killed in 1969 after a number of much-celebrated victories against the Biafran forces.

His death sparked controversies as many claimed he was murdered by his commanding officer, Col. Benjamin Adekunle, who was said to be jealous of Boro’s rapid rise and the success of his force. Owonaru, his ally, also sustained a near-fatal injury that condemned him to a wheelchair until his death in June 2020.

Boro’s remains were excavated from the Ikoyi Cemetery in April 2013 and re-buried at Heroes Park in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State on Saturday, May 18, 2013. Major Isaac Boro is survived by Roseline Agidi Boro, a retired Superintendent of Police and his three children.

In 1982, Nigeria’s president Shehu Shagari conferred a posthumous national honour on him. His daughter Esther was also appointed as a Special Assistant on Health to former governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson.
The Bayelsa State government has also declared May 16 as Isaac Boro day to celebrate the anniversary of the death of the Ijaw war hero.

FROM NEUSROOM