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POUND NOTES
In early 2006, while the mainstream political agenda in Nigeria was dominated by President Obasanjo's rumoured attempt to change the constitution and secure a third term, some newspapers reserved a few column inches to report an announcement by the non-violent separatist Movement for the Actualization of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) that it was reintroducing into circulation the Biafran pound, used by the breakaway Republic of Biafra between 1967 and 1970. The announcement was followed by a number of high-profile drives to introduce Biafran currency in transactions in major markets in the Igbo-speaking south-east of Nigeria, the former heartland of Biafra. This was done publicly on at least two occasions, the first in the large market centre of Enugu, former capital of the Eastern Region of pre-1967 Nigeria and short-lived first capital of Biafra, at the start of 2006. The second took place in the more remote Orie market in Awgu Local Government Area of the same state in March, where MASSOB campaigners used Biafran notes to make public purchases of several high-value items, including motorcycles.1 Interestingly, it seems that the relaunch may have been preceded by a trial among diaspora Igbo communities elsewhere in West Africa in the previous year.2 The reintroduction could be described more accurately as a recirculation - despite media descriptions referring to 'crisp' or 'new' notes, which suggest the possibility of their being newly printed, MASSOB sources have asserted that the notes used in the recirculation are part of the original stock of Biafra banknotes left unused within the secessionist enclave at the end of the war.
The actual notes illustrated here, in denominations of £1, as well as a five shilling note, collected from a trader in Onuimo Local Government Area of Imo State in late 2006, are clearly part of the original issue of currency by the Central Bank of Biafra during the 1967-70 secession. The designs and serial numbers show that the first note (above) is from the first issue of Biafran currency in January 1968 and that below from the later more comprehensive issue of Biafran banknotes released in or around February 1969.3 The value of the re-released currency in 2006 was variously described as having parity with the contemporary British pound...