Biafra was an independent country from 1967 to 1970, but fierce repression by the Nigerian armed forces quickly dashed any separatist hopes. Despite the trauma of the war, still felt in the region, the former Biafra is an extraordinary place to explore, with its rich natural and cultural heritage, traditional ethnic groups, ancestral temples and mask cults.

The journey will begin in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil capital, where we will meet the Ijaw fishing community of Okrika Island and learn about Iria rituals and body painting practices, characteristic of south-east Nigeria.

From the coast, we will travel to Umuahia, the former capital of Biafra where the new country was proclaimed on 30 May 1967. Here, we will visit the War Museum with interesting artefacts of the fighting Biafrans. We will head into the heart of Igboland in the town of Ohafia, where we will be able to admire Igbo masks and enter the ancestral shrine that holds some of the oldest surviving statues in Africa (outside museums). We will then head to the Cross River State, a beautiful natural area with forests and creeks on the border with Cameroon. In this river and coastal area we will meet two ethnic groups, the Oron and the Efik, who were once skilled traders, first with the Portuguese and later with the British, and visit the Pandillus mandrill reserve. We will finally arrive in Calabar, one of the oldest colonial settlements in coastal Nigeria, with its old wooden houses, colonial church and museum, set up in the old British governor’s house.

Reconnaissance trip with Leonardo F. Paoluzzi.