Abstract
The South-East of Nigeria has earned a reputation as the hot bed of separatist agitation championed by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). With a capacity to mount vigorous and relentless campaign for Biafran separatist identity fueled by the fact of Igbo marginalization and exclusion by the Nigerian state, and latching on to the legitimacy crisis faced by the governments in the South-East and the open as well as the veiled threats of use of force as a strategy to enforce its directives, IPOB has effectively established
itself as a force to reckon with not only in the region but beyond. The capacity of the organization to issue directives and have them complied with, has clothed it with the toga of a de facto political authority. This paper investigates the acts, pronouncements and posturing of IPOB and their implications for the political authority of the governments in the South-East. Employing the doctrine of sovereignty as the explanatory tool and the qualitative method of data collection and analysis, the paper finds that the acts and pronouncements of IPOB such as the establishment and effective use of the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and its sit-at-home directives, have posed a challenge to and indeed threatened the political authority of governments in the South-East. The paper recommends among others, that the governments in the region should identify with the problems and yearnings of their people with a view to shoring up their legitimacy and effective exercise of political authority.