From Nigerian Bullets to Taiwan’s Legal Grey Zone: Biafran Exiles Struggle for Status

 From Nigerian Bullets to Taiwan’s Legal Grey Zone: Biafran Exiles Struggle for Status By Lee Chieh-yu, CNA staff writer SOURCE : From Niger...

 From Nigerian Bullets to Taiwan’s Legal Grey Zone: Biafran Exiles Struggle for Status

By Lee Chieh-yu, CNA staff writer

SOURCE : From Nigeria to Taiwan: Caught between home and refuge

Pseudon (a pseudonym), a Nigerian national who currently lives in Taiwan, knows what it means to face a violent crackdown when protesting against state power.

"Imagine you and your friend go to a protest with only a cardboard sign stating your demand, your flag, your clothes, and you face open fire by the government," said Pseudon of protests he took part in as a member of a Biafran separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The movement for Biafran independence from Nigeria has persisted since the independent Republic of Biafra was defeated by Nigerian forces in 1970.

In the decades that followed, several separatist groups emerged, organizing protests that were met with deadly crackdowns by Nigerian security forces.

Members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have faced arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings, predominantly during demonstrations, according to a 2019 statement by Agnes Callamard, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

On May 29 and 30, 2016, Nigerian troops opened fire on IPOB members and bystanders in Onitsha during a demonstration, killing at least 60 people and injuring more than 70, Callamard said.

Pseudon was one of those who faced the government's bullets while protesting between 2015 and 2017. He eventually left Nigeria in 2019 with only two sets of clothes, including the one he was wearing, and ended up in Taiwan, more than 12,000 kilometers away.

Several other Biafrans have also settled in Taiwan, which has maintained commercial ties with Nigeria for decades, particularly through the trade in used vehicles and auto parts.

CNA recently spoke with members of this community about the burdens of their past and the challenges they face in Taiwan today.

Sizable community

These Nigerian nationals, most of them ethnic Igbo from southeastern Nigeria, have built lives for themselves in Taiwan while remaining under the radar.

Charles Opanwa, a businessman in his 50s who serves as the chairman of the Biafra Exchange Association in Taiwan, estimates that roughly 600 people from the Igbo community live around Taiwan today, with more than 100 concentrated in Taoyuan. They are mostly in the business of exporting used vehicles and parts back to Nigeria, Opanwa said.

A Taiwanese source familiar with the trade estimated that about 10,000 shipping containers carrying used vehicles, used tires and discarded parts are shipped to Nigeria annually, with some of the items repaired or refurbished after arrival.

Nigeria was the second-largest importer of used petrol passenger cars from Taiwan from 2021 to August 2026, with exports of used cars and auto parts during that period valued at about US$13.6 million, according to customs data.

Most of the community members are in Taiwan legally, Opanwa said, though some have overstayed their visas. Many stay through marriage to a Taiwanese citizen or by renewing student or business visas, he said.

Life in Taiwan

Renewing visas can be difficult, however, and for people who want to stay through marriage to a Taiwanese citizen or be legally documented in Taiwan after overstaying a visa, they have to return home first.

Some in Taiwan's Biafran community say that returning home is a non-starter because they fled political persecution and that going back could cost them their lives. Of the roughly 600 Igbo people in Taiwan, 20 to 30, or about 5 percent of the community, would face an imminent threat if they returned to Nigeria, Opanwa estimated.

Among them are Prophet (pseudonym) and Pseudon.

Fighting the past, Prophet, who came to Taiwan in 2002, told CNA he was a member of a group pushing for Biafran independence called the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and was arrested while still in Nigeria because of his family's involvement in the movement.

Pseudon, who was involved with the IPOB, said he decided to leave in 2019 after two friends were killed during what he described as peaceful protests.

"Being IPOB makes you a target in Nigeria, even to this day," Pseudon said. "The police or the military will go after you."

Pseudon entered Taiwan on a business visa but was unable to renew it. He has since overstayed his visa, saying he fears persecution if he returns to Nigeria.

Nigeria designated the IPOB as a terrorist organization in 2017, accusing the separatist group of attacking security forces, intimidating civilians and threatening national security.

In Prophet's case, there would be a chance he could get legal status if he were willing to return home.

He said he met his Taiwanese partner Pan at the Taipei Zoo, and over two decades they have built a family with two children - but never married.

Taiwan requires certain foreign nationals to complete marriage paperwork in their home countries, and in 2011, Pan considered traveling with Prophet to Nigeria to obtain the documents.

However, amid reports of renewed killings in Nigeria, Pan feared that Prophet, a former member of MASSOB, could be detained if he returned to Nigeria or barred from returning to Taiwan.

"There was a possibility that he could not come back," she said. As a result, the couple never completed the process.

In some countries, Prophet and Pseudon might have the opportunity to apply for asylum, but Taiwan has no refugee law, despite occasional calls since 2005 for such legislation to be passed.

Instead, the government handles asylum claims through an administrative review process. Under existing regulations, authorities may issue a Temporary Alien Registration Certificate (TARC) to approved applicants, allowing them to remain in Taiwan legally.

Around 10 people in the community, including Pseudon and Prophet, have applied, Opanwa said, but the current petition process and documents requested remain unclear.

Liao Xin-yi (廖欣宜), a migration and asylum policy researcher at the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, a rights group that helps most applicants write their petitions, said the TARC provision was an "empty shell" because the regulations do not specify how a TARC can be issued or to whom.

The waiting process can drag on indefinitely, and some applicants are called in for interviews at National Immigration Agency (NIA) offices.

Prophet applied for a TARC in June 2024 and Pseudon in 2025, but neither have received a response.

In the meantime, they have not been allowed to work legally or open a bank account, and Pseudon had his phone service cut when his carrier demanded an Alien Resident Certificate (ARC).

After his interviews at the NIA, Pseudon said, he was given papers showing his case is pending. The petition itself, he believes, offers some protection from detention.

The NIA told CNA that the assessment of asylum-related petitions can take longer because much of the evidence concerns conditions in other countries, and Taiwan lacks diplomatic relations with many of them.

Nationwide, NIA officials said, more than 70 petitions for TARC protection have been filed. Of the 12 that have been decided, none were deemed to have met the threshold for protection, the NIA said.

Taiwan's Control Yuan has twice criticized the Ministry of the Interior's handling of asylum cases - in 2022 and this year - stating the related cases have been pending for more than two years, with most still lacking a decision to approve or deny, and to date not a single permit has been issued.

The review process and criteria lack clarity, the Control Yuan said, but its censure carries no force of law, only an obligation for the ministry to explain itself and report back.

Pan, bearing much of the family's financial burden, has learned to live with discrimination that comes with her situation.

"I've had kids say N-words to my own child," she said. She doesn't think they mean harm. "They've probably just picked it up from the internet or somewhere, thought it was funny, without understanding it's disrespectful."

"Taiwanese people look at us like we're dangerous," Prophet said. "But they have to understand some people couldn't go back - and when they went back, they might be killed."

Seven years after arriving in Taiwan, Pseudon, like most of the Nigerians in the country, calls the place and its people sweet and welcoming. But he is homesick all the same.

Although he still misses home, there is little Pseudon says he can do. "So you settle where you find yourself."