["Nations and Nationalism, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThe revival of Biafran separatism in contemporary Nigeria is often explained with three leading theoretical frameworks: relative deprivation, political economy and state repression. Whereas relative deprivation and political economy perspectives posit that the resurgent separatism derives from the perception and empirical reality of socioeconomic deprivation amongst Igbos, the state repression perspective maintains that the state's repression of dissent is linked to the resuscitation of separatist agitations in the southeast region. Although these three frameworks elucidate varied facets of revived separatist tensions in the southeast region, they provide only partial explanations that do not connect the dots amongst symbolic predispositions, leaders' framing, public perception and separatist mobilisation. Drawing on symbolic politics theory advanced by Stuart Kaufman and focusing on the transnational Indigenous People of Biafra, I contend that the resurgent separatism in the southeast region is now driven by ethnic narratives of group annihilation that the separatist group instrumentalises to engender mobilisation against the state. For members of the Indigenous People of Biafra—the largest Biafran separatist movement in Nigeria—who instrumentalise hostile ethnic narratives in their separatist discourses, ethnic Igbos are a people under threat of extinction in a state run by other ethnic and religious groups that purportedly intend to dominate and eliminate Igbos—which necessitates the restoration of the defunct secessionist Biafran state to safeguard against such ethnic elimination. This novel perspective contributes to the existing literature on the reemergence of separatism in contemporary Nigeria.\n"]