Rethinking Africa is a forward looking blog dedicated to the exchange of innovative thinking on issues affecting the advancement of African peoples wherever they are. We provide rigorous and insightful analyses on the issues affecting Africans and their vision of the world.
Friday, 25 December 2015
84th birthday of Uzo Egonu
(Born 25 December 1931, Onicha, Biafra)
One of the African World’s multifaceted and most distinguished painters, his evocative, landmark Exodus (1970) captures the devastating aftermath of phase-I of the Igbo genocide, perpetrated by Nigeria and principal ally Britain, 29 May 1966-4 January 1967, as nearly 2 million Igbo who survive this initial slaughter in the north region and elsewhere in Nigeria stream home before the subsequent phases (II & III: 5 January 1967-5 July 1967, 6 July 1967-12 January 1970 respectively) when the genocidists effect a comprehensive range of land, aerial and naval blockade of Biafra, unprecedented in Africa, and murdering a total of 3 million people therein by 12 January 1970
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is specialist on the state and on genocide & wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch – beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-present day, the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered by Nigeria and its allies, principally Britain. Africa and the rest of the world largely stood by and watched as the perpetrators enacted this horror most ruthlessly. The world could have stopped this genocide; the world should have stopped this genocide. This genocide inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence. During the period, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/DRCongo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur – west of the Sudan – (since 2004) and in other wars in Africa. African peoples have, presently, no other choice but exit/dismantle the extant genocide-state (the bane of their existence & progress) & construct own nation-centred states that serve their interests. He is author of several books & papers on the subject and his new book is entitled The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019).
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