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.
Showing posts with label 3.1 mil Igbo murdered. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3.1 mil Igbo murdered. Show all posts
HAUSA-FULANI/islamist-led Nigeria
focuses particularly on the murder of Igbo youth/children in Biafra in this genocide campaign
for obvious reasons (so blatantly and fiendishly recorded for the world in its
genocide anthem), especially the male,*** poignantly evident in the attack on
Nnamdi Kanu’s family home at Afaraukwu-Ibeku (eastcentral Biafra) on 14
September 2017 (scores of boys and men slaughtered and scores still unaccounted
for) and in its slaughter of 700 boys and men in Asaba (west Biafra) on 7
October 1967.
***genocide anthem line 2 in Hausa with
English translation: Mu kashe maza su da yan maza su (Kill off their men and boys)
(Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe)
(George Russell Sextet, “Nardis” [personnel: Russell, piano;Don Ellis, trumpet;Dave Baker, trombone;Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet;Steve Swallow, bass;Joe Hunt, drums; recorded: Riverside
Records, New York, 8 May 1961])
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu: “They call us a dot on the map, and nobody’s sure quite where. Inside that dot were 700 lawyers, 500 physicians, 300 engineers, 8 million poets, 2 novelists of the first rank, and God knows what else – about one-third of all [African] intellectuals in Africa. Some dot. Those intellectuals had once fanned out all over Nigeria … where they had been envied and lynched and massacred. So they retreated to their homeland, to the dot” (30 May 1967) (added emphasis). DURING phases I-III of the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, Nigeria and its co-genocidist suzerain-state Britain murdered 3.1 million Igbo people, 25 per cent of the Igbo population, in this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. Tens of thousands of additional Igbo have been murdered by the dual-genocidists subsequently, in phase-IV of the genocide, begun on 13 January 1970 and continues till this day.
(colossus on the map)
(Tina Brooks Sextet, “Back to the tracks” [personnel: Brooks, tenor saxophone; Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Jackie McLean, alto saxophone; Kenny Drew, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, US, 1 September 1960])
TOWERING goalkeeper of the indomitable Enuugwu Rangers International, the football club, during the 1970s-1980s, which, arguably, most symbolises the dogged and resilient spirit of Igbo people in the wake of the cataclysmic genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, when Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain led by Prime Minister Harold Wilson murder 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population
(Lee Morgan Quintet, “Gary’s notebook” [personnel:Morgan,trumpet; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone;Barry Harris, piano;Bob Cranshaw, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; recorded: Van Geldar Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 21 December 1963])
“Denial is the final stage that lasts throughout and always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide … try to cover up the evidence … They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern … with impunity … unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them. The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts...”(Gregory Stanton, president, Genocide Watch; professor in genocide studies and prevention, George Mason University, Virginia)
ONE OF THE cruellest tragedies of the
aftermath of 400 years of pan-Europe’s enslavement, conquest, unparallelled expropriation
and occupation of the African World is that concocted pedestal of “moral
authority” that successive West/Euro-American leaders have erected and from
which they lecture African presumed leaderships in “post”-(European)conquest Berlin-states
and estates on how the latter treat their populations.
The West leaders are expressly contemptuous of these African “leaderships”,
understandably, because most have been created or implanted invariably on the
African scene by the extant imperium. The West is therefore untiring as it ritualistically
lectures its stretch of puppets across Africa: 1. “Respect the human rights of your people” 2. “Stop murdering your people…” 3. “You are corrupt, very corrupt! You steal your
people’s money – stop it! You must be transparent and accountable!” 4. “Institute
a bill of rights, respect the rule of law” 5. “Run free and fair elections! Don’t
turn your presidency into a life-long estate as we really don’t want you to
deal with our own next generation of leaders, our children’s”…
Hotchpotch
Even then,
no truly focussed democrat should be
disoriented by this astonishing irony emanating from the West. African “leaderships”, quite often in league with some of their West’s hypocritical traducers, have murdered 15 million Africans across the continent in the past 50 years in
appalling spates of genocide, beginning with the Igbo genocide on 29 May 1966,
and in other wars in virtually every region of Africa. Even if the devil,
itself, were to lecture African “leaderships” to stop murdering their own peoples
and, in the process, help prevent just one more African from being annihilated
by their depraved overlords, that would be readily welcome. African populations
are under siege by brutal regimes replete across Africa especially the
genocidist hotchpotch in Nigeria and the Sudan. The peoples here and elsewhere require
unremitting support for their right to safeguard their lives and progress from
wherever in the world. Not less.
There is of
course nothing in these apparent pro-African freedom/liberatory sentiments
by West leaders, referred to above, to suggest that the latter really care about
the African humanity they and forebears have spent nearly half of a millennium to
obliterate/dehumanise nor do they indeed look forward to the day when they will
deal with a democratic Africa where its leaderships are accountable to their own, their home publics. To the contrary, if that were to occur, the
West would cease to exercise the stranglehold it currently has on Africa. No
responsive leadership ever plays the overseer role which these African
regimes engage in.
Crucially,
to the score, the West’s singular mission in castigating its African “leaderships”
is to continue desperately to cover the tracks of its heinous historical crimes
across Africa, to expunge these, if possible, from any form of reckoning and eventual
systemised censure. But even in the pursuit of this venture, the West is often
highly selective on who or what “leaderships” they wish to focus on – such
decisions ultimately rest on the individual West’s state-interest(s) at the
time, thus enabling it, for instance, to ignore some “misdeeds” from a client-leadership
who is considered “our son of a b****” as Franklin D Roosevelt, a former US
president, would colourfully describe it.
Vile
genocidist operative
Very
recently in London, England, in May 2016, the world witnessed in full public
display a classic of this selective choice tinkering of some “misdemeanour” from
one of its African “leaderships” which a West leader had wished to focus on for
the occasion of a state banquet for the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. Former
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who, in March 2015, in collaboration with
US President Obama, had imposed Muhammadu Buhari, the vile genocidist operative
during the Igbo genocide, as new head of regime in Nigeria, dramatically addressed
the Queen in the company of some other influential guests: “[Your Majesty], We’ve got some leaders
of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain … Nigeria and
Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world…”
Noticeably, during this entire apparent puppet show, Cameron
didn’t mention the gravest attribute in the grim Buhari portfolio spectrum which
was key in the former’s joint decision with Obama to install the genocidist
operative in power in Nigeria – namely, to continue to wage the genocide
against Igbo people, begun 50 years ago. Buhari was pleased with his puppet “massa”
for his deft choice from the available range of cv data and the “boy” obliged,
accordingly, by acknowledging, also publicly whilst walking next to Patricia
Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth, to a reception, that his “country
is [indeed] corrupt”.
Buhari has been known to the British for 50
years – since the outbreak of the May 1966 Igbo genocide, the foundational
genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, launched by its client state
Nigeria with firm British military, diplomatic and
political support. Harold Wilson, the British prime
minister then, personally supervised and coordinated the
prosecution of the genocide from his London’s No 10 Downing Street residence. During phase-III of the genocide, the invasion
of Biafra, July 1967-January 1970, Buhari was commander of a genocidist brigade in north and northcentral Biafra, slaughtering Igbo children, women and men to
the hilt. 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of their population were murdered
during the 44 months of phases I-III which ended in January 1970. Since his
March 2015 Cameron-Obama imposition, Buhari has duly resumed his Igbo slaughtering
mission. In response, predictably, both the Cameron
administration and its successor Theresa May’s, and the Obama government have all
remained deafeningly silent over this catastrophe.
Nigeria and its backers must now know that no force can stop the
determined will of a people. No other African peoples have
suffered such an extensive and gruesome genocide and incalculable
impoverishment in a century as the Igbo. Yet
the Igbo have written a stunning essay in the past 50 years on human survival
and resilience, a beacon of the resilient spirit of human overcoming of the
most desperate, unutterably brutish forces in Nigeria. Genocide, it should be reiterated, is a crime against
humanity. There is therefore no statute of limitations in international law for
the apprehension and punishment of those responsible for this crime. Igbo seek
and will achieve justice for the perpetration of this crime.
The Igbo are primed to restore their sovereigntyin
their Biafran homeland. This will be
one of the most outstanding breakthroughs of the freedom movement of the age.
(Alice Coltrane Quartet, “Lord, help me to be”[personnel: Coltrane, piano; Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Ben Riley, drums; recorded: Coltrane home studio, Dix Hills, New York, US, 29 January 1968])
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu: “They call us a dot
on the map, and nobody’s sure quite where. Inside that dot were 700 lawyers,
500 physicians, 300 engineers, 8 million poets, 2 novelists of the first rank,
and God knows what else – about one-third of all [African] intellectuals in
Africa. Some dot. Those intellectuals had once fanned out all over Nigeria …
where they had been envied and lynched and massacred. So they retreated to
their homeland, to the dot.” (30 May 1967) (added emphasis)
(colossus on the map)
(John Coltrane Quartet, “The promise” [personnel: Coltrane, soprano saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: live at Birdland, New York, US, 8 October 1963])
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).
