Genevieve Nnaji, “Ndi Yoruba na Igbophobia”

(Genevieve Nnaji: ... one of Biafra’s and Africa’s leading actresses writes on ongoing widespread attacks on Igbo immigrants and the destruction/looting of their business enterprises by regime death-squads in Lagos, west genocidist Nigeria…[from Ngozika Ugochi Chukwu and Samuel Okeke’s Facebook pages, slightly edited])

Genevieve Nnaji

THE Igbo have never been the problem with Nigeria or

wherever they find themselves.
This is not ethnic jingoism or
bigotry.

The Igbo will never foment troubles where they are
because they know that “isi kote ebu, ogbaa ya”.

They also know deep in their hearts that “ife onye metalu, obulu”.

The Igbo will never kill others to live because they believe
that “ndu bu isi” Yes, murder or “igbu ochu” is one of the most
despicable crimes amongst the Igbo.

The Igbo believe that once you are alive, there is always a way left to succeed.
The “igba mbo” is perhaps the best gift of the Igbo.
Yes, the Igbo struggle to make it in life.
They are industrious, assiduous & sedulous.

The Igbo also believe in helping one another.

That’s why you hear “onye aghana nwanne ya”.

THERE is also no lateness in making it in life amongst the Igbo

because “ebe onye oso ruru, onye ije geru” and “uwa mgbede
ka mma”.

Igbo businesspeople are scattered all over the world.
Wherever they are, they make their homes, building houses &
gentrifying districts. For most lgbo, “ala bu otu”.

Igbo are liberal, accommodating & very friendly to foreigners.
This is because they are themselves scattered all over the world as
immigrants.

NA LAGOS, ndi Igbo naagba oso ahia, Igbo neere gala na go slow,

Igbo naaru conductor, umu Igbo bu importers buru manufacturers,

Igbo noo into clearing and forwarding,

Igbo neesi nri, umunna neere motor parts, Igbo naaru police na oru aka.

Ndi Igbo adiro selective with jobs maka na onye ruo, orie.
But the Igbo will never take your lands or countries from you.
The Igbo think about their native home.

Yes, you will never provide them with akpu, bitter leaves soup, palm wine, isi ewu & other scrumptious dishes they miss at Igboland.
While living in your country or State, never you imagine the Igbo are not thinking about their village.

My friend, they do that everyday.
Where ever the Igbo habitate, their hearts are not far from their native homes.

STOP KILLING the Igbo.
They will only make their money & go back to their land.
And they know how to make legitimate money.
Yes, where you see nothing, the Igbo with their gimlet eyes see “ego”.

So when next you meet an Igbo, ask them “nna, nne, how far?”
If you are lucky & they had done a successful business deal, they
might just take you out for lunch. Yes, the Igbo like sharing.

On the other hand, if business is low, they will tell you the
normal clichés... “obodo bu igwe” or “ife anaeme adiro easy” or
“ogbogu di tight”.

LOOK AT their face closely as they lament.
You will see no signs of defeatism. Mind you, they might just be
carrying 1 million naira in their pockets.
Just that the money had
already been budgeted for... “Sontin...es”!!!

Daaluu nu

(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]) 

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is author of the recently published The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019)  (https://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com/2019/01/published-longest-genocide-since-29-may.html)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

49th anniversary of Nigeria’s launch of phase-IV of the Igbo genocide

(resplendent Biafra flag: ... on the ascent...)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

WHAT IS NIGERIA? This is Africa’s most notorious genocidist and kakistocratic state, currently led by Fulani islamist/jihadists whose homeland is in the Futa Djallon highlands of northwest Africa, 1500 miles away.

Nigeria was created by Britain in the early 1900s after the latter’s conquest and occupation of  the constellation of states of nations and peoples in the southwestcentral region of Africa including the republican Igbo states to the east, stretching to the Atlantic coast, the west monarchical Edo and Yoruba state configurations and the expansionary militarist Arabo-islamist Fulani feudal principalities to the north. A hundred years on, genocidist Nigeria remains a British client-state, run on its behalf  by its Fulani confederate. It exists principally to serve Britain and this local overseer conglomerate and continues to offer Britain outlandishly excellent returns, if one uses any conceivable socioeconomic/geostrategic variable, year in, year out.

Igbo genocide: Africa’s age of pestilence

Nigeria inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence – starting from that dreadful mid-morning of Sunday 29 May 1966 when it embarked on the studiously-organised mass murder of its Igbo population domiciled in north Nigeria and later elsewhere in the country and subsequently expanded to Biafra. Britain, under the premiership of Harold Wilson, coordinated the genocide to “punish” the Igbo for this nation’s vanguard role in leading the campaign to terminate the British occupation during the course of the mid 1930s-October 1960. 

IN THIS foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, Anglo-Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of the Igbo population in 44 months, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970. Africa had not witnessed the unspeakable barbarity and range of such slaughtering of a people for 60 years; definitely, not since the German-organised genocide against the Herero, Nama and Berg Damara peoples of southwest Africa between 1904-1907.

BESIDES Britain, Nigeria was supported in the execution of the Igbo genocide by a range of (now) collapsed states and failed/failing states which provided it with critical military, financial, political and diplomatic resources: principally the Soviet Union, German Democratic Republic, Egypt, 
Syria, the Sudan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Chad, Niger, Guinea-Conakry. Since 12 January 1970, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocides and other wars in Africa carried out by similarly ruthless African regimes (especially in Rwanda, the Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and their foreign allies, including France.

Phase-IV ... and abhorrent legacy of US’s first African-descent president

On 13 January 1970, 49 years ago to the day, evidently not content with the appalling magnitude and consequences of its death campaign, Nigeria launched phase-IV of the genocide which now focused on degrading/dismantling the surviving frames of the (pre-genocide robust) Biafran economy, pulverised during phases-I-III of the previous 44 months, a programme intertwined gruesomely by spates and stretches of pogroms in which thousands of additional Igbo have been murdered. These murders have continued, unabated, to this day, as catalogued in the following link, especially from sub-title phase-IV: 
(http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/phase-i-sunday-29-may-1966-30-march.html)

SINCE imposing jihadist-genocidist trooper Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s head of regime in March 2015 in a collaborative deal with David Cameron, former British prime minister, ex-US President Barack Hussein Obama actively supported this phase of the Igbo genocide (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/herbert-ekwe-ekwe-this-piece-is.html) particularly in his last two years in office. Being the first African-descent president in the US of 233 years of history and given the scourging dehumnisation of the African humanity in the US and elsewhere in the Americas during the stretch of this period, Obama’s support of this raging genocide against the Igbo, an African people in this continent of his fathers, is an incalculable tragedy, this presidential legacy of catastrophic proportions. Since Buhari was installed in power, 3000 Igbo have been murdered by his genocidist military and his two other adjunct forces, Boko Haram and Fulani militia – two of the world’s five deadliest terrorist organisations. 

Neither Obama’s White House nor his state department nor his embassy in Nigeria ever condemned any of these murders. It had been left to the audacious outreach of the London-based Amnesty International to shatter the deafening silence emanating from the Obama presidency on this ongoing genocide (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/11/peaceful-pro-biafra-activists-killed-in-chilling-crackdown/, accessed 23 November 2016). 

Breakthrough

THE IGBO will overcome this genocide, despite the horrendous assault and its evidently hydra-headed drive. They possess the resilience to survive and triumph over this ordeal. They surely will. This Igbo resistance to the genocide is arguably the most defining struggle underway in Africa currently. The breakthrough of the Biafra freedom movement, very much on the cards, is of immense epochal consequence for Biafrans and the future direction of Africa. One cannot exaggerate the import of this development.

(Alice Coltrane Quartet, “Lord, help me to be” [personnel: Coltrane, piano; Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Rashied Ali, drums; recorded: Coltrane home studio, Dix Hills, New York, US, 6 June 1968]) 

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)

(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Donald-Trump-great-Africa-ebook/dp/B07KFQHXKV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1542585950&sr=8-1)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe