112th birthday of the venerable Akanu Ibiam

(Born 29 November 1906, Unwana, Biafra)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

AFFABLE physician, erudite theologian, principled statesperson, works for 30 years in the Church of Scotland/Presbyterian Church rural medical programme in central and east regions of Biafra and who, in August 1967, returns to Queen Elizabeth II of England the three insignias of knighthood (OBE, KBE, KCMG) conferred on him by both her and her father, King George VI,  in protest against the instrumental role being played by Britain in the perpetration of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, when it and its Fulani islamist/jihadist-led client state Nigeria murder 3.1 million Igbo people, 25 per cent of this nation’s population, between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970, phases I-III of the genocide. This genocide, phase-IV, continues unabated since 13 January 1970. The Anglo-Nigerian genocidists have murdered tens of thousands of Igbo during this period.

Dr Ibiam’s towering position against the Igbo genocide is a challenge particularly to those clusters of the Igbo intelligentsia, especially in the diaspora, who have exercised a mortifying silence over the existential emergency that the Igbo face, currently, as the genocidists pursue phase-IV of the slaughtering… 

It is also a reminder of how deeply embedded British involvement in the execution of the genocide is as shown in that historic August 1967 letter of Dr Ibiam’s to Queen Elizabeth II in which he renounces the awarded 3-set knighthood from the English crown (see excerpts of letter below) and illustrated further by the calculated indifference of the Church of England, markedly its present leadership, to the genocide. 

Church of England

SINCE NOVEMBER 2015, during the course of the notorious génocidaire Muhammadu Buhari regime in Nigeria (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/herbert-ekwe-ekwe-it-is-indeed.html), imposed on the country by ex-British Prime Minister David Cameron and ex-US President Barack Obama (first African-descent US president in 233 years of the founding of the republic – https://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com/2017/05/on-30-march-2016-i-published-essay.html), 3000 Igbo have been murdered in expanded scorched earth campaigns by its military and adjunct Fulani militia terrorists across Biafra. Sixty per cent of these murders have occurred in Onicha and neighbouring towns and villages, southwest Biafra, which are all located in the Onicha diocese of the Anglican communion, part of the Church of England, one of this denomination’s largest population districts in the world. Neither the Church of England nor its head, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, who has known Muhammadu Buhari personally since the former enjoyed an exponentially-lucrative post working for French oil company Elf Aquitaine in the early 1980s in the petroleum oil industry in Biafra’s Oshimili Delta, has condemned any of these Igbo slaughters of the past three years or offered public condolences to the aggrieved and traumatised Anglican communion congregants... 

(paragraphs 14-20 of Dr Ibiam’s letter to Queen Elizabeth II of England, August 1967)

...

YOUR MAJESTY, the British officials in Nigeria are fully aware of all these. They know that we are injured and deeply grieved people and had been cruelly treated by our erstwhile fellow citizens of Federal Republic of Nigeria. The British officials not only knew the crux of the matter, but they also encouraged Northern Nigeria to carry out and execute their nefarious plan against us. They are angry with Biafra because Biafra categorically refused to remain as part of the Nigeria federation and political unit only to be trampled upon, discriminated against and hated, ruthlessly exploited and denied her rights and privileges, and slaughtered whenever it suited the whims and caprices of the favoured people of Northern Nigeria. To add insult to injury, Your Majesty’s Britannic Government, instead of being neutral in our quarrels or finding ways and means to mediate and bring peace to the two countries, has now taken it upon herself to supply military aid to Nigeria to help them defeat and subjugate Biafra.

It is simply staggering for a Christian country like Britain to help a Moslem country militarily to crush another Christian country like Biafra. This is just too much for me, Your Gracious Majesty, this act of unfriendliness and treachery by the British Government towards the people of Republic of Biafra who, as Eastern Nigerians, had so much regard for Britain and British people.

In the circumstance, Your Majesty, I no longer wish to wear the garb of the British Knighthood. British fair play, British justice, and the Englishman’s word of honour which Biafra loved so much and cherished have become meaningless to Biafrans in general and to me in particular. Christian Britain has shamelessly let down Christian Biafra.

I love the Republic of Biafra very dearly and pray that, by grace of God, she may remain and continue to grow and live and always act like a truly Christian country for all times.

I am, your Majesty

Yours Most Respectfully

(AKANU IBIAM)

(John Coltrane Quintet, “The believer” {composer: McCoy Tyner} [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Donald Bryd, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Louis Hayes, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, US, 10 January 1958)

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Biafra Revisited (2006) and 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

The contrast: US President Donald Trump unequivocally condemns the premeditated murder of Christians in Biafra and genocidist Nigeria by the Nigeria military/Boko Haram/Fulani militia whilst Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby remains conspicuously silent over this grave emergency

(Donald Trump ... president of the US: unequivocal condemnation of crime...)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

“If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity.”

Albert Einstein

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

Albert Einstein

AS I HAVE shown variously in recent essays (see, for instance, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, “Why Barack Hussein Obama must tell the world why he supported Igbo genocide”, http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/on-30-march-2016-i-published-essay.html), 
the past 30 months represent the bloodiest stretch of the ongoing phase-IV of the Igbo genocide by Nigeria led by Hausa-Fulani/islamist jihadists whose regime is headed, currently, by Muhammadu Buhari, one of the vilest genocidist operatives engaged in this crime against humanity. 

Three thousand Igbo people have been murdered across Biafra in stepped up scorched earth campaigns by the Nigeria military and its adjunct Fulani militia and Boko Haram terrorists (latter 2 are part of the world’s 5 deadliest terrorist organisations presently) since Buhari came to power in March 2015, having been imposed as head of Nigeria’s regime by Barack Obama, the ex-US president of African descent, and David Cameron, ex-British prime minister. It should be stressed that at no time did the Obama presidency (White House, state department, US embassy in Nigeria) nor indeed Cameron’s/May’s (successor) British governments condemn these Igbo murders.

(Justin Welby ... archbishop of Canterbury: conspicuous silence...) 

SIXTY per cent of the 3000 murdered Igbo have occurred in Onicha and neighbouring towns and villages, southwest Biafra, which are all located in the Onicha diocese of the Anglican communion, part of the Church of England, one of this denomination’s largest population districts in the world. Ninety-six per cent of Igbo are Christians and about 45 per cent of these protestant and overwhelming majority Anglican.

Neither the Church of England nor its head, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, who has known Muhammadu Buhari personally since the former enjoyed an exponentially-lucrative post working for French oil company Elf Aquitaine in the early 1980s in the petroleum oil industry in Biafra’s Oshimili Delta, occupied by genocidist Nigeria, has condemned any of these Igbo slaughters since it began in November 2015 or offered public condolences to the aggrieved and traumatised Anglican communion congregants... Since 1 January 2018, the genocidists, spearheaded this time by the Fulani militia with logistical support from the parent military, have embarked on the attack of Tiv and Jukun peoples in the Benue valley northcentral Nigeria itself, majority of whom are Christians, murdering hundreds. These state-organised massacres have continued unabated.

Trump breaks this morbid silence of the states of the world

BESIDES Amnesty International which has twice published expansive reports on this phase of the Igbo genocide (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/blog-post_30.html), 
US President Donald Trump’s unreserved condemnation of this atrocity and the murder campaign in Nigeria’s northcentral region during his 30 April 2018 Washington joint-press conference with the visiting Buhari, is the first by not only a head of state but president of one of the foremost powers of the world:

We have had serious problems with Christians who are being murdered in Nigeria; We are going to be working on that problem very, very hard because we cannot allow that to happen … It’s a horrible story…

BIAFRANS and the peoples of the Benue valley in Nigeria are no doubt looking forward to the implementation of Trump’s response in terminating this genocidist Nigeria’s state-organised crime.

(John Coltrane Quintet, “The believer” {composer: McCoy Tyner} [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Donald Bryd, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Louis Hayes, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, US, 10 January 1958)

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

111th birthday of the venerable Akanu Ibiam

(Born 29 November 1906, Unwana, Biafra)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

AFFABLE physician, erudite theologian, principled statesperson, works for 30 years in the Church of Scotland/Presbyterian Church rural medical programme in central and east regions of Biafra and who, in August 1967, returns to Queen Elizabeth II of England the three insignias of knighthood (OBE, KBE, KCMG) conferred on him by both her and her father, King George VI,  in protest against the central role being played by Britain in the perpetration of the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, when it and its Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led client state Nigeria murder 3.1 million Igbo people, 25 per cent of this nation’s population, between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970 (phases I-III of the genocide).

Dr Ibiam’s towering position against the Igbo genocide is a challenge particularly to those clusters of the Igbo intelligentsia, especially in the diaspora, who have exercised a mortifying silence over the existential emergency that the Igbo face, currently, as the genocidists pursue phase-IV of the slaughtering … It is also a reminder of how deeply embedded British involvement in the execution of the genocide is as shown in that historic August 1967 letter of Dr Ibiam’s to Queen Elizabeth II in which he renounces the awarded 3-set knighthood from the English crown (see excerpts of letter below) and illustrated further by the calculated indifference of the Church of England to the genocide. 

Church of England

SINCE NOVEMBER 2015, during the course of the génocidaire Muhammadu Buhari regime in Nigeria (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/herbert-ekwe-ekwe-it-is-indeed.html), over 2000 Igbo have been murdered in expanded scorched earth campaigns by its military/adjunct Fulani militia across Biafra. Sixty per cent of these murders have occurred in Onicha and neighbouring towns and villages, southwest Biafra, which are all located in the Onicha diocese of the Anglican communion, part of the Church of England, one of this denomination’s largest population districts in the world. Neither the Church of England nor its head, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, who has known Muhammadu Buhari personally since the former worked in the petroleum oil industry in Nigeria in the early 1980s, has condemned any of these Igbo slaughters of the past two years or offered public condolences to the aggrieved and traumatised Anglican communion congregants...

(paragraphs 14-20 of Dr Ibiam’s letter to Queen Elizabeth II of England, August 1967)

...

YOUR MAJESTY, the British officials in Nigeria are fully aware of all these. They know that we are injured and deeply grieved people and had been cruelly treated by our erstwhile fellow citizens of Federal Republic of Nigeria. The British officials not only knew the crux of the matter, but they also encouraged Northern Nigeria to carry out and execute their nefarious plan against us. They are angry with Biafra because Biafra categorically refused to remain as part of the Nigeria federation and political unit only to be trampled upon, discriminated against and hated, ruthlessly exploited and denied her rights and privileges, and slaughtered whenever it suited the whims and caprices of the favoured people of Northern Nigeria. To add insult to injury, Your Majesty’s Britannic Government, instead of being neutral in our quarrels or finding ways and means to mediate and bring peace to the two countries, has now taken it upon herself to supply military aid to Nigeria to help them defeat and subjugate Biafra.

It is simply staggering for a Christian country like Britain to help a Moslem country militarily to crush another Christian country like Biafra. This is just too much for me, Your Gracious Majesty, this act of unfriendliness and treachery by the British Government towards the people of Republic of Biafra who, as Eastern Nigerians, had so much regard for Britain and British people.

In the circumstance, Your Majesty, I no longer wish to wear the garb of the British Knighthood. British fair play, British justice, and the Englishman’s word of honour which Biafra loved so much and cherished have become meaningless to Biafrans in general and to me in particular. Christian Britain has shamelessly let down Christian Biafra.

I love the Republic of Biafra very dearly and pray that, by grace of God, she may remain and continue to grow and live and always act like a truly Christian country for all times.

I am, your Majesty

Yours Most Respectfully

(AKANU IBIAM)

(John Coltrane Quintet, “The believer” {composer: McCoy Tyner} [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Donald Bryd, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Louis Hayes, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, US, 10 January 1958)

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe