Igbo insist

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

BRITAIN creates a predatory estate in southwestcentral Africa it unabashedly calls Nigeria, a name it concocted cavalierly from one of the derivatives of the racist, dehumanising pan-European-crafted “n*****” epithet with edited part of word “area” added on to emphasise the conquered African peoples’ domicility. 

Igbo people

As part of its strategic calculations to effectuate its age-old obsessive drive to control the destiny of African peoples in perpetuity, following its lead-role in centuries of the deportation and enslavement of Africans in the Americas, Britain then employs an equally predatory and expansionist egregiously anti-African Fulani islamists/jihadists, whose home is the Futa Djallon highlands, 1500 miles to the northwest, to murder indigenous uncompromisingly republican Igbo people at will in this longest and most devastating genocide of contemporary history – with 3.1 million Igbo murdered, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, and tens of thousands of additional Igbo murdered, 13 January 1970-present day. The latter includes the 3000 Igbo murdered since November 2015 by the regime of fiendish genocidist Muhammadu Buhari who was installed in power by David Cameron, ex-British prime minister, and Barack Hussein Obama, ex-US president, indeed first African-descent president in 233 years of the founding of the United States republic. 

BRITAIN could not have found itself in a more ecstatic bliss in March 2015 when this African-descent US president openly supported the genocide against Igbo people that it had prosecuted so unrelentingly with co-genocidist Fulani-led Nigeria for 49 years – since 29 May 1966.  Barack Hussein Obama’s unconscionable support of the Igbo genocide is the abominable legacy of his presidency. 

Freedom

For the Igbo, the resistance and overcoming from co-genocidists Britain & Nigeria are undoubtedly existential. Clearly, the Igbo are the authors of their freedom which, thankfully, 53 years later, is on the cards. 

Neither Britain nor Nigeria nor, indeed, any other power can stop Igbo freedom. 

AS Britain cannot now fail to note, Biafra’s restoration-of-independence predates its own Brexit “self-determination” (Theresa May’s [ex-British prime minister] quote in letter to Donald Tusk, EU president, 29 March 2017) quest by 50 years. The “self-determination” (“self-determination” is an inalienable right for every people, recognised by the UN) that Britain now seeks from the European Union is the same “self-determination” that Biafra has sought from the Anglo-Nigeria Union since 29 May 1966. Unlike its experience from the European Union, Britain has unleashed a genocide on the Igbo in the past 53 years to stop the latter’s goal of “self-determination”. 

Clearly, Britain cannot continue to live a lie of some “civilised” state at a time it has spent 53 years carrying out the gruesome genocide against Igbo people, one of the world’s most democratic and resourceful peoples, steadfastly allied in this campaign with its co-executing Fulani jihadists who British anthropology would otherwise dismiss as “primitive” and “retrogressive”.

IGBO FREEDOM from this Nigeria haematophagous monster, presently in its death throes, is the great African story of the 21st century. Igbo will build, reconstruct, embark on all possibilities of working for themselves and appropriating the fruits of their labour from their land and on their own terms.

(John Coltrane Duo, “Jupiter (variation)” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone, bells; Rashied Ali, drums; recorded: Van Geldar Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 22 February 1967)

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe’s recently published books on the Igbo genocide are The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

As the world watches this genocidist state implode...

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

BRITAIN creates a predatory estate it calls Nigeria, a name concocted cavalierly from one of the derivatives of the racist, dehumanising pan-European-crafted “n*****” epithet with edited part of word “area” added on to emphasise the conquered African peoples’ domicility. 

Igbo people

It then employs an equally predatory and expansionist African-based Fulani islamists/jihadists, originally from Futa Djallon highlands in contemporary Guinea-Conakry, 1500 miles to the northwest, to murder indigenous uncompromisingly republican Igbo people at will in this longest and most devastating genocide of contemporary history – with 3.1 million Igbo murdered, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, and tens of thousands of additional Igbo murdered, 13 January 1970-present day... 

Just three days ago, Friday 17 August 2018, a Nigeria genocidist ocupation police unit in Owere, east Biafra, opened fire at 2000 Igbo women engaged in a peaceful freedom march through the Owere city centre. Details of casualties and possible fatalities suffered by the women are still unknown but the génocidaires have detained scores of survivors of this shooting.

IT should be noted that, in shooting at Igbo women freedom marchers last Friday, the Nigerians have studiously borrowed a leaf  out of the book of their co-genocidist British conqueror state whose own occupation forces had, in November-December 1929, fired on and murdered 55 Igbo women freedom marchers in this same east Biafra region, opposed to the British conquest
(https://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com/2017/11/blog-post_23.html). 

Freedom

For the Igbo, the resistance and overcoming from Nigeria are undoubtedly existential. Clearly, the Igbo are the authors of their freedom which, thankfully, 52 years later, is on the cards. 

IGBO FREEDOM from this haematophagous monster, presently in its death throes, is the great African story of the 21st century.

(John Coltrane Sextet, “Out of this world” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone; Donald Garrett, clarinet, bass; Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: live at Penthouse Jazz Club, Seattle, US, 30 September 1965])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

The haunting tragedy of a Nigeria...

BRITAIN creates a predatory estate it calls Nigeria, a name cavalierly concocted from one of the derivatives from the racist, dehumanising pan-European-created “n” epithet with edited part of word “area” added on to emphasise the conquered African peoples’ domicility, and employs an equally predatory and expansionist but African-based Hausa-Fulani/islamists originally from Futa Djallon highlands in contemporary Guinea-Conakry, 1500 miles from the west, to murder indigenous Igbo people at will to keep the estate in business in perpetuity. For the Igbo, the resistance and overcoming from nïgériana is undoubtedly existential; they are clearly the authors of their freedom which, thankfully, 51 years later, is on the cards. Igbo freedom from this haematophagous monster is the great African story of this century.
Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

Biafra at the Rio 2016 Olymipics: A retrospective

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

For those not particularly familiar with the inner workings of that haematophagous monster which calls itself Nigeria, the following news item in African Spotlight (Friday 12 August 2016), carried similarly by several other news organisations, could appear extraordinary if not outlandish.

First, the story’s blazing headline: “Rio 2016: Mikel Obi pays $4,000 to save Nigerian players embarrassment from Brazilian hotel”. 

Second, the first paragraph in the dispatch that duly elaborates on the theme: “In yet another scandal, Team Nigeria captain at the ongoing Olympics, Mikel John Obi, had to pay $4,000 of his personal money, to save the footballers from embarrassment after a hotel in Sao Paulo held the entire team to ransom over the bills incurred by additional officials, it has been revealed. The Nigerian Olympic team almost missed their flight [from São Paulo] to Salvador, reports say” (emphasis added). A player – not even one of the usual retinue of accompanying genocidist Nigerian officials (coach, managers, trainers, hangers-on, etc., etc), pays for his team’s hotel bills incurred at a foreign assignment 3500 miles away from Nigeria! 

Furthermore, this intervening player, with his personal money to pay for the outstanding São Paulo hotel costs, is Biafran...

Genocidist state

What sort of state on this planet would send a sports team to represent it abroad – not just, for instance, to some other state across its frontiers, contiguous to its territory (if such a rationalisation could ever be contemplated) but 3500 miles away, in a competition, the prestigious Olympic games for that matter, and not adequately fund the team’s passage and upkeep and welfare comprehensively? Straight-ahead reply: genocidist Nigeria.

Why? Not too complicated either: genocidist Nigeria, now 51 years in the making after it and its suzerain state and strategic ally Britain had initially murdered 3.1 million Igbo people during phases I-III of the Igbo genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970), is currently run by Muhammadu Buhari. This is an islamist jihadist operative who is so riled by the defiant Igbo youth’s doggedly dominant presence and drive stamped on the creative arts and sports and academic disciplines and practices across the Nigeria landscape, despite the genocide and occupation of the Biafran homeland. In what the uninitiated genocidist Nigeria watcher might think is perverse, Buhari would rather adamantly prefer a non-Nigeria participation in the Rio Olympics or a complete loss of a game’s tournament by Nigeria if the “country”’s participating sports team, in this case a football team, as is more often than not, is captained by an Igbo or/and has a substantial personnel of the team, as is also more often than not, populated by Igbo talent.

Depression

MUHAMMADU BUHARI must have literally been thrown into days of agonising depression by this football team heading from São Paulo to Salvador in Brazil whose captain has the following name profile with its uncompromisingly classed Igbo registers: John Michael Nchekwube Obinna – not Ahmed, Saraki, Abacha, Muhammadu, Ahmadu, Maigida, Salisu, Maimuna, Mohammed, Buhari, Sulaiman, Lamido, Sadiq, Abubakar, etc., etc, that would more likely characterise the forename or surname of an operative that sits on a genocidist preparatory committee or participatory cell/squad/brigade in an Abuja, Katsina, Maiduguri, Kano or Sokoto, meticulously planning the next slaughtering outrage in Onicha, Oka, Owere, Igwe Ocha, Enuugwu or somewhere else in occupied Biafra.

Asset

For Muhammadu Buhari, the Nnamdis and Nnekas and Ngozis and Obiagelis and Nkeirus and Ikechukwus and Nkechis and Chidis and Emekas and Chukas of the Igbo nation should be sequestrated in the cities, towns and villages of Biafra awaiting the genocidist slaughter-next-round instead of being positioned, as hundreds of thousands of them are indeed primed currently, in several top colleges and universities and innumerable sites of creative endeavours and sports activities around the world. One of the insistent factors that has fuelled the Igbo genocide in these past 50 years is the Hausa-Fulani islamist leadership’s trenchant aversion to the well-known Igbo hardworking ethic and entrepreneurial drive. Consequently, this dual attribute of ethic and drive has transformed Igbo people to presently control one of Africa’s best-developed multidisciplinary humanpower conglomeration of assets.

Finally, to return to that Mikel Obi’s US$4000.00 personal payment to rescue the Nigeria football team from its São Paulo hotel bill’s entanglement, an obvious question on the minds of many must be the following: Given the existential threat that most know the Igbo face due to the ongoing genocide from Nigeria, was Nchekwube Obinna’s payment motivated by sheer naivety or just crass ignorance?  No, contrary to seemingly predictable impulses, neither is distinctly on the mark. Instead, Obinna was indeed acting out from a script that tragically pervades the entire Africa landscape, in the wake of centuries-old European conquest and occupation of the continent, where the largely non-deconstructed conqueror’s/conquest social sciences & humanities project the prevailing “state”, the “Berlin-state”, as some raefied if not ahistorical construct to which each and every African is “strapped”.

(Biafra’s John Michael Nchekwube Obinna: ... footprints ... indelible registers ...)

Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa are free to choose

IN THE NIGERIA case, as any cursory observer should attest to, the horror of that imagination, characterisation and association must be catastrophically profound. For the Igbo, in the maelstrom of that wretchedness, the history of the past 50 years attests chillingly and overwhelmingly. The Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa must now know that they are not wedded to any such states. On the contrary, states are historical constructs which human beings negotiate, pick and choose from. That is why states have, thankfully, remained transient in human history. The Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa are free to choose any states they wish to belong. It must therefore be a pointedly unthinkable personal tragedy if the Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa who are also survivors of genocide from genocidist Nigeria end up ticking Nigeria as the state of choice… Tufia kwa! 

The Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa must cease to represent genocidist Nigeria in all conceivable competitions: sports, creative and performing arts/other spheres of intellectual labour… Never again should we be treated to the grotesque scene of witnessing some Igbo athlete, some Igbo writer, some Igbo academic, appearing at some world stage carrying or wrapping themselves around a Nigerian flag. Enough! Order a Biafran flag for the occasion or alternatively promote the flag of your generous host –  the United States, Barbados, Vanuatu, Finland, Suriname... Definitely not genocidist Nigeria’s. A genocidist state’s fate is nothing else but to be abandoned, to be voided, to be dismantled. This is Nigeria’s fate as the handwriting on the wall is writ large.

NCHEKWUBE OBINNA should have donated or invested his US$4000.00 in any or some of the many private clinics across Biafra treating hundreds of desperate Biafran survivors from the recent murdering escapades carried out by genocidist Nigeria military/Boko Haram/Fulani militia brigades, beginning October 2015. Ironically, by paying the sum of US$4000.00 to the São Paulo hoteliers, due responsibility of genocidist Nigeria’s, Nchekwube Obinna provided ready savings or credit for this genocidist state and allies to fund the fresh cache of AK-47 rifles, ammunitions, bazookas, tank shells and suicide vests for their next planned murderous outrage in Oka, Onicha, Enuugwu, Igwe Ocha, Aba… 

Not only do Biafrans not obviously bail out genocidist Nigeria from its quagmire but Biafrans cannot be a party to Nigeria’s hardly disguised chart and intent of Biafran annihilation. This is precisely what the philosophers who worked strenuously on the name Nchekwube insist the Igbo and the world must know.

(George Russell Sextet here plays “Nardis”, a composition by Miles Davis [personnel: Russell, piano; Don Ellis, trumpet; Dave Baker, trombone; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Steve Swallow, bass; Joe Hunt, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 8 May 1961])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

Biafrans are surely not in the business to bail out genocidist Nigeria…

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

For those not particularly familiar with the inner workings of that haematophagous monster which calls itself Nigeria, the following news item in African Spotlight (Friday 12 August 2016), carried similarly by several other news organisations, could appear extraordinary if not outlandish.

First, the story’s blazing headline: “Rio 2016: Mikel Obi pays $4,000 to save Nigerian players embarrassment from Brazilian hotel”. Second, the first paragraph in the dispatch that duly elaborates on the theme: “In yet another scandal, Team Nigeria captain at the ongoing Olympics, Mikel John Obi, had to pay $4,000 of his personal money, to save the footballers from embarrassment after a hotel in Sao Paulo held the entire team to ransom over the bills incurred by additional officials, it has been revealed. The Nigerian Olympic team almost missed their flight [from São Paulo] to Salvador, reports say” (emphasis added). A player – not even one of the usual retinue of accompanying genocidist Nigerian officials (coach, managers, trainers, hangers-on, etc., etc), pays for his team’s hotel bills incurred at a foreign assignment 3500 miles away from Nigeria! Furthermore, this intervening player, with his personal money to pay for the outstanding São Paulo hotel costs, is Biafran!

Genocidist state

What sort of state on this planet would send a sports team to represent it abroad – not just, for instance, to some other state across its frontiers, contiguous to its territory (if such a rationalisation could ever be contemplated) but 3500 miles away, in a competition, the prestigious Olympic games for that matter, and not adequately fund the team’s passage and upkeep and welfare comprehensively? Straight-ahead reply: genocidist Nigeria.

Why? Not too complicated either: genocidist Nigeria, now 50 years in the making after it and strategic ally Britain had initially murdered 3.1 million Igbo people during phases I-III of the Igbo genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970) is currently run by Muhammadu Buhari. This is an islamist jihadist operative who is so riled by the defiant Igbo youth’s doggedly dominant presence and drive stamped on the creative arts and sports and academic disciplines and practices across the Nigeria landscape, despite the genocide and occupation of the Biafran homeland. In what the uninitiated genocidist Nigeria watcher might think is perverse, Buhari would rather adamantly prefer a non-Nigeria participation in the Rio Olympics or a complete loss of a game’s tournament by Nigeria if the “country”’s participating sports team, in this case a football team, as is more often than not, is captained by an Igbo or/and has a substantial personnel of the team, as is also more often than not, populated by Igbo talent.

Depression

Muhammadu Buhari must have literally been thrown into days of agonising depression by this football team heading from São Paulo to Salvador in Brazil whose captain has the following name profile with its uncompromisingly classed Igbo registers: John Michael Nchekwube Obinna – not Ahmed, Saraki, Abacha, Muhammadu, Ahmadu, Maigida, Salisu, Maimuna, Mohammed, Buhari, Sulaiman, Lamido, Sadiq, Abubakar, etc., etc, that would more likely characterise the forename or surname of an operative that sits on a genocidist preparatory committee or participatory cell/squad/brigade in an Abuja, Katsina, Maiduguri, Kano or Sokoto, meticulously planning the next slaughtering outrage in Onicha, Oka, Owere, Igwe Ocha, Enuugwu or somewhere else in occupied Biafra.

Asset

For Muhammadu Buhari, the Nnamdis and Nnekas and Ngozis and Obiagelis and Nkeirus and Ikechukwus and Nkechis and Chidis and Emekas and Chukas of the Igbo nation should be sequestrated in the cities, towns and villages of Biafra awaiting the genocidist slaughter-next-round instead of being positioned, as hundreds of thousands of them are indeed primed currently, in several top colleges and universities and innumerable sites of creative endeavours and sports activities around the world. One of the insistent factors that has fuelled the Igbo genocide in these past 50 years is the Hausa-Fulani islamist leadership’s trenchant aversion to the well-known Igbo hardworking ethic and entrepreneurial drive. Consequently, this dual attribute of ethic and drive has transformed Igbo people to presently control one of Africa’s best-developed multidisciplinary humanpower conglomeration of assets.

Finally, to return to that Mikel Obi’s US$4000.00 personal payment to rescue the Nigeria football team from its São Paulo hotel bill’s entanglement, an obvious question on the minds of many must be the following: Given the existential threat that most know the Igbo face due to the ongoing genocide from Nigeria, was Nchekwube Obinna’s payment motivated by sheer naivety or just crass ignorance?  No, contrary to seemingly predictable impulses, neither is distinctly on the mark. Instead, Obinna was indeed acting out from a script that tragically pervades the entire Africa landscape, in the wake of centuries-old European conquest and occupation of the continent, where the largely non-deconstructed conqueror’s/conquest social sciences & humanities project the prevailing “state”, the “Berlin-state”, as some raefied if not ahistorical construct to which each and every African is “strapped”.

Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa are free to choose

In the Nigeria case, as any cursory observer should attest to, the horror of that imagination, characterisation and association must be catastrophically profound. For the Igbo, in the maelstrom of that wretchedness, the history of the past 50 years attests chillingly and overwhelmingly. The Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa must now know that they are not wedded to any such states. On the contrary, states are historical constructs which human beings negotiate, pick and choose from. That is why states have, thankfully, remained transient in human history. The Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa are free to choose any states they wish to belong. It must therefore be a pointedly unthinkable personal tragedy if the Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa who are also survivors of genocide from genocidist Nigeria end up ticking Nigeria as the state of choice… Tufia kwa! 

The Nchekwube Obinnas of Africa must cease to represent genocidist Nigeria in all conceivable competitions: sports, creative and performing arts/other spheres of intellectual labour… Never again should we be treated to the grotesque scene of witnessing some Igbo athlete, some Igbo writer, some Igbo academic, appearing at some world stage carrying or wrapping themselves around a Nigerian flag. Enough! Order a Biafran flag for the occasion or alternatively promote the flag of your generous host. Definitely not genocidist Nigeria’s. A genocidist state’s fate is nothing else but to be abandoned, to be voided, to be dismantled. This is Nigeria’s fate as the handwriting on the wall is writ large.

Nchekwube Obinna should have donated or invested his US$4000.00 in any or some of the many private clinics across Biafra treating hundreds of desperate Biafran survivors from the recent murdering escapades carried out by genocidist Nigeria military/Boko Haram/Fulani militia brigades, beginning October 2015. Ironically, by paying the sum of US$4000.00 to the São Paulo hoteliers, due responsibility of genocidist Nigeria’s, Nchekwube Obinna provided ready savings or credit for this genocidist state and allies to fund the fresh cache of AK-47 rifles, ammunitions, bazookas, tank shells and suicide vests for their next planned murderous outrage in Oka, Onicha, Enuugwu, Igwe Ocha, Aba… 

Not only do Biafrans not obviously bail out genocidist Nigeria from its quagmire but Biafrans cannot be a party to Nigeria’s hardly disguised chart and intent of Biafran annihilation. This is precisely what the philosophers who worked strenuously on the name Nchekwube insist the Igbo and the world must know.

(George Russell Sextet here plays “Nardis”, a composition by Miles Davis [personnel: Russell, piano; Don Ellis, trumpet; Dave Baker, trombone; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Steve Swallow, bass; Joe Hunt, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 8 May 1961])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

Nigeria – failed state on all scores…

Nigeria’s countrywide 2015 WASSCE certificate results (school certificate/WASC/WAEC/high school/GCE “O” Level/GCSE “O” Level equivalent) recently released (“70.67% fail English, Maths in Nov/Dec WASSCE”, Vanguard, Lagos, Friday 18 December 2015) show that 71 per cent of the total 67, 671 students who sat for this examination failed their Mathematics and English Language, two mandatory subjects required for post-secondary/pre-college/pre-university education.

In many countries of the world, the secretary of education would resign in the wake of such appalling results; in some countries, governments could fall if such results ever occurred. But not in Nigeria would either of these consequences happen! 

Does one really expect a Nigeria, which appears to spend most of its time planning the next murdering escapade in its expansive genocide field of operation against Igbo people, has the mindset and resource to build a world-class education for its children?

Perhaps the following primer underscores the extent of this Nigerian tragedy: a crucial component of the country’s electoral law states, categorically, that the minimum educational qualification for an aspiring/occupier of the position of head of regime or the state’s highest “elected” office is the school certificate equivalent; the current head of regime does not have this qualification but insisted he would run, regardless, in March 2015 for the post and was “duly elected”.

(Sam Rivers Sextet, “Effusive melange” [personnel: Rivers, tenor saxophone; Donald Bryd, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; James Spaulding, alto saxophone; Cecil McBee, bass; Steve Ellington, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 17 March 1967])

 Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

BBC: “nationalists” or “secessionists”?

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION describes Scottish people in pursuit of independence from Britain or the United Kingdom as “Scottish nationalists”.

Any researcher can find this characterisation by examining the BBC’s well-stacked library of broadcasts and publications on the subject. This is why Alex Salmond, for instance, would be designated as “Scottish nationalist” or “former Scottish nationalist leader” and Nicola Sturgeon is described as “Scottish nationalist” or “Scottish nationalist leader”. 

SCOTS are 5 million in population and had in 1707 joined England out of their own choice (democratically) to form United Kingdom/British state. As the latter subsequently conquered most of the world to construct a “British empire”, Scots played a critical role in the enterprise that belied their much smaller population background. This ensured that they, now a constituent nation of the UK, became crucial beneficiaries of the stupendous harvest returns of global conquests and occupations. As a result, Scots indeed became the most unlikely candidates in 2014 who would wish to declare their independence from this 300-year-old immensely fruitful union
(http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rights-for-scots-rights-for-igbo.html, accessed 7 December 2015).

THE BBC, on the other hand, categorises the 50 million people of Biafra, southwestcentral Africa, who, since the 29 May 1966 launch date of the Igbo genocide by Nigeria have sought their independence from Nigeria, as “secessionists”.

In tune, the BBC describes Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the founding leader of the Biafran independence movement, “secessionist leader” – a tag it wouldn’t dare use to refer to either Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon, not even Douglas Young! Similarly, whilst the BBC utilises “secessionist” to refer to hundreds of thousands of Biafran demonstrators across Biafra and elsewhere in the world currently involved in historic peaceful marches for independence, it wouldn’t dare employ such a term in describing those Scots who voted “Yes” during the September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. The latter are cited as “nationalists” or “supporters of Scottish independence”.

Choice: “primary” vs “privilege”

Some would probably wonder what differences, if any, the BBC’s choice of terminologies makes: aren’t these terms broadly synonymous – indicating the desire of two peoples, Biafrans and Scots, to declare their rights for self-determination or independence from Nigeria and Britain, respectively? No, not totally, except to the cursory observer. In the Scottish example, the BBC is almost straining itself to the hilt to emphasise that the Scots are the primary, actuating agency in deciding to exercise this right for freedom from Britain. If one is unaware that the United Nations regards this right for all peoples as inalienable, the thrust of BBC’s coverage on the Scots has surely demonstrated this as such to its listeners, viewers and readers.

In contrast to the Scots, the BBC’s approach to Biafran independence or self-determination couldn’t be starker. Here, by harping on its worn “secessionist” signature, and the latter’s evidently overarching territorial “decoupling” overtones, the BBC privileges the Nigeria state, this state that conqueror Britain imposed arbitrarily on scores of subjugated African nations and peoples in the aftermath of the pan-European leaders’ infamous 1884-1885 Berlin-conquest conference on Africa. 

NIGERIA is arguably the most notorious of Africa’s “Berlin states”. This is the state, led by Fulani islamist/jihadists and their loyal pan-African constituent nations’ allies (especially Yoruba, Jukun, Edo, Bachama, Urhobo, Nupe, Kanuri, Hausa), that carried out the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 (phases I-III), this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest state, murdering 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this nation’s population and inaugurating Africa’s current age of pestilence during which 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/Democratic Republic of the Congo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur/Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan (all in Sudan since 2003) and in other wars in Africa. Besides known as a scary kakistocratic lair, the Nigeria state also harbours the most ruthless terrorist organisation in the world presently ( http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/institute-for-economics-peace-global.html, accessed 7 December 2015).

Role(s)

So, why is the British Broadcasting Corporation, a state public broadcaster largely funded by the British taxpayer, trenchantly hostile to the independence of Biafran people in a homeland in southwestcentral Africa, 3140 miles away from Britain in Europe?

BRITAIN played a central role in the Igbo genocide – politically, diplomatically, militarily. Britain’s role covered the entire stretch of the genocide, phases I-III (May 1966-January 1970), namely from its conceptualisation in Lagos and Ibadan (west Nigeria) and Kaduna and Zaria and Sokoto (north Nigeria) to its catastrophic outcome. Without Britain, the Igbo genocide probably wouldn’t have occurred. It was therefore not surprising that, as the slaughter of the Igbo intensified, particularly in those horrendous months of 1968-1969, Harold Wilson, British prime minister, was totally unperturbed as he informed Clyde Ferguson, the United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” Nigeria to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). 

(Harold Wilson: “[I] would accept half a million dead Biafrans if that was what it took...” Nigeria to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide)

SUCH IS the grotesquely expressed diminution of African life made by a supposedly leading politician of the world of the 1960s – barely 20 years after the deplorable perpetration of the Jewish genocide in Europe. As the final tally of the murder of the Igbo demonstrates, Harold Wilson probably had the perverted satisfaction of having his Nigerian subalterns perform far in excess of the prime minister’s grim target, a subject coldly stated in Wilson’s own memoirs where he notes that the Nigerian military, equipped zealously by Britain, expended more small arms ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annihilative mission in Biafra than the amount used by the British armed forces  “during the whole” of  the Second World War (Harold Wilson, Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record, 1971: 630, added emphasis). On this feature, Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission in Nigeria, during the period, acknowledges, equally gravely, that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleashed their attacks on Biafran cities, towns and villages, they were the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970).

As for the BBC, the role of its BBC World Service channel during the Igbo genocide was nothing short of being the external radio station for the prosecuting Nigerian genocidist junta in Lagos. This service was much more robust in its “rationalisation” of the genocide (“one Nigeria”, “territorial integrity”, “inviolability of colonial-set frontiers”, “indissolubility of colonial-set borders”, “rebels”, “unacceptable precedence for rest of Africa”, “secessionist!”, “secessionist!”, “secessionist!”…) than the rambling, ramshackle Voice of Nigeria.

FIFTY YEARS on, the BBC is still at it – supporting genocide against Igbo people by Nigeria in its broadcasts, as this crime against humanity continues to play out in phase-IV currently. It should be noted that it is this very key BBC favourite “secessionist” tag on Biafran independence that the Nigerian regime invoked just last Wednesday, 2 December 2015, news item aptly carried by the BBC on its website, before ordering its forces to attack peaceful Biafran freedom demonstrators in Onicha, the river port of Biafra’s Oshimili Delta.

While the BBC has still not found it fit to broadcast the predictable outcome of this Onicha attack to the world, in other words inform the world of the aftermath of the Nigerian regime’s blatant militarist threat on the peaceful demonstrators which the BBC itself announced hitherto, the following excerpts from the detailed report on what has since turned out as the Onicha massacre from the respected Lagos-based Civil Liberties Organisation is of utmost urgency:

A contingent of the heavily armed joint task force, consisting of personnel from the Army, Navy, police and Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, last Wednesday [2 December 2015] attacked thousands of unarmed members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group seeking a separate republic to be called Biafra … The joint task force stormed the head bridge at 1:30 a.m. last Wednesday and began shooting sporadically into the crowd, killing 11 protesters and injuring numerous more … This is a case of gross violation of human rights, use of excessive force and a crime against humanity … This barbaric act has no place in a modern society as it also gravely undermines all UN, AU and other international, regional and national human rights mechanisms. Nothing, whatsoever, can justify this flagrant infraction on the rights of the citizens.

ONCE AGAIN, if anyone needs reminding that Nigeria has been, for the Igbo, a haematophagous quagmire throughout its history, the saliency of this latest massacre cannot be overstressed. In June 1945 and May 1953, right there under the very watch of the British occupation, the Hausa-Fulani north region allies of the conquest, opposed to the Igbo-led African restoration-of-independence campaign, carried out carefully planned pogroms against Igbo migrant populations in Jos and Kano, respectively. Hundreds of Igbo were murdered in these outrages. The occupation charged no one for these crimes and the pogroms became dress-rehearsals for the May 1966-January 1970 genocide. Since the beginning of phase-IV of the genocide, 13 January 1970, tens of thousands of Igbo have been murdered across Nigeria but especially in the north region including those slaughtered by the Boko Haram terrorists.

Wednesday 2 December 2015 has now become a graphically unnerving day of tragedy across two continents. In north America, an islamist terrorist couple, husband and wife, embarked on the premeditated massacre of 14 peaceful citizens in San Bernardino, California, United States. In Africa, a terrorist Nigerian military brigade, assembled from specialised detachments of navy, army, police, secret police, other undisclosed units, embarked on the premeditated massacre of 11 peaceful citizens in Onicha, Biafra, a number of them college students. The BBC has carried out expansive and continuing coverage of the San Bernardino massacre; the BBC has yet to cover the Onicha massacre in its broadcasts. Few now doubt the BBC’s doggedly entrenched position as a principal motivational ally in Nigeria’s prosecution of the Igbo genocide, presently humanity’s longest stretched genocide.

Babies and children’s survivor-leadership

BIAFRANS will surely free their land. It is high time BBC editors got used to this eventuality. Since Friday 6 November 2015, 33 days, hundreds of thousands of peaceful Biafrans have turned their cities and towns and villages into panoramic freedom park marches, unprecedented in Africa, demanding the restoration of the sovereignty of their beloved Biafra and insisting on the release of freedom broadcaster Nnamdi Kanu, illegally detained by the Nigeria regime. Biafrans are redefining the dynamics of the march for freedom in Africa. Biafra will be free.  Nigeria, this essentially anti-African imperium created to programmatically enrich British strategic interests in perpetuity is, in fact, in freefall with its epitaph already signposting its dreadful history: Haematophagous Monster.

Lest we forget: Those who lead this current phase of resistance to the Igbo genocide were the babies/children-survivors of the July 1967-January 1970 refugee death camps of Biafra, effectively survivors of that dreadful Harold Wilson-death wish. These great survivors, who have now come of age, will free Biafra.

(Biafra today: ...have turned their cities and towns and villages into panoramic freedom park marches, unprecedented in Africa...)

The crime of genocide, thankfully, has no statute of limitations in international law. No other African peoples have suffered such an extensive and gruesome genocide and incalculable impoverishment in a century as the Igbo. All individuals and institutions involved in committing this crime, wherever they are or emplaced, will one day account for their role in court.

IN  THE MEANTIME, the British Broadcasting Corporation will much sooner than later begin to come to terms with the fact that “what’s good” in the universal right of self-determination for those who live between latitudes 55 and 65˚N of the globe, for instance the Scots, “is good” for those who live between latitudes 4 and 14˚N, for instance Biafrans.

(Ornette Coleman Quartet, “WRU” {or Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious – Freud}
[personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; Scott LaFaro, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 31 January 1961])

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe books on the Igbo genocide and Biafra include Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (2011), Biafra Revisited (2006) and African Literature in Defence of History: An essay on Chinua Achebe (2001)

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

How an anti-Biafra freedom columnist acknowledges the restoration of Biafran sovereignty empirically in spite of themself

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

THE anti-Biafra freedom columnist, writing recently in saharareporters.com, notes:

If a referendum were held today, there is no doubt that over 70% of people in the five south-east states would vote YES for separation. A little over 50% in Rivers State would also vote YES. Between 40% and 50% would vote YES in other south-south states: Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Edo. A similar result might be reproduced if the people of the south-west were to be subjected to a referendum to determine whether Oduduwa republic should come into being. Therefore, the Federal Government should not agree to a referendum. (upper case designations above as well as snippets of the Nigerian-occupation bogus geopolitical lexicon referencing Biafra are in the original –HE-E)

Extraordinary! In a swoop, just in four sentences, this columnist is informing the world precisely as follows:  “[i]f a referendum were held today”, not only would the people in occupied Biafra (since 13 January 1970) vote for the restoration of their country’s sovereignty but the majority of the peoples in south Nigeria, including the Yoruba and Edo nations, would also vote for independence from Nigeria.

PEOPLES in south Nigeria constitute the majority of peoples in Nigeria and going by the reading of the columnist a majority of the population in Nigeria would vote for independence from this state that calls itself Nigeria if given the democratic opportunity to determine their choice. 

So, what’s the fuss of “one Nigeria”? Just what is  this “one Nigeria”? Whose “one Nigeria” is it? Britain’s, its creator, and the latter’s indolent north region-based feudal retrograde client Fulani islamist/jihadist overseers (inaugurated by Britain in the 1940s/1950s) infamously opposed to (Igbo-led) African liberation from the British occupation (1930s-October 1960) and etched on the illusory hierarchy of this grotesquely subjugating edifice? Who?

Redefining dynamics

AS most observers know, including indeed this hapless, brazenly anti-democratic columnist, the majority of peoples in Nigeria want an early exit from arguably the most notorious of Africa’s “Berlin states” – the state that carried out the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 (phases I-III), the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest state, murdering 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this nation’s population and inaugurating Africa’s current age of pestilence, has subsequently murdered tens of thousands of additional Igbo during phase-IV of the genocide (13 January 1970- present), the state that harbours the most ruthless terrorist organisations in the world presently

(http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/institute-for-economics-peace-global.html, accessed 22 November 2015), humanity’s most noxious kakistocratic state. 

Surely, the Biafrans will have the opportunity for a referendum very soon and they will vote overwhelmingly to restore their independence. As these lines are written, hundreds of thousands of peaceful Biafrans have turned their cities and towns and villages into panoramic freedom park marches, begun at 12 noon on Friday 6 November 2015, unprecedented in Africa, demanding their beloved Biafra and insisting on the release of freedom broadcaster Nnamdi Kanu, illegally detained by the Nigeria regime. 

BIAFRANS are redefining the dynamics of the march for freedom in Africa. Biafra will be free.  The columnist must start getting used to this development. Nigeria, this essentially anti-African imperium is, in fact, in freefall with its epitaph already signposting its dreadful history: Haematophagous Monster.

Indictment

Back to referendum, finally, and a quick comment on that historic vote in Scotland last year. The columnist, who is conceivably domiciled somewhere in Europe or north America, is probably aware of that Scottish exercise. 

If the Scots had voted the 70 per cent score the columnist assigned to a possible Biafra referendum-run (see quote above), Scotland would have been independent of Britain today! David Cameron, British prime minister, wouldn’t have dared oppose this outcome. This is because David Cameron is a democrat and respects the rights of 5 million Scots to freedom. This is an inalienable right for all peoples (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rights-for-scots-rights-for-igbo.html, accessed 22 November 2015).

IT IS therefore a telling indictment on this columnist’s brand of education and worldview not to appear to be aware that 50 million Biafrans in southwestcentral Africa as well as every people elsewhere on planet earth have this right.

(Sonny Rollins Trio, “The freedom suite” [personnel: Rollins, tenor saxophone; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Max Roach, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 7 March 1958])

 Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe