98th birthday of Chike Obi

(Born 17 April 1921, Onicha, Biafra)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

FIRST mathematics doctorate in Biafra/countries in southwestcentral Africa, rigorous academic and public intellectual, aptly described by Biafran theoretical physicist Alexander Obiefoka Animalu as the “foremost African mathematical genius of the 20th century”

(McCoy Tyner Quartet,  “Contemplation” [personnel: Tyner, piano; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone; Ron Carter, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 21 April 1967])

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

97th birthday of Chike Obi

(Born 17 April 1921, Onicha, Biafra)

FIRST mathematics doctorate in Biafra/southwestcentral Africa, rigorous academic and public intellectual, aptly described by Biafran theoretical physicist Alexander Obiefoka Animalu as the “foremost African mathematical genius of the 20th century”

(John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio, “Traneing in” [personnel: Garland, piano; Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums;  recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, US, 23 August 1957]) 

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

83rd birthday of Zeal Onyia

(Born 24 November 1934, Asaba, Biafra)

MASTERLY trumpeter, composer and public intellectual whose 1958 composition, the effervescent “Egwu jazz bu egwu Igbo” (“Jazz is Igbo music”), leads him to research Igbo contribution to the development of jazz whilst studying in Germany and the United States, and receives the highest accolade of his career when none other than Satchmo himself, Louis Armstrong, visiting Lagos, Nigeria, in 1961, and listening to Onyia play at Surulere stadium, inquires in that unmistakeably popsian voice, “Who is that hip cat?

(Zeal Onyia and band play “Money trouble” and  “Lumumba” – latter composition is in memory of  Patrice Lumumba, leader of the the Congolese restoration-of-independence movement and prime minister,  who had been brutally murdered on 17 January 1961 by an amalgam of the forces of the notorious pro-Belgian Congolese putschist Mobutu Sese Seko, a brigade of Belgian special forces and operatives of other West espionage services [recording details of this performance, including, especially, full band personnel, are unknown except that it was sometime in 1961].)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

96th birthday of Chike Obi

(Born 17 April 1921, Onicha, Biafra)

First mathematics doctorate in Biafra/southwestcentral Africa, rigorous academic and public intellectual, aptly described by theoretical physicist Alexander Obiefoka Animalu as the “foremost African mathematical genius of the 20th century”

(John Coltrane Quartet,  “Equinox” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Steve Davis, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 26 October 1960])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe