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.
ONE of the African World’s and US’s preeminent intellectuals – novelist, academic, essayist, editor, commentator, librettist, winner of 1992 Nobel prize for literature
(just published!)
“Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another” (Toni Morrison)
“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it” (Toni Morrison)
(Wynton Marsalis Septet, “Black codes from the underground” [personnel: Marsalis, trumpet; Wycliffe Gordon,trombone; Wes Anderson, alto saxophone; Todd Williams, tenor saxophone; Marcus Roberts, piano; Reginald Veal, bass; Herlin Riley, drums; recorded: Berlin Jazzfest, Germany 3 November 1989])
(Harold Wilson:“would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took...”)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
“Diminution-of-African life” AT the apogee of phase-III of this genocide, summer 1968-autumn 1969, 23 years after the horrendous Jewish genocide in east and central Europe carried out by Germany, Harold Wilson informed Clyde Ferguson (United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra), on record, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept half a million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” the Nigerian génocidairesto destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). Wilson pursued his genocide drive against the Igbo, steeped in that overarching ideological rubric of the expressed “diminution-of-African life” that constitutes the engaging, subjugating template of 400 years of pan-European enslavement of the African humanity in the Americas and elsewhere, beginning in the 15th century, and Europe’s consequent occupation of the African homeland itself (see, for instance, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, African Literature in Defence of History: An essay on Chinua Achebe, 2001: 1-54).
Wilson’s Igbo death-wish tally of 500, 000 represented 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population at the time. The prime minister’s on the ground African executioners led by Fulani islamist/jihadists, fulsomely obliged their “massa” Wilson, murdering 3.1 million Igbo by 12 January 1970 – 2.6 million more Igbo than the Labour leader’s slaughtering target or 25 per cent of the Igbo population. WILSON would later acknowledge the extent of the British role in the sheer savagery of the Igbo genocide. In his memoirs, he noted that the Nigeria genocidist military, equipped zealously by Britain, expended more small arms ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annhilative 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). Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission in Nigeria then couldn’t agree more with Wilson on the subject. Scott stated that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleashed their attacks on Biafran cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970). Chillingly dreadful...
(Jeremy Corbyn: current Labour party leader)
Intelligible SEEN AGAINST this background of Harold Wilson’s repugnant involvement in the Igbo genocide, the very trenchant charge of antisemitism and racism that current Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has had from some of his colleagues and other prominent persons in Britain, including, especially, those seven members of the party who have just quit, becomes hugely intelligible...
(The seven members of parliament who made their exit from the British Labour party today: [l-r] Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes, Luciana Berger, Ann Coffey, Chuka Umunna*****, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker)(pic and graphics: Daily Mail, London, Monday 18 February 2019)
SNIPPETS of comments made by two of the seven members of the Labour party during the London press
conference today announcing their exit from the party:
Luciana Berger: “I am embarrassed and ashamed to remain in the party … [the Labour party] is “institutionally anti-Semitic … I cannot remain in the party that I have today come to the sickening conclusion is anti-Semitic … I am leaving behind a culture of bullying, bigotry and intimidation”.
Mike
Gapes: “I am sickened that the Labour Party is now a racist, anti-Semitic party”. *****It is immensely significant to note that Chuka Umunna, one of these now seven ex-Labour party members of the British parliament, is Igbo British, born in England in October 1978, 12 years after the launch of the Igbo genocide
Marcus Roberts Septet, “Nebuchadnezzar” (personnel: Roberts, piano; Wycliffe Gordon, trombone; Wessell Anderson, alto saxophone; Herbert Harris, tenor saxophone; Chris Thomas, bass; Maurice Carnes, drums; Herlin Riley, percussion; recorded: Mastersound Studios, Astoria, New York, US, 9-10 August 1989/10 December 1989 and The Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, US, 15 December 1989)
(Nnamdi Kanu...: leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, interviewed by Chiagozie Nwonwu (part 2), BBC News Igbo, London, Friday15 February 2019 –video of this interview at link below)
THE Law Firm of Fein & DelValle PLLC, Washington, D.C., USA, acting on behalf
of the EKWENCHE Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois, USA, have submitted
the names of President Muhammadu Buhari and Nigerian Army Chief of Staff,
Lt.-Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court (ICC), Madam Fatou Bensouda, for trial. EKWENCHE
Research Institute disclosed this on Friday via a statement issued in Chicago,
Illinois, USA signed by the President, Prof Justin Akujieze, and Chair,
Genocide Legal Committee, Mr. Luke Nwannunu. The
statement named others whose names were submitted to the ICC to include
governors William Obiano and Okezie Ikpeazu of Anambra and Abia states
respectively; former Nigerian Inspectors Gen of Police, Solomon Arase and
Ibrahim Idris, and former Director Gen of SSS, Lawan Musa Daura, among others. The
statement said: “The
successful filing of criminal complaint was done on 11th February 2019 at the
Office of the ICC Prosecutor in the Netherlands and in accordance with Article
15 of the ICC Statute of 1998. Owing to overwhelming evidence earlier
submitted, Mr. Bruce Fein (former Associate Attorney Gen of USA) and his
associate, Mr. Bruce DelValle were graciously invited by the Chief Prosecutor
(Ms. Fatou Bensouda) to her office in the Netherlands to make their formal
presentation and filing of other necessary documentations. The eloquent and
erudite Law Firm was accompanied to the Netherlands by Prof Justin Akujieze
(President of EKWENCHE Research Institute and Mr. Luke Nwannunu, Chair of the
Genocide Legal Committee of our Institute/Organization). “The
submission of the perpetrators’ names and filing of the criminal complaint were
in response to Nigerian Government ordered genocide and crimes against humanity
perpetrated or committed against defenseless citizens of Igbo origin in Eastern
Nigeria. The horrendous crimes were committed in non war situation without any
form of justification under Nigeria’s extant laws and international laws
including treaty laws signed and ratified by the Federal Republic of
Nigeria. “This
latest bold step taken by EKWENCHE is as a result of three years of research
work done on the massacre by the Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the
Rule of Law-INTERSOCIETY. Intersociety is a foremost researcher Nigerian rights
NGO based in the Igbo heartland city of Onitsha which recently conducted and
completed an 85 page research work with another 62 page photo album of the
victims. The Intersociety’s research work, leading to the filing of the
criminal complaint at ICC is titled: Under Buhari & Osinbajo: Many Have
Gone & Crippled For Life In Eastern Nigeria (Detailed Chronology of
Nigerian Military Massacre Operations in Eastern Nigeria: August 2015-Sept.
2017). The pieces of evidence contained in the research work are shocking and
overwhelming. “It
would be recalled that EKWENCHE had in June 2017 filed a civil claimant suit in
the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit filed on behalf of
ten Nigerian families who lost their loved ones or were grievously tortured by
Nigerian security personnel under the authorization of named Nigerian security
chiefs with complicity of others including Govs William Obiano and Victor
Ikpeazu of Anambra and Abia States, is presently at the preliminary appeal
stage before a US Court of Appeal. “The
latest moves by EKWENCHE is also in fulfillment of her earlier promise in 2017
through the Law Firm of Fein & DelValle, PLLC, to drag PMB and other
identified Nigerian security chiefs and the above named conspirator Govs to ICC
concerning coordinated and systematic genocidal massacre in Eastern Nigeria.” (Source:News Express, posted
15/02/2019 07:17:19)
(Bruce DelValle and Bruce Fein discuss the track of the legal proceedings against Muhammadu Buhari et al in a Q&A session in Washington DC, Monday 11 February 2019, after filing the Igbo genocide case at the ICC, The Hague)
THE BIAFRA freedom movement surely dictates the terms of the freedom of the people of Biafra from Nigeria despite the savagery of the feudal Fulani islamist/jihadist-led genocidist Nigeria occupation and the overseeing ruthlessness on the ground by that league of quislings-of-occupation alternatively known as heads of regime of the administrative regions. The movement insists on a referendum: nothing else, including bogus regime-elections, to democratically secure the next crucial phase of the restoration-of-independence process.
(Nnamdi Kanu: ... leader of Indigenous People of Biafra and freedom broadcaster, Radio Biafra)
“Election” exercises in occupied Biafra have in the past been distinctively fraudulent and immensely contradictory as the Fulani lead-occupiers with no tradition of democratic discourse or engagement whatsoever in its own culture or brutish history of terror, conquests, occupations, expropriations, decadence and genocide, not to mention genocidist Nigeria itself which has had no credible election throughout its history, would bizarrely posit to organise elections in (occupied) Igboland that has enjoyed an advanced republican democratic tradition for over 1000 years. THUS, for the Igbo in occupied Biafra or in the diaspora in Nigeria, the way forward couldn’t be clearer: boycott all “elections” organised by genocidist Nigeriaincluding, particularly, the Saturday 16 February 2019 so-called poll. Besides, “election” time in Nigeria is time-of-death. It is also time-of-destruction, time-of-desolation, time-of-waste, time-to-waste... Genocidist operative and one time head-of-regime Olusegun Obasanjo captures the characterisation of this season most vividly, if not horridly, in a February 2007 proclamation at Abeokuta, west Nigeria: “it’s do or die” (all-africa.com, 11 February 2007), a haunting disposition echoed readily by co-genocidist Muhammadu Buhari who paints a characteristically morbid portrait of“dog-and-the-baboon-would-all-be-soaked-in-blood” (The Vanguard, Lagos, 15 May 2012) to attest to the extent of violence he would unleash during this appointed time-of-death.
Biafrans do freedom... Biafran people don’t do “it’s do or die” nor “soaked-in-blood”. Tufia kwa!
EITHER of these is predictably genocidist Nigerian stuff – as Biafrans have known, most devastatingly, in the past 53 years, with 3.1 million of their people murdered, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, and tens of thousands others additionally murdered since, 13 January 1970-present day, by this most gruesome band of murderers in African history since the 1908 end of the 30 years of genocide of African peoples of the Congo Basin, executed by Belgian King Leopold II/Belgian state during which the latter murdered 13 million Africans (Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem,Histoire générale du Congo: De l'héritage ancien à la République Démocratique, Paris: Duculot, 1998, p. 344).
Biafrans, on the contrary, do freedom. Freedom is inalienable. One does not ask for it; one takes it! The 50 million Igbo know they have to take their freedom as they head to the referendum to proclaim this liberatory choice. This is the choice the rest of the world awaits eagerly.
“Ofe okazi day”
THE freedom movement, true to form in its assured peaceful trajectory, has already designated the Saturday 16 February 2018 day boycott call of the “poll” the “ofe okazi day”, after a local delicacy – essentially asking the population to stay firmly home with loved ones throughout the day and enjoy a scrumptious dinner and don’t partake in the desperate occupation’s strategy to prolong its murderous stay which is now clearly unsustainable.
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Pursuance” {part-III of A Love Supreme suite} [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 9 December 1964])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is author of the recently published The longest genocide – since
29 May 1966 (2019)
(1 February 1974:operation performed, Nsukka University Teaching Hospital, Enuugwu, Biafra)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe FIRST OPEN heart-surgery in Biafra/anywhere else in southwestcentral Africa including genocidist Nigeria,was performed at the Nsukka University Teaching Hospital, Enuugwu, Biafra, on 1 February 1974 – four years and just over a month to the day after the formal end of phase-III (beginning of phase-IV) of the 44-month long Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa perpetrated by the Fulani islamist/jihadist-led Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain in which 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered. The surgeons who worked on the surgery included CH Anyanwu, DC Nwafor, FA Udekwu and M Yacoub. In the subsequent 26 years, i.e., by 2000, a total of 102 (one hundred and two) open heart-surgeries were carried out at the Enuugwu centre.
Ethic and drive FORTY-FIVE years since the first surgery, Africa and the rest of the world cannot wait for the triumph of the Biafra freedom movement to witness the exponential expansion of the stretch of such creative and transformational energy by Biafrans –an African people building and reconstructing on their land and on their own terms, a disposition which squarely repudiates those outrageous British presumptions on African peoples given Britain’s role as the principal architect and codifier of anti-African racism as an ideology (see Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, African Literature in Defence of History: An essay on Chinua Achebe, 2001, especially pp. 1-54) and whose involvement in the Igbo genocide is to “punish” the Igbo for the latter’s vanguard role in terminating the British conquest and occupation of the states and peoples of this southwestcentral Africa region. It can’t be overstated that one of the insistent
factors that has fuelled the Igbo genocide in these past 53 years is the mutually
shared British and Fulani Nigeria 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 which will surely be deployed in building
Biafra. BIAFRA is dedicated to furthering and
nurturing the resilience of its people and to enable them pursue their highest
creative endeavours. This state continuously strives to remove all limitations
in the paths of its people to create and transform. Biafra primes its people to flourish.
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Sun ship” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Impulse!, New York, US, 26 August 1965])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is author of the recently published The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019)
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).
