Phase-I –
Sunday 29 May 1966-30 March 1967: Igbo genocide killing fields of generalling
and “theorising”…
The following north and west Nigerian cities
and towns, where 100,000 Igbo were murdered so gruesomely between May 1966 and
March 1967, bear the stamp of perpetual shame as dominant sites of the
perpetration of this crime against humanity: Sokoto, Katsina, Zaria, Kaduna,
Kano, Kaura-Namoda, Nguru, Bauchi, Gombe, Saminaka, Yola, Kafanchan, Damaturu,
Ningi, Darazo, Gusau, Birnin-Kebbi, Bukuru, Numan, Jos, Yola, Keffi, Wase,
Langtang, Takum, Mangu, Jebba, Shendam, Kantangora, Minna, Gudi, Mada, Mokwa, Ayaragu,
Wukari, Makurdi, Ilorin, Zungeru, Otukpo, Gboko, Ilorin, Lafia, Tanglawaja,
Lagos (especially Ikeja suburb), Ibadan, Abeokuta, Osogbo, Oyo, Auchi,
Agenebode, Benin, Sapele, Warri…
Phase-II
– 31 March 1967-5 July 1967: Igbo genocide killing fields of generalling and
“theorising”…
The
genocidist high command imposes a land, aerial and sea blockade of Igboland, Africa’s
highest population density landmass outside the Nile Delta, as prelude to the invasion
of Igboland, Biafra , which begins on 6 July
1967. To ensure that the 12 million Igbo people are indeed bottled-up in their homeland, the genocidists excise Biafra’s
southeast peninsular of Bakassi, contiguous to Cameroon
Phase-III
– 6 July 1967-12 January 1970: Igbo genocide killing fields of generalling and
“theorising”…
Nigerian
genocidists have indeed become some haematophagous monster let loose in
Igboland, slaughtering away to the hilt… And just in case anyone doubts the
endgame of this mission, three shrilling, chilling proclamations, scripted with
unmistakeable Stheno-precepts of obliterating intent, punctuate the scene as
the following shows:
1. The ghoulish anthem of the genocide, broadcast
uninterruptedly on state-owned Kaduna radio (shortwave transmission) and
television and with editorial comments on the theme, regularly published in
both state-owned New Nigerian (daily)
newspaper and (Hausa) weekly Gaskiya
Ta fi Kwabo during the period, has these lyrics in Hausa:
Mu je mu kashe nyamiri
Mu kashe maza su da yan maza su
Mu chi mata su da yan mata su
Mu kwashe kaya su
(English translation: Let’s go kill the damned Igbo/Kill off their men and boys/Rape their wives and daughters/Cart off their property)
Mu je mu kashe nyamiri
Mu kashe maza su da yan maza su
Mu chi mata su da yan mata su
Mu kwashe kaya su
(English translation: Let’s go kill the damned Igbo/Kill off their men and boys/Rape their wives and daughters/Cart off their property)
2. Benjamin Adekunle, one of the most notorious of the
genocidist commanders in southern Igboland, makes the following statement to
the media, including foreign representatives, in an August 1968 press
conference: “I want to prevent even one I[g]bo having even one piece to eat
before their capitulation. We shoot at everything that moves, and when our
forces march into the centre of I[g]bo territory, we shoot at everything, even
at things that don’t move” (The Economist [London], 24 August 1968)
3. Harold Wilson, prime minister of Britain, the
key “centre”-world power that crucially supports the Igbo genocide militarily,
diplomatically and politically right from conceptualisation to actualisation (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/britain-and-igbo-genocide-now-for_19.html), is totally unfazed when he informs Clyde
Ferguson (United States State Department special coordinator for relief to
Biafra) that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept half a million dead Biafrans if
that was what it took” the Nigeria genocidists to destroy the Igbo resistance
to the genocide (Roger Morris, Uncertain
Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy [London and New
York: Quartet Books, 1977]: 122).
These declarations to murder/destroy the Igbo people
are brazenly made, without any ambiguity, by representatives of Nigeria and Britain
and by a publicly-funded Nigeria Nigeria and Britain Britain
In May 1969, Obasanjo, who
had recently taken over the command of the Benjamin Adekunle-death squad, orders
his air force to shoot down any Red Cross planes flying in urgently-needed
relief supplies to the millions of surviving but encircled, blockaded and
bombarded Igbo.
Within a week of his infamous order, 5 June 1969, Obasanjo recalls,
nostalgically, in his memoirs, unambiguously titled My Command (London and Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1981),
genocidist air force pilot Gbadomosi King “redeem[s] his promise”, as Obasanjo
puts it (Obasanjo, 1981: 79). Gbadomosi King shoots down a clearly marked, incoming
relief-bearing International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) DC-7 aircraft near
Eket, south Biafra , with the loss of its
3-person crew. Obasanjo’s perverse
satisfaction over the aftermath of this crime is fiendish, grotesquely
revolting. He writes: “The effect of [this] singular achievement of the Air
Force especially on 3 Marine Commando Division [name of the death squad Obasanjo,
who subsequently becomes head of Nigeria Britain
(http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/britain-and-igbo-genocide-now-for_19.html).
There does not therefore appear to be any limits scored or placed on the nature of the outrage committed in the pursuit of the final mission and the publicity generated thereof, even if this is unabashedly reckless. After all, Harold Wilson says that he “would accept half a million dead Biafrans” or 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population for the set goal. But the genocidists on the ground end up murdering 3 million Igbo people – 2.5 million more... Added to the 100,000 already murdered, during phase-I of the genocide, the total number of Igbo murdered is 3.1 million. This represents 25 per cent of the Igbo population at the time – murdered within 44 dreadful months.
There does not therefore appear to be any limits scored or placed on the nature of the outrage committed in the pursuit of the final mission and the publicity generated thereof, even if this is unabashedly reckless. After all, Harold Wilson says that he “would accept half a million dead Biafrans” or 4.2 per cent of the Igbo population for the set goal. But the genocidists on the ground end up murdering 3 million Igbo people – 2.5 million more... Added to the 100,000 already murdered, during phase-I of the genocide, the total number of Igbo murdered is 3.1 million. This represents 25 per cent of the Igbo population at the time – murdered within 44 dreadful months.
Phase-IV
– 13 January 1970-Present day: Igbo genocide killing fields of generalling and
“theorising”…
By 12 January 1970,
genocidist Nigeria Africa . Each and all the measures (see
1-9 below) constitute one of the five acts of genocide explicitly defined in
article 2 of the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide: “deliberately
inflicting upon the group conditions of life designed to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part”
(http://www.oas.org/dil/1948_Convention_on_the_Prevention_and_Punishment_of_the_Crime_of_Ge
nocide.pdf). Chief genocidist “theorist” (and vice-chair of the genocide-prosecuting junta [prime minister] and head of finance ministry) Obafemi Awolowo and a team of Awolowoist/Awolowoid lawyers and economists and financiers and entrepreneurs from the Yoruba and Edo westNigeria
nocide.pdf). Chief genocidist “theorist” (and vice-chair of the genocide-prosecuting junta [prime minister] and head of finance ministry) Obafemi Awolowo and a team of Awolowoist/Awolowoid lawyers and economists and financiers and entrepreneurs from the Yoruba and Edo west
1. Comprehensive
sequestration of all Igbo liquid
assets in Biafra and Nigeria
do not receive this dole payment
2. Seizure and looting
of the multibillion-(US)dollar Igbo capital assets across Biafra including
particularly those at Port Harcourt/Igwe Ocha conurbations and elsewhere and in
Nigeria
3. Exponential
expropriation of the rich Igbo oil resources from the Abia, Delta, Imo and
Rivers administrative regions
4. Blanket
policy of non-development of Igboland
5. Non-restoration
of destroyed Igbo communication and power infrastructure, including,
pointedly, those inflicted by the savage Adekunle-things-that-don’t-move firebombing
6. Aggressive
degradation of socioeconomic life of Igboland as critical occupation policy
7. Ignoring
ever-expanding soil erosion/landslides and other pressing ecological emergencies,
especially in northwest Igboland
8. Continuing
reinforcement of the overall state of siege of Igboland …
9. Deportations
of resident Igbo people in Lagos
What about the killings during this phase-IV of the genocide
whose accent appears, as the nine measures above indicate, to be more
economic/financial? One would perhaps be
forgiven if they thought that, after such a frenzied indulgence in
indescribable depravity in mass slaughtering and a trail of destruction for 44 uninterrupted
months, and then capped by its current occupation of Biafra, Nigeria would tire
out of its appetite to continue the murder of Igbo people. No, not really. The murder goes on… The genocide, in its
totality, goes on… This obligatory haematophagous creature continues its murder
of the Igbo, unabated – almost routinely and ritualistically during the course
of subsequent years, signposted here by the eerie columns that chart the contours
of 20 fresh pogrom outrages with the murder of thousands of Igbo people and the
destruction and/or looting of millions of US dollars worth of their property
during the course of the last 33 years:
1980 ... 1982 ... 1985 ... 1991 ... 1993 ...
1994 ... 1999 ... 2000 ... 2001 ... 2002 ... 2004 ... 2005 ... 2006 ...
2007 ... 2008 ... 2009 ... 2010 ... 2011 ... 2012 ... 2013
2007 ... 2008 ... 2009 ... 2010 ... 2011 ... 2012 ... 2013
According to the December 2011 research by the
International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law, a human rights
organisation based in Onicha, Igboland, 90 per cent of the 54,000 people
murdered in Nigeria Nigeria
Arguably, the Igbo are the world’s most
brutally targeted and most viciously murdered of peoples presently. Not since
29 May 1966-12 January 1970 has Igbo life in Nigeria Nigeria
Freedom
There can be no other solution to this longest genocide of
the contemporary era but the freedom of the Igbo people from Nigerian
subjugation and occupation. Freedom is inalienable. One does not ask for it;
one takes it! The 50 million Igbo know they have to take their freedom. The 5 million Scots are
presently reminding the world, a stress on this inalienability, that a people
don’t necessarily have to have a genocidal history as the Igbo, for instance,
to wish to exercise their freedom
(http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2012/01/rights-for-scots-rights-for-igbo.html). And reflecting, finally, on genocidal
history, it is no coincidence, at all, that this genocide of the Igbo
occurs in and byNigeria , the epitome
of the “Berlin-state” in Africa ,
that congenital bane of African
socioeconomic existence, with its befuddling, paradoxical functionality that I have discussed elsewhere
(http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2013/05/africa-today-reflections-on-resilience_22.html).
occurs in and by
socioeconomic existence, with its befuddling, paradoxical functionality that I have discussed elsewhere
(http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com.br/2013/05/africa-today-reflections-on-resilience_22.html).
The freedom of the Igbo, one of the most peaceful and very hardworking of peoples, is therefore one of the eagerly awaited news from
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
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