(In memory of the 21 massacred coal miners, Enuugwu, Biafra, 18 November 1949...)
On 18 November 1949, 21 coal miners at the Iva Valley
colliery, Enuugwu, Biafra, are shot dead by the British occupation police in
response to the miners’ peaceful, popular protest for a pay increase, improvement
in working and safety mine provisions, and support for the ongoing freedom
movement, begun in the 1930s and spearheaded by the Igbo, to terminate 64 years
of Britain’s conquest of Nigeria. This massacre in addition to the organised pogroms
against Igbo people in June 1945 (Jos, northcentral Nigeria) and May 1953 (Kano,
north Nigeria) by the Hausa-Fulani religiopolitical leadership of north
Nigeria, strategic clients of the occupation, are dreadful precursors to the
Igbo genocide of 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 – in which Nigeria and Britain
murder 3.1 million Igbo, one-quarter of this nation’s population, in the
foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa.
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
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