IT IS INDEED extraordinary that génocidaire Muhammadu Buhari who was imposed as head of regime of Nigeria in March 2015 by British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama (first African-descent United States president in 233 years of the founding of the republic) would pose the question “What do
the Igbo want?”, albeit rhetorically, during that tortured effort to answer a
question on Biafra from a panel of “selected” journalists in Abuja, Nigeria, on 30
December 2015. The mere mention of the country Biafra in the presence of any
Nigerian genocidist operative creates a disorienting collapse in them. It
appears they are transposed, instantly, to re-live
the multiform slaughtering spree they unleashed in the enveloping savagery of
44 months of the Igbo genocide (phases I-III, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970). Some commentators have described this resultant
torpidity in these Nigeriãna genocidists as “the curse”.
Muhammadu Buhari knows
Buhari must know the answer(s) of
the question he asked on 30 December 2015. Of course, Buhari does know the
answer(s) to the question, “What do the Igbo want?”: Buhari has been a
genocidist operative in the Nigeria military – right from the launch of the
Igbo genocide on Sunday 29 May 1966 and during the Nigerian expansive trail of
the mass slaughter of Igbo military and civilians alike in north and west Nigeria
regions from 29 July 1966-5 July 1967 to encapsulate phases I-II of the genocide
timeframe. During phase-III of the genocide, the invasion of Biafra, 6 July
1967-12 January 1970, Buhari was commander of a genocidist corps in north and
northcentral Biafra, slaughtering to the hilt. Nigeria murdered 3.1 million
Igbo people during these three phases of the genocide.
AS FROM 13 January 1970, beginning
of phase-IV of the genocide, Buhari has adhered rigidly to or overseen the
Nigeria regime’s blanket policy of non-development of occupied Biafra, the
regime’s aggressive degradation of socioeconomic life in Biafra, and the regime’s
exponential expropriation of the rich oil reserves of Biafra. Biafran assets
looted by the occupation stand at US$1000 billion. This monstrously programmed pillaging of the wealthlands of Biafra since January 1970 by Fulani-led islamist jihadist Nigeria has nothing comparable in African history. Finally, since 13 January
1970, Buhari has exhibited a calculated, deafening silence over the course of
the murder of tens of thousands of Igbo people across Nigeria but especially in
his north Nigeria homeland by regime forces/allied forces including those
massacred by the Boko Haram terrorist organisation in the past five years.
Igbo demands
If Muhammadu Buhari knows “[w]hat …
the Igbo want”, what are these? What indeed are Igbo demands? Just five summary
demands, each a towering memorial symbolising Igbo resilience in surviving five
decades of the longest, continuous running genocide of recent history and their focused determination to end it and effectuate the restoration of Biafra independence:
1. Igbo will end the Igbo genocide,
the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest in Africa, launched by
Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain on 29 May 1966.
2. Nigeria’s occupation of Biafra, begun
on 13 January 1970, must cease forthwith. Nigeria must withdraw all its
military, police and administrative occupying forces from Biafra. The Igbo are not Nigerian. The Igbo are from Biafra. The Igbo are
Biafran. Whilst the Igbo worked very hard by playing the vanguard role in the
liberation of Nigeria from the British conquest for 30 years (1930s-October
1960), Buhari’s north Nigeria religiopolitical region leadership (to which he
presently belongs) vehemently opposed African freedom. This leadership wanted
the British occupation to continue
indefinitely, an outrageous position not seen anywhere else in the South World
during this epoch. Britain “rewarded” this leadership by installing it as the
occupier’s overseer in the so-called post-conquest Nigeria and both subsequently
planned and executed the Igbo genocide to “punish” the Igbo for its historic
role of liberation. So, in an apparent quirk of history, the same Igbo, who led
the freedom movement to free Nigeria from the British, ceased to be Nigerian on
29 May 1966. This was the day Nigeria launched the Igbo genocide. This Igbo
renouncement of their Nigerian citizenship is the irrevocable Igbo indictment on a state that embarked on the
destruction of 3.1 million Igbo people or one-quarter of this nation’s
population.
3. Nigeria must release Nnamdi Kanu, Radio Biafra freedom broadcaster
and leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, currently detained illegally by
the Buhari regime. Kanu’s release must be effected unconditionally. The regime
must also release hundreds of other Biafran freedom officials detained across
Biafra and in Nigeria.
4. Nigeria will pay comprehensive reparations to all the
families of the 3.1 million Igbo people it murdered during phases I-III of the
genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970) and to the families of the tens of
thousands of Igbo people it murdered in the course of phase-IV of the genocide
(13 January 1970 to the present day). Nigeria will pay comprehensive
reparations to Biafra for the destruction/looting of its economy since 29 May
1966 – amounting to hundreds of billions of United States dollars. It mustn’t
be forgotten that the pre-genocide Biafran economy was one of the most advanced
and enterprising hubs in Africa of the era. But for the genocide, the Biafrans
were on course to construct the “China”/“India” of Africa several decades
before the latter economic transformations occurred in Asia.
5. Nigeria must cooperate with Biafra to apprehend and prosecute
all those Nigerians and others, military and civilian, who have been involved in
the planning/execution/sustaining of the varying facets of the Igbo genocide in
the past 50 years. Nigeria must
cooperate with Biafra in the investigation and prosecution of institutions
which have been involved/aided in the planning/execution/sustaining of the varying
facets of the genocide in the past 50 years.
THE IGBO are in the throes of restoring their sovereignty in
their Biafran homeland. In the past 50 years, the Igbo have written a stunning essay
on human survival and resilience, a beacon of the resilient spirit of human
overcoming of the most desperate, unutterably brutish forces in Nigeria.
Genocide is a crime against humanity. There is no statute of limitations in
international law for the apprehension and punishment of those responsible for
this crime. Igbo seek and will achieve justice for the perpetration of this
crime. Igbo seek and will achieve the restoration of Biafra.
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe(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])
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