Igbo don’t have to justify their current freedom mission; no one ever does

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

Affirmation vs retrograde formation

EVEN IF THE Igbo were not subjected to the cataclysmic genocide of 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa in which suzerain Britain and its Nigeria client state murdered 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this nation’s population, and the current phase of the genocide that the Muhammadu Buhari regime and its adjunct duo Boko Haram and Fulani militia (erroneously tagged  “Fulani herdspeople” in the media in Nigeria) forces are waging in occupied Biafra, they, the Igbo,  just like any other peoples, have a right to declare themselves free from Nigeria or indeed any other state in Africa they find themselves domiciled if they so wish.

This was precisely why the Igbo didn’t have to offer some justification for its 30 year-old vanguard role (1930s-October 1960) in formally terminating 76 years of the British conquest and occupation of Nigeria, not even to the north region Hausa-Fulani Arabised-islamist political establishment, strategic ally of the occupation opposed to African liberation and progenitor of the prevailing dominant regime forces in Nigeria. It must be continuously stressed, if need be, that no comparable political forces anywhere else in the South World (Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Americas), during this epoch, wanted their lands occupied indefinitely by any of the rampaging conqueror pan-European states (Britain, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain) as this north Nigeria formation. This was why the British aptly “rewarded” the formation with the responsibility of “overseer”, beginning 1 October 1960, to protect Britain’s vast expropriatory economic interests in Nigeria in perpetuity as well as wage a 50-year-old genocide against one of the most enterprising and progressive nations in Africa. The catastrophe that is Nigeria becomes hugely intelligible in the context of this history.

Besides, the compositional aftermath of the (European)conqueror/conquered/conquest-state of Africa (Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Central African Republic, the Sudan, the Congo-B, the Congo-K, Guinea-B, Guinea-C, Guinea-E, whatever!) cannot be the basis of the restoration-of-independence for the peoples as this historic right to freedom affirmation rests incontrovertibly on the hitherto conquered constituent African nation or people – Igbo, Bakongo, Wolof, Luo, Ibibio, Darfuri, Gĩkũyũ, Herero, Efik, Akan, Bakongo, Gur, Ijo, Punu, Ovambo, Bamileke...

Freedom train, not “agitators”

This right to freedom for a people, for all peoples, is inalienable. As I have demonstrated severally elsewhere, it is the state, any state, that is transient; definitely, not the people(s) except, of course, they, such as the Igbo, are a target or programmed for genocide by some state(s) (Britain and Nigeria in this specific case) or some other agency. No one, no people, therefore, has to offer a reason for being free, for freedom. 

So, the rather perfunctory remarks, “agitating for Biafra”, “Biafra agitators”, often made by some commentators to highlight the current historic drive of the Biafra freedom movement is ironically an assault on the very essence of this freedom. One doesn’t “agitate” for freedom; they, instead, proclaim it: “I am because I am free; I am free because I am”.

(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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