Lewis Hamilton – most successful British racing driver of all time. Congratulations!

(Lewis Hamilton... after his success at the Mexican grand prix, Sunday 29 October 2017)

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Catalonia decides: Restoration-of-independence

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

CATALONIA, a population of 7.5 million and situated in the northeast region of Spain, has formally declared its restoration-of-independence. This follows a referendum on 1 October 2017 in which 90.90 per cent of Catalans voted “yes” for restoration-of-independence. Until now, Catalan has been part of Spain for centuries. Catalonia is the 25th new state to emerge in Europe since 1991. The last one, in 2008, is Kosovo, with a population of 1.8 million which is less than that of the Fegge district of Onicha, the great market town on the Oshimili River of southwest Biafra, southwestcentral Africa.

The right to self-determination is for every people. It is inalienable and is guaranteed by the United Nations. No people, anywhere on earth, is exempt from exercising this right as the Catalans have just demonstrated. This is why the slogan that proclaims such gibberish as “indivisibility”/“indissolubility”/“indestructibility” of a state, any state, is not really worth the paper it is written on except of course it is an embedded code by a slaughtering horde for the plot of the next genocide or the reinforcement of an ongoing genocide – as indeed the world has witnessed most tragically across several regions in Africa since Nigeria’s launch of the Igbo genocide on 29 May 1966. A grisly total of 15.1 million Africans have been murdered by a number of these states and their allies in the genocides of the Igbo (29 May 1966-present day), Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/Democratic Republic of the Congo (variously since 2003) and Darfur/Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan (all in the Sudan – since 2003), and in other wars in west, north, northcentral, east and southern Africa during the epoch.

Support for British conquest and occupation of Nigeria indefinitely...

FOR THE RECORD, it mustn’t be forgotten that the Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led leadership in Nigeria which ritually trumpets the “ind”-threesome slogan (above) to preface its next planned massacre of the Igbo in occupied Biafra or in Nigeria supported continuing British occupation of the conquest-state called Nigeria during the course of 30 momentous years (1930s-October 1960) by opposing the Igbo-led restoration-of-independence movement for the freeing of the constituent African nations and peoples from the British occupation. There were no comparable examples of such a staggering anti-freedom position anywhere else in the Southern World during the epoch. Britain duly “rewarded” the islamist leadership perpetual control of Nigeria as a prop to transfer the latter’s retrograde view of this conquest-state to some  “post”-conquest variation on a theme which, in itself, guarantees British suzerainty over Nigeria indefinitely. This is a cardinal feature that constitutes the tragedy called Nigeria today.

As everyone should know, the states that Europe created in Africa, in the aftermath of its November 1884-February 1885 Berlin conqueror-conference on the latter, cannot provide the fundamental needs of Africans.  This “Berlin-state”, with its bumbling ahistorical name (Nigeria, Niger, Guinea, the Sudan, Chad, whatever!), cannot lead Africans to the reconstructive changes they deeply yearn for after the tragic history of centuries of catastrophic occupation. Such change was and never is the mission of this state but an instrument to expropriate and despoil Africa by the conquest. Essentially, the “Berlin-state” still serves the interests of its creators and those of the ruthless cabal of African-overseers which polices the dire straits of existence that is the lot of Africans currently.

Not-gift

AS IN BERLIN and indeed in Madrid, as the Catalans have shown, the state is not a gift from the gods. On the contrary, the state is a relationship painstakingly formulated and constructed by groups of human beings on planet earth to pursue aspirations and interests envisioned by these same human beings within a shared historical and geographical articulation. The African humanity is presently gripped in a grave crisis for survival. Surely, it is aware of this emergency and it is now time that it abandoned the contrived “Berlin-state” in order to survive. This state is a bane of African existence. African nations, namely the Igbo, Ijo, Acholi, Wolof, Yao, Ibibio, Asante, Tonga, Baganda, Mende, Bakongo, Gĩkũyũ, Bambara, Luba, Luo, etc., etc, remain the basis for the regeneration of Africa’s development. These nations are the sites of the continent’s intellectual and other cultural creativity.

Peoples endure; states are indeed transient
States, in the end, are transient as the following attests... Whatever happened to Czarist Russia, Austro-Hungarian empire, the Ottoman empire, the British empire, French Indo-China, Portuguese empire, Spanish empire and, more latterly, the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Treaty states, Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia? Each and everyone of these no longer exists. Gone! Each of them collapsed, somewhere, along their march in history… 

WHAT happened to the constituent peoples in these states that no longer exist? These constituent peoples exist in innumerable new states with names beginning with and from “A” to “Z”. Why did the Polish state disappear from the world map for 123 years (yes, one hundred and twenty-three years!) until its reappearance in 1918? Answer: Gobbled up by predator states, chiefly Czarist Russia. What happened to the Polish people during this century and twenty-three years of varying conquest and occupation? The Poles survived, bidding their time for the restoration of their independence. What would happen to the United Kingdom if the Scots vote “yes” in another referendum for independence? The United Kingdom would cease to exist as the world has known it as a “union” incorporating Scotland since 1707 if a simple majority of the 5 million Scottish people decides on such an outcome. 

In history, therefore, states have actually been transient formations. It is to human beings that survival belongs, provided no genocidist hotchpotch plans to wipe out a targeted group of them as Nigeria is geared, presently, in its long-stretched campaign against Igbo people of Biafra…

SURELY, the 50 million Biafrans, in their own referendum soon, will join the Catalans in this people’s march of freedom.

(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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95th birthday of Ruby Dee

(Born 27 October 1922, Cleveland, Ohio, US)

CELEBRATED award-winning actress and freedom proponent who continues to work till her 90th birthday – with signature film performances which include The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Edge of a City (1957), The Raisin in the Sun (1961), Gone are the Days (1963), The Incident (1967), Peyton Place (television: 1968-1969), Roots – The Next Generation (television: 1979), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (television: 1979), With Ossie and Ruby! (television: 1980-1982), Go Tell It on the Mountain (television: 1985), Do the Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), Their Eyes were watching God (television: 2005), American Gangster (2007)

(Alice Coltrane Trio, “Lovely sky boat” [personnel: Coltrane, harp;  Jimmy Garrison, bass; Rashied Ali, drums; recorded: Coltrane home studio, Dix Hills, New York, US, 6 June 1968]) 

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66th birthday of Catherine Acholonu

(Born 26 October 1951, Orlu, Biafra)

PROLIFIC and indefatigable scholar on Igbo origins and civilisation and relationship with neighbouring states and peoples and rest of the world

(Alice Coltrane Trio, “Turiya and Ramakrishna” [personnel: Coltrane, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Ben Riley, drums; recorded: Coltrane home studio, Dix Hills, New York, US, 26 January 1970]) 

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100th birthday of Dizzy Gillespie

(Born 21 October 1917, Cheraw, South Carolina, US)

TRUMPET VIRTUOSO who, with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, plays a vanguard role in the bebop revolution in jazz in the 1940s/early 1950s and whose creative genius has influenced a stretch of trumpet luminaries subsequently: Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown,  Booker Little, Donald Bryd, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan,  Art Farmer, Clarence Shaw, Richard Williams, Nat Adderley, Ted Curson, Johnny Coles, Woody Shaw, Lester Bowie, Don Cherry, Alan Shorter, Donald Ayler, Dizzy Reece, Freddie Hubbard, Jon Faddis, Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard

(Charlie Parker Quintet plays Tadd Dameron’s classic composition, “Hot House” [personnel: Parker, alto saxophone; Gillespie, trumpet; Dick Hyman, piano; Sandy Block, bass; Charlie Smith, drums; recorded: Dumont Television Studios, New York, US, 24 February 1952])

(The Giants of Jazz, Live album, Copenhagen [personnel: Gillespie, trumpet; Kai Winding, trombone; Sonny Stitt, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone; Thelonious Monk, piano; Al McKibbon, bass; Art Blakey, drums; recorded: live, Tivoli, Copenhagen, Denmark, 9 November 1971])

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ReferendumPathtoBiafraFreedom...

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

ReferendumPathtoBiafraFreedomReferendumPathtoBiafraFreedomReferendumPathtoBiafraFreedomReferendumPathtoBiafraFreedomReferendumPathtoBiafraFreedomReferendumPathtoBiafraFreedom

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(John Coltrane Quartet, “Resolution” {part-II 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])

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73rd birthday of Peter Tosh

(Born 19 October 1944, Grange Hill, Jamaica)

CELEBRATED self-developed musician and Rastafarian who plays a seminal role, beginning in the 1960s, to transform reggae, Jamaica-originated music genre, into an international cultural movement engaged in opposition to centuries of African peoples’ subjugation and all other forms of oppression, and for the promotion of a fairer, equal forms of human relations across the board, offering his prodigious compositional output to the goal, especially: “Get up, Stand up”, “400 years”, “Equal rights”, “Love”, “No sympathy”, “Mama Africa”, “No nuclear war”, “Africa”, “African”, “Here comes the sun”, “Sun valley”, “Creation”, “Oppressor man”, “(You gotta walk and) don’t look back”, “Vampire”, “Apartheid”, “Why must I cry?”, “Go tell it on the mountain”, “You can’t fool me again”, “Keep on moving”

(Peter Tosh: ... “400 years”, 1975)

400 YEARS (400 years, 400 years. Wo-o-o-o)

And it’s the same –
The same (wo-o-o-o) philosophy
I’ve said it’s four hundred years;
(400 years, 400 years. Wo-o-o-o, wo-o-o-o)
Look, how long (wo-o-o-o)
And the people they (wo-o-o-o) still can’t see
Why do they fight against the poor youth of today?
And without these youths, they would be gone –
All gone astray

Come on, let’s make a move:
(make a move, make a move. Wo-o-o-o, wo-o-o-o)
I can (wo-o-o-o) see time (wo-o-o-o) - time has come
And if-a fools don’t see
(fools don’t see, fools don’t see. Wo-o-o-o)
I can’t save the youth:
The youth (wo-o-o-o) is gonna be strong
So, won’t you come with me;
I’ll take you to a land of liberty
Where we can live – live a good, good life
And be free

Look how long: 400 years, (400 years, 400 years) – 
Way too long! (wo-o-o-o)
That’s the reason my people (wo-o-o-o) - my people can’t see
Said, it’s four hundred long years – (400 years, 400 years. Wo-o-o-o)
Give me patience (wo-o-o-o) – same philosophy
It’s been 400 years, (400 years, 400 years)
Wait so long! Wo-o-o-o, wo-o-o-o
How long? 400 long, long years

(lyrics: “400 years”)

(Peter Tosh: ... “Oppressor man”, 1977)

(Peter Tosh and 14-piece band, “Get up, Stand up” [Tosh and Bob Marley composition]; recorded: Randy’s Studio, Kingston, Jamaica, 1977)

GET UP, stand up

Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand up
Don’t give up the fight

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand up
Don’t give up the fight

You, preacher man, don’t tell me
Heaven is under the earth
You, a duppy and you don’t know
What life is really worth

It's not all that glitter is gold
And half the story has never been told
So now we see the light
We gonna stand up for your rights, come on

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand upDon’t give up the fight

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand upDon’t give up the fight

’Cause you know most people think
A great God will come from the skies
Take away everything
And left everybody dry

But if you know what life is worth
Then you would look for yours on earth
And now you see the light
We gonna stand up for your rights

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand up
Don’t give up the fight

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand upDon’t give up the fight

We’re sick and tired of this game of technology
Humbly asking Jesus for his mercy
We know and we know and understand
Almighty Jah is a living man

You fool some people sometimes
But you can’t fool all the people all the time
And now we see the light
We gonna stand up for our rights

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand upDon’t give up the fight

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights
Get up, stand upDon’t give up the fight

(lyrics: “Get up, stand up”)

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Indigenous People of Biafra – inexorable march to freedom

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

THANKS to the past two years’ extraordinarily imaginative work on the ground in Biafra and overseas by the Indigenous People of Biafra, led by Nnamdi Kanu, the Biafra freedom movement has now moved the Biafra restoration-of-independence quest inexorably on the path of fruition. Never, since the beginning of the Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led genocidist Nigeria’s occupation of Biafra on 13 January 1970, has the resistance been so assured that it has found this trajectory to victory.

IT IS precisely this breakthrough that explains the dire straits of desperation that the genocidist regime and its grouping of quislings-of-occupation find themselves presently: shooting Igbo youth at sight … forcefully vaccinating Igbo school children at sight with unknown “vaccines” … shooting Igbo youth at sight … forcefully vaccinating Igbo school children at sight with unknown “vaccines” …

(John Coltrane Quartet, “Psalm” {part-IV 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])

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PROFILE: Chi-chi Nwanoku, bassist, professor of double bass historical studies, Royal Academy of Music London, and founder of Chineke! Foundation

(Chi-chi Nwanoku)

 (… critically-acclaimed bassist)

(Professor Nwanoku is here interviewed by Sergio Mims, Arise News, 12 May 2015)

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79th birthday of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

(Born 15 October 1938, Abeokuta, Nigeria)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

CELEBRATED Afro-beat musician, bandleader and one of just a handful of genocidist Nigeria public figures, particularly in the Lagos and west region of Awolowoist/Awolowoid/Adekunleist agglomeration of Igbo genocide perpetrators and/or denialists, who consistently and unequivocally condemns the Igbo genocide (as he evocatively reminds the world in his authorised biography, Carlos Moore, Fela: The Bitch of a Life, Lawrence Hill, 2009: 47-49: “The Biafrans were right … That’s evident now … The I[g]bo were right … The Biafrans were f***ing right to secede...”), untiringly and expansive critic of regimes in “post”-Igbo genocide age-of-pestilence Nigeria, employing the expressive lyrics of his myriads of compositions and the operatic drive of his orchestra to assail genocidist sergeants and “generals” and corporals and “colonels” and financiers and politicians and their cohorts who control and wheel and deal in the kakistocratic lair that calls itself Nigeria

(Fela Ransome-Kuti and the Africa 70, “Everything Scatter” [recorded: LP Nigeria, Coconut PMLP1000, 1975])

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Genocidist Nigeria: Where is Nnamdi Kanu? Where are Nnamdi Kanu’s parents?

(Nnamdi Kanu and his loving parents)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

TODAY marks one month since the 14 September 2017 genocidist Nigeria military stormed the home of Nnamdi Kanu’s parents at Afaraukwu-Ibeku, eastcentral Biafra. Consequently, the whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (constituted integrally in the Biafra freedom movement), and his parents, remain unknown. Scores of the Kanus’ relatives and friends were murdered during the assault and scores of others are still unaccounted for.

GENOCIDIST Nigeria surely knows that it will account for the safety of Nnamdi Kanu and his parents and take full responsibility of the consequences of that savage raid on a family home.

(The New York Contemporary Five, “Consequences” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])

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108th birthday of Art Tatum

(Born 13 October 1909, Toledo, Ohio, US)

Piano virtuoso, arguably the most influential jazz pianist in history

(Art Tatum Trio, “Blues in C” [personnel: Tatum, piano; Benny Carter, alto saxophone; Louie Bellson, drums; recorded: Pablo Group, New York, US, 25 June 1954])

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115th birthday of Arna Bontemps

(Born 13 October 1902, Alexandria, Louisiana, US)

AWARD-WINNING prolific poet, novelist, children’s writer, editor, biographer, historian, and librarian, whose work plays a cardinal role in the emergence of contemporary African American letters

(Andrew Hill Quartet, “Cantarnos” [personnel: Hill, piano; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone;  Richard Davis, bass; Roy Haynes, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 8 November 1963])

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FOR THE RECORD: Four compelling views on the ongoing genocidist Nigeria military’s mandatory vaccination of Igbo school children in regions across (occupied) Biafra with unknown “vaccine(s)”

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

THE FOLLOWING views, posted here completely unedited, are derived from the Facebook wall of each commentator except that of Dr Chin Akano’s which comes from Carol Munday’s wall:

Chin Akano (medical doctor)

I have seen a few video clips and posts regarding the so called charitable immunisation exercise allegedly being carried out by soldiers in Anambra. I have also heard that children are being immunised without parental consent.

To me this is criminal. It can only happen in a primitive country. For starters you cannot immunise a child without parental or guardian consent. It’s child abuse and assault. Secondly you must know a child’s immunisation history before you administer a vaccine to avoid repeating those that the child has already developed immunity against, unless a serological test confirmed that the immunity is absent or partial. Also some children may have allergies which could lead to fatal outcomes if they are vaccinated. You cannot also vaccinate an ill child and some vaccines contain live organisms which can cause fever and even febrile convulsion if unchecked, so the parents need to be properly counselled prior to vaccinating their wards. Pls this barbaric and unsolicited nonsense must stop pronto.

Chikwendu Anyanwu (Catholic priest and commentator)

A constrictor cannot be a lifesaver. So it is reasonable to reject anything medical from a python.

George C E Enyoazu (social critic)

One of the numerous problems of Nigeria is the systematic assigning of the wrong job to the wrong people. A trained engineer is encouraged to do the job of a medical doctor or a lawyer. In the same vein, someone without a vocational training at all is assigned the job of an automobile mechanic or a carpenter. Thus, the military who ordinarily should mark the external enemy have found themselves with no job of substance to do, hence, they find their way into national politics, producing misleaders, such as Buhari. Because the army and other segments of the armed forces are idle, they are programmed to kill and brutalize hapless citizens as we've seen in the ill-fated Oppression Python Dance II in the South East. 

As if they were not satisfied with the scale of damage and destruction inflicted on the Igbo civilian population, the army started forcing their way into schools in the region, claiming that they were there for a free medical mission to pupils. The most irritating of this uncouth imposture is forcing little kids at gun point to be vaccinated. The question has been why the forced vaccination? When did the job of the Ministry of Health become that of the army, especially an army with a notoriety for killing Igbo youths under the flimsiest guise? Flashback to my childhood days. The Health authorities announced a periodic inoculation exercise for kids. Parents would willingly take their wards to the designated centres. This was done devoid of any force, coercion, threat or bullish intrusion into the private lives of families. Every parent realised it was in the child's interest to be inoculated. So, we all got the jab on the upper arm. The scar remains till date. Contrary to today's Ministry of Health doing the job, the army who are in a killing field in Biafraland have suddenly extended their obnoxious services to inoculating our children without our consent; whether we like it or not. 

What sort of repressive society is this? Whose idea was it?Interestingly, the Imo State Chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association has risen to the occasion by faulting the so-called army inoculation, and advised parents and schools not to submit to that. Very succinct to the letter. Embarrassed by the pandemonium it has caused as pupils and their parents were running helter skelter to avoid it in Anambra State, the unusual voice of the State governor, Willie Obiano was heard asking the army to suspend the exercise, pending enough sensitization. One begins to imagine that an Igbo governor could now advise the army to stop! But when our youth were being mauled to death by army bullets in Asaba, Nkpor and Abia State, no Igbo governor could raise a finger of protestation. No Igbo politician advised the ruthless army to hold back. The good news though is that the Igbo populace have zero-trust where the Nigerian Army are concerned. Any politician who thinks that a sensitization exercise would be a fore-runner of an army inoculation exercise on our children should please get real. An Igbo adage says, “the lizard marks the footsteps of those who would pelt it”. In this era of unconscionable terror of Fulani herdsmen, and 97% versus 5% voting pattern, monkeypox and army rampage in the East, everyone should concentrate on their vocational training. Army's vaccination in the East is ill-willed!

Osita Ezeliora (academic)

Only a lunatic would suggest that Nd’Igbo should go for any form of vaccination from a hateful regime that only weeks ago murdered our sons in broad daylight. Only a monumental idiot would advise onye Igbo obuna to accept possibly poisoned chemicals when only recently our children were suffocated in mud water while many others were brutally shot dead… Any clown of a priest that tells parents to go for any vaccination at this stage deserves the combined visitation of Amadioha, Udo and Ogwugwu... And even more: the visitation of angry Igbo mob. Ndi aruru ana kagbulu onwe fa n’uka!!!!

(The New York Contemporary Five plays Don Cherry’s composition, “Consequences” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])

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109th birthday of Ann Petry

(Born 12 October 1908, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, US)

Pharmacist, award-wining influential novelist and journalist – publications include the classic, The Street (1946), Country Place (1947), The Narrows (1953), Tituba of Salem Village (1955, novel for children), Harriet Tubman: Conductor of the Underground Railroad (1960, non-fiction)

(pt-I)

(pt-II) 

(Alice Coltrane Sextet featuring Pharoah Sanders, “Isis and Osiris” [personnel: Coltrane, harp, piano; Sanders, soprano saxophone, percussion; Charlie Haden, bass; Vishnu Wood, oud; Rashied Ali, drums; recorded: live, Village Gate, New York, US, 4 July 1970])

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