Igbo resourcefulness, Nigeria, genocide: 1930s-29 May 1966

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

THE IGBO were one of the very few constituent nations in British Nigeria, southwestcentral Africa, prior to the 29 May 1966 Anglo-Nigeria launch date of the Igbo genocide, who understood, fully, the immense liberatory possibilities ushered in by 1 October 1960 (presumed day for the restoration-of-independence for the subjugated African peoples) and the interlocking challenges of the vast reconstructionary work required for state and societal transformation in the aftermath of the British occupation.

Enterprise

The Igbo had the most robust economy in the country in their east regional homeland, supplied the country with its leading writers, artists and scholars, supplied the country’s top universities with its vice-chancellors (presidents/rectors) and leading professors and scientists, supplied the country with its first indigenous university (the prestigious university at Nsukka), supplied the country with its top diplomats, supplied the country’s leading high schools with its head teachers and administrators, supplied the country with its top bureaucrats, supplied the country with its leading businesspeople, supplied the country with an educated, top-rated professional officers-corps for its military and police forces, supplied the country with its leading sportspersons, essentially and effectively worked the country’s rail, postal, telegraphic, power, shipping, and aviation services to quality standards not seen since in Nigeria…

And they were surely aware of the vicissitudes engendered by this historic age precisely because the Igbo nation played the vanguardist role in the freeing of Nigeria from Britain, beginning from the mid-1930s...

Suzerain’s response

BRITAIN responded to this Igbo fervent resourcefulness by plotting the genocide against the Igbo along with its on the ground north region Hausa-Fulani/islamists who were vociferously opposed to African freedom. Indeed, the Hausa-Fulani/islamists wanted the British occupation indefinitely – which, in fact, is the case, 57 years after!

(Charles Mingus Sextet, “Passions of a man” [personnel: Mingus, piano, vocals; Jimmy Knepper, trombone; Rahssan Roland Kirk, flute, siren, tenor saxophone, manzello, strich; Booker Ervin, tenor saxophone; Doug Watkins, bass; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 6 November 1961])

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