Rethinking Africa is a forward looking blog dedicated to the exchange of innovative thinking on issues affecting the advancement of African peoples wherever they are. We provide rigorous and insightful analyses on the issues affecting Africans and their vision of the world.
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe SPARK of enduring Biafran creative
energy! Celebrated cultural and literary critic and executive editor of The Guardian, Lagos, Nigeria, beginning
February 1983, when he embarks on the radical
transformation of the focus and scope and
qualitative threshold of journalism practicenot seen in Africa’s
southwestcentral region in 50 years – since the edifying
standard set for post-(European)conquest Africa journalism by Nnamdi Azikiwe,
political scientist, academic, poet, journalist, multiform entrepreneur, leader
in Igbo vanguard role in the drive for restoration of
independence for the African peoples and states in this region (mid-1930s-October
1960) which the British conquest and occupation had contemptuously called “Nigeria”…
BIAFRA is on the way back to
continue the liberatory project disrupted so viciously by this longest genocide
in contemporary history: to teach basic lessons on resolve and competence, to
overcome challenges, to exercise transformative initiatives, to affirm life, African
life, as sacrosanct, particularly given 52 years of Fulani
islamist/jihadist-controlled genocidist Nigeria and its (especially) Yoruba/Edo/Hausa/Urhobo/Nupe/Edo/Tiv allies’ programmed
savagery to destroy the lives of 50 million Igbo people.
(Max Roach Quartet, “Speak, Brother, Speak!” [sides I and II; personnel: Roach, drums; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Mal Waldron, piano; Eddie Khan, bass; recorded live, The Jazz Workshop, San Francisco, US, 27 October 1962])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe PHYSICIANand irrepressible advocate of harnessing Africa’s vast agricultural resource potential as launch base to embark on far-reaching societal transformation; head of pre-military junta 15 January 1966 east region Nigeria government then home to Africa’s most resourceful and dynamic economy en route to emerging as a major manufacturing and industrial power in its own right but for the catastrophe of the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January, when the quintessentially indolent and anti-African Fulani islamist/jihadist-led Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain murdered 3.1 million Igbo people in this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa; 52 years on, the Biafra freedom movement, on the cusp of the restoration of Biafra sovereignty, can’t wait to resume the construction of the state and societal transformative project of the Michael Okpara legacy and its consequential impact on the African World and the rest of the globe
(Booker Little Sextet, “We speak” [personnel: Little, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Don Friedman, piano; Art Davis, bass; Max Roach, drums; recorded: Nola’s Penthouse Studios, New York, 17 March 1961])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe ONE OF African World’s multifaceted and most distinguished painters: his evocative landmark Exodus (1970) captures the devastating aftermath of phase-I of the Igbo genocide, perpetrated by Fulani islamist/jihadist-led Nigeria and its co-genocidist state Britain, 29 May 1966-4 January 1967, as nearly 2 million Igbo who survive this initial slaughter in the north region and elsewhere in Nigeria stream home before the subsequent phases (II & III: 5 January 1967-5 July 1967, 6 July 1967-12 January 1970, respectively) when the genocidists effect a comprehensive range of land, aerial and naval blockade of Biafra, unprecedented inAfrica, and murder a total of 3 million people therein by 12 January 1970; beginning on 13 January 1970, the genocidists launch phase-IV of the genocide as they simultaneously embark on the occupation of Biafra ... genocide continues unrelentingly
(For Biafra: ... Uzo Egonu, Exodus [1970])
(Don Cherry Quartet, “Art deco” [personnel: Cherry, pocket trumpet; James Clay, tenor saxophone;Charlie Haden, bass;Billy Higgins, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 27/28/30 August 1988])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
(Born 22 December 1893, Bennettsville, South Carolina, US)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe DISTINGUISHED historian and sociologist, prolific author including the authoritative tome, The Destruction of Black Civilization: The Great Issue of a Race between 4500BC and 2000AD (1974) – It would appear that Chancellor Williams has the Igbo genocide poignantly in mind particularly as he writes the very distressing lines in his illustrious study (see quote from p. 218 below) of Africans trained by conqueror-European World occupation forces in Africa to murder other Africans so ruthlessly… In the past 51 years, beginning on 29 May 1966, Fulani islamist/jihadists in British-contrived Nigeria, fully supported in the campaign by an assemblage of African constituent nations such as the Yoruba, Edo, Kanuri, Hausa, Urhobo,Tiv and Nupe especially, have been trained and feverishly equipped militarily by their bature/oyinbomassa British overlords to slaughter 3.1 million Igbo people in Biafra (29 May 1966-12 January 1970, phases I-III) and tens of thousands more subsequently (13 January 1970-present day [22 December 2018], phase IV) in this foundational, most gruesome, and most devastating genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa… THE genocide continues unrelentingly and the immanently hate-driven perpetrators wage this crime against humanity on every conceivable contour of Igbo political, social, economic existence…
Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization: The Great Issue of a Race between 4500BC and 2000AD (Chicago: Third World, new edition, 1995), 345pp, pbk, US$12.43/£12.99:
Now the shadows lengthened. The Europeans had also been busily building up and training strong African armies. Africans trained to hate, kill and conquer Africans. Blood of Africans was to sprinkle and further darken the pages of their history … Indeed, Africawas conquered for the Europeans by the Africans [themselves], and thereafter kept under [conquest] control by African police and African soldiers. Very little European blood was ever spilled.(The Destruction of Black Civilization, p. 218)
(John Coltrane Sextet, “Out of this world” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Donald Garrett, clarinet, bass; Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: live at Penthouse Jazz Club, Seattle, US, 30 September 1965])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe Military commander, historian, and head of state of Burkina Faso, 4 August 1983-15 October 1987, when he leads a transformative governmentin “post”-(European)conquest Africa which demonstrates, overwhelmingly with indelible successes, just as the resourceful Biafran resistance had breathtakingly inaugurated this breakthrough on the Africa continental scene during the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, phases I-III, that the engine of societal development is located internally, in the people, themselves – not the prevailing and pervasivefraudulent developmentalism unleashed on Africa in the 1960s by the same France, Britain/other lead European World conqueror-states that had for 400 years enslaved, dispersed, occupied and immiserised Africa and its peoples; thus, Thomas Sankara’s and Biafra’s historic liberatory legacies of transformative outreaches emanating internally, not externally, forged so tenaciously, constitute contemporary Africa’s freedom path to the restoration of unfettered independence from continuing European World seizure via the latter’s imposition of local client states and overseers (for instance, the Fulani islamist/jihadist-led notorious Nigeria genocidist and kakistocratic state), enhanced expropriation, and hardly disguised impunity
(Jackie McLean Quintet, “Hootnan” [personnel: McLean, alto saxophone; Charles Tolliver, trumpet; Bobby Hutcherson, vibraphone; Cecil McBee, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 16 September 1964])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
(Born 19 December 1875, New Canton, Va, United States)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe Historian, journalist, versatile educator and inaugurator of the “African World History Month”, now a very important fixture in the annual calendar in several regions of the African World, outside Africa, and who, whilst researching the nature of the education of African Americans in the 1930s, concludes on the following consequences on someone, anyone, being controlled and defined by an agency outside their own centre of being, an observation as salient as ever, 80 years on (Woodson, Mis-Education, 2010: 48):
IF YOU can control a [person’s] thinking, you don’t have to worry about [their] action. If you can determine what a [person] thinks you do not have to worry about what [they] will do. If you can make a [person] believe that [they are] inferior, you don’t have to compel [them] to seek an inferior status [for they] will do so without being told and if you can make a [person] believe that [they are] justly an outcast, you don’t have to order [them] to the back door. [They] will go to the back door on [their] own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the [person] will demand that you build one [for them]. (added emphasis)
(Charles Mingus Quartet, “All the things you could be by now if Sigmund Freud’s wife is your mother” [personnel: Mingus, bass; Ted Curson, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: Nola Penthouse Sound Studios, New York, US, 20 October 1960])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
THERE IS DEFINITELY no subject in these past 52 years, i.e., since the 29 May 1966 Anglo-Nigeria launch date of the Igbo genocide, this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, in which the critical institutions of the British state (including, particularly, academia, media, church) have all converged, unproblematically, to support as the perpetration of the Igbo genocide. Igbo independence is in fact anathema to Britain (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/herbert-ekwe-ekwe-conquerors-concord-in.html). Without this robust British involvement, the field/on-the-ground Fulani islamist/jihadist-led génocidaires in Nigeria, this brazenly indolent and sleazy anti-African peoples’ grouping immanently obsequious to the diktats of its bature overlords, cannot continue to commit this crime against humanity much longer – definitely, not beyond a few weeks. The restoration of Igbo independence will surely inaugurate a strategic reordering of Biafra-Britain relations across the board which will have far-reaching consequences on the rest of the African World and elsewhere.
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Sun ship” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Impulse!, New York, US, 26 August 1965])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe HISTORIAN, okaa amalu, doyen of the Reconstructionary
School of African Historical Studies in the aftermath of 400 years of the pan-European enslavement,
dispersal, conquest and occupation of the African World: lays the foundation of
this restoration of the African as subject and agency in history in the 1956
publication of his classic, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830-1885; inaugurates a stretch of an
encompassing African peoples’ heritage archive and becomes the first African
vice-chancellor (president/rector) of the University of Ibadan, and later, May 1966-January
1970, travels the world as one of the envoys of eminent and resolute Biafra resistance intellectuals who campaigns tirelessly
against the Igbo genocide (phases I-III) waged by Fulani islamist/jihadist-led
Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain, under the premiership of Harold
Wilson, in which 3.1 million Igbo people, 25 per cent of this nation’s population, are murdered between 29 May
1966 and 12 January 1970 in this foundational genocide of
post-(European)conquest Africa. THE Igbo genocide continues unrelentingly (phase-IV,
launched on 13 January 1970) and the genocidists have murdered tens of thousands of additional Igbo
during this phase – including the 3000
murdered since October 2015 whilst Nigeria has been run by génocidaire Muhammadu
Buhari, a fiendish operative in this campaign since July 1966. Buhari
was imposed on Nigeria as head of regime in March 2015 by ex-British Prime
Minister David Cameron and ex-US President Barack Hussein Obama,
the first African-descent president of the United States in 233 years of the
founding of the republic. Professor Dike would be most horrified by Obama’s
support of the Igbo genocide.
(Eric Dolphy Quartet, “Softly as in a morning sunrise” [personnel: Dolphy, bass clarinet; Herbie Hancock, piano; Eddie Khan, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, University of Illinoi, 10 March 1963])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of African Literature in Defence of History: An essay on Chinua Achebe (2001) and author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
SUCCESSIVE British governments since 29 May 1966, beginning with the one led by Harold “[W]ould-accept-half-a-million-dead-Biafrans-if-that-was-what-it-[T]ook”
Wilson, have, in strategic alliance with the coterie of African constituent nations
in Nigeria (particularly Fulani, Yoruba, Kanuri, Urhobo, Bachama, Tiv, Hausa, Nupe, Edo) waged the
Igbo genocide most unrelentingly, most gruesomely…
Comeuppance?
The current British government is tellingly
incapable to negotiate a simple exit from the European Union
(organisation Britain joined voluntarily, not forced into, in 1973) as demanded by the majority
“yes”-voters of the country’s June 2016 referendum. For Britain, the humiliating narrative that characterises these Brexit talks in Brussels is palpable. Despite Prime
Minister Theresa May’s ringing pledge that Brexit is the British decision to “restore ... our self-determination” (“Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk on the triggering of article 50”, gov.uk, 29 March 2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prime-ministers-letter-to-donald-tusk-triggering-article-50/prime-ministers-letter-to-donald-tusk-triggering-article-50, accessed 29 March 2017), the EU
is offering Britain “exit terms” from the league that are structurally not
dissimilar from that infamous Lancaster House fake-independence/fraudulent freedom template that Britain
foisted on African restoration-of-independence movements in its occupied states
across the continent – from the Sudan/Ghana (mid-1950s) to Zimbabwe (late 1979/early 1980). It is precisely this unlikely equivalence of two seemingly unrelated tracks of
history that has prompted Boris Johnson, ex-British foreign secretary, ex-mayor
of London, journalist, and essayist who has often relished in his writings demonising peoples (particularly Africans) conquered over the last 350 years by Britain, to now proclaim, so ironically, that the current “Brexit deal” from the EU
reduces Britain to a “vassalage, satrapy, colony” (Andrew Woodcock, “Boris Johnson: Theresa May’s Brexit plan makes UK a ‘colony’”, The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 26 July 2018, https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/boris-johnson-theresa-may-s-brexit-plan-makes-uk-a-colony-1-4774271, accessed 28 July 2018)!
HAS the comeuppance that has vividly struck
a number of the countries besides, obviously, Nigeria (e.g. Soviet Union, Egypt, Algeria, the Sudan, Cameroon, German Democratic Republic, Guinea-Conakry, Syria) and several lead génocidaires (e.g. Obafemi Awolowo,
Harold Wilson, Hafez al-Assad,Muhammadu
Buhari, Barack Hussein Obama, Hosni Mubarak,Muhammadu
Shuwa,Ahmadou
Ahidjo,Ibrahim Taiwo,David Cameron,Olusegun Obasanjo, Murtala
Muhammed) who have been involved in the murder of Igbo people these past 52
years finally hit Britain?
Biafran freedom and justice
If ever there was any doubt, the evidence, so
far, demonstrates the contrary – namely, that no one, no agency, murders 3.1
millionand additionaltens of thousands of Igbo children, women and men (including the 3000 murdered so far since November 2015 by fiendish génocidaire Muhammadu Buhari who was imposed in office by ex-US President Barack Hussein Obama, the first African descent president in 233 years of the founding of the United States republic) in
this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa and
walks away free... Apart from the now 50 million Igbo survivors,
the 3.1 millionand
the additional tens of thousandsare individually and
collectively involved in the current historic Biafran resilient quest for freedom and
justice...
AND Biafra will get this freedom and justice. Undoubtedly.
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Consequences” – 4th movement in First Meditations {for Quartet} [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 2 November 1965])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018) and author of Readings from Reading: Essays in African Politics, Genocide, Literature (2011)
AFTER French President Emmanuel Macron, le
farain, capitulated to the “yellow vest” protesters in the country, it is now time to clean up, to rebuild the expansive infrastructure and other
property that the Paris demonstrators have torched, have smashed up, in the
past few days…
Q: But where does Macron
get the money to fund this huge reconstruction exercise?
(Andrew Hill Quintet, “Legacy”[personnel: Hill, piano; Cecil McGee, bass; Joe Chambers, drums; Renaud Simmonds, conga, Nadi Qamar, percussion, African drums, thumb piano; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, 8 October 1965])
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Readings from Reading: Essays in African Politics, Genocide, Literature (2011) and author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
(Recorded 9 Dec 1964, Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe A Love Supreme, a suite in four parts (“Acknowledgement”, “Resolution”, “Pursuance”, “Psalm”), is played here by the John Coltrane Quartet (personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums) John Coltrane Quartet
IN December 1966, prior to the historic 4-5 January 1967 African-initiated Aburi (Ghana) summit, Biafra’s General
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu turned down a British-sponsored “conference
of mediation” that would involve all surviving members of the pre-Igbo genocide Nigeria’s
supreme military council on board a British frigate, off the Bight of
Biafra, in which the British would chair. The Biafran leader could not accept
the presumption of “neutrality” or “even-handedness” inherent in London’s
invitation to host such a summit, considering Britain’s instrumental role
in the Igbo genocide since the weeks and months leading to the outbreak on
Sunday 29 May 1966, especially its work with the Yakubu Gowon-Yakubu
Danjuma-Murtala Muhammed genocidist cells in the Nigeria military, the north
region Fulani islamist/jihadist emirs and, pivotally, staff and students at
the Ahmadu Bello University, the epicentre of the planning and execution
of the genocide.
FURTHERMORE, Ojukwu, the historian, could not have ignored the lessons
of a similar event in the 19th century, 1887. Then, King Jaja of Igwe Nga (Opobo),
the Igbo nationalist monarch opposed to British territorial aggression and
expansionism along the Atlantic coast of Biafra, was kidnapped by the British
navy and exiled to the Caribbean island of St Vincent after accepting, in good
faith, a British offer of “peace talks” on board a British naval vessel berthed off
the Igwe Nga shores – Bight of Biafra.
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Slow blues” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 6 March 1963)
*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Biafra Revisited (2006) and author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe RENOWNED composer, pianist and arranger whose near 30 years (1938-1967) of collaborative work with composer, pianist and bandleader Duke Ellington has been the focus of expansive recordings, research and publications
(Charles Mingus Sextet, featuring Eric Dolphy, plays theBilly Strayhorn classic, “Take the ‘A’ train” [Mingus, bass;Johnny Coles, trumpet; Dolphy, bass clarinet;Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano;Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: live, University Aula, Oslo, 12 April 1964])
(Joe Henderson Quintet plays the Billy Strayhorn classic, “Johnny come lately” [personnel: Henderson, tenor saxophone; Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; Stephen Scott, piano; Christian McBride, bass; Gregory Hutchinson, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood, Cliffs, NJ, US, 3-8 September 1991])
(John Coltrane Quintet plays the Billy Strayhorn classic, “Lush life” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Donald Bryd, trumpet; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Louis Hayes, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, US, 10 January 1958)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is specialist on the state and on genocide & wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch – beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-present day, the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered by Nigeria and its allies, principally Britain. Africa and the rest of the world largely stood by and watched as the perpetrators enacted this horror most ruthlessly. The world could have stopped this genocide; the world should have stopped this genocide. This genocide inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence. During the period, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/DRCongo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur – west of the Sudan – (since 2004) and in other wars in Africa. African peoples have, presently, no other choice but exit/dismantle the extant genocide-state (the bane of their existence & progress) & construct own nation-centred states that serve their interests. He is author of several books & papers on the subject and his new book is entitled The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019).
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3016396-1354569966-8114.jpeg.jpg)
