Saturday, 26 May 2018

Towards 29 May 2018 – reminder of those three engraved words that encapsulate the very unlikely outcome of the Igbo genocide, this most gruesome and devastating slaughtering of a people not seen in Africa since the late 19th century/early 20th century, launched by Britain and its client state Nigeria on 29 May 1966: Igbo People Survived

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

Extraordinary

IT IS INDEED an extraordinary survival story of history that someone that goes by the name Obiageli, Nkechi, Chinyere, Ifeoma, Amaechi, Nwakaego, Ngozi, Chinelo, Ada, Uzo, Chibundu, Nkemdilim, Chukwuka, Okwuonicha, Chikwendu, Ogonna, Nwafo, Ikechukwu, Onwuatuegwu, Chukwuemeka, Onyekachi, Nnadozie, Okonkwo, Chido, Okafo, Chikwendu, Nkeiiru, Ifeyinwa, Nkemakolam, Ikenga, Uchendu, Okennwa, Nwaoyiri, Okonta, Ukpabi, Amaka, Ofokaaja, Nnamdi, Mbazulike, Chukwuma, Kanayo, Ndukaeze, Chidi, Kamene, Nneka, Onyeka, Osita, Kalu, Ifekandu, Obioma, Chioma, Ndubuisi…  actually walks the face of the earth, today, having survived this programmed sentence of death by Anglo-Nigeria genocidists beginning on 29 May 1966 and through to 12 January 1970 
(phases I-III). The genocidists murdered the grisly total of 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nations population during the period. The genocide still continues with the additional murder of tens of thousands of Igbo people since 13 January 1970 (phase-IV)...

Wilsonian logic of Igbo mass slaughter

None of the lead génocidaires of this genocide – Harold WilsonBenjamin AdekunleOlusegun ObasanjoObafemi AwolowoAllison AyidaIbrahim HarunaTony EnaharoYakubu DanjumaYakubu GowonJeremiah Useni, Muhammadu BuhariOluwole Rotimi… – reckoned in their dire prognosis of the outcome of the 44 months of Igbo slaughtering that they directed and executed that the Igbo stood a chance of surviving. Harold Wilson, then British prime minister who chiefly coordinated the genocide from the comfort of his offices and residence at 10 Downing Street, London, 3000 miles away from Biafra, had notoriously set the pace for his fellows on what he saw as the future of the Igbo when he informed Clyde Ferguson, the United States state department special coordinator for relief to Biafra, that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” Nigeria to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger MorrisUncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). 

ON the ground genocidist trooper “boy-boy Benjamin Adekunle who was engaged in the slaughter theater in south Biafra in 1968 was so enthralled by his massa Wilsons notorious directive that he publicly reminded the world, in a news conference attended largely by foreign correspondents, the definitive goal of this genocide: We shoot at everything that moves, and when our forces march into the centre of I[g]bo territory, we shoot at everything, even at things that don’t move” (The Economist, London, 24 August 1968).

Repudiation

BY SURVIVING the genocide, the Igbo have not only dramatically repudiated this vile Wilsonian logic of Igbo mass slaughter, but they are poised today, 52 years later, as the Biafra freedom movement has grown inexorably, to resume the interrupted construction of their beloved state of Biafra – Land of the Rising Sun.
(Cecil Taylor, “Pontos cantados” [personnel: Taylor, piano; recorded: One night with Blue Note: The historic all-star reunion concert, Town Hall, New York, US, 22 February 1985])
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

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