69th anniversary of the Enuugwu, Biafra, colliery massacre by the British occupation police

(Miners at the Enuugwu colliery, undated)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

ON 18 NOVEMBER 1949, 21 coal miners at the Iva Valley colliery, Enuugwu, Biafra, were shot dead by the British occupation police in response to the miners’ peaceful, popular protest for a pay increase, improvement in working and safety mine provisions, and support for the ongoing restoration-of-independence movement, begun in the 1930s and spearheaded by the Igbo, to terminate 64 years of Britain’s conquest of the constellation of states and peoples of this southwestcentral region of Africa. The murder of the coal miners constituted a new front in Britain’s 100 years war against Igboland and the variegated frames of Igbo resistance to it that parallel the very stretch of the British occupation of the states and peoples of this region of Africa it tagged “Nigeria”: especially the 1880s-1914 Ekumeku wars and resistance in Anioma, west Igboland, west of the Oshimiri River; the 1901-1902 war against the Aru in northeastcentral Igboland; the 1929 Ogu umu nwanyi Igbo/Igbo women’s resistance in Aba/Igbo eastcentral region.

The Enuugwu massacre, in addition to the organised pogroms against Igbo people in June 1945 (Jos, northcentral Nigeria) and May 1953 (Kano, north Nigeria) by the Fulani islamist/jihadist political leadership of north Nigeria, on the ground strategic client of the occupation, were dreadful precursors to the Igbo genocide of 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 (phases I-III) – in which Britain and Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo, 25 per cent of this nation’s population, in the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. 

Cameron, Buhari, Obama

THE dual genocidist states have murdered tens of thousands of additional Igbo during the course of phase-IV of the genocide (launched on 13 Janauary 1970 and continuing) including the 3000 murdered by the current Muhammadu Buhari regime in Abuja since October 2015. Instrumentally, Buhari, one of the surviving vilest génocidaire-operatives who was an early recruit to this genocide campaign 52 years ago, was imposed on Nigeria as head of regime in March 2015 by the then British Prime Minister David Cameron and ex-US President Barack Obama, the first African-descent president of the United States in 233 years of the founding of the republic. Obama’s support for the Igbo genocide is the abhorrent legacy of his presidency.

(John Coltrane Quintet, “Stardust” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Wilbur Harden, fluegelhorn; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Jimmy Cobbs, drums;  recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, US, 11 July 1958])

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Biafra Revisited (2006) and author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)
(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Donald-Trump-great-Africa-ebook/dp/B07KFQHXKV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1542585950&sr=8-1)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe