50th anniversary of genocidist Nigeria military’s gruesome shooting down of an international Red Cross aircraft over south Biafra

(O Obusonjo... day of beastly monstrosity: “... [c]hallenged ... Gbadomosi King [genocidist Nigeria air force pilot] to produce results ... He [Gbadomosi King] redeemed his promise...”)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

THERE WAS HARDLY any day during the entire 44-month duration of phases I-III of the Igbo genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970) that the Nigerian assault on Biafra did not register some dreadful mark of infamy, such was the sheer savagery of this murder mission – the most gruesome in Africa since the first decade of the 1900s when Germany carried out the devastating stretch of genocide against the Herero, Nama and Berg Damara peoples of contemporary Namibia.

5 JUNE 1969, exactly 50 years ago, today, was not different. Genocidist commander Olusegun Obasanjo had, on this day of beastly monstrosity ordered his air force to shoot down an international Red Cross aircraft carrying relief supplies to the encircled, blockaded and bombarded Igbo.

OLUSEGUN OBASANJO clearly, unambiguously, records this horrendous crime in his memoirs, appropriately entitled My Command, published in 1981 by the reputable Heinemann London publishers. Obasanjo had “challenged”, to quote his words, Captain Gbadomosi King, genocidist air force pilot in south Biafra (the region that the genocidist high command in Lagos had assigned specifically to Yoruba, Edo, Urhobo and other west Nigerian genocidist troopers “to ravage, to slaughter, to steal”), who he had known since the launch of the genocide in 1966, to “produce results” in stopping further international relief flight deliveries to the Igbo. Within a week of his infamous challenge, 5 June 1969, Olusegun Obasanjo recalls, most nostalgically, Gbadomosi King “redeemed his promise”. Gbadomosi King had shot down a clearly marked, in coming relief-bearing International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) DC-7 plane near Eket, south Biafra, with the loss of its 3-person crew.

(DC-7 aircraft similar to the ICRC relief-carrying plane shot down over south Biafra by genocidist Nigeria air force on the orders of commander O Obusonjo)

OLUSEGUN OBASANJO’s perverse satisfaction over the aftermath of this horrendous crime is fiendish, chillingly revolting. He writes: “The effect of [this] singular achievement of the Air Force especially on 3 Marine Commando Division [the notorious slaughtering unit Obasanjo, who later becomes Nigeria’s head of regime for 11 years, commanded] was profound. It raised morale of all service personnel, especially of the Air Force detachment concerned and the troops they supported in [my] 3 Marine Commando Division” (Obasanjo, My Command: 79).

Caliban and his “massa” Prospero

Yet despite the huffing and puffing, the raving commanding brute is essentially a coward who lacks the courage to face up to a world totally outraged by his gruesome crime. Instead, Obasanjo, the quintessential Caliban, cringes into a stupor and beacons to his “massa” Prospero, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson (as he, “boy boy” Obansanjo, indeed acknowledges unashamedly in his My Command), to “sort out” the raging international outcry generated by the destruction of the ICRC plane... This request once again underscores Harold Wilson’s coordinating role in the prosecution of the Igbo genocide from the comfort of his offices and residence at 10 Downing Street, London, 3000 miles away. Anglo-Nigeria duo genocidists murdered 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation’s population during these three phases of this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. In 2012, forty-three years after the downing of the relief aircraft, Olusegun Obasanjo was duly proclaimed “godfather of modern Nigeria” by the London Financial Times (14 April 2012) in further acknowledgement for his services of evil.

OLUSEGUN OBASANJO must now make the most honourable move over this crime and surrender himself, voluntarily, with his 1981-published memoirs, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Holland, and explain to the world what happened over the skies of south Biafra on that Thursday 5 June 1969. Failing to do this, it is incumbent on the ICC to declare this man “wanted” at once – to tell the world why he had ordered the destruction of the ICRC DC-7 aircraft with the death of its 3-person crew and who else in his genocidist high command is culpable of this crime. How/What exactly did Harold Wilson do to “sort out” this crime, as requested by Obasanjo, 50 years ago?

(Andrew Hill Septet, “Premonition” [personnel: Hill, piano; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; John Gilmore, bass clarinet; Richard Davis, bass; Joe Chambers, drums; Renaud Simmons, conga, percussion; Nadi Qamar, percussion, African drums, thumb piano; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 8 October 1965])

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe