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.
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Giant steps” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Tommy Flannagan, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 4-5 May/2 December 1959])
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Giant steps” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Tommy Flannagan, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 4-5 May/2 December 1959])
IN THIS PAST YEAR, beginning from the 14 October 2015 illegal detention of Nnamdi Kanu by the Nigeria
genocidist regime, the freedom movement of Biafra has made giant strides in its
restoration-of-independence goal the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since
the January 1970 end of phase-III/launch of phase-IV of the Igbo genocide. Contrary to regime expectation that Kanu’s incarceration would ground the
resistance, the freedom movement has demonstrated its profoundly decentralised leadership capabilities which encapsulate multiple spaces in occupied Biafra, the
contiguous diasporic territory of Nigeria, and the broader world-wide diaspora.
(Nnamdi Kanu: ... leader of Indigenous People of Biafra and freedom broadcaster, Radio Biafra)
The decentralised leadership has not only exerted a microscopic focus on the
politics, security, legal and welfare dynamics of Kanu’s detention for the
world’s apt attention but it has used the period to engage in the arduous labour
of concientisation on Biafra in Biafra and elsewhere in the world. Consequently,
at a stroke, the Biafran resistance has abolished that contrived “fear” always
generated hitherto by the genocidists and their allies especially in academia and media
(particularly those emplaced in the Lagos-Ibadan-Benin [Nigeria] conurbation and that dinosaur band of nigeriana advocates and publicists still evident in some locales in the west world) of regime
threats to “relaunch” the Igbo genocide full
scale to thwart any “escalation” in the manifestation and drive for freedom
by the freedom movement. Ascent So, despite the sheer savagery of the regime’s military/Fulani
militia murders of hundreds of Biafrans across Biafra since October (2015),
Biafrans have emerged even more focused, steadfast, resilient. They have
converted their strategic goal of independence restoration to a tactical tool
which they employ almost effortlessly here and there with exponential impact locally and
internationally. This is extraordinary. The Biafra Sun is on the ascent. Any
referendum conducted in Biafra presently on the restoration-of-independence for
this population of 50 million will result in a high 90 per cent score. Biafrans
now dictate the terms of this long drawn-out journey. Biafrans are redefining the tenor of the march for freedom in
Africa.
And the freedom movement has done it, in these past 12
months, it must be stressed, without firing a single shot – either in defence
or offence.
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Giant steps” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone, Tommy Flanagan, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded: Atlantic Records, New York, US, 4-5 May 1959])
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).
