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.
BEGINNING in the early 1930s to October 1960, the Igbo nation played the vanguard role in the campaign for restoration-of-independence to terminate 100 years of the British conquest and occupation of the multiplicity of states and peoples of southwestcentral Africa region which the conqueror regime contemptuously tagged “Nigeria” – the “n*****” area/land, the egregious racist epithet Britain responded with the genocide of the Igbo and employed its Fulani islamist/jihadist client on the ground, inveterately anti-African who hitherto opposed the restoration-of-independence drive, and the Fulani’s enduringly loyal pan-African constituent nations’ allies in Nigeria (particularly Yoruba, Jukun, Tiv, Urhobo, Hausa, Edo, Jawara, Nupe, Kanuri, Bachama) to execute this unprecedented mass murder of a people in contemporary Africa history most brazenly. The genocidists slaughtered 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of the Igbo population during the course of 44 months, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, phases I-III. Tens of thousands of additional Igbo have been murdered subsequently, 13 January 1970-present day, phase-IV, as the genocide continues in its 53rd year. IGBO PEOPLE have not only survived the genocide but are now in the vanguard to construct Biafra, an African peoples-centred state, that at once effectuates an African people’s control of its destiny not seen for centuries in Africa and the collapse of the Anglo/European World anti-African “Berlin-states” or constellation of EuroConqueror league states dotted across Africa such as that evidently bubonic encampment of doom the British labelled “Nigeria”.
(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’s latest books on the Igbo genocide and Biafra are The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)
(1 February 1974:operation performed, Nsukka University Teaching Hospital, Enuugwu, Biafra)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe FIRST OPEN heart-surgery in Biafra/anywhere else in southwestcentral Africa including genocidist Nigeria,was performed at the Nsukka University Teaching Hospital, Enuugwu, Biafra, on 1 February 1974 – four years and just over a month to the day after the formal end of phase-III (beginning of phase-IV) of the 44-month long Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa perpetrated by the Fulani islamist/jihadist-led Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain in which 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered. The surgeons who worked on the surgery included CH Anyanwu, DC Nwafor, FA Udekwu and M Yacoub. In the subsequent 26 years, i.e., by 2000, a total of 102 (one hundred and two) open heart-surgeries were carried out at the Enuugwu centre.
Ethic and drive FORTY-FIVE years since the first surgery, Africa and the rest of the world cannot wait for the triumph of the Biafra freedom movement to witness the exponential expansion of the stretch of such creative and transformational energy by Biafrans –an African people building and reconstructing on their land and on their own terms, a disposition which squarely repudiates those outrageous British presumptions on African peoples given Britain’s role as the principal architect and codifier of anti-African racism as an ideology (see Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, African Literature in Defence of History: An essay on Chinua Achebe, 2001, especially pp. 1-54) and whose involvement in the Igbo genocide is to “punish” the Igbo for the latter’s vanguard role in terminating the British conquest and occupation of the states and peoples of this southwestcentral Africa region. It can’t be overstated that one of the insistent
factors that has fuelled the Igbo genocide in these past 53 years is the mutually
shared British and Fulani Nigeria islamist leadership’s trenchant
aversion to the well-known Igbo hardworking ethic and
entrepreneurial drive. Consequently, this dual attribute
of ethic and drive has transformed Igbo people to presently control one of Africa’s best-developed multidisciplinary
humanpower conglomeration of assets which will surely be deployed in building
Biafra. BIAFRA is dedicated to furthering and
nurturing the resilience of its people and to enable them pursue their highest
creative endeavours. This state continuously strives to remove all limitations
in the paths of its people to create and transform. Biafra primes its people to flourish.
(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 author of the recently published The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019)
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)
(Published 27 September 2012, Penguin, London, Britain)
Father of African Literature’s incomparable memoirs on the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 (phases I-III), when Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain, under the primeministership of Harold Wilson, murdered 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation’s population (Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe)
(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])
THERE IS DEFINITELY no subject in these past 51 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 Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led génocidaires in Nigeria, this brazenly indolent anti-African 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 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])
Historian and general, arguably the most outstanding Igbo leader in history – at just 32, becomes head ofBiafran resistance during phases I-III of the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, this worst catastrophe in Igbo history, when 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation’s population are murdered by Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain under Harold Wilson’s premiership in the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa; demonstrates, throughout these devastating 44 months of the génocidaires’ comprehensive land, aerial and naval blockade and bombardment and slaughtering of Igbo people, unrelenting purpose, intelligence, poise, dedication, tenacity, resilience
(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 Unparalleled THE “Igbo question” is intrinsically linked to the Igbo strategic goal, presently, which is to end the occupation of their Biafra homeland by genocidist Nigeria– imposed since 13 January 1970, beginning of phase-IV of the genocide. This is the structural facet of the termination of the genocide itself which was launched byNigeria and its suzerain state Britain on 29 May 1966 (phases I-III). 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation were murdered byNigeriaand Britain. Britain, which sought to “punish” the Igbo for leading the freedom movement to terminate 100 years of the British conquest and occupation of the states and peoples of this southwestcental region of Africa, supported the genocide right from from the outset, from conceptualisation to execution – politically, diplomatically, militarily. As a result, Britain and Nigeria subjected the Igbo to 44 months of uninterrupted, unimaginable carnage and barbarity perpetrated on a people. Pointedly, no single nation or people inAfricahas suffered this extent of gruesome and devastating state(s)-premeditated and organised genocide in history.
(George Russell Sextet, “Thoughts” [personnel: Russell, piano; Don Ellis, trumpet; Dave Baker, trombone; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Steve Swallow, bass; Joe Hunt, drums; recorded Riverside Record, New York, US, 28 May 1961])
THE GENOCIDE CONTINUES unabatedand Britain’s support continues unflinchingly crucial, boosted by that dramatic March 2015 abominable support for the genocide by ex-US President Barack Obama, first African-descent president in 233 years of the founding of the United States republic. For Britain, contrary to the often clanking histrionics of prevailing international politics rhetoric, its strategic alliance here, in this African region, has always been with the islamist/jihadist, Arabist, north region Fulani leadership which vociferously opposed the restoration of African independence from the British occupation throughout the 1930s-1960s epoch. The Igbo steadfastly led this liberation mission. It is Britain’s alliance with the Fulani leadership, situated atop the prevailing congenital anti-African constellation-equation (which also includes, principally, the following constituent nations: Yoruba, Edo, Tiv Urhobo, Jukun, Bachama, Hausa, Nupe, Kanuri) emplaced in its Nigeria, that makes up the Anglo-Nigerian amalgam that executes the Igbo genocide. It is also from groupings with this same leadership that both Boko Haram (currently the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation, according to the Sydney-based Institute for Economics & Peace, http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/institute-for-economics-peace-global.html) and the Fulani militia (see also the IE&P’s study on this militia) were created and unleashed to murder tens of thousands of Igbo and others in these times.
Saliency SO, given the critical links between the salient features of the politics of the Nigerian occupation of Biafra and the overarching architecture of the genocidal campaign, it is the case that the Igbo termination of the occupation is at once the beginning of their freedom march from Nigeriaand the implementation of an unprecedentedly expansive socioeconomic programme of reconstruction. The route remains Igbo freedom from Nigeria, an inalienable Igbo right with or without the genocide as I have argued severally. If the Scots, for instance, one-tenth of the Igbo population and without a genocide antecedent would wish to leave a union they have largely been exponential beneficiaries for 300 years (“Rights for Scots, Rights for the Igbo”, http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rights-for-scots-rights-for-igbo.html), the Igbo, surely, don’t require any agonisingly turgid historical and sociological treatise to wish to leave Nigeria.
Reification CONTRARY to the amazingly ahistorical discourses on the nature of the state and its survivability in some circles, particularly in Africa where the extant eurocentric conquest social sciences and history curriculums essentially reify the “state”, the state is very much a transient relationship in human history: Kemet, Roman “empire”, Ghana “empire”, Mali “empire”, Sweden-Norway, Czarist “empire”, Austro-Hungarian “empire”, Ottoman “empire”, Portuguese “empire”, Spanish “empire”, British “empire”, French Indo-China, Malaya Federation, Anglo-Egyptian-Sudan, Central African Federation, United Arab Republic, Mali Federation, Senegambia Confederation, West & East Pakistan, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, the Sudan... What has indeed been the enduring feature of the state in world history on this accord, thankfully, has rather been “divisibility”, “dissolubility”, “destructibility”, each the antonym of that 3-headed genocidist mantra mouthed off at random by quite a few spokespersons of especially the genocide-state in Africa.
Mission IT IS THEREFORE not surprising that twenty-three (23) new states have, for example, emerged in Europe since the end of the 1980s. Even though a population of about 350 million, one-third of Africa’s, Europeans presently have more states per capita than peoples of Africa! And as history shows, the catastrophe is not the collapse of the state; the catastrophe is the attempt to destroy constituent peoples within the state as the Anglo-Nigeria amalgam has sought in Biafra since 29 May 1966. Here lies the Igbo question and the historically grounded response of the Biafra mission.
(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 FOR ALL intents and purposes, Nigeria collapsed as a functioning state with few prospects or possibilities on Sunday 29 May 1966 – the day it launched the Igbo genocide, this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation’s populationduring phases I-III of the genocide, 44 months(29 May 1966-12 January 1970) of indescribable savagery not seen in Africa since the genocide of the Herero, Nama and Berg Damara peoples in southwest Africa, carried out by Germany in the early 1900s, 40 years before the latter embarked on the Jewish genocide in Germany and elsewhere in Europe when it murdered 6 million Jews. DESPITE Nigeria’s subsequent seizure and looting of Biafra’s gargantuan wealth including, especially, the prodigious Igwe Ocha and conurbation real estate gardens in south Biafra and sales from Biafra’s expansive oil reserves since 13 January 1970 worth US$1000 billion, this genocide-state, this kakistocratic-state, has cascaded into a frighteningly degenerative slump politically, economically, intellectually, socially, morally, spiritually. And this terminal status, indeed, remains Nigeria’s epitaph.
(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])
Historian and general, arguably the most outstanding Igbo leader in history – head ofBiafran resistance during phases I-III of the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, this worst catastrophe in Igbo history, when 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation’s population are murdered by Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain; demonstrates, throughout these devastating 44 months of the génocidaires’ comprehensive land, aerial and naval blockade and bombardment and slaughtering of Igbo people, unrelenting purpose, poise, dedication, tenacity, resilience
(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])
“Denial is the final stage
that lasts throughout and always follows a genocide. It is among the surest
indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide … try
to cover up the evidence … They deny that they committed any crimes, and often
blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes,
and continue to govern … with impunity … unless they are captured and a
tribunal is established to try them. The response to denial is punishment by an
international tribunal or national courts...”(Gregory
Stanton, president, Genocide Watch; professor in genocide studies and
prevention, George Mason University, Virginia)
Abolish the sun!
For
a genocidist state, the pressing task after perpetrating its heinous crime
couldn’t be more predictable: memory erasure of the crime scene at
the targeted nation is pursued aggressively and unrelentingly. On the morrow of
the conclusion of its execution of the third phase of the Igbo genocide in
January 1970, Nigeria wheeled out pretentious cartographers to embark on
erasing the illustrious name Biafra from all maps and records that it could lay
its hand on! During its meetings, the genocidist junta in power banned the
words “sun”, “sunlight”, “sunshine”, “sundown”, “sunflower”, “sunrise” or any
other word-derivatives from the great sun star that unmistakably reference the
inveterate Land of the Rising Sun. This task and symbolism of
sun-banning and sun-bashing, some inter-stellar assault, were of course bizarre if not daft as the junta
itself was to discover much sooner than later – and from a most unlikely source
indeed…
Poland
At
the time, a British military advisor to the junta, who was out dining with a
senior member of the cabal in Lagos, unwittingly compared Igbo national
consciousness and tenacity, displayed brazenly during their defence against the
genocide, with that of the Poles. The advisor, who had studied modern history
at university and was a great admirer of the exceptional endurance of Polish
people in history, stated that the Igbo had demonstrated similar courage in the
latter’s defence of Biafra and that the “rebirth of Biafra is a distinct
possibility in my lifetime” – this was unlike the 123 (one hundred and twenty-three) years it took the Polish state
to re-appear in history after its disappearance from the world map! The advisor
was then in his early 30s and the obvious implications of his Igbo-Polish
analysis were not lost on his host. The junta member co-diner was
understandably most outraged by the advisor’s crass insensitivity on the
subject which he readily shared with his camarilla colleagues. Predictably, the
immediate consequence of the hapless advisor’s impudence was an early recall
home to Britain.
Biafra
There
were other bouts of farcical treats on display in Nigeria during the period
aimed at erasing the memory of the Igbo genocide. Junta and other state
publications and those of their sympathisers would print the name Biafra, a
proper noun, a name on ancient world maps centuries before the British conqueror-regime
in west Africa concocted “Nigeria” at the turn of the 19th century, with a
lower case “b” or box the name in quotes or even invert the “b” to read “p” – such
was the intensity of the schizophrenia that wracked the minds of the members of
the cabal over the all-important subject of the historic imprint of Igbo
resistance and survival. Finally, Nigeria abolished the teaching of history in its schools subsequently in the desperate hope that its Igbo genocide-denial stratagem was complete.
3.1 million Igbo or a quarter of this nation’s population were murdered in the
genocide between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970 by Nigeria and its allies,
principally Britain. This is the foundational and most gruesome genocide of
post-(European)conquest Africa. As the slaughter of the Igbo intensified, particularly in the catastrophic months
of 1968-1969, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson unabashedly informed Clyde
Ferguson of the United States state department 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 Morris, Uncertain Greatness:
Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, 1977: 122). As the final tally of the murder of the
Igbo demonstrates, Harold Wilson probably had the perverted satisfaction of
having his Nigerian subalterns perform far in excess of the prime minister’s
grim target.
(Harold Wilson)
Business-as-usual Despite
the catastrophic stretch of slaughter in 44 months, it was business-as-usual,
or so it appeared, for the genocidists after the conclusion of phase-III of the
murder on 12 January 1970. Lest we forget, the new phase was pursued with
utmost vengeance, with the added highly prized fiscal and capital assets
sequestrated by the genocidists – namely, the pillaging of the
multibillion(US)dollar-Igbo economy at home and those located in Nigeria,
particularly in the Lagos/greater Lagos industrial-commercial region. Many
operatives who worked as advisors, at varying layers of the genocidist command
and control infrastructure, went to, or returned to universities and colleges
as professors and researchers, some became university administrators,
bureaucrats, media editors and executives, company chief executives and
directors, ministers of state, ministers of religion, businesspeople; many of
the commanders and commandants became “generals” and “admirals” and “marshals”,
and state legislators, administrators and the like; some even sought the
highest office of state – head of regime (Obafemi Awolowo, variously, without
success; Olusegun Obasanjo, three times successful; Muhammadu Buhari, twice successful; Murtala Muhammed, once successful; Ibrahim Babangida, once successful; Sanni Abacha, once successful; Abdulsalami
Abubakar, once successful).
Awolowoist/Awolowoid
The
Awolowoists and Awolowoids (supporters of Obafemi Awolowo – junta deputy chair,
genocidist “theorist”, “starvation-weapon” strategist, head of finance
ministry) on the junta even toyed with the idea of abolishing money altogether
in the economy of the soon occupied-land of the resourceful and enterprising
Igbo. They reasoned that this would deliver the “final solution” that had
eluded them during the “encirclement, siege, pounding and withering
away”-strategy of the previous 44 months… They ended up with the “compromise” pittance
of £20.00 sterling (twenty pounds sterling only) per the surviving
male-head of the Igbo family – a derisory sum, which, they reckoned,
stood no chance of averting the catastrophe of social implosion they envisaged
would occur in Igboland subsequently. We mustn’t fail to note that the
£20.00-handout excluded the hundreds of thousands of Igbo
families whose “male-heads” had been murdered during the genocide… Dreadfully,
the accent placed by Nigeria on this phase-IV of the genocide, starting
from 13 January 1970, was the economic strangulation of the 9 million Igbo
survivors…
(Obafemi Awolowo)
Survival
Igbo
survival from the genocide is arguably the most extraordinary feature for
celebration in an otherwise depressing and devastating age of pestilence in
Africa of the past 49 years. Few people believed that the Igbo would survive
their ordeal, especially from September 1968 when 8-10,000 Igbo, mostly
children and older people, died each day as the overall brutish conditions
imposed by the genocidist siege and bombardment deteriorated calamitously.
The Igbo are probably the only people in the world who were convinced that they
would survive. And when they did, the aftermath was electrifying. In
spontaneous celebration, the Igbo prefaced their exchange of greetings with
each other, for quite a while, with the exaltation, “Happy Survival”!
Igbo
survival, at the end, does represent the stunning triumph of the human spirit
over the savage forces unleashed by Nigeria and its allies that had tried
determinably, for four years, to destroy it.
(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 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).
