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.
Professor Njoku in conversation with a colleague, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, US, c. 1967
(Born 6 November 1917, Ebem Ohaafia, Biafra)
RENOWNED botanist, foundational vice-chancellor (president/rector) of University of Lagos, 1962, followed by University of Biafra vice-chancellorship, 1966; member of team of distinguished Biafran intellectuals appointed by the Biafran resistance government during phases I-III of the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, to travel and inform the world of this raging first genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa being executed by Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain, under the premiership of HaroldWilson, in which the génocidaires murder 3.1 million Igbo people or 25 per cent of this nation’s population
(Booker Little Sextet,
“Moods in free time” [personnel: Little, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; Dolphy, alto saxophone; Don Friedman, piano; Art Davis, bass; Roach, drums; recorded: Nola’s Penthouse Studios, New York, US, 17
March 1961])
At last, a
major news organisation in the United States/West has come out to challenge the
deafening silence that has pervaded across the West World over the genocidist Muhammadu Buhari
regime in Nigeria installed in office in March 2015 by the David Cameron and
Barack Obama administrations. Today’s (Wednesday 18 May 2016) New York Times
editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/opinion/block-the-sale-of-warplanes-to-nigeria.html?_r=0, accessed 18 May 2016) has unambiguously called on the US government not to sell war planes to the murderous regime. But it completely
misses the compelling geographical focus of the crime against humanity being perpetrated
by Buhari: it is not northeast/northcentral region of Nigeria in some “war”
with Boko Haram/Fulani militants. No, itsn’t. Buhari is not “at war” with Boko
Haram/Fulani militants. On the contrary, Buhari is an integral component of
Boko Haram/Fulani militants.
Free-fire zone... Muhammadu
Buhari’s war, since his March 2015 imposition,
is to the south of Nigeria – in Biafra, occupied by Nigeria since 13 January
1970. Buhari has continued the Nigeria state genocide against the Igbo people,
fully supported by Britain, which he, himself, as a lieutenant then in the
genocidist army has been a ruthless active participant right from launch date,
29 May 1966. 3.1 million Igbo people or one-quarter of this nation’s population were murdered in the three phases of the
genocide (foundational genocide of post-[European]conquest Africa) prior to 13 January 1970 and hundreds of thousands have been murdered
subsequently, including those murdered since Buhari’s current position in power, especially beginning November 2015 and has continued unabated. During this period, Buhari has essentially turned Biafra into a free-fire zone where his occupying troops and adjunct forces Boko Haram and Fulani militants have tactically picked and chosen where andwhen and what targeted firing range to murder the next Igbo child, woman or man as the grim record of the committed murders by the tripartite amalgam in the following population layouts in Biafran cities, towns and villages attest chronologically: Onicha … Igwe Ocha … Ubulu-Ukwu ... Asaba … Oka … Enuugwu … Aba … Igwe Ocha … Asaba … Enuugwu … Igwe Ocha … Onicha … Uzo-Uwani ... Onicha ...
Ban all arms
sales/transfers to Nigeria
Buhari will surely
use any US planes in his armoury against Biafra. Nowhere else. Buhari is very
much aware of the sheer savagery of the carpet-bombing campaigns that Igbo
population centres were subjected to (during October 1966-January 1970) by loaned
Egyptian pilots flying Nigeria air force Soviet-supplied MiGsand looks forward, eagerly, to a repeat performance. Besides denying Buhari planes to murder Biafrans,
the New York Times and other public institutions and the US public in general should
now intensify a principled demand on their government to ban all US arms sales/transfers
to Nigeria. Any American bullet, pistol, rifle, grenade, rocket, bazooka, helicopter
gunship, naval gunship, the fighter aircraft, the bomber, the tank… – each and
everyone of these items sent to the Buhari regime would be more likely than not
deployed to murder Igbo people, one of the world’s most peaceful and resourceful peoples. The United States can no longer remain bystanders as this
orgy of murdering is brazenly carried out in Biafra day in, day out.
(Booker Little Sextet, “We speak” [personnel:Little, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Don Friedman, piano; Art Davis, bass; Max Roach, drums; recorded: Nola’s Penthouse Studios, New York, US, 17 March 1961])
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).
