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.
ONE of African
America’s preeminent renaissance artists: sculptor, painter, poet
(The New York Contemporary Five plays Ornette Coleman’s composition, “When will the blues leave?” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe NOVELIST, university registrar, academic, Africa west region principal pre-university qualifying examination board (WAEC) administrator, one of the leading intellectuals in defence of the people during the Igbo genocide, phases I-III, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, carried out by Britain and its Nigeria client state led by Hausa-Fulani/islamist jihadists during which 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of Igbo population are murdered in this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa; Anglo-Nigeria launches phase-IV of the genocide on 13 January 1970 and this has continued unabated with tens of thousands of additional Igbo murdered; Igbo genocide is the longest, most gruesome, and most ruthless genocide in contemporary history
(The New York Contemporary Five, “Trio” [personnel:Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone;Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass;JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])
(Olu Falae: ... Yoruba people will not concede one inch of its territory as a colony...)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
OLU FALAE, a leading Yoruba public figure and one time regime secretary, is unmistakably candid in a press conference in Akure, west Nigeria (Vanguard, Lagos, 22 January 2018): “[T]here shall not be cattle colonies in any part of Yorubaland. It’s a fraud ... A colony is a political entity which someone said [they] want ... to create in the territory of another; that is a provocation; that is terrible for anybody to contemplate ... [A]s a leader of the [Yoruba], the Yoruba people will not concede one inch of its territory as a colony to another person.”
(The New York Contemporary Five plays Don Cherry’s composition, “Consequences” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])
TODAY marks one
month since the 14 September 2017 genocidist Nigeria military stormed the home
of Nnamdi Kanu’s parents at Afaraukwu-Ibeku, eastcentral Biafra. Consequently,
the whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra (constituted integrally in the Biafra freedom
movement), and his parents, remain unknown. Scores of the Kanus’ relatives
and friends were murdered during the assault and scores of others are still
unaccounted for. GENOCIDIST Nigeria
surely knows that it will account for the safety of Nnamdi Kanu and his parents
and take full responsibility of the consequences of that savage raid on a
family home.
(The New York Contemporary Five, “Consequences” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])
THE FOLLOWING views, posted here completely
unedited, are derived from the Facebook wall of each commentator except that
of Dr Chin Akano’s which comes from Carol Munday’s wall:
Chin Akano (medical doctor)
I
have seen a few video clips and posts regarding the so called charitable
immunisation exercise allegedly being carried out by soldiers in Anambra. I
have also heard that children are being immunised without parental consent.
To me this is criminal. It can only happen in a primitive country. For starters
you cannot immunise a child without parental or guardian consent. It’s child
abuse and assault. Secondly you must know a child’s immunisation history before
you administer a vaccine to avoid repeating those that the child has already
developed immunity against, unless a serological test confirmed that the
immunity is absent or partial. Also some children may have allergies which
could lead to fatal outcomes if they are vaccinated. You cannot also vaccinate
an ill child and some vaccines contain live organisms which can cause fever and
even febrile convulsion if unchecked, so the parents need to be properly
counselled prior to vaccinating their wards. Pls this barbaric and unsolicited
nonsense must stop pronto.
Chikwendu
Anyanwu (Catholic priest and commentator)
A constrictor cannot be a lifesaver. So it is
reasonable to reject anything medical from a python.
George C E Enyoazu (social critic)
One of the numerous problems of
Nigeria is the systematic assigning of the wrong job to the wrong people. A
trained engineer is encouraged to do the job of a medical doctor or a lawyer.
In the same vein, someone without a vocational training at all is assigned the
job of an automobile mechanic or a carpenter. Thus, the military who ordinarily
should mark the external enemy have found themselves with no job of substance
to do, hence, they find their way into national politics, producing misleaders,
such as Buhari.Because the army and other segments
of the armed forces are idle, they are programmed to kill and brutalize hapless
citizens as we've seen in the ill-fated Oppression Python Dance II in the South
East.
As if they were not satisfied with
the scale of damage and destruction inflicted on the Igbo civilian population,
the army started forcing their way into schools in the region, claiming that
they were there for a free medical mission to pupils. The most irritating of
this uncouth imposture is forcing little kids at gun point to be vaccinated.
The question has been why the forced vaccination? When did the job of the
Ministry of Health become that of the army, especially an army with a notoriety
for killing Igbo youths under the flimsiest guise?Flashback to my childhood days. The
Health authorities announced a periodic inoculation exercise for kids. Parents
would willingly take their wards to the designated centres. This was done
devoid of any force, coercion, threat or bullish intrusion into the private lives
of families. Every parent realised it was in the child's interest to be
inoculated. So, we all got the jab on the upper arm. The scar remains till
date.Contrary to today's Ministry of
Health doing the job, the army who are in a killing field in Biafraland have
suddenly extended their obnoxious services to inoculating our children without
our consent; whether we like it or not.
What sort of repressive society is
this? Whose idea was it?Interestingly, the Imo State Chapter
of the Nigerian Medical Association has risen to the occasion by faulting the
so-called army inoculation, and advised parents and schools not to submit to
that. Very succinct to the letter.Embarrassed by the pandemonium it has
caused as pupils and their parents were running helter skelter to avoid it in
Anambra State, the unusual voice of the State governor, Willie Obiano was heard
asking the army to suspend the exercise, pending enough sensitization. One
begins to imagine that an Igbo governor could now advise the army to stop! But
when our youth were being mauled to death by army bullets in Asaba, Nkpor and
Abia State, no Igbo governor could raise a finger of protestation. No Igbo
politician advised the ruthless army to hold back.The good news though is that the Igbo
populace have zero-trust where the Nigerian Army are concerned. Any politician
who thinks that a sensitization exercise would be a fore-runner of an army
inoculation exercise on our children should please get real. An Igbo adage says,
“the lizard marks the footsteps of those who would pelt it”. In this era of
unconscionable terror of Fulani herdsmen, and 97% versus 5% voting pattern,
monkeypox and army rampage in the East, everyone should concentrate on their
vocational training. Army's vaccination in the East is ill-willed!
Osita Ezeliora (academic)
Only a lunatic
would suggest that Nd’Igbo should go for any form of vaccination from a hateful
regime that only weeks ago murdered our sons in broad daylight. Only a
monumental idiot would advise onye Igbo
obuna to accept possibly poisoned chemicals when only recently our children
were suffocated in mud water while many others were brutally shot dead… Any
clown of a priest that tells parents to go for any vaccination at this stage
deserves the combined visitation of Amadioha, Udo and Ogwugwu... And even more:
the visitation of angry Igbo mob. Ndi
aruru ana kagbulu onwe fa n’uka!!!!
(The New York Contemporary Five plays Don Cherry’s composition, “Consequences” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])
SUNDAY 29 May 1966 is undoubtedly the most tragic day in Igbo history. It is the launch date of the Igbo genocide carried out by Nigeria – the most gruesome, devastating and expansive genocide in 20th century Africa. Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo, 25 per cent of this nation’s population, between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970 (phases I-III of the genocide). Open season, erase, “deny”, perverse The
Igbo genocide is the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa.
Not since Germany’s genocide against the Herero,
Nama and Berg Damara peoples of Namibia in the early 1900s had any African nation been subjected to
such indescribable barbarity and carnage as the Igbo during the course of those
44 gory months. The genocide continues in multiforms and features. Only recently, in the wake of the 28 March 2015 “poll” for “president” in Nigeria, some very influential and easily recognisable public figures in the country including Rilwan Akiolu, the king or oba of Lagos (west region) and even intellectuals (such is this open season of staggeringly virulent pronouncements of Igbo hate and worse...) including, especially, a United States-domiciled cardiologist, called publicly for the mass murder of the Igbo because the Igbo electorate had voted overwhelmingly against the APC “political party”. The Igbo genocide is thus the longest and most remorselessly-sustained genocide of the contemporary era. This genocide
inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence. YAKUBU GOWON headed the regime in Nigeria that
executed the genocide and Obafemi Awolowo, a lawyer, a senior advocate of the Nigerian bar, was his
deputy, effectively the prime minister, the genocidist “chief theorist” for the
campaign and head of the all-powerful finance ministry. Awolowo also
principally initiated and programmed phase-IV of the genocide (ongoing) aimed,
strategically, to dismantle/degrade the Igbo economy in perpetuity. The Igbo
economy, pre-genocide, was Africa’s most dynamic and resourceful.
Elsewhere, beginning in 1969, regime Awolowoists/Awolowoids were in the forefront in formulating and implementing Nigeria’s “post”-genocide decision to abolish the teaching of history in its schools as part of its “broad package” of measures to erase the history of the genocide from countrywide consciousness and thus “deny” its occurrence. Thirty years on, 1999, these same regime operatives played a key role in Nigeria’s perverse proclamation of 29th of May as the country’s (new) annual “democracy day”, a desperate, albeit belated effort to try to “neutralise” the historic import of 29 May 1966 for Igbo people if not “celebrate” the genocide itself as some of the leadinggenocidists of this wing of the Nigeria genocide-state such as Benjamin Adekunle, Oluwole Rotimi, Olusegun Obasanjo and Obafemi Awolowo, himself, have indeed demonstrated in their high-profile gloated commentaries and memoirs on the genocide during the slaughtering and subsequently.
29 MAY 1966 was the day that Igbo people were subjected to an overwhelming violence and unremitting brutality by supposedly fellow countrymen and women. This atrocity was clinically organised, supervised and implemented by the very state, the Nigeria state, which the Igbo had played a vanguard role to liberate from the British conquest and occupation from the 1930s to October 1960. Consequently, the genocide was perpetrated with full complicity of the British government led by Harold Wilson. This state, now violently taken over by murderous anti-African sociopolitical forces in 1966, had pointedly violated its most sacred tenet of responsibility to its Igbo citizens – provision of security. Instead of providing security to these citizens, the Nigeria state murdered 3.1 million of them or a quarter of their population.
Anthem
THE words in Hausa of the ghoulish anthem of the genocide, broadcast uninterruptedly on state-owned Kaduna radio and television throughout its duration and with editorial comments on the theme regularly published in both state-owned New Nigerian (daily) newspaper and weekly Gaskiya Ta fi Kwabo during the period, were unambiguously clear on the key objectives of this crime against humanity:
Mu je mu kashe nyamiri Mu kashe maza su da yan maza su Mu chi mata su da yan mata su Mu kwashe kaya su
(English translation: Let’s go kill the damned Igbo/Kill off their men and boys/Rape their wives and daughters/Cart off their property)
YET THIS 29th day of May 1966 is also the Igbo Day of Affirmation, Recovery and Freedom. The Igbo people resolved on this day, the day that marked the beginning of the genocide, to survive the catastrophe. This was the day the Igbo ceased to be Nigerian forever – right there on the grounds of those death camps in the sabon gari residential districts (north Nigeria) and offices and churches and schools and colleges and shops and markets and hospitals and rail stations and trains and coach stations and coaches and trucks and airports and planes and highways and village tracks and brooks and rivers and gorges and bridges and woods across Nigeria. They created the state of Biafra in its place and tasked it to provide security to the Igbo and prevent Nigeria, a genocide state, from accomplishing its dreadful mission. The heuristic symbolism defined hitherto by 1 October 1960 (date of the presumed restoration of independence for peoples in Nigeria from the British occupation) shattered in the wake of this historic Igbo declaration.
For the Igbo, the renouncement of Nigerian citizenship is the permanent Igbo indictment of a state that had risen thunderously to murder one of its constituent peoples. The Igbo could not have survived the genocide if they still remained Nigerian. They rightly chose the former course of their fate and not the latter which they decisively cast adrift. Consequently, Nigeria collapsed as a state with scarce prospects. Despite the four murderous years of comprehensive land, naval and aerial siege of Igboland by the genocidists, unprecedented blockade imposed on no other peoples anywhere else in recent African history, the Igbo demonstrated a far greater creative drive towards constructing an advanced civilisation in Biafra than what Nigeria has all but wished it could achieve in the past four decades. Nigeria gburu ochu; Nigeria mere alu. Surely, Nigeria couldn’t recover from committing this heinous crime, this crime against humanity. This is its epitaph.
Freedom
ASTONISHINGLY, though, the world wonders what the Igbo are still doing in Nigeria, the burden of a strangulating occupation notwithstanding. In the past 49 years, the Igbo have written an extraordinary essay on human survival and resilience. These attributes have now been laudably demonstrated and the Igbo must now move on – to another dynamic threshold of their being. O zu gozie. No one should ever feel that they are trapped in the Nigeria quagmire. The Igbo must now actively begin to reconstruct their gravely battered homeland, transform the lives of their 50 million people, and contribute their ingenuity to working on the wider, inventive canvass of the African renaissance. To embark on these pressing tasks, the Igbo should, today, walk away from the Nigeria genocide state, this state of terror. The Igbo should go now. Go, Go, Go.
29 May is a beacon of the resilient spirit of human overcoming of the most desperate, unimaginably brutish forces. It is the new Igbo National Holiday.It is a day of meditation and remembrance in every Igbo household in Igboland and in the diaspora in Nigeria and the rest of the world for the 3.1 million murdered, gratitude and thanksgiving for those who survived, and the collective Igbo rededication to achieve the expectant goal of the restoration of Igbo sovereignty. Now is the time. IGBO will never forget. Happy Survival! Land of the Rising Sun.
(The
New York Contemporary Five plays Bill Dixson’s
composition, “Trio” – [personnel: Archie
Shepp, tenor saxophone; Don
Cherry, pocket trumpet; Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don
Moore, bass; JC
Moses, drums [recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15
November 1963])
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).
