68th anniversary of the Enuugwu, Biafra, colliery massacre

(Miners at the Enuugwu colliery, undated)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

ON 18 NOVEMBER 1949, 21 coal miners at the Iva Valley colliery, Enuugwu, Biafra, were shot dead by the British occupation police in response to the miners’ peaceful, popular protest for a pay increase, improvement in working and safety mine provisions, and support for the ongoing restoration-of-independence movement, begun in the 1930s and spearheaded by the Igbo, to terminate 64 years of Britain’s conquest of the constellation of states and peoples of this southwestcentral region of Africa. 

The Enuugwu massacre, in addition to the organised pogroms against Igbo people in June 1945 (Jos, northcentral Nigeria) and May 1953 (Kano, north Nigeria) by the Hausa-Fulani/islamist political leadership of north Nigeria, strategic on the ground client of the occupation, were dreadful precursors to the Igbo genocide of 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 (phases I-III) – in which Britain and Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo, 25 per cent of this nation’s population, in the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa.

(Sam Rivers Trio, “Afflatus” [personnel: Rivers, tenor saxophone; Cecil McBee, bass; Steve Ellington, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood, NJ, US, 17 March 1967])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

67th birthday of Thomas Sankara

(Born 21 December 1949, Yako, Burkina Faso)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

Military commander, historian, and head of state of Burkina Faso, 4 August 1983-15 October 1987, when he leads a transformative government in “post”-(European)conquest Africa which demonstrates, overwhelmingly with indelible successes, just as the resourceful Biafran resistance had breathtakingly inaugurated this breakthrough on the Africa continental scene during the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, phases I-III, that the engine of societal development is located internally, in the people, themselves – not the prevailing and pervasive fraudulent developmentalism unleashed on Africa in the 1960s by the same France, Britain/other lead European World conqueror-states that had for 400 years enslaved, dispersed, occupied and immiserised Africa and its peoples; thus, Thomas Sankara’s and Biafra’s historic liberatory legacies of transformative outreaches emanating internally, not externally, forged so tenaciously, constitute contemporary Africa’s freedom path to the restoration of unfettered independence from continuing European World seizure via the latter’s imposition of local client states and overseers, enhanced expropriation, and hardly disguised impunity

(Sam Rivers Trio, “Afflatus” [personnel: Rivers, tenor saxophone; Cecil McBee, bass; Steve Ellington, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 17 March 1967])

 Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

67th anniversary of the Enuugwu colliery massacre

(Miners at the Enuugwu colliery, undated)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

ON 18 NOVEMBER 1949, 21 coal miners at the Iva Valley colliery, Enuugwu, Biafra, were shot dead by the British occupation police in response to the miners’ peaceful, popular protest for a pay increase, improvement in working and safety mine provisions, and support for the ongoing restoration-of-independence movement, begun in the 1930s and spearheaded by the Igbo, to terminate 64 years of Britain’s conquest of the constellation of states and peoples of this southwestcentral region of Africa. 

The Enuugwu massacre, in addition to the organised pogroms against Igbo people in June 1945 (Jos, northcentral Nigeria) and May 1953 (Kano, north Nigeria) by the Hausa-Fulani islamist political leadership of north Nigeria, strategic on the ground client of the occupation, were dreadful precursors to the Igbo genocide of 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 (phases I-III) – in which Britain and Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo, 25 per cent of this nation’s population, in the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa.

(Sam Rivers Trio, “Afflatus” [personnel: Rivers, tenor saxophone; Cecil McBee, bass; Steve Ellington, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood, NJ, US, 17 March 1967])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

Asymmetrical matrix: genocidist Nigeria, force, Igbo survival, collapse of the Soviet Union

“On a personal note, the phased end of the USSR was a turning point for me. It convinced me that change can be brought about without firing a single shot” (Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerian commander, north/northcentral Biafra during phase-III of the Igbo genocide, 6 July 1966-12 January 1970, addressing a meeting at Chatham House, London, England, 1000-1030 Hours GMT, Thursday 26 February 2015)

Very much interpellated in this thought process in Muhammadu Buhari’s mind of not-force and the fall of the Soviet Union must be his realisation, even if belated, that despite the staggering pulverising force his genocidist military deployed to destroy Igbo people during the genocide of 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, the Igbo survived whilst contemporary Nigeria is a withering wretch.

The Soviet Union supported the genocide by sending in the squadrons of MiGs to Nigeria flown by loaned Egyptian pilots (not Nigerian pilots as the country no longer had such prized personnel since the genocidists murdered outstanding Igbo pilots who made up the then Nigeria air force service during phase-I of the genocide and slaughter-survivors escaped to Biafra to begin the construction of the Biafra air force), specialists in the carpet bombing of Igbo homes, offices, markets, churches, shrines, schools, children’s playgrounds, hospitals, railway stations, trains, cars, car parks, refugee centres… This same Soviet Union, this seemingly redoubtable state, soon, beginning January 1990, collapses “without (sic) a single shot fired” (!) but its constituent peoples survive – a reminder, if ever there was one, that the state, including the one that calls itself Nigeria, is transient; peoples endure (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/state-is-transient-peoples-endure.html).

It should now be evident to Buhari (and others) that those reptilian epaulettes for “majors” and “sergeants” and “corporals” and “generals” and “lieutenants” and “colonels” decked by genocidists who streamed to Biafra during those 44 dreadful months to murder 3.1 million Igbo children and women and men are nothing else but signifiers for perpetrating this heinous crime against humanity.

(Sam Rivers Trio, “Afflatus” [personnel: Rivers, tenor saxophone; Cecil McBee, bass; Steve Ellington, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood, NJ, US, 17 March 1967])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe