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.
Showing posts with label The Guardian Lagos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Guardian Lagos. Show all posts
Celebrated cultural and literary critic and executive editor of The Guardian, Lagos, Nigeria, beginning February 1983, when he embarks on the radical transformation of the focus and scope and qualitative threshold of journalism practicenot seen in Africa’s southwestcentral region in
50 years
(Miles Davis Quintet plays Wayne Shorter’s composition, “Footprints” [personnel: Davis, trumpet; Shorter, tenor saxophone; Herbie Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums; recorded: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, US, 24/25 October 1966])
Arthur Agwuncha
Nwankwo, freedom scholar and publisher, insisits: “[Igbo] have no regrets voting against [Muhammadu Buhari] … and we will do
it a million times over”, interview with The Guardian, Lagos, Sunday 28 August
2016 – effectively, the communique issued after that eagerly awaited summit
involving lead delegates ogbuefi Okonkwo and philosopher-priest Ezeulu…
(Sonny Rollins Trio, “The freedom suite” [personnel: Rollins, tenor saxophone; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Max Roach, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 7 March 1958])
(Nnamdi Kanu: ... leader of Indigenous People of Biafra and freedom broadcaster, Radio Biafra ... must be releasedunconditionally)
The following news report from The Guardian, Lagos, Nigeria, 15 August 2016, is forwarded unedited: The Editor, “IPOB ties peace deal
to Kanu’s freedom”, The Guardian,
Lagos, Monday 15 August 2016
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
has declared that there cannot be genuine peace in the country unless their
leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is unconditionally released.
Restates pact with Niger Delta Avengers
It said that Nigeria could only avert imminent doom if President Muhammadu
Buhari is prevailed upon by civilised nations to obey existing court orders to
release Kanu, adding that the attempt to create acrimony and hatred between
Kanu and the Niger Delta Avengers has failed.
IPOB also reiterated its partnership with the Niger Delta
Avengers, saying that both organs are inseparable in their quest for Biafra
restoration: “The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) hereby categorically state
that we and our brothers, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), are inseparable in
our quest for Biafra restoration,” IPOB said in a joint statement signed by
Emma Nmezu and Dr Clifford Iroanya yesterday. The statement continues:
“Just as NDA stated in their demands, which the Nigerian
government is very much aware of, but has chosen to ignore, there will be no
negotiation if there is no freedom for the leader of IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
“Nigeria will avert imminent doom only if Buhari is
compelled by civilised nations to obey existing court orders and release Nnamdi
Kanu unconditionally… South-South and South-East are united in this noble quest
for freedom and no amount of media manipulation can alter this fact.
“If only Buhari knows who Nnamdi Kanu truly is or
the amount of influence he commands among the people of South-East and
South-South, he won’t listen to lies…”
IPOB, which disclosed that its lawyers spoke out of
tune in a recent press conference, stressed that they were also aware that a
certain South-East governor had been working as front for the Presidency to
penetrate and compromise IPOB’s governance structure and its lawyers.
The group alleged that some of the lawyers retained
by it are currently undergoing investigations by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) on land case settled years ago so as to unsettle them
sufficiently and make them become informants for government.
IPOB further alleged that the move was to undermine
the legal defence of its leader, as was the case with Vincent Obetta: “We are
aware of the grand conspiracy orchestrated by this governor to penetrate IPOB
by any means.”
(Sonny Rollins Trio, “The freedom suite” [personnel: Rollins, tenor saxophone; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Max Roach, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 7 March 1958])
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).
