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.
First African American-owned and edited newspaper is founded by Rev Peter Williamsand a group of influential African Americans in New York, and aptly named Freedom’s Journal
(Jackie McLean Quartet, “Melody for Melonae” [personnel: McLean, alto saxophone; Walter Davis, Jr., piano; Herbie Lewis, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 19 March 1962])
FWD: “Soldiers banned
newspaper vendors in Aba bearing Biafra reports”, Aba City Blog, Tuesday 15 March 2016
“Newspaper vendors in Aba, are now living
fear, as soldiers from 144 Battalion, which is under Ohafia 14 Brigade, stormed
St. Michael’s Road at about 7am, in two Hilux vans and seized their papers
bearing Biafra reports.
“One of
the vendors who spoke to The Nation,
said, ‘At about some minutes past seven, soldiers in two Hilux vans arrived
with one of the vendors that they picked along the Mosque, asking him to point
at the person who gave him the paper. But the vendor could not, because the
person who gave him the paper had gone … They asked to know the publishers or
suppliers but got no response. Then they confiscated New Republic, Vesym, Freedom Journal and some copies of The Authority which carried Biafra
stories. We are yet to be told the reason for the confiscation, but the truth
is that we have lost money as many readers were disappointed.’
“A
publisher, who pleaded for anonymity, condemned the action of the soldiers. He
said they were overstepping their bounds and vowed that ‘attempts by the
military to gag the press will fail. We are publishing reports about Biafra
like other national dailies do. Let them close down all the media houses
because they are carrying Biafra stories, after all, we are not the only ones
publishing stories on Biafra.’”
Poet, literary critic, academic, university president (vice-chancellor), offers selfless and distinguished service as head of the crucial Biafran resistance government communication directorate during the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, carried out by Nigeria and Britain with the total of 3.1 million Igbo people or one-quarter of this nation’s population murdered
(Nicola Sturgeon:“Our dream is for
Scotland to become independent … To be in the driving seat of our own destiny”)
Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party and
first minister of Scotland has announced that Scotland will try again to vote
in a new referendum for the restoration of independence, 309 years after union
with England in the state called United Kingdom. In the last referendum exercise
in October 2014, the “Yes-for-independence” vote scored 45 per cent against the
“No” campaigners who won by receiving 55 per cent. Speaking yesterday (Saturday
12 March 2016) at the SNP’s spring conference in Glasgow, Sturgeon quoted Eleanor
Roosevelt, wife of a former US president, who memorably stressed that the “future
belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. For Sturgeon,
Our dream is for Scotland to become independent … To be in the
driving seat of our own destiny, to shape our own future. And on the basis of
equality with our family across the British Isles and our friends across the
globe, to play our part in building a better world. That is a beautiful dream.
And we believe in it.
No peoples are exempt Roosevelt’s vision and Sturgeon’s studied inspiration from it is
indeed shared not only by Scots but by a stretch of peoples and nations across
the globe. The Igbo people of Biafra in southwestcentral Africa, 3475 miles
southeast of Scotland, are proud to belong to this illustrious heritage. For 50
years, beginning on 29 May 1966, the Igbo have sought to be in the “driving
seat of their destiny … and shape [their] own future” but have been subjected to
a devastating genocide by Nigeria and
Britain, the very country that Scotland has been part of since 1707. In fact,
quite a few prominent Scottish politicians, most of whom were in the (British) Labour
party at the time, were active agents in the perpetration of this genocide. In phases I-III of the genocide (29 May
1966-12 January 1970), the Anglo-Nigerian genocidist amalgam murdered 3.1 million
Igbo people or one-quarter of this nation’s population.
This genocide is still continuing. Since Muhammadu Buhari (current
head of regime in Nigeria who the British played a key role to install and wholeheartedly
supports) came to power in May 2015, hundreds of Igbo people demanding the
restoration of their independence have been murdered – usually shot at sight
during peaceful freedom marches by the Nigerian military equipped mostly with
British weapons.
Unlike the Igbo, Scotland is not seeking freedom from the United
Kingdom because it has been assailed by genocide or any other crimes from the
union. Of course not. On the contrary, Scotland has been a distinct beneficiary
from the union including access to the gargantuan wealth seized by the union across
the globe during its centuries of conquests and occupations which included Biafra
and other regions of the African World (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rights-for-scots-rights-for-igbo.html). What Scotland seeks from the UK is
freedom to be in the “driving seat of their destiny”, the right of
self-determination which is inalienable, which is for all peoples, which is
recognised by the United Nations. No peoples are therefore exempt from this
right whatever may be their status, experience or circumstance in the state
from which they wish to exit.
Appropriately it couldn’t Britain, a signatory to the relevant articles of the UN
convention that recognises this right to self-determination prefers,
understandably, that Scotland continues its constituent relationship with the UK-union but respects Scotland’s right to seek to be “in the driving seat of [its] own destiny”.
Appropriately, the British military or police couldn’t, conceivably, disrupt yesterday’s
SNP conference in Glasgow nor stop Nicola Sturgeon from making her speech for
renewed referendum for the restoration of independence. As in the
2014 Scottish voting process (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rights-for-scots-rights-for-igbo.html),
no Scottish voter, for or against restoration-of-independence at the Forth
Bridge, outside Edinburgh, or in Glasgow or Inverness or Aye or Aberdeen
or Stranraer or Edinburgh or Arbroath or Wick or indeed anywhere in Scotland would
ever be shot at or harmed in any way by the British
police/military/MI5/whatever in exercising this inalienable right, guaranteed
by the United Nations, to decide on this crucial testament of freedom.
Britain’s Nigeria Astonishingly,
in sharp contrast, Britain’s Nigeria, also a signatory to the UN declaration on
the rights of peoples to self-determination, would have sent its genocidist
military to drown a Glasgow-style Biafran freedom party conference held in any
of the Biafran cities of Enuugwu, Onicha, Oka, Igwe Ocha, Aba or Asaba, for
instance, in an orgy of massacres of the attending delegates and leaders. Nnamdi
Kanu and several leaders and officials of the Biafran freedom movement are
currently incarcerated in illegal detentions by the Nigeria regime. Given the
antecedent of Britain’s stony silence on not only these arrests but also on the string of recent massacres of Biafrans, beginning November 2015, Britain would very unlikely
condemn any such expanded murder outrage by its Nigeria client-state and leadership.
The link
below shows the crux of Nicola Sturgeon’s yesterday’s important address to the
Scottish people on plans for a new referendum to decide Scotland's future. Many observers, including those sympathetic to the course of the Nigeria genocidist regime, have shown repeatedly that if a referendum were held in Biafra today to determine the wishes of the people, the overwhelming majority of the population would vote for “restoration-of-independence” (http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/how-anti-biafran-freedom-columnist.html). Inevitably, Britain will surely explain to the wider world
much sooner than later why it accepts the rights of 5 million Scots to exercise
this freedom which could cause the collapse of a union of 309 years but is
unrelentingly instrumental in waging/supporting a 50-year-old genocide campaign
against 50 million Igbo people who equally want their own freedom. Statute of limitations It is
absolutely crucial to remind all those involved in the prosecution of the Igbo
genocide, wherever they are domiciled, that there is no statute of limitations in international law in the
apprehension, prosecution and punishment of persons or institutions involved in
the crime of genocide. Igbo seek and will achieve justice for the perpetration
of this crime against its people, a crime against humanity. It doesn’t matter
how long it takes. Igbo seek and will achieve the restoration of Biafra.
(Nicola Sturgeon:“... This summer we will embark on a new initiative to build support for Scottish independence...”)
Award-winning trumpeter, bandleader, educator and versatile composer whose output includes a range of film scores especially the critically-acclaimed music for director Spike Lee’s 2006 documentary, When the Leeves Broke:A Requiem in Four Acts on the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina
Terence Blanchard Sextet & Orchestra, “Levees” [personnel: Blanchard, trumpet; Brice Winston, tenor and soprano saxophones; Aaron Parks, piano; Derrick Hodge, acoustic and electric basses; Kendrick Scott, drums, percussion; Zack Harmon, tabla drums; Northwest Sinofia {40-member string orchestra, conducted by Blanchard}; recorded: Blue Note, New York, 14 August 2007])
Visiting head-of-regime
of Imo administrative region:Who are you? … Do you know who I am?
Dignified flag-carrying exponent of the Biafra freedom movement:I am a Biafran … Why are
you here [in London]? What are you talking about while our people are being murdered [sic] ... in the region you administer? … You must tell the world what is happening …
Tell the truth …
(Chatham House exchange, London, Wednesday 9 March 2016)
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).
