5 June 1969

(O Obusonjo: “challenged ... Gbadomosi King [genocidist air force pilot] to produce results ... He [Gbadomosi King] redeemed his promise...”)

The world turns and the world changes,

But one thing does not change.

In all my years, one thing does not change,

However you disguise it, this thing does not change:

The perpetual struggle between Good and Evil.

(TS Eliot, “Choruses from the Rock”, 1934)

THERE WAS HARDLY ANY DAY during the entire 44-month duration of phases I-III of the Igbo genocide (29 May 1966-12 January 1970) that the Nigerian assault did not register some dreadful mark of infamy, such was the sheer savagery of this murder mission. 5 June 1969, exactly 47 years ago today, was not different. Genocidist commander Olusegun Obasanjo had, on this day, monstrously ordered his air force to shoot down an international Red Cross aircraft carrying relief supplies to the encircled, blockaded and bombarded Igbo.

Olusegun Obasanjo clearly, unambiguously, records this horrendous crime in his memoirs, appropriately entitled My Command, published in 1981 by the reputable Heinemann publishers. Obasanjo had “challenged”, to quote his words, Captain Gbadomosi King (genocidist air force pilot), who he had known since 1966, to “produce results” in stopping further international relief flight deliveries to the Igbo. Within a week of his infamous challenge, 5 June 1969, Olusegun Obasanjo recalls, most nostalgically, Gbadomosi King “redeemed his promise”. Gbadomosi King had shot down a clearly marked, in coming relief-bearing International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) DC-7 plane near Eket, south Biafra, with the loss of its 3-person crew.

(DC-7 aircraft similar to the ICRC relief-carrying plane shot down over south Biafra by genocidist Nigeria military on the orders of commander O Obusonjo)

Olusegun Obasanjo’s perverse satisfaction over the aftermath of this horrendous crime is fiendish, chillingly revolting. He writes: “The effect of [this] singular achievement of the Air Force especially on 3 Marine Commando Division [the notorious unit Obasanjo, who later becomes Nigeria’s head of regime for 11 years, commanded] was profound. It raised morale of all service personnel, especially of the Air Force detachment concerned and the troops they supported in [my] 3 Marine Commando Division” (Obasanjo, My Command: 79).

Caliban and his Prospero

Yet despite the huffing and puffing, the raving commanding brute is essentially a coward who lacks the courage to face up to a world totally outraged by his gruesome crime. Instead, Obasanjo, the quintessential Caliban, cringes into a stupor and beacons to his Prospero, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson (as he, Obansanjo, indeed unashamedly acknowledges in his My Command) to “sort out” the raging international outcry generated by the destruction of the ICRC plane...

Olusegun Obasanjo must now make the most honourable move over this crime and surrender himself, voluntarily, with his memoirs, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and explain to the world what happened over the skies of south Biafra on that Thursday 5 June 1969. Failing to do this, it is incumbent on the ICC to declare this man “wanted” – to urgently tell the world why he had ordered the destruction of the ICRC DC-7 aircraft with the death of its 3-person crew and who else in his genocidist high command is culpable of this crime.

(Mal Waldron Quartet, “Hymn from the inferno” [personnel: Waldron, piano; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Cecil McBee, bass; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: Vanguard Studios, New York, US, 15 August 1981]) 

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

84th birthday of Oliver Nelson

(Born 4 June 1932, St Louis, Missouri, US)

Bandleader, prolific arranger and producer, composer, especially the classic The Blues and the Abstract Truth (February 1961), featuring multiinstrumentalist Eric Dolphy, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianist Bill Evans, baritone saxophonist George Barrow, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Roy Haynes

(Oliver Nelson Quintet, “Six and four” [personnel: Nelson, alto saxophone {first solo take}; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone {second solo following Nelson and before Wyands}; Richard Wyands, piano; George Duvivier, bass; Roy Haynes, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 1 March 1961]) 

(Oliver Nelson Septet, “Stolen moments” – personnel: Nelson, tenor saxophone; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, flute; George Barrow, baritone saxophone; Bill Evans, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Roy Haynes, drums [recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 23 February 1961])

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

71st birthday of Anthony Braxton

(Born 4 June 1945, Chicago, US)

One of the most prolific composers of his generation with music stretching in multiform genres that he collectively captions “creative music”, multiinstrumentalist, philosopher, academic, chess player

(DaveHollandQuartet, “Interception” [personnel: Holland, bass; Sam Rivers, tenor saxophone {first solo take}; Anthony Braxton, reeds {solo after Holland’s and before the Braxton-Rivers interplay passage}; Barry Altschul, percussion, marimba; recorded: Allegro Studios, New York, US, 30 November 1972]) 

(Dave Holland Quartet, “Conference of the birds” [personnel: Holland, bass; Rivers, reeds, flute; Braxton, reeds, flute; Barry Altschul, percussion, marimba; recorded: {as above}])

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

112th birthday of Charles R Drew

(Born 3 June 1904, Washington, DC, US)

Physician, academic, distinguished researcher in medical sciences, directing, soon after his doctorate degree in Columbia University Medical School in 1940 (first African American, had earlier on in 1933 received his MD and Master of Surgery degrees at McGill University), the special New York-based blood transfusion service for Britain, set up in response to the acute blood supply shortages in the country, for both civilian and military, during these early months of the Second World War, named after the Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science, California

(Billy Strayhorn Quintet, “Upper Manhattan Medical Group” [personnel: Strayhorn, piano; Clark Terry, trumpet; Bob Wilbur, clarinet, soprano saxophone; Wendell Marshall, bass; Dave Bailey, drums; recorded: ?, 1965]) 

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Germany’s parliament recognises the 1915 Armenian genocide – 1.5 million Armenians were murdered by the Ottoman “empire”, the precursor of contemporary Turkey

FWD: Justin Huggler, “Turkey recalls its ambassador as German vote throws EU-Turkey deal into doubt”, Telegraph, London, Thursday 2 June 2016 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/01/eu-turkey-deal-threatened-by-diplomatic-row-over-vote-to-recogni/, accessed 2 June 2016)

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FWD: Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti region administration, west Nigeria, unequivocally condemns continuing murder of Biafrans by Nigeria-occupation genocidist military in Biafra; Fayose warns: “Muhammadu Buhari is turning the people” of Biafra into “endangered species” (Vanguard, Lagos, Wednesday 1 June 2016)

(Ayodele Fayose: ... “Buhari has made up his mind to eliminate as many [Biafrans] as possible”)

*****“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything” (Albert Einstein)

NO CURRENTLY serving public official in genocidist Nigeria has been as forthright in denouncing the present phase of the Igbo genocide, being directed by Muhammadu Buhari, as Ayodele Fayose. In his latest condemnation, Fayose reminds the world that well over 150 Igbo have been murdered by the Nigeria military under the Buhari regime since August 2015 and notably indicts: “It appears that … Buhari has made up his mind to eliminate as many [Biafran] people as possible … To even justify the killing by claiming [as regime spokespersons have been variously quoted] that Igbo youths protest was orchestrated in order to mar the first anniversary of Buhari’s [regime] is to say the least wicked and animalistic” (Vanguard, Lagos, 1 June 2016). Fayose ends his historic statement by appealing to the international community (pointedly a direct reference to David Cameron and Barack Obama administrations which imposed Buhari as head of Nigeria regime in March 2015) to take note of this gruesome murder campaign against Igbo people.

Fountain of ideas

Surely, no one would accuse Ayodele Fayose of overstating this ever deteriorating grave situation in Biafra... 

It is extraordinary, if not shocking, that, in contrast, there is a deafening silence on the ongoing genocide from the heads of the following administrative regimes in six regions of occupied Biafra – Abia, Anambra, Enuugwu, Delta, Ebonyi, Imo and Rivers, the epicentre of this unrelenting slaughtering of a peaceful, defenceless people. Are they not aware of the genocide? Do they dispute Fayose’s courageous, graphic narrative? Would they? What has happened to those who claim to be leaders from a people who gave the world such literary classics as Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, There was a Country, Efuru, Idu, Labyrinths & Path to Thunder and who constructed and lived through advanced republican democracies for over a millennium whose variegated legacy constitutes a fountain of ideas for the contemporary world? Just what are these officials waiting for to tell the world that their people, Igbo people, are being murdered by a ruthless Nigeria-islamist genocidist regime headed by Muhammadu Buhari who, during phase-III of the Igbo genocide (6 July 1966-12 January 1970), was commander of a genocidist brigade in north/northcentral Biafra, slaughtering to the hilt?

(George Russell Sextet here plays “Nardis”, a composition by Miles Davis [personnel: Russell, piano; Don Ellis, trumpet; Dave Baker, trombone; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Steve Swallow, bass; Joe Hunt, drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 8 May 1961])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

181st birthday of James Beale Africanus Horton

(Born 1 June 1835, Gloucester, Sierra Leone)

Physician, first Igbo and African graduate of University of Edinburgh Medical School (August 1859), prolific author of the sciences and history, distinguished officer of the British army medical corps, visionary of freedom and restoration of African independence and transformation of African fortunes in the world after centuries of European World enslavement, conquest, occupation and expropriation, entrepreneur and banker

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe