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.
Pioneering and distinguishedscholar of the historic *Onicha market literature genre and versatile literary critic and one of the leading Igbo intellectuals who defends Igbo people resolutely during the Igbo genocide (phases I-III, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970) by Nigeria and its suzerain state Britain in which 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of the population are murdered by the genocidists; this is the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa *(river port city in Biafra Oshimiri Delta)
(Charles Mingus Sextet – with Eric Dolphy, Cornell University 1964, “Meditations” [personnel: Mingus, bass; Johnny Coles, trumpet; Dolphy, flute, bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: live, Cornell University, 18 March 1964])
INTENSELY CREATIVE alto saxophonist and composer who categorises his music (as well as that of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Sam Rivers and other masters) as “spontaneous composition”
(Dave Holland Quintet, “Homecoming” – featuring Steve Coleman [personnel: Holland, bass; Kenny Wheeler, fluegelhorn; Robin Eubanks, trombone; Coleman, alto saxophone; Marvin “Smithy” Smith, drums; recorded: live, Zelt-Musik Festival, Freiburg, Germany 31 March 1986])
Physician, poet, co-founder of Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, and first African president of Angola, November 1975, after the people’s victory terminating 400 years of the Portuguese conquest, occupation and immiseration
(Sonny Clark Trio – with Max Roach and George Duvivier, Rare session [41.46 mins] includes “Minor meeting”, “Nica”, “Sonny’s crib”, “Blues blue” and “My conception” [personnel: Clark, piano; Duvivier, bass; Roach, drums;recorded: AllMusic, New York, US, 23 March 1960])
THE Indigenous
People of Biafra, led by Nnamdi Kanu,
is constituted integrally in the
Biafra freedom movement which campaigns peacefully for the
restoration-of-independence of the 50 million indigenous people of Biafra.
This is the most peaceful freedom movement in Africa and one of the very few of
its kind across the entire South World – Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and South
America. It will stop 51 years of the Igbo genocide by genocidist Nigeria/co-genocidist
state Britain (29 May 1966-present day) and will free Biafra from 47 years of occupation (since 13 January 1970) by these dual states. Finally, it will work assiduously to prosecute all individuals and institutions involved in the Igbo genocide since its 29 May 1966 launch, including those involved in the ongoing unimaginable stretch of programmed savagery perpetrated in Biafra by the Nigeria genocidist military-led Hausa-Fulani/islamists.
(Herbert
Ekwe-Ekwe)
(John Coltrane Quartet, “Acknowledgement” {part-I of A Love Supreme suite} [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 9 December 1964])
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe IF ANYONE, anywhere in the world, ever doubted the sheer
savagery of the Hausa-Fulani/islamist-led Nigeria genocidist military in its 51
years of campaign to destroy the resourceful and resilient Igbo people of
Biafra, the internet and other media are deluged, presently, with awfully
distressing videos, still shots and other recorded accounts of its ongoing
scorched-earth operations in Biafra that capture its dreadful portraiture. This
is an unrelentingly sustained terrorism in real
time operation to overrun the Biafra freedom movement, the most peaceful of its kind in Africa and one of the very few in the South World, by a state’s military, not “non-state”, that immanently
privileges its jihadist history and geography and worldview. This state and
military are equipped and reequipped by Britain which created both for its service in perpetuity. As I have argued severally, the priority of the Biafra government on the morrow of the restoration-of-independence is to inaugurate the
construction of a civilisation where Igbo life, human life, fundamentally,
is sacrosanct. This salient feature cannot be overstressed, given the
sickening pictures of Nigeria’s acts of depravity of recent days. Nigeria has
been, for the Igbo, a haematophagousmonsterthroughout
its history. In contradistinction, Biafra is a realisation, a
profound reclamation of that which makes us all human and part of
humanity.
BIAFRA isthe beacon of the tenacity of
the spirit of human-overcoming of the most desperate, unimaginably brutish
Hausa-Fulani/islamist forces and all that they represent.
(John Coltrane & Don Cherry, “Focus on sanity” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; Percy Heath, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 28 June/8 July 1960])
THERE HAS BEEN a commendable worldwide criticism of the Myanmar
military for its operation in the country’s southwest Rakhine region where the
Rohingya people, predominantly muslim, live. Nearly 400,000 Rohingya have fled
to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the increasing violence.
In contrast, the world has remained unconscionably silent over
the Nigeria genocidist military campaign in (occupied) Biafra where it has
murdered 2000 Biafrans since October 2015. The Nigeria state, created by
Britain, is headed by Hausa-Fulani/islamists and its military engaged in the
genocide in Biafra is led by a phalanx of senior islamist operatives. In the past
week alone, hundreds of Biafrans have been murdered in scorched-earth
operations mounted by the Nigerians who have laid siege on all Biafran cities
and towns (including especially Enuugwu, Onicha, Asaba, Oka, Aba, Orlu, Okigwe,
Owere, Igwe Ocha, Abakeleke, Umuahia, Owere, Afaraukwu-Ibeku) in response to
the Biafra freedom, restoration-of-independence movement. The Biafra freedom movement
is totally peaceful, the most peaceful of its kind in Africa and one of the
very few anywhere in the South World.
World stop Igbo genocide now
The world must now wake up from its inexcusable slumber over the
Igbo genocide and condemn genocidist Nigeria unreservedly. This condemnation
must also extend to Britain, the co-genocidist state in this crime right from
its original launch date on 29 May 1966, which is the principal exporter of the
array of weapons the Nigerian enforcers employ in their slaughter of the Igbo.
In this case, it is indeed not without significance that the current phase of
the genocide (beginning Sunday 10 September 2017) was mounted shortly after the
July/August 2017 visits to Nigeria by Tony Blair (a former British prime
minister) and Boris Johnson (current British foreign secretary).
THE WORLD must at once stop the Igbo genocide and the occupation
of Biafra and support the Biafra freedom movement’s programmed process of a referendum to determine the democratic choice
of 50 million Biafrans. All those involved in this crime against humanity, the
foundational genocide of post-(European) conquest Africa, must be arraigned and
prosecuted forthwith in designated international courts. The genocidists
murdered 3.1 million Igbo people, 25 per cent of the population during phases
I-III of the crime, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, and tens of thousands of additional
Igbo during phase-IV which has been ongoing since its launch date on 13 January
1970. The whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra, are presently unknown since the genocidists stormed his Afaraukwu-Ibeku
(east Biafra) family home yesterday (Thursday 14 September 2017), murdering a
yet undisclosed number of relatives and others therein and abducting his
parents.
(George Russell Sextet, “Nardis” {composer: 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, 8 May 1961])
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).
