(Born 25 March 1942, Memphis, US)
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkweRenowned singer, pianist, human rights artist
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
72nd birthday of Aretha Franklin
Sunday, 23 March 2014
74th birthday of Ama Ata Aidoo
(Born 23 March 1940, Saltpond, Ghana)
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkweDistinguished poet, novelist, playwright, academic
72nd birthday of Walter Rodney
(Born 23 March 1942, Georgetown, Guyana)
One of
Africa’s preeminent historians whose A History of the Upper Guinea Coast,
1545-1800 (1970) and How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) are compulsory
references in the study of Africa of the past 500 years
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
Saturday, 22 March 2014
This annihilative threshold…
In a courageous and admirable public admission made in 1970, Colonel Robert Scott of the British miltary breaks ranks with his employer, the British diplomatic mission in Lagos, Nigeria, where he works as military advisor, to acknowledge, gravely, that as Nigerian genocidist military forces unleash their attacks on Igbo cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970).
Mission
Dreadful but not surprising. During this phase-III of the Igbo genocide or the direct invasion of Igboland, Biafra (6 July 1967-12 January 1970), the genocidists, equipped zealously by Britain, may have expended more small arms ammunition in the campaign to achieve their annhilative mission than the amount used by the “entire British forces” during World War II (Bernard Waites, South Asia and Africa after Independence, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 267, added emphasis), the more territorially expansive and much longer duration of the latter notwithstanding. Again thanks to Britain, the Nigerians also deploy an array of heavy weaponry on land and sea for the onslaught. For its air force, the genocidists acquire squadrons of MiGs from the Soviet Union with the complement of loaned Egyptian pilots whose clearly demonstrated main specialism, throughout the mission, is to bomb and strafe concentrated Igbo population centres – markets, churches, shrines, schools, children’s playground, offices, hospitals, farms. Thousands (mostly children, women, older citizens) are murdered in this aerial campaign (particularly from October 1967) including the destruction of an international Red Cross relief-bearing aircraft to the besieged Igbo on 5 June 1969, ordered, specifically, by genocidist commander Olusegun Obasanjo, operating in south Biafra. Altogether, beginning from phase-I of this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, 29 May 1966, 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this nation’s population are murdered during these 44 months of gruesome death. The British government, headed by Harold Wilson, centrally supports the Igbo genocide militarily, diplomatically, politically – right from conceptualisation to execution.
Survived
It is indeed an extraordinary survival story of history that someone that goes by the name Obiageli, Nkechi, Chinyere, Ifeoma, Amaechi, Nwakaego, Ngozi, Chinelo, Ada, Uzo, Chibundu, Nkemdilim, Chukwuka, Okwuonicha, Chikwendu, Ogonna, Ikechukwu, Onwuatuegwu, Chukwuemeka, Onyekachi, Nnadozie, Okonkwo, Chido, Okafo, Nkeiru, Ifeyinwa, Uchendu, Nwaoyiri, Amaka, Nnamdi, Mbazulike, Chukwuma, Ndukaeze, Chidi, Nneka, Onyeka, Ifekandu, Obioma, Chioma, Ndubuisi… actually walks the face of the earth, today, having survived this programmed sentence of death.
Mission
Dreadful but not surprising. During this phase-III of the Igbo genocide or the direct invasion of Igboland, Biafra (6 July 1967-12 January 1970), the genocidists, equipped zealously by Britain, may have expended more small arms ammunition in the campaign to achieve their annhilative mission than the amount used by the “entire British forces” during World War II (Bernard Waites, South Asia and Africa after Independence, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 267, added emphasis), the more territorially expansive and much longer duration of the latter notwithstanding. Again thanks to Britain, the Nigerians also deploy an array of heavy weaponry on land and sea for the onslaught. For its air force, the genocidists acquire squadrons of MiGs from the Soviet Union with the complement of loaned Egyptian pilots whose clearly demonstrated main specialism, throughout the mission, is to bomb and strafe concentrated Igbo population centres – markets, churches, shrines, schools, children’s playground, offices, hospitals, farms. Thousands (mostly children, women, older citizens) are murdered in this aerial campaign (particularly from October 1967) including the destruction of an international Red Cross relief-bearing aircraft to the besieged Igbo on 5 June 1969, ordered, specifically, by genocidist commander Olusegun Obasanjo, operating in south Biafra. Altogether, beginning from phase-I of this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa, 29 May 1966, 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this nation’s population are murdered during these 44 months of gruesome death. The British government, headed by Harold Wilson, centrally supports the Igbo genocide militarily, diplomatically, politically – right from conceptualisation to execution.
Survived
It is indeed an extraordinary survival story of history that someone that goes by the name Obiageli, Nkechi, Chinyere, Ifeoma, Amaechi, Nwakaego, Ngozi, Chinelo, Ada, Uzo, Chibundu, Nkemdilim, Chukwuka, Okwuonicha, Chikwendu, Ogonna, Ikechukwu, Onwuatuegwu, Chukwuemeka, Onyekachi, Nnadozie, Okonkwo, Chido, Okafo, Nkeiru, Ifeyinwa, Uchendu, Nwaoyiri, Amaka, Nnamdi, Mbazulike, Chukwuma, Ndukaeze, Chidi, Nneka, Onyeka, Ifekandu, Obioma, Chioma, Ndubuisi… actually walks the face of the earth, today, having survived this programmed sentence of death.
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
Friday, 21 March 2014
54th anniversary of Sharpeville Massacre
(Massacre occurs 21 March 1960, Sharpeville, South Africa)
Three
hundred and eight years into the conquest and occupation of South Africa by a
constellation of European World powers, the occupation police opens fire on a
freedom march of 5000-10000 Africans in Sharpeville, murdering 69 marchers (children,
women, men) and wounding nearly 200 others – a turning point in the African
resistance which is consequently revamped, expanded, and intensified until
liberation 34 years later
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
Thursday, 20 March 2014
Elections in Africa – the voter, the court, the outcome
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, “Elections in Africa – the voter, the court, the outcome”, PENSAR-Revisita de Ciêcias Jurídicas, Vol. 18, Número 3, 2013, pp. 804-836.
FULL PAPER in English available here, free, by clicking on following link:
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
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