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.
Primer: Chuks Iloegbunam, “As someone who knew Chinua Achebe, I aver that were he alive
today, he would long have fired this injunction in the general direction of
Abuja: ‘Stop massacring my people!’”, Iloegbunam, “Sharpeville, Nigeria”, The
Authority, Abuja, Tuesday 16 February 2016
One-sentence reply to headlined question: To understand the politics of the Igbo genocide and the politics of the “post”-Igbo genocide epoch is to have an invaluable insight into the salient features and constitutive indices of politics across Africa in the past 50 years. Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
One of the most outstanding intellectuals of his age – author of the classic Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (1845) and other publications, orator, expansive traveller, indefatigable exponent of African American freedom
(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])
Shocking but least surprising
result… Nigeria is Africa’s foundational post-(European)conquest
genocide-state, having murdered 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this people’s
population during 44 months of comprehensively unrelenting savagery (29 May
1966-12 January 1970). This genocide goes on as these lines are written... Expansive
massacres by Nigeria occupation forces in Biafra in towns Onicha, Enuugwu, Igwe
Ocha, Aba, between Wednesday 2 December 2015 and today, Saturday 13 February 2016… Surely, as the link (below)
to the “Best countries”’s results shows, no one should expect genocidist
Nigeria to be anywhere at the top of the league of any study on “Best countries
for education” nor indeed “Best countries” on the planet. No country spends a
generation trying to destroy one of the world’s most resilient peoples and at
the same time be a success on a “Best countries for education” assessment. It
should be noted in the study, though, that Britain, which, for 50 years, has
rigorously supported Nigeria in prosecuting the Igbo genocide politically,
diplomatically and militarily is #1 in “Best countries for education” and #3
for “Best countries”. The toady Nigerian genocidist-“boys”’ response to this glaring result contrast
would probably be, “… our massa, he clever …”: (http://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/education-full-list, accessed 12 February 2016)
(O Obusonjo: ... one of the most notorious operatives in genocidist Nigeria’s campaign against Igbo people)
The current orgy of massacres of Biafrans by the Nigerian occupation
genocidist military, begun on Wednesday
2 December 2015 in Onicha, has continued unabated. On Wednesday 9
February 2016, the genocidists positioned in Aba, commercial city
in southeast Biafra, shot dead 10 Biafrans attending a prayer
session at the National High School, Aba, for the release of Nnamdi Kanu,
freedom broadcaster of Radio Biafra and leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra (Vanguard, Lagos, Friday 12 February 2016),
illegally detained by the Nigerian regime in a secret police facility in Abuja
since mid-October. Scores of other demonstrators were seriously wounded in the
slaughter and several others seized and taken away by the genocidists. This
massacre is the second within three weeks in Aba. On Monday 18 January 2016,
another marauding genocidist corps gunned down eight peaceful Biafran
demonstrating for Nnamdi Kanu’s release and the restoration of Biafran
independence (Vanguard, Lagos, Tuesday 19 January 2016). Archive Every Biafran murdered or wounded or “disappeared” in this trail of murders by the genocidists is
meticulously documented and archived. Each genocidist unit involved in these
murders, including command and control
personnel, is meticulously
documented and archived. Everyone
must now know that no one or institution involved in these murders will escape
justice in court for committing
the crime of genocide. This crime, it couldn’t be overstressed, has no
statute of limitations in international law.
Stunning silence
In the meantime, what the world cannot understand is the deafening
silence on this massacre – Wednesday 9 February 2016 – from the Abia
region regime in Aba. Is this regime not aware that its citizens, its
own citizens, are being murdered by Nigerian occupation military (army,
police, secret police, other undisclosed units) in Aba, political
and commercial capital of the region and one of the principal
cities of Biafra? Is Aba not part of its administrative
jurisdiction?Have there been no massacres in Aba? Were there no
massacres in Aba on 18 January 2016? Why hasn’t there been any condemnation of these murders from regime
executive offices in Aba? When will the Abia region regime in Aba
unequivocally condemn these Aba massacres? Just what is it waiting
for? This observation on deafening
silence must also extend to the heads of the following administrative regions
of occupied Biafra – Anambra, Enuugwu, Delta, Ebonyi, Imo,Rivers. Are they not
aware of these Aba massacres, the earlier massacres of this season in Onicha, in Enuugwu, in Igwe Ocha…? Just what are these administrators 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?
(John Coltrane & Don Cherry, “Focus on sanity” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Cherry, cornet; Percy Heath, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, 28 June/8 July 1960])
Award-winning actor Will Smith who plays physician and neuropathologist
Bennet Omalu in the movie, Concussion, is interviewed here by Brian Moore and
Susanne Reid, Daily Telegraph, London, Thursday 11
February 2016 Smith: “ … I met with Dr Omalu, and
he is such a special human being. He has eight degrees and is one of the most
brilliant people you’ll ever meet. But at the same time there is almost a
childlike naivety about him. He expects people to be good, and he’s shocked when
they are not – he really doesn’t understand how not knowing something is better
than knowing … ”
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).
