Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

VOA

US President Barack Obama expresses pride in his African heritage, but his regime over the last seven years has not demonstrated any substantial commitment to the wellbeing of the African people. He has merely continued the imperial interventions and militarism of his predecessors.

In Nigeria today, there is renewed agitation for the creation of the separatist Biafra republic. The 3-year Biafra war led to the death of some 3 million Igbo people, according to Biafra supporters. Here is a summary of five Igbo demands, each one a memorial symbolising their resilience in surviving five decades of the longest, continuous running genocide of recent history.

This is the year of ‘A Man of the People. 2016 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s fourth novel, the gripping satire.

IPOB

In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of peaceful Biafrans have turned their cities and towns and villages into panoramic freedom park marches, unprecedented in Africa, demanding the restoration of the sovereignty of their beloved Biafra. Biafrans will surely free their land. It is high time BBC editors got used to this eventuality.

GM

The Igbo genocide was primarily about the protection of strategic British interests in Nigeria. The departing colonialists had secured the collaboration of the northern region, which was vehemently opposed to African independence. Thus Fulani-Hausa elites played a key role in the perpetration of the genocide.

CO

The Igbo genocide was primarily about the protection of strategic British interests in Nigeria. The departing colonialists had secured the collaboration of the northern region, which was vehemently opposed to African independence. Thus Fulani-Hausa elites played a key role in the perpetration of the genocide.

This is a day of meditation and remembrance in every Igbo household anywhere in the world for the 3.1 million murdered; for gratitude and thanksgiving for those who survived, and the collective Igbo rededication to achieve sovereignty.

The whole world should today, now, register their unqualified outrage in response to this call by the Lagos hereditary monarch to murder the Igbo, based on the latter’s exercise of their choice in a seemingly democratic contest.

Given Nigeria’s past and recurring history, does one realistically expect this state to defend Baga from Boko Haram, comment or mourn the murder of the 2000 from Baga – almost 49 years to the day after it embarked on the murder of 3.1 million of its Igbo population in a studiously-organised genocide that is still ongoing?

‘Arrow of God’ presents a highly imaginative and anticipatory power of Achebe’s insight to the turbulent trajectory of post-(European)conquest African history and politics. This insight anticipates the catastrophe of the Igbo genocide.

Pages