Igbo genocide and its annihilative threshold…

In an immensely courageous and admirable public admission made in 1970, Colonel Robert Scott of the British military 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 Biafran cities, towns and villages, they are the “best defoliant agent known” (Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970). Dreadful but not surprising.

Mission

During this phase-III of the Igbo genocide or the direct invasion of Biafra (6 July 1967-12 January 1970), the genocidists, equipped zealously by Britain, expend more small arms ammunition in the campaign to achieve their annhilative mission than the amount used by the British armed forces  “during the whole” of World War II (as none other than Harold Wilson, the British prime minister himself, reveals in his memoirs: Harold Wilson, Labour Government, 1964-1970: A Personal Record, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971, p. 630, 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 their 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 carpet bomb and strafe concentrated Igbo population centres – markets, churches, shrines, schools, children’s playground, offices, hospitals, farms, refugee centres. 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 (a crime he acknowledges most unapologetically in his memoirs, appropriately entitled My Command, London: Heinemann, 1980, pp. 78-79), 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. 

In one sentence: The British government, headed by Harold Wilson, centrally supports the Igbo genocide militarily, diplomatically, politically – right from conceptualisation to execution.

(Harold Wilson: central role)

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, Nwafo, Ikechukwu, Onwuatuegwu, Chukwuemeka, Onyekachi, Nnadozie, Okonkwo, Chido, Okafo, Nkeiiru, Ifeyinwa, Uchendu, Nwaoyiri, Amaka, Ofokaaja, 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.

(Ornette Coleman Quartet, “WRU” {or Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious – Freud} [personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; Scott LaFaro, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, US, 31 January 1961])

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