"O Igbo arise! O Igbo arise! O Igbo arise!
Let the chains of subjugation be broken, let the yoke of
slavery be shattered and let the shackles of servitude fall.
For the voices of your ancestors and your dead are calling.
The voices of your slaughtered children wail, scream and screech through the
night and they shed whimpering and pitiful tears through the day.
They call for justice and vengeance that their souls may be
appeased and that they may find peace and eternal rest.
For they were slaughtered in their millions by the
barbarians and infidels and they were butchered like cattle in the sanctity and
privacy of their churches and homes.
They cry for Biafra. They cry for the land of the rising
sun. They cry for the memory of the fallen and those that stood like men to
defend their honor. They cry for the pitiful souls of the chidren yet unborn.
Heed their cry and honor their sacrifice. Forget not the
land of the rising sun. Forget not Biafra.
Forget not the slaughtered millions and those that were cut
short in the prime of their infancy”- ‘The Land Of The Rising Sun’, Femi
Fani-Kayode, May 30th 2017.
I have written this essay as a historian and not as a
politician. Consequently I am not guided or bound by political correctness but
rather by truth.
I do not seek to create division but rather to establish the
facts with a view to ensuring justice and healing the wounds.
I do not believe that we can ever have peace in our country
without that justice. I write this essay for the helpless and innocent victims
of ethnic cleansing, mass murder and genocide that were cut short during the
civil war and I dedicate it to them.
I write it as a patriotuc Nigerian who fervently and
passionately believes in the equality of every Nigerian, regardless of
ethnicity or faith, and in justice for all.
I write it as the voice of the voiceless, the servant of
truth and for those that cannot speak for themselves because they are either
dead and buried or because they do not have the skill, the reach or the
wherewithal to do so.
I write it for the young and new generation of Nigerians and
particularly the Igbo who have no knowledge or recollection of most of these
ugly events and who were never taught history in our schools because the powers
that be did not want them to know. I write it in the name of God and by the
power of the Holy Spirit.
It is not an essay for the cowardly, the faint-hearted, the
slow, the intellectually challenged or the dull but rather for those that
courageously seek truth and that thirst for knowledge about our very ugly past.
It seeks to shine the light of truth into the darkness of
deceit, lies, historical revisionism and the continuos and godless supression
of the ugly and utterly barbaric facts.
It is a long essay and consequently I have broken it into
two parts. I urge each and every Nigerian and Biafran that is interested in
seeking truth, no matter how ugly and inconvenient that truth may be, to read
both parts and to meditate earnestly on its contents and assertions. Fasten
your seat belts and come fly with me!
50 years ago today the Nigerian civil war began and the
struggle for the sovereign state of Biafra commenced.
Since then it has been 50 years of blood, sweat and tears
for the Igbo people of south eastern Nigeria.
The only redeeming factor is the fact the last few years has
witnessed the rise of a new generation of relatively young, fresh,
strong-willed and deeply courageous Igbo nationalist leaders who have made it
their life’s work and calling to ressurect the noble vision and compelling
dream of Biafra.
Names like the heroic Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB and notable
leaders of other Igbo nationalist groups come to mind.
Words cannot possibly express the indignities, anguish and
turmoil that the Igbo have suffered in the hands of Nigeria over the last 50
years.
And no matter how one attempts to put it or narrate the
story it is difficult, nay next to impossible, to fully comprehend their
degradation and suffering.
Few events come close to it in world history. Some of those
events are as follows. Firstly the slaughter of 10 million natives of the
African Congo by King Leopold 11 of Belgium.
Secondly the mass murder of 6 mllion Jews by Hitler’s Nazis
during the course of the Second World War.
Thirdly the massacre of 1 million Armenians by the Turks
whilst under the leadership of Kamal Ataturk, the founder of Turkey.
Fourthly the almost total elimination of the Red Indian
tribes and races in the plains and prairies of the American “wild west” by the
white American settlers.
Fifthly the commission of genocide and ethnic cleansing of
almost 1 million Tutsis by the indigenous Hutu population in Rwanda.
Sixthly the 30 million black Africans that were killed by
white and Arab slave traders and slave owners over a period of three hundred
years in north Africa, the Middle East and the west.
Seventhly the butchering of at least 2 million innocent
Cambodians by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in the killing fields of Cambodia.
Eighthly the ethnic cleansing, mass murder and premeditated
starvation of 1 million Irish farmers, peasants and serfs by successive English
monarchs.
Ninthly the almost entire elimination of the indegenous
black Aboriginal tribes in Australia by the British settlers.
Tenthly the systematic and cold-blooded elimination of 25
million ethnic Russians and dissident Soviets by Russia’s Josef Stalin.
And finally the mass murder of thousands of Bosnian
civilians by the Serbs during the Yugoslavian civil war.
Yet, as unbelievable as it may sound, none of these monumental
tragedies and acts of the most hideous, barbaric, cruel and sublime forms of
wickedness come close to the suffering of the Igbo people of Nigeria.
This is because in all the other cases over the years there
has been a conscious attempt by humanity to stop the madness, to bring the
perpertrators of these horrific crimes to book, to serve them justice, to show
varying degrees of contrition and remorse, to compensate the victims and to
come to the firm and clear resolve that such a thing must NEVER be allowed to
happen again.
In the case of Nigeria and Biafra this has not been the
case. Instead of contrition and remorse for the horrific events that they were
subjected to both before and during the civil war, the Igbo have been visited
with even more mass murder, humiliation, degradation, shame, marginalisation,
deprivation and subjugation since 1970 when the civil war ended right up until
today.
50 years after the first shot was fired in a brutal and
gruelling civil war in which we slaughtered no less than 3 million innocent
Igbo civilians in cold blood (1 million of them being little children) the
Federal Republic of Nigeria has learnt no lessons and shown no remorse.
In fact the contrary has beem the case. Rather than stop,
the slaughter of the Igbo has continued in the northern pary of pur country
without any apology and has become something of an expected ritual and regular
sport.
The Bible says “the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel”.
How true this is. What a country and what a people we are.
Yet the suffering and dehumanisation of the Igbo did not
begin during the civil war and neither did it end with it 3 years later.
It started on the night of July 29th 1966, almost one year
before the war began, and it persists till today.
Permit me to share a narrative that was sent to me by an
Igbo friend who I believe captured the history of the pre-civil war suffering
very well in the following words.
He titled it “What A Country and the Origins Of The
Offensive Word Nyamiri”. He wrote:
“Aguiyi-Ironsi and Francis Fajuyi had just been killed in
Ibadan by a horde of blood thirsty northern officers. The northern military had
seized most barracks in the country and were performing the ethnic Igbo
cleansing that had been planned all along.
From the eve of July 29, 1966 over 270 Igbo senior military
officers were killed in Abeokuta, Ibadan , Lagos, Zaria etc.. As this butchery
of human beings was going on in what was tagged a retaliatory coup, the
northern officers declared “araba” and ferried their families home to secede
from the rest of Nigeria.
But this plan was discarded when the Britain sold the idea
of oil to them and how they will profit from taking control of the oil.
As the killing of military officers of Igbo origin was
getting to a climax, the northern civilians unleashed their clubs and matchetes
on innocent civilians all through the north. People were cut into pieces. In 60
days over 100,000 Igbo lives were mowed down by this sheer barbarism. In those
days rail transportation was the major means of traveling to the east from the
north. So when the train departed one will have to wait for its return before
another set of Igbo could depart from the North.
The orgy of violence by the northern civilians was without
limits. Students killed their Igbo teachers. Colleagues at work killed their
fellow Igbo colleagues. House owners killed their Igbo tenants. It was in this
frenzy and death orgy that the Igbo devised a plan of survival. The plan was to
run to the emirate and seek refuge until the train that left for the east
returned.
Many Igbo ran to the Emir’s palaces in the north seeking
refuge not knowing that the emirate was planning the final Igbo solution. As
they ran into the palace they were all welcomed. So this encouraged other Igbo
who were hiding to run to the palace as well. Then the final solution set in
when the numbers of Igbo seeking refuge was increased. They will be allowed to
die slowly: no food and no water must be offered to them. For days the Igbo
seeking refuge from the northern pogrom were denied food and water. They
started crying, begging the palace to give them water in their local Igbo
dialect “nye mu mmiri ” but the northern civilian heard “nya miri”. So that was
the origin of the offensive name called the Igbo by the north. Whenever they
call you “nyamiri” they are trying to remind you of your Igbo predecessors who
they starved of food and water until they all died. May 30th is another day to
remember all those defenceless Igbo civilians who died in that progrom that preceded
the war.
May 30th is another day we remember those who sought refuge
in the emirate but were allowed to die slowly in pain. May 30th is another day
for retrospection and introspection on our commitment to building up our
homeland to cater for all the Igbo aspirations the world over. Ozoemena. Maka
odinma Ndi Igbo. ( meaning “another should not happen for the good of Igbo
people”). Send to all ur friends”.
This is a compelling, troubling and moving narrative. It is
also graphic evidence of man’s inhumanity to man and, as a historian, I can
confirm to you that every word of it is true. Yet it does not stop there. (TO
BE CONCLUDED).
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