Orlando vis-à-vis Onicha, Uzo-Uwani and Aba: Notes on depravity, responses, contrasts
State terror against the Igbo people of Nigeria continues. In 2016, nowhere else on earth in this era of instant communication are any peoples murdered so monstrously with scant responses of revulsion from the rest of the world, particularly from those chiefly responsible for propping up the Nigerian regime.
1. Sunday 12 June 2016: Chronicle of bursts, booms, flashes, murders: islamist terrorist outrage in the United States ravages night club in Orlando, Florida, beginning at about 2am, murdering 49 clubgoers and wounding scores and scores and scores – several critically…
Paraphernalia of US state response to tragedy: police, including special forces, is deployed right away to aid and save stricken citizens, battling the source of the terror ferociously until eliminated; continuing stretch of medical services and support made available to victims; retinue of state officials including state president, regional governor, regional attorney-general or chief law enforcement officer, town’s mayor, intelligence and security forces’ apparatus key representatives and leading candidates of ongoing presidential campaign rush to their microphones condemning the outrage, reassuring citizens and vowing to bring retribution on the vector/agency of the terrorism; international revulsion abounds with tweets and voice comments alike from many a leader and a range of public officials and personalities; continuing, comprehensive coverage by domestic and international media.
2. Monday 30 May 2016: Chronicle of bursts, booms, flashes, murders: islamist terrorist Nigeria state outrage ravages worshippers attending mass on the grounds of St Edmund’s Church, Nkpo, near Onicha, Biafra (a country that has been under occupation by Nigeria since 13 January 1970), beginning at 3am, and later continues its free-fire assault on Biafra Heroes Day/Independence Day celebrants in the greater Onicha district and on the bridge over the Oshimili River and across the bridge into Asaba twin-city, Biafra, slaughtering a total of 120 Biafrans and wounding scores and scores and scores – several critically… In the meantime, the terrorists return to some hospitals in Onicha and environs treating survivors of the massacre and wrench these (survivors) off their beds/theatre wards and load them up on trucks and drive away to “unknown destinations” … These survivors haven’t been seen since and are very unlikely to ever be found alive…
Paraphernalia of genocidist Nigeria state response to this act of genocide of its very own premeditated creation: defiance, defiance, more slaughtering of Igbo, more slaughtering of Igbo planned; response from the rest of the world including especially leaders such as David Cameron and Barack Obama who imposed islamist Muhammadu Buhari as head of regime in Nigeria in March 2015 but who have duly condemned the Orlando terror slaying: silence, haunting silence, deafening silence … No reporting of the Onicha slaughter by the international media or church, not even from the Anglican Church to which millions of Igbo in this west region of Biafra belong …Why has there been the “aching silence” on this ongoing genocide from Lambeth Palace, for instance? Is the Archbishop of Canterbury not aware that Igbo people are being “gunned down” by genocidist Nigeria – to quote a phrase from the well-publicised Amnesty International report on the genocide published in London on 10 June 2016? When will the Archbishop of Canterbury condemn the slaughtering of Igbo people?
3. Monday 25 April 2016: Chronicle of bursts, booms, flashes, murders: islamist terrorist Nigeria state outrage ravages Uzo-Uwani, north Biafra, beginning shortly after 4am, slaughtering 200 Biafran children, women and men asleep in their beds and wounding scores and scores and scores – several critically…
Paraphernalia of genocidist Nigeria state response to this act of genocide of its very own premeditated creation: defiance, defiance, more slaughtering of Igbo, more slaughtering of Igbo planned; response from the rest of the world including especially leaders such as David Cameron and Barack Obama who imposed islamist Muhammadu Buhari as head of regime in Nigeria in March 2015 but who have duly condemned the Orlando terror slaying: silence, haunting silence, deafening silence …
4. Wednesday 9 February 2016: Chronicle of bursts, booms, flashes, murders: islamist terrorist Nigeria state outrage ravages Aba, southeast Biafra, beginning shortly after 6.30am, slaughtering 22 Biafrans gathered for morning prayers at the National High School for the release of Nnamdi Kanu (Biafran freedom broadcaster and leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra illegally detained currently by the Nigerian regime), and wounding scores and scores and scores – several critically…
Paraphernalia of genocidist Nigeria state response to this act of genocide of its very own premeditated creation: defiance, defiance, more slaughtering of Igbo, more slaughtering of Igbo planned; response from the rest of the world including especially leaders such as David Cameron and Barack Obama who imposed islamist Muhammadu Buhari as head of regime in Nigeria in March 2015 but who have duly condemned the Orlando terror slaying: silence, haunting silence, deafening silence …
As this phase-IV of the Igbo genocide (earlier on during phases I-III, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, Nigeria and strategic ally Britain murdered 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of the nation’s population in this foundational genocide of post-European[conquest] Africa) demonstrates most appositely in our age of “instant information”/“instant communication”, nowhere else on earth, in 2016, are any peoples murdered so monstrously with scant responses of revulsion from the rest of the world particularly from the key chanceries of those chiefly responsible for propping up this desperately fiendish Nigeria islamist genocidist regime emplaced in southwestcentral Africa.
* Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is visiting professor in graduate programme of constitutional law at Universidade de Fortaleza, Brazil. He specialises on the state and on genocide and wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch, beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. Among his books are Longest genocide - since 29 May 1966 (forthcoming, 2016), Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (African Renaissance, 2011), Biafra Revisited (African Renaissance, 2006), African Literature in Defence of History: An Essay on Chinua Achebe (Michigan State University Press, 2001), Africa 2001: The State, Human Rights and the People (International Institute for African Research, 1993), and Conflict and Intervention in Africa (Macmillan, 1990).
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