By Peter Opara
A U.S. Assistant Secretary of African Affairs named Joseph Palmer was the Igbo nemesis during the most trying time of the Igbo – 1967-1970. Palmer
singularly deflected Democrat’s Vice President Huber Humphrey’s
attention on the plight of the Igbo. Palmer sat on Republican President
Richard Nixon’s concern for the lives and welfare of the Igbo; he sat
on President Nixon’s concern for the continued slaughter, displacement
and dispossession of the Igbo; he sat on President Nixon’s concern for
the continued starvation of the Igbo in the Igbo country – While
Palmer ignored the plight of the Igbo, he dined and wined with Sule Kole,
the Arab Nigerian representative in It
is hard to admit that in fact Palmer’s indifference to the Igbo plight
was simply a case of material over humanity. OIL. Where Palmer’s
ultimate superiors saw human suffering and wastage, Palmer saw only OIL.
It is interesting that it is the same OIL that Palmer desired over the
Igbo suffering, starvation and death that has rendered As
did President Charles De Gaulle of France, President Nixon noted the
mass slaughter of the Igbo in Nigeria for what it was – GENOCIDE; this
in spite of the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s diabolical lies
to President Nixon that there was no genocide occurring in Nigeria then
in 1967, and later starvation in Biafra. The same Wilson, who reacted
like a freak at the thought or mention of the name of As
to the unity of the contraption that But
the Igbo had to go then and still shall go for freedom, security, human
and technological progress, and in this regard for the Igbo, there is no
substitute for The North and Separation -The
Igbo desire to part from Suddenly,
Araba chant that hit a crescendo soon following the Arab Nigerian’s
revenge coup of 1966, that commenced their genocide against the Igbo,
subsided. Why? The youth of the north must inquire and discover for
themselves why their leaders that often chanted Araba, chants Araba no
more; it is important they embark on such discovery to see for
themselves whether their being Nigerians and remaining part of Nigeria
has benefited the northern masses or just a select few northerners.
Nonetheless, northern youths should note if what I posit here is the
reason why the chant subsided. Here it is - conniving, criminal It
is common knowledge, perhaps documented, that prior to the British
departure in 1960 or earlier, Britain worked out a favorable lopsided
political arrangement for Arab Nigerians where by some strange
arithmetic, the north of Nigeria became numerically superior to the
south. Such arithmetical calculations ensured control of power and thus
resource, oil, by the north. In
this Cage – Nigeria, where every group is at each others’ throat,
there is talk about Sovereign National Conference (SNC) another of many
conferences that have been held to yap about the continued living
together or not of the peoples in this Cage. On the proposed conference,
one time-leader of the cage – that had bankrupted the cage morally and
economically, a born “kparawo”, as his northern people refer to him,
Ibrahim Babangida, allowed in a newspaper interview that there is “no
go area”. The “no go area” as far as this chief robber is
concerned is any talk about separation of the peoples that Lugard forced
into the Cage that Lugard’s concubine named Nigeria. Well, separation
or no separation, it is a universal norm that a thief is without honor,
and could not be allowed or even be seen to have an input in a parley
such as the one in question. Not in Igbo and Dafur1 Million was the number of Igbo Arab Nigerians swore to slaughter to avenge the death of their leader Sir Ahmadou Bello, who was said to have been killed by Chukwuma Nzeogwu, but not without assist by Arab Nigerian soldiers and others. Above all, Nzeogwu and company’s coup d’etat was one about which the average Igbo had not any inkling, talk less of a fetus in its mother’s womb that counted for the 1 Million Igbo that were slaughtered by Arab Nigerians and their southern Christian puppets. The
man Harold Wilson, who held brief for Arab Nigerians, one is not aware
what has become of him, whether he is dead or alive. If One
prays that Palmer and Wilson’s diabolism does not befall the people of
Dafur. This indigenous African population in western With the visit of Secretary Powell, Moustafa Osman Ismail, foreign minister of the evil government of Arab Sudan – the National Islamic Front - said that his government will combat the Arab Militia in Dafur, where the Militia, Moustafa Ousman Ismail’s kit and kin have been killing and maiming infants, men, women and children and raping women - young and old. Omar el-Bashir, president of the evil government of Arab Sudan National Islamic Front was reported to have committed to disarming the janjaweed killer Militia, his kinsmen that he armed; he was also reported to have said that he would investigate human rights violation in Dafur. Who on earth will take Omar el-Bashir’s word? That will be the day, when human rights violation is investigated in an Arab land. El-Bashir is to investigate human rights violation, he is to investigate terrorism against the people of Dafur that he sanctioned and continues to support. El- Bashir will investigate executors of his proxy terrorism, the janjaweed the Arab way – decapitate all the little guys and exonerate himself and those around him like Moustafa Osman Ismail, and then send to Dafur another band of killer janjaweeds for continued killing of men, raping of women, burning and looting of property. Secretary Powell must not allow himself to be duped by the words of Moustafa Osman Ismail and his boss Omar el-Bashir. Only a fool would take words of an Arab or those influenced by them on the matter of the fate of the people of Dafur. Moustafa and the evil government that he represents have only empty words; their words do not mean a thing. It does not matter if the words were spoken or written, they are not to be trusted. Dafur, Déjà vu -What
is new here as far as Arabs, whether of The apogee of Igbo bloodlust by Arab Nigerians and the rest Nigerians came on in 1966/77, and just as with the Arabs in Dafur today, the world had sat mute wringing its hand, wondering what was genocide and what was its proper definition. It was such indifference and criminal connivance on the part of those in authority as Palmer, that prevented President Nixon’s desire to bring on the might of the U.S. not only upon Nigeria to curtail its evil acts, but also to assist the suffering and dieing Igbo masses. Meanwhile, British Wilson and Russia’s Alexei Kosygin armed Arab Nigerian murderers to the teeth and like their brethren Arab Janjaweed operating now in Dafur, they descended on the Igbo by air, shooting, bombing – killing and maiming men, women and children. The
only difference in Dafur is that Arab Sudan operates in Dafur on land,
on horsebacks and on camels, while Arab Nigeria operated in There
is simply nothing new here, folks. Refugees in Dafur; refugees in Biafra;
lack of relief in Dafur – food and medicaments, occasioned by
government blockade in Sudan; lack of relief in Biafra – food and
medicaments, occasioned by blockade and a deliberate policy of
starvation of the Igbo. What is new? Arabs are the same all over the
world, wherever they hold sway or attempt to hold sway. In Southern
Nigerian Christians of the Middle Belt, To day, people of Rivers in the Igbo backyard squat like rats atop oil deposits that are tapped to take care of lands far away, while their people live in squalor and chill penury. I read the words of northern Nigerian leaders, their Imams and all following the MINOR fracas, I repeat, MINOR fracas in Yelwa and other environs up there – north of Nigeria, referring to “Pork eating infidels”, “Arna” “burukutu drinkers” and sundry insolence they heaped on the people of Middle Belt – Jack Yakubu Gowon’s people, Theophilus Danjuma’s people, Joseph Garba’s people…you name them, all of them who fought, I repeat, for Arab Nigerians to “keep Nigeria one” with the Igbo as their victim. “Danjuma risked his life in the name of the north (and for its sake) to effect the arrest of the then much dreaded General Aguiyi Ironsi”, wrote one Sam Nda-Isaiah. His name suggests a Middle belt Christian. One who is familiar with Nigerian history as of the time of the aforementioned arrest would ask: What was the reason for the arrest of Aguiyi Ironsi? What was his offence? Here is a man who to this day is said by his Igbo people, to have lived his life appeasing the same northern people that arrested and killed him. While Danjuma, a Middle belt Christian “effected” Aguiyi Ironsi’s arrest, another Middle belt Christian William Walbe, “effected” Ironsi’s murder – all as we have read from Sam Nda-Isaiah, for the sake of the north – Arab Nigerians. Now, what did these Christian slaves of Arab Nigerians get for the killing, raping, looting that they carried out for Arab Nigerians? Well, deservedly for them, they got in return sundry abuse and threat of extermination. Indeed an Arab Nigerian leader, Ibrahim Tahir, threatened in the wake of the Plateau riot, to incinerate the Middle Belt and erase it from the surface of the earth. I mean, according to him, incinerate the same Middle Belt that has borne water through thick and thin for Tahir’s Arab Nigerians, the same Middle Belt whose son, Gowon, led the charge to decapitate the Igbo for “One Nigeria” for the benefit of Arab Nigerians. Consider that the reason for the killing of men, raping of women and destruction of property in Dafur is same as the cause of the Plateau MINOR fracas – land for Arab Sudan nomads and place of forage for their beast, llama or cow. Same thing. In Dafur, Arab Sudan nomads not only let their beasts destroy farm land and crops, they want the land of the people of Dafur by force; then el-Bashir’s National Islamic Front sends the janjaweeds, armed to shoot and kill, while government plane swoops down on defenseless men, women and children. Nigerians and Amnesia and Senility -What
is new? Nigerians all today are senile, and the one worst stricken with
the disease of senility is none other than Matthew Olusegun Okikiolahan
Aremu Obasanjo, the Arab Nigerian hegemonist arrow head. It was
Obasanjo, who in 1999, following the slaughter of the Igbo in To
a person of the age of 1- 40, Obasanjo’s feigned incredulity at the
Kaduna Igbo massacre conveyed an unmistakable message and the message
was - it was the first time Arab Nigerians have ever slaughtered the
Igbo and destroyed his property. What misinformation! What a lie! What
deceit! But such is the foundation of It was the same disease of senility or amnesia that Obasanjo exhibited, when it took him twenty-years to tell Nigerians that the Chukwuma Nzeogwu coup d’etat that supposedly pained Nigerians all so much that they in unison embarked on their elimination plan of the Igbo, was not an “Igbo coup” as alleged. The killing, the maiming, the raping, the looting and destruction of all things Igbo had been committed and Obasanjo was an integral part of these crimes, in fact it was these crimes against the Igbo that formed the backbone of Obasanjo’s Nigerian type impeccable resume today; “conqueror” of the Igbo, he is said to deem himself. He could only wish that was so. A first class Igbophobe, as are all of his kinsmen, Obasanjo must awoke several times at night, believing he has the Igbo wrapped in his coarse palm, just as he wishes according to him he had “captured” the Igbo icon Ikemba Odumegwu-Ojukwu, a man much superior to him and wiser than him. Well, what a service, Obasanjo extended to the spirit of his supposed bosom friend, Nzeogwu, that a nationalistic endeavor of his –Nzeogwu’s - that had the backing of even Hassan Katsina and a coterie of northern officers and other ranks and northern elites became the excuse by which Nzeogwu’s people, the Igbo became targets for elimination in an entity they built and called their own – Nigeria. Nzeogwu’s was a coup d’etat about which the northern Nigerian based journal New Nigerian opined thus: ”regionalism and tribalism have been the major factors that have precipitated the present crisis. If we have learnt that much then some good may come out of what has just happened”. The hope expressed by the northern Nigerian journal – the New Nigerian, was not to be. Today, 38 years later, regionalism and tribalism has never reached such a height. Whereas earlier these tribes engaged in sundry chicanery and shenanigans, just that, today, they are at each other’s jugular. For example the north that once seemed monolithic, where a town or village that borders Nsukka (an Igbo town) to the north, where people are named Ogbu, Ochefu – Igbo names or Igbo sounding names – were regarded as Hausas, today, they are entangled in a bloodbath all the way to Gombe – wherever that is up, up north. Along the way, the Igbo who never had a dog in the fight in these lands where he only minds his business, is a target for attack. Separate
existence for the Igbo and for any of the nations in Lugard’s cage
that is willing to extricate itself is the only solution to what is
today a criminal, blood drenched Small
is beautiful – “Small
is beautiful” is in fact the title of a successful book in economics
on third world economic development. The concept of smallness discussed
in the book suits the Lugard’s huge cage – Nigeria
must be made smaller for all of its parts to realize their respective
beauty; not just realization of their respective beauty, but also to
genuinely tap the talents of these parts that are being suffocated
inside the behemoth white elephant - Nigeria. It is the ignoramuses who
do not know any better and thieves who desire to continue to steal that
want the white elephant – Following
centuries of conflagration upon conflagration within If
one were a pessimist, one would not be here today penning this piece. As
a note then, any who does not know, here it is. In countries way away
from the shores of Nigeria, individuals and private organizations with
money to invest – not crude oil buyers – investors in manufacture,
investors in enduring, capital intensive, job-providing entities - are
waiting for Nigeria to “SPLIT” into manageable and accountable
entities, before they would come to that part of the world to place
their hard earned Pound Sterling or Dollar on a table. Contrary to
Obasanjo’s recent wolf-cry about some plan to “disintegrate”
Nigeria by some bogy man because according to him, “Nigeria is big”,
in investors circles abroad where places of opportunity in Africa are
presented, Nigeria never features; again, not until Nigeria splits into
manageable, accountable parts. Money men abroad indeed wish for Manageable
and accountable parts was fairly the case with Nigeria in my childhood
days, when each region was a star in its own right exclusive for what
they produced – eastern region - palm oil/palm kernel; western region
– cocoa; northern region - groundnuts/hides and skin. How does a sane
human being object to autonomy or indeed sovereignty of The Forgotten Nigerian Genocide - Now,
following the Plateau episodes, and some others in the north of Arabs and those of Arab orientation have a thing with male killing. They kill males and rape women. Such is abominable. Such is evil. It is clear that genocidal tendencies are inbred with Arabs. They engage in ethnic cleansing wherever and whenever they please; they kill the males of their victim ethnic group, they rape the women of same victim ethnic group so they can sow their kind. Imagine such evil! Murtala Mohammed lined up Igbo male children age 6 and above in the open field and mowed them down – executed them all. Where was the outrage then, where is the outrage now? “We
want to make a light baby”, said Janjaweed Militiamen – who,
according to Time Magazine, “have been raping dark-skinned women as
part of a campaign to ethnically cleanse Dafur Post 9/11, no Arab looking man will have any chance to kill non-Arab males and expect to descend on infidel females. Any Arab looking male that missteps on an airplane anywhere in the world, will be held down beaten the crap out of, and the ghost choked out of him before the plane touches ground. So, could someone tell what it is about Arabs and killing of non-Arab male? Here
is news for you, Toungo, gory news at that. The crimes described in your
piece were such that were perpetrated against the Igbo in their
thousands in your neck of the wood, 38 years ago. Are you aware that
pregnant Igbo women had their bellies cut open and their babies or fetus
removed and smashed to the ground? Are you aware that Igbo women were
taken to lepers for sexual intercourse? Are you aware that under the
command of Murtala Mohammed, Igbo male - 6 and above were lined up and
shot point blank? Toungo, such dastard acts that do not cross the mind
of the Igbo were perpetrated against the Igbo in your neck of the wood.
Do you not know? They were gruesome acts that got the Igbo dazed and
confused as to whom he thought he had as fellow country people and
neighbors, whether they were human beings or animals. Some others may
describe events of that time better than I could, but I do hope you see
the picture, the One
wondered for months now, since the Arab Sudan murder, maiming and raping
in Dafur were widely reported in world journals how Nigerians of Arab
extraction and/or same cultural, religious persuasion as the Sudanese
felt about the treatment meted to the people of Dafur by Arabs of Sudan.
I wondered if Nigerians of Arab extraction and/or mental, social or
religious orientation, many of them writers, were aware of what their
kind were doing in Dafur. Readers were treated to a treatise by one
Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa celebrating One wondered also if Nigerians of Arab extraction and/or orientation both old and young among them were aware or recall that the Igbo were dealt with similar fate in Nigeria as the people of Dafur; that the murderous episodes in Yelwa and its environs were a unique experience in Nigeria only to the Igbo; that the situation in Dafur – killing, maiming, hunger, refugee, disease etc, pale in comparison to what the Igbo as a people have experienced in Nigeria. Indeed they are not aware. Or the Igbo experience is of no import to them. Or they are victims of propaganda and brainwashing. Read one Audu Zango – “The recent ethnic cleansing (referring to the MINOR fracas in Plateau) is the worst organized civil carnage apart from the civil war”….then he went on to carpet (to use the Nigerian parlance) the Taroks with insults – “drunken and cannabis intoxicated savages…..”. It is clear that to Zango, the genocide perpetrated to the Igbo, first of its kind on the African continent does not feature in his memory, else he would not have referred to the Plateau fracas as “the worst organized civil carnage apart from civil war”. Zango might want to know that his people, Arab Nigerians organized and executed a plan, to kill 1 Million Igbo, and the effort netted for Arab Nigerians thousands of Igbo dead. May be as once expressed by yours truly and another writer, the genocide against the Igbo of 37 years ago is a history of the north that northerners wish to forget. That may be okay, but not when such sordid deeds reoccur time and time again, and some of the seemingly decent minded Arab Nigerians keep quiet. Prayers “to exorcise whatever demons are in charge of our land”, as Toungo lamented, can have effect only with the recognition and/or confrontation of the first act of genocide on the African continent, that in the cage called Nigeria that was perpetrated by Toungo’s people against the Igbo. 60
years later, This
by a southern writer – Ruben Abati, regarding same MINOR fracas in
Plateau – “Ethno-religious violence widens the gaps among the
various nationalities…..it destroys hopes, aspirations and
relationships….the persons who have lost friends and relations to the
incident are bound to lose faith in Nigeria”. Ruben Abati may have
been in diaper when even his people the Yoruba joined in merrily to
slaughter the Igbo on a proportion then unheard of on the continent of Continuing, Zango called on Arewa Consultative Assembly to invite the United Nations to investigate the MINOR fracas in Plateau. He then concludes his article thus – “The facilitators and effectors should know that pathological haters and murderers of northerners, Muslims and Hausa Fulani in the past like Nzeogwu, Bukar Dimka, Gideon Okar, Bola Ige and their groups got drowned in the artificial sea of hatred they created by themselves”. With the exception of Nzeogwu, the rest names belong to Hausa Fulani otherwise Arab Nigerian puppets, most belonging to the Tarok, Jukun and Birom tribes, soldiers mainly who, Arab Nigerians used to perpetrate their genocide on the Igbo, genocide to which Zango seems totally oblivious…oblivious that his very people were perpetrators of the first known genocide on the continent of Africa – that against the Igbo. Zango is reminded to include the Igbo case, as he invites the UN to look into the Plateau fracas, so the UN may also look into his own very people’s mass slaughter and dispossession of the Igbo 37 years ago and counting. The
communist entity that The
Igbo wants no more of the experience of the past in Military Pre-emption -In a radio chat on the Sudan not long ago, the host cut in as I compared the situation in Biafra which he recalled, to that in Dafur, and demanded to know from me what measures I thought should be in place to stem the situation in Dafur. Short of outright invasion of Sudan, I said, the U.S. should sack the Sudanese Embassy, restrict travels to the U.S. and Europe to Sudanese government officials……The guest, a Harvard specialists on these matters nodded along in agreement, and added that Sudanese assets and those of its officials, monies and all are to be confiscated by the U.S., that such was the only language these evil doers understood. In my book Think In Time – Essays and Encounters of the Last Quarter or the 20th Century - is contained the policy of pre-emption/pre-emptive strike. I wrote that, proposing it as a leading policy for the New World Order, in the 21st Century. I wrote it two years and months before George W Bush came to office and two years and months before 9/11. Military pre-emption is simply a policy whereby the sovereignty of a nation is suspended so evil men and evil governments – the Saddams and the Milosevics and Omar El-Bashirs of the world can be apprehended or sacked by a select quick reactive force, when these elements begin lusting for the blood of their fellow humans as they might have been established to do. Military pre-emption is a noble policy; it is as noble as a surgeon removing a cancerous cell from the body. The world, the society, the community is better for it when a known troublemaker is removed. Peace reigns. One
regrets that President George W. Bush had not implemented this policy as
efficiently as it ought to have, thus the Pre-emption
was applied albeit belatedly, but effectively and efficiently to sack
the Taliban in
I
have mentioned only the Had
visionary colonial Americans not thrown Britain out, a country reputed
for its raw mercantile imperialism, a country reputed for its destroy
and abandon tendencies and sundry sordid political and economic acts,
the world and its peoples would be in a terrible shape today. Any who
has questions should ask those who call
The
Igbo, led by their icon Odumegwu-Ojukwu could have accomplished the same
feat as colonial In
the course of this writing, the Nigerian Punch newspaper of July 22nd
appeared with a headline – “ What
is the area that the British consul is to oversee? The area is the heart
of oil production in That
much is clear. The Queen, the head of England benefits more from the
oil, than the people, including the Olu, the head of Warri, whose land
yield the oil. Why, Bantus of Lugard’s cage, do you think colonial Soon
as visionaries in colonial Wake
up Bantus for the sake of your children, and your children’s children,
for their future. Begin by cutting Lugard’s behemoth elephant, The United Nation -For
good reason, one was reluctant to mention the United Nations, an entity
that was formed to deter the Dafur situation and to cater to the Dafurs
of the world. The U.N., same as And
Kofi Annan, that son of Your
sense of triumph, Anan, Sir, is for naught. You are dealing with Arabs,
a people whose words, written or spoken, do not mean a thing. Do you
recall the meeting in Aburi, in your country Ghana, chaired by your
country’s statesman, General Ankrah, to reconcile the Igbo and Arab
Nigerians who had slaughtered the Igbo en mass? Do you recall that
General Ankrah succeeded in getting Odumegwu-Ojukwu the Igbo leader and
Gowon the Arab Nigerian leader to agree on key aspects of what ailed
African
How about the African Union formerly Organization of African Unity? As I said on the radio talk to which I referenced earlier, the African Union constitutes 99% Arab countries. African Union is an Arab infested organization, another evil, conniving entity. What did the OAU do for starving, dying Biafrans? Just what African Union is doing today for the people of Dafur. Nothing! When Arabs engage in their natural evil acts of killing and raping, African Union draws down its three monkey ethics – see no evil, say no evil, hear no evil veil. The
universally respected leader Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, saw through this
veil, what a conniving, evil entity the organization he co-founded had
become, and that informed his decision to break with the organization
and recognize the rights of the Igbo to found and live in an entity that
was safe and secure for them – Let
the bricks fall on The
onus as usual falls on the Action
is the only word evildoers understand. The National Islamic Front that
rules Let
the bricks descend upon the Evil Empire that is Let
the hammer fall on Peter Opara is a communications consultant, and author of: Understanding the Nigerian Nation Tribes – Why they Boil; Think In Time – Essays and Encounters of the Last Quarter of the 20th Century; The Man of Biafra – In the City Where America Began. |