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.
CONQUEROR'S CONCORD
In 'Empire: What
Ruling the World Did to the British' (London: Viking, 2011), Jeremy
Paxman allocates just 12 lines of his total 368-page study to
British-occupied Nigeria in west Africa. But Paxman's pithy commentary
undoubtedly speaks volumes of the mindset of the occupation regime on
the very eve of its presumed departure from Nigeria in October 1960.
This is clearly a
regime that is not prepared or willing to abandon the bounty harvest or
lucre that is its Nigeria. Instead,
it is exploring across a spectrum of
strategies to subvert the very goal of the restoration-of-independence
movement for the peoples which the Igbo, one of the constituent nations
in Nigeria, had led since the 1930s.
Using state
archival material, Paxman presents the crux of the panoramic
conversation on the subject in Lagos (Nigeria's then capital), in
January 1960, between James Robertson, the outgoing occupation governor,
and visiting British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (Paxman, 2011:
272):
MACMILLAN: Are the people fit for self-government?
ROBERTSON: No, of course not.
According to
Paxman, James Robertson reckons that it would take 'another 20 or 25
years' for Nigeria to be 'fit for self-government' (Paxman: 272).
Instructively, this
is the same Robertson who had, prior to his Lagos meeting with
Macmillan, 'concluded' the 'terms' of the British 'exit' from Nigeria in
'negotiations' with the country's restoration-of-independence movement -
begun 15 years earlier and had been chaired successively by two
previous occupation governors including sessions scheduled and held in
England (Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, 'Biafra Revisited', 2006: 27-43, 121).
This is the same
Robertson who had just rigged the December 1959 countrywide elections in
Nigeria (part of the restoration-of-independence 'package') in favour
of the Hausa-Fulani north region, as Harold Smith, a member of the
occupation regime in Lagos at the time, would recall years later (Harold
Smith, 'A squalid end to empire', The Free Library, 1 November 2008;
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, 'Elections in Africa - the voter, the court, the
outcome', 2013: 810-811).
Furthermore, this
is the same Robertson whose predecessor, in Lagos, had earlier rigged
the countrywide census results - again, in favour of Britain's
Hausa-Fulani north regional clients (Smith, 'A squalid end of empire'),
aimed at ensuring that the latter, with a fabricated population majority
in the country, has the 'electoral clout' to safeguard for the
(British) conqueror-state the vast arena of its strategic and economic
assets in Nigeria in perpetuity (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2006: 18-114; Herbert
Ekwe-Ekwe, 'Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide,
Literature', 2011: 1-6).
As this study will
demonstrate, this north region constitutes the core of Britain's local
clients in Nigeria, vehemently opposed to African independence - and,
therefore, the British exit! Consequently, it would play a key role in
the perpetration of the Igbo genocide which it undertakes in concert
with Britain.
Pointedly, on the
broader stretch of the politics of liberation of the Southern World,
during this post-Second World War epoch, the northern Nigeria region has
the unenviable accolade across this hemisphere of being home to one of
the few peoples who wanted the continuing occupation of their lands by
one of the pan-European powers of global conquest since the 15th century
CE (Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, 'Léopold Senghor', The Literary Encyclopedia, 30
June 2002).
So, given James
Robertson's apparent 'unfavourable prognosis' on Nigeria illustrated in
'Empire', Prime Minister Macmillan asks his governor for advice on the
way forward for the British continuing occupation of Nigeria (Paxman:
272): 'What do you recommend me to do?'
ROBERTSON: I recommend you give it to them at once.
Really? Why?
Doesn't Robertson's suggestion to his boss sound wholly contradictory to
the track that this conclave had trodden so far? Well, no, not
really... Both prime minister and governor have no disagreement,
whatsoever, on holding onto British 'interests' in Nigeria in
perpetuity; they do not believe that they are necessarily bound by the
'terms' of the envisaged British 'exit' from Nigeria 'negotiated' since
1945 even though, ironically, these had largely preserved British
'interests', thanks to the veto-power that its Hausa-Fulani north region
subalterns would exercise in the 'new' dispensation (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2006:
40-43, 121); most crucially, both men do not subscribe to the
inalienable rights of Africans to recover their conquered lands.
It is the case,
though, that if the British officials were to renege on their 'exit'
from Nigeria at this 11th hour, they would have to contend with a
serious crisis - at least in the short/medium term - right there on the
ground in Nigeria: 'The alternative [is] that most talented people
[read: the Igbo and those others elsewhere in south Nigeria who demanded
and supported the drive towards unfettered restoration-of-independence
for the peoples during these past 30 years] would become rebels and the
British would spend the next two decades fighting to stave off what [is]
inevitable, while incurring the opprobrium of the world' (Paxman: 272).
As the Lagos
deliberations end, nine months before the designated British departure
date (1 October 1960), both prime minister and governor needn't agonise,
too much, over the future prospects of their country's Nigeria
stranglehold.
After all, despite
the 'talented people', Britain is aware that it holds the trump card to
defend this stranglehold via its Hausa-Fulani clients. Twice in the
previous 15 years (significantly, it should be noted, during those
crucial years of British 'negotiations' of its 'exit' from Nigeria with
the 'talented people'), the clients organised and unleashed pogroms
against Igbo people in the northcentral town of Jos (1945) and north
city of Kano (1953).
Hundreds of Igbo
were murdered during these massacres and tens of thousands of pounds
sterling worth of their property looted or destroyed (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2006:
8, 19-20). No perpetrators of these murders were ever apprehended or
punished by the occupation regime.
Six and one-half
years hence, from Sunday 29 May 1966, these same British clients would
unleash the genocide against the Igbo people.
During the course
of 44 months, 3.1 million Igbo children, women and men are murdered in
this foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest
Africa. The Igbo and the world suddenly realise that those anti-Igbo
pogroms, carried out during the years of the Anglo-'talented
people'-in-Nigeria doubtful restoration-of-independence negotiations,
were indeed 'dress rehearsals' for the 29 May 1966-12 January 1970 Igbo
genocide.
Britain plays an
instrumental role in the perpetration of the genocide - politically,
diplomatically and militarily, and its closest international ally, the
United States, as we will soon elaborate, is fully aware of its mission.
Now, a new
Harold-the-prime minister, this time Harold Wilson, beginning in 1964,
has no qualms about the 'opprobrium of the world' considered by the
other Harold during those January 1960 talks with governor Robertson.
Wilson's reasons
are obvious: the architecture of control and execution of mass violence
in Nigeria has altered, somehow, since January 1960, and the forces on
the ground spearheading the Igbo genocide are the trusted Hausa-Fulani
subalterns of old in addition to their since locally expanded allies in
Yoruba, Edo and Urhobo west Nigeria - not Britain, directly; precisely,
what Macmillan and Robertson had sought to avoid during that Lagos
summit! Declassified British state papers indicate the monstrous
disposition by the Wilson government, right from the outset, to saturate
the Nigerian genocidist armoury on the ground with a wide range of
British weapons to ensure that the murder of the Igbo is effected most
comprehensively:
"In December 1967
... [British Foreign] Secretary George Thomson said that '[the
Nigerians] are most impressed with the Saladins and Ferrets previously
supplied by Britain. As a result Britain supplied six Saladin armoured
personnel carriers (APCs), 30 Saracen APCs along with 2,000 machine guns
for them, anti-tank guns and 9 million rounds of ammunition.
Denis Healey, the
Defence Secretary, wrote that he hoped these supplies would encourage
the Nigerians 'to look to the United Kingdom for their future purchases
of defence equipment'. By the end of the year [1967] Britain had also
approved the export of 1,050 bayonets, 700 grenades, 1,950 rifles with
grenade launchers, 15,000 lbs of explosives and two helicopters ... In
the first half of the following year, 1968, Britain approved the export
of 15 million rounds of ammunition, 21,000 mortar bombs, 42,500 Howitzer
rounds, 12 Oerlikon guns, 3 Bofors guns, 500 submachine guns, 12
Saladins with guns and spare parts, 30 Saracens and spare parts, 800
bayonets, 4,000 rifles and two other helicopters. At the same time
Wilson was constantly reassuring Gowon of British support for a United
Nigeria, saying in April 1968 that 'I think we can fairly claim that we
have not wavered in this support throughout ... ' British arms supplies
were stepped up again in November [1968]. Foreign Secretary Michael
Stewart said the Nigerians could have 5 million more rounds of
ammunition, 40,000 more mortar bombs and 2,000 rifles.
'You may tell
Gowon', Stewart instructed High Commissioner Hunt in Lagos, 'that we are
certainly ready to consider a further application' to supply similar
arms in the future as well. He concluded: 'if there is anything else for
ground warfare which you... think they need and which would help speed
up the end of the fighting, please let us know and we will consider
urgently whether we can supply it'.
Other supplies
agreed in November [1968], following meetings with the Nigerians
included six Saladins and 20,000 rounds of ammunition for them, and
stepped up monthly supplies of ammunition, amounting to a total of 15
million rounds additional to those already agreed. It was recognised by
the Defence Minister that 'the scale of the UK supply of small arms
ammunition to Nigeria in recent months has been and will continue to be
on a vast scale'.
The recent deal
meant that Britain was supplying 36 million rounds of ammunition in the
last few months alone. Britain's 'willingness to supply very large
quantities of ammunition', Lord Shepherd [minister of state, foreign
office] noted, 'meant drawing on the British army's own supplies'. By
the end of 1968 Britain had sold Nigeria £9 million worth of arms, £6
million of which was spent on small arms ...
In March 1969 the
government approved the export of 19 million rounds of ammunition,
10,000 grenades and 39,000 mortar bombs ... Two senior British RAF
officers secretly visited Nigeria in August 1969 to advise the Nigerians
on 'how they could better prosecute the air war' ... [I]n December 1969
... Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart was calling for stepping up
military assistance including the supply of more armoured cars. These
supplies by Britain, he wrote, 'have undoubtedly been the most effective
weapons in the ground war and have spear-headed all the major
[Nigerian] advances'." (Mark Curtis, 'Nigeria's war over Biafra,
1967-70')
So, as the
slaughter of the Igbo intensifies, particularly in the catastrophic
months of 1968-1969, Harold Wilson is totally unfazed as he informs
Clyde Ferguson, the United States state department special coordinator
for relief to Biafra, that he, Harold Wilson, 'would accept a half
million dead Biafrans if that was what it took' Nigeria to destroy the
Igbo resistance to the genocide (Roger Morris, 'Uncertain Greatness:
Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy', 1977: 122).
Such is the
grotesquely expressed diminution of African life made by a supposedly
leading politician of the world of the 1960s - barely 20 years after the
deplorable perpetration of the Jewish genocide in Europe.
As the final tally
of the murder of the Igbo demonstrates, Harold Wilson probably has the
perverted satisfaction of having his Nigerian subalterns perform far in
excess of the prime minister's grim target, a subject coldly stated in
Wilson's own memoirs where he notes that the Nigerian military, equipped
zealously by Britain as we have highlighted, expends more small arms
ammunition in its campaign to achieve its annhilative mission in
Igboland than the amount used by the British armed forces 'during the
whole' of the Second World War (Harold Wilson, 'Labour Government,
1964-1970: A Personal Record,' 1971: 630).
On this feature,
Colonel Robert Scott, military advisor in the British diplomatic mission
in Nigeria, during the period, acknowledges, equally gravely, that as
Nigerian genocidist military forces unleash their attacks on Igbo
cities, towns and villages, they are the 'best defoliant agent known'
(Daily Telegraph, London, 11 January 1970).
POLITICAL ECOMOMY OF CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION - AND GENOCIDE
Whenever it
occurred, Africa's independence, or more historically correct, the
re-establishment of African independence after centuries of the European
conquest and occupation, was sure to be the turning point in the
history of African peoples.
It would be the
beginning of an extensive re-construction process for a continent that
had for the greater part of one-half of a millennium, starting from the
15th century CE, been the target of a devastating trail of invasions,
murders, mass exportations and enslavement of its peoples (chiefly in
the Americas and the Caribbean), occupations and subjugations by a
constellation of European World states (Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, 'African
Literature in Defence of History: An Essay on Chinua Achebe', 2001:
1-54).
Ultimately, Britain
emerges as the lead conqueror-state-beneficiary of the occupation of
Africa, having particularly seized lands with major population centres
and vast and multiple natural resource emplacements across the regions
of the continent: South Africa, Namibia (proxy control, post-1918 -
after the defeat of Germany in World War I), Zimbabwe, Botswana,
Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania
(post-1918, after the defeat of Germany in World War I), the Sudan,
south Cameroon (post-1918, after the defeat of Germany in World War I),
Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Nigeria (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2011: 4-6).
Apart from South
Africa, Nigeria's is Britain's most 'diversified' occupied economy in
Africa. This is indeed the British 'most-prized land' of west Africa
whose fortunes it is prepared to hold onto with or without the
restoration of African independence.
It is indeed to
hold onto these fortunes that Britain becomes fully involved in the
perpetration of the Igbo genocide - to 'punish' the Igbo for daring to
spearhead the termination of the British occupation, begun in the 1930s,
and further consolidate the envisaged overseeing role of its
Hausa-Fulani north region allies in this evolving dispensation of the
age. It is therefore important to highlight the empirical nature and
range of this Nigerian 'prized land' as these provide an invaluable
context within which the catastrophe of the Igbo genocide is executed.
Prior to the
outbreak of the Second World War, the following commodities account for
nearly 90 per cent of Nigeria's 'diversified' export products: rubber,
cocoa, cotton, groundnuts, tin ore and columbite, beniseeds, palm-oil
and palm-kernels (Bade Onimode, 'Imperialism and Underdevelopment in
Nigeria: The Dialectic of Mass Poverty', 1982: 47-55).
This
'diversification' occurs as a result of the size of the country,
stretching from the south on the Atlantic Ocean shorelines of
southwestcentral Africa to the deciduous/savannah vegetation belt of the
north hinterland bordering on the Sahel, which ensures that the
conquest regime can maximally exploit the varying climatic zones across
the territory in its choice of which agricultural products it wishes to
grow. Expectedly, such choices are dictated fundamentally by the
imperatives of the British economy and not Nigeria's.
In this regard, the
immediate post-war British reconstruction programme is highly
illustrative. The occupied Nigerian economy responds to this emergency,
3500 miles away, by embarking on the intensification of the production
of both the country's agricultural and mineralogical commodities listed
above. In 1946, the value of Nigerian exports to Britain is £23.7
million (R Olufemi Ekundare, 'An Economic History of Nigeria:
1860-1960', 1973: 225). By 1955, it is £129.8 million and in 1960, the
year of the supposed restoration of independence, it is £165.5 million
(Ekundare: 225).
There is a distinct
growth in Nigeria's gross domestic product during the period, an annual
rate of 4.1 per cent in 1950/51-1957/58 (Onimode: 48). Indeed, not
since 1916 had Nigeria enjoyed a favourable net-barter terms of trade
with Britain as recorded between 1951-1958, and 1958-1960 (Onimode: 48).
Consequently, the
huge sum of £276.8 million, the preponderant chunk of the surpluses that
accumulated from this unprecedented boom is transferred from Nigeria to
Britain between 1947 and 1960 (Ekundare: 226). This is not to mention
British surpluses enjoyed by the corresponding increases in the value of
Nigerian imports from mainly Britain at the time: £19.8 million in
1946, £136.1 million in 1955, and £215.9 million in 1960 (Ekundare:
226).
Besides, Britain's
more advantageous trade relations with Nigeria is further consolidated
in 1955 when Europe slumps into an economic recession.
The prices that
Europeans are prepared to pay for imports of agricultural and mineral
products from abroad fall considerably resulting in an instant blow to
the Nigerian economy. Even though its export trade that year increases
by 7000 tons in volume, the value falls by £17 million (Okwudiba Nnoli,
'A Short History of Nigerian Underdevelopment', Okwudiba Nnoli, ed.,
'Path to Nigerian Development', 1981: 124). The result is a further
increase in Nigeria's import bills.
While a 'buoyant'
Nigerian economy with its dominant reliance on the British economy for
imports is clearly an advantage for Britain, especially at a time of
recession at home, the enormous strain on Nigeria's own accounting is
becoming severe. Not only does the country incur deficits in its balance
of payments position, it also draws heavily from its external reserves
(Nnoli: 124).
Such is the
situation that Nigeria allocates at least one-fifth of the total
investment bill earmarked for the 1955/56-1961/62 development plan to be
financed from abroad (Nnoli: 124). While the total investment by
leading Western companies (predominately British) in Nigeria stands at
about £11.7 million in 1954, the figure for 1959/1960 is £20.5 million
(Nnoli: 124).
Twenty years
later, on the eve of the Igbo genocide in 1966, the 'diversification'
character of the Nigerian economy virtually comes to an end. Even though
Nigeria had since become 'independent', it is acutely significant that
the prevailing export product, petroleum, which has now displaced the
basket of commodities of economic 'diversification' enumerated above,
shares an equivalent quota of the country's export trade (90 per cent)
as the latter did in the 1940s/early 1950s. As should be expected, the
production and marketing of petroleum, this commodity now central in the
Nigerian economy, is dictated principally by the needs of the British
economy.
Whether as
'monocultural' or 'dualcultural', formally occupied or technically
'independent', the essential logic and character of this Nigeria economy
remains to serve the interests of Britain. Apart from South Africa,
Nigeria is now the site of Britain's highest economic and industrial
investment in Africa with the total worth of £1.5 billion. The British
success story is phenomenal.
The British
government controls a near-50 per cent shares in Shell-BP (the
predominant oil prospecting company in Nigeria) and 60 per cent shares
in Amalgamated Tin Mining, a major prospecting tin, cobalt and iron ore
mining company (William Freund, 'Theft and social protest among tin
miners in northern Nigeria', Donal Crummey, ed, 'Banditry, Rebellion and
Social Protest in Africa', 1986: 49-63).
In the non-mining
sector of the economy, John Holt, owned by a British family, is one of
the two largest in the country with branches located in the principal
towns and cities.
The United Africa
Company (UAC), another British enterprise, accounts for about 40 per
cent of Nigeria's entire import and export trade. The UAC is the major
African subsidiary of Unilever, the British transnational corporation.
It developed from the Royal Niger Company, which, in association with
Taubman Goldie, the entrepreneur, and Frederick Lugard, the first
British occupation governor, harnessed the British conquest of the
number of states in this southwestcentral territorial stretch of West
Africa between 1886 and 1941, and converted them into the amorphous
political entity called Nigeria (Ikenna Nzimiro, 'The political
implications of multinational corporations in Nigeria', Carl Widstrand,
ed., 'Multi-National Firms in Africa', 1975: 210-243).
The UAC, for its
part, has wholesale and retailing enterprises run in most parts of
Nigeria by its numerous subsidiaries, among which the following three
are most prominent: Kingsway Chemist, G.B. Ollivant, and African Timber
and Plywood (Nzimiro: 212-214).
In addition, the
UAC has part interest in other well-established companies in the country
such as Gulf Oil of Nigeria, Nigerian Prestressed Concrete, Nigerian
Breweries, Taylor Woodrow, and Nigelec. Ikenna Nzimiro's often-quoted
aphorism, 'UAC was Nigeria and Nigeria was UAC', does not therefore
exaggerate UAC's effective control of Nigeria's economy at the time
(Nzimiro: 217).
Finally, in the
finance sector, Barclays Nigeria (subsidiary of the British Barclays
Bank) and Standard Bank Nigeria (owned largely by the British Lloyds
Bank and Westminster Bank) control 90 per cent of Nigeria's effective
banking system. Once again, these institutions have branches across the
country. The 25,000 Britons resident in Nigeria are employed in this
extensive network of businesses and related services in the economy.
IGBO, RESTORATION-OF-INDEPENDENCE, POGROM, GENOCIDE
"Believing our
country is rightfully entitled to liberty and prosperous life ... and
determined to work in unity for the realisation of the ultimate goal of
self-government ... " (part of conference communique at the formal
launch of Nigeria's lead restoration-of-independence party, the National
Council of Nigeria and Cameroons [NCNC], Lagos, 26 August 1944: quoted.
in James Coleman, 'Nigeria', 1958 :264)
Nine months before
the end of the Second World War, as the above declaration shows, the
National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, the lead
restoration-of-independence political party in Nigeria whose principal
leaders consisted of notable Igbo intellectuals most of whom were
educated in the United States, had, in an historic move announcing its
formation, forced to the open the important question of the
restoration-of-the-independence of peoples in Nigeria from the British
occupation.
This is undoubtedly
a momentous development in the peoples' consciousness and aspirations,
with its membership drawn across the country including cultural
associations of constituent nations, trades' and students' unions,
women's organisations, and the youth.
On 22 June 1945,
Nigerian workers declare a countrywide strike to back their demands for
an increase in wages and improvement in the ever deteriorating
conditions of the people made worse by the ongoing war. The strike
virtually paralyses Nigeria's economic life. It goes on for 44 days in
the Lagos capital district, but even longer elsewhere in the country -
up to 52 days in some places in the regions.
The NCNC and the
restoration-of-independence press (particularly the vanguard West
African Pilot and Daily Comet, both edited by Nnamdi Azikiwe, then
secretary-general of the NCNC) support the strike, underlying the
increasingly evident cooperation between the trade unions and the
emerging political leadership in working towards the country's
liberation.
The strike is the
most far-reaching mobilisation of labour in occupied Nigeria and its
political implications are not lost on the occupation regime.
It is evident that
'Nigerians, when organised', as James Coleman has noted on the impact
and significance of the countrywide shutdown, 'had great power, that
they could defy the white bureaucracy, that they could virtually control
strategic centres throughout the country, and that through force or the
threat of force they could compel the government to grant concessions'
(Coleman: 259).
While the regime
agrees to enter into negotiations with the workers after the strike is
called off, it nonetheless seeks to destroy the huge 'political
dividend' of liberation consciousness that the shutdown has generated
across the country. Earlier on, it had proscribed the circulation of the
West African Pilot and the Daily Comet, and accused editor Nnamdi
Azikiwe and the Igbo people of engineering the strike (Okwudiba Nnoli,
'Ethnic Politics in Nigeria', 1980:122, 234-235).
Having exerted its
influence on its Hausa-Fulani north region clients not to participate in
the strike, the regime's propaganda on alleged Igbo responsibility for
the event becomes an instigator prop to Hausa-Fulani leaders' organised
massacres of Igbo immigrants in Jos and the surrounding tin mining towns
and villages in October 1945. Hundreds of Igbo are murdered during the
pogrom and tens of thousands of pounds sterling worth of their property
looted or destroyed.
No perpetrators of
these murders are apprehended or punished by the regime. As a result,
emboldened Hausa-Fulani leaders organise yet another pogrom of Igbo
immigrants in the north, this time in Kano, in May 1953. In carefully
orchestrated attacks that rage uninterruptedly for four days, mobs of
Hausa-Fulani youth attack Igbo population centres across the city.
Scores of Igbo people are murdered during the period. Hundreds of
thousands of pounds worth of Igbo business enterprises, homes, schools
and recreational centres are looted or destroyed.
These latest
attacks coincide with the heightened debates among Nigerian politicians
on the possible date for the formal termination of the British
occupation and the restoration of independence. In contrast to the Igbo
and other nations in the south who favour the year 1956, the north, with
total British connivance, as expected, is vehemently opposed to any
such dates.
Essentially, the
north unleashes the Igbo pogrom in Kano to scuttle these debates - which
it succeeds in doing, with evident British relief and satisfaction. As
in Jos, the occupation regime does not apprehend or prosecute anyone for
these massacres and destruction. But even more ominous for the future
of the Igbo in Nigeria, these Kano attacks are a portent of the
widespread genocide of the Igbo by Nigeria, beginning in May1966, in
which a total of 3.1 million Igbo are murdered during the course of
subsequent 44 months.
In August 1966, the
third month into the genocide, Britain is elated with its success in
overcoming a potentially strategic rupture with its north region clients
on the ground on the critical question of the territorial reach or
extent of the ongoing murder mission.
The north-led
Nigeria military and civilian-assisted brigades which had by now
murdered tens of thousands of Igbo across north and west Nigeria (during
this first phase of the genocide) and forced two million Igbo survivors
to take flight to their east region Biafra homeland (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2011:
75-76) were on the verge of formally declaring their Arewa Republic from
Nigeria.
Genocidist
commander Yakubu Gowon had already informed the world in a 1 August 1966
radio broadcast that 'there was no basis of Nigerian unity' (Obi Ebbe,
'Broken Back Axle', 2010:23). Subsequently, his troops began to fly
their Arewa 'independence' flag over their headquarters in Lagos as a
prelude to evacuating/transferring their military contingent/other
residual assets in west Nigeria to their north homeland.
These north troops
were nowhere in the east region or Biafra (300 miles away) at this time
and they had no plans, evidently, to extend their killing fields there.
From all indications, the genocidists appeared satisfied that they were
now on the verge of completing the murder of all Igbo living in their
controlled Nigeria territory and would have thus reckoned their mission
accomplished...
But the British
government thinks otherwise... The British government is adamant that
the east region, now under de facto control by the Igbo 'talented
people', should also be taken over by its north clients as this is the
political geography (mapped out above) that ensures that Britain's
overarching economic and strategic interests in southwestcentral Africa
remain intact.
In other words, the
British government feels that a north region 'departure' from Nigeria
'robs' the conqueror power of its historical potent overseer
African-based nurtured force to protect its stranglehold economy that is
Nigeria, as this study has demonstrated.
Britain requires
this north region client on the ground to fight to safeguard its
interest precisely because it wishes to avoid 'incurring the opprobrium
of the world' (Paxman: 272) by fighting freedom-quest Africans more
openly and directly in the mid-1960s.
Furthermore,
Britain argues that such a 'departure' couldn't be beneficial to the
long term interests of its genocidist clients either: 'Secession would
be an economic disaster [for the north]' (Michael Gould, 'The Biafran
War', 2011:43); 'Without the Igbo, there is no Nigeria.
They [the Igbo]
have the skilled manpower that held Nigeria together and they have the
resources' (Ebbe: 23). Francis Cumming-Bruce, the British chief
representative in Nigeria, is charged to communicate his government's
view on this subject to the Hausa-Fulani emirs, that notorious grouping
of the north region power bloc responsible for launching the ongoing
genocide (and the 1940s/1950s Igbo pogroms). As the following quoted
reference attests, Cumming-Bruce's intervention is robustly forthright
and it is important to quote him directly at some length:
"[I]t wasn't on
the face of it easy to get the (the North) to change, but I managed to
do it overnight. I drafted letters to the British Prime Minister, to
send to Gowon [genocidist commander] ... and for my secretary of state
(Michael Stewart) to send letters to each of the Emirs. I wrote an
accompanying letter to each of them because I knew them personally. I
drafted all these and they came back to me duly authorised to push at
once. The whole thing was done overnight and it did the trick of
stopping them (the North) dividing Nigeria up" (Gould: 23).
So, by promptly
agreeing to British demands to abandon their planned secession from
Nigeria in August 1966, the north region genocidists effectively became
available to extend their murder campaign to Igboland as a way of
securing the country for Britain - i.e., without Britain apparently
'incurring the opprobrium of the world' (Paxman: 272).
Cumming-Bruce's
spirited intervention, contacting key operatives he 'knew ...
personally' had indeed done 'the trick'. Britain would forthwith back
this expansive stretch of wholesale murder militarily, politically and
diplomatically.
Pointedly, Foreign
Secretary Michael Stewart, one of the pivotal British officials involved
in the Cumming-Bruce deliberations with the north emir-operatives, told
the British parliament in one of its numerous debates on the campaign
that his government was probably the only country in the world that
could not cease its support for the Nigerian mission against the Igbo
(Suzanne Cronje, 'The World and Nigeria', 1970: 38).
If ever there were
any doubts about British intentions on this genocide, since its outbreak
in May (1966), it was now clear that the architect of what scholars of
the genocide describe as its 'phase-II' (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2011: 86-91) or the
invasion of Igboland or Biafra was essentially none other than Britain.
Yet again, on the African scene, as history has shown so
catastrophically since the early 1900s, the European conqueror-power on
the continent can also double up as a genocide-power.
In centrally
initiating this follow-up phase of the Igbo genocide after August 1966
which would result in the slaughter of 3 million Igbo people,
one-quarter of this nation's population, Britain joins Belgium
(1878-1908) and Germany (1904-1907) in perpetrating a state-organised
genocide against a constituent nation in its occupied African country.
In the case of
Belgium, during the period, King Leopold II-led Belgian monarchy/state
forces organised the genocide of African constituent nations in the
Congo basin (central Africa) in which a total of 13 million Africans
were murdered (Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, 'Histoire générale du Congo: De
l'héritage ancien à la République Démocratique', 1998: 344). Between
1904 and 1907, Germany carried out the genocide of the Herero, Nama and
Berg Damara peoples as it sought to 'consolidate' its conquest and
occupation of contemporary Namibia.
The Germans
murdered 65,000 Herero or 80 per cent of the population, 10,000 Nama or
50 per cent of the population, and approximately 30 per cent of Berg
Damara people at the time (Horst Drechsler, 'Let Us Die Fighting': The
Struggle of the Herero and Nama against German Imperialism, 1884-1915,
1980). In April 1994, France, another leading European conqueror power
in Africa would join this league of genocide-powers of Africa in the
complicity of its military forces based in Rwanda in the genocide
against the Tutsi people organised by the country's central government, a
close ally of the French government (Linda Melvern, 'Conspiracy to
Murder: The Rwandan Genocide', 2006).
Britain is so
determined to pursue phase-II of the Igbo genocide, in the wake of the
Cumming-Bruce-north emirs accord, that it flagrantly intervenes to
scotch a last minute west African regional peace mediatory initiative,
led by neighbouring Ghana, to halt any further territorial expansion of
the ongoing slaughter.
In January 1967,
Ghana's head of state invited both the genocidist leadership in Lagos
and the Biafran resistance leadership in Igboland to a 2-day closed-door
emergency summit in Accra to discuss the tragedy.
The outcome of the
meeting is extraordinary, the likes of which have not been seen on the
African political scene since. After two days of talks, 4-5 January
1967, the delegates achieved an exceptional degree of agreement in spite
of the genocide of the previous seven months.
They inaugurated a
confederal, extensively decentralised constitutional framework solution
as basis for the future direction of the country (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2011:
79-86).
In effect, the
regions, including, especially, the east region, acquired more enhanced
powers vis-à-vis the centre in Lagos, foreclosing any 'legal grounds'
for that British plot, hammered out by ambassador Cumming-Bruce, to
extend the Igbo killing fields to Igboland.
In addition, the
delegates unanimously endorsed two areas of agreement that were
particularly important to the pressing question of halting the genocide:
(1) 'renounce the use of force as a means of settling the present
crisis in Nigeria' and (2) 'agree that there should be no more
importation of arms and ammunition until normalcy [is] restored'
(Ekwe-Ekwe, 2011: 82).
All the eight
delegates in attendance at these talks, including genocidist commander
Yakubu Gowon and Biafra's Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, signed this
historic outcome which was duly witnessed by Ghana's President Joseph
Ankrah.
Suddenly, for the
first time since 29 May 1966, the agreement reached in the Ghana summit
radically altered the contours of the political landscape of Nigeria.
But Britain
rejected the agreement outright and embarked on pressurising Gowon (and
other segments of the north leadership), who for two days, during the
Ghana conference, was out of reach from his British intelligence minders
for the first time in almost a year, to renege on it.
Britain was
therefore pleased when Gowon and the north scuttled the agreement just a
few days after. Gowon's ultimate renegation of an accord that he
signed, willingly, in Ghana, in the presence of all the other seven
conferees, their five secretaries, and President Ankrah, their host, was
a reminder, if ever such an evidence was sought, of who, eventually,
called the shots at the crucial junctures of the course of the Igbo
genocide: Britain.
Additionally,
Britain must have felt most delighted at this stage of this increasingly
deteriorating tragedy that its uncompromisingly steadfast position to
safeguard its interests in Nigeria, even at the cost of the continuing
genocide of the Igbo people, received a decisive boost from one of its
closest allies - the United States. Elbert Matthews, the US ambassador
in Nigeria, publicly supported the Cummings-Bruce initiative with the
north emirs, indicating, quite bluntly, albeit prosaically, that the
conflict was 'essentially a Nigerian, African and (British) Commonwealth
matter' (Confidential US State Department Files: Biafra-Nigeria,
1967-1969 - Political Affairs: v).
Even though the US
would hence claim a position of 'neutrality' (Confidential US State
Department Files: Biafra-Nigeria, 1967-1969 - Political Affairs: v) as
this tragedy intensified, such a disposition ideally suited the British
government. But what does US 'neutrality' over an ongoing genocide, the
first since the Jewish genocide of the 1930s-1940s in Europe and the
first since the historic 1948 UN genocide Convention really mean? Some
background analysis of the overarching US policy direction towards
Africa, especially since the end of the Second World War, is important
to answer this question.
[The last part of this article together with references, appears next week.]
*Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Longest genocide - Since 29 May 1966 (forthcoming, 2015).
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