₦airaland Forum

Violence against Ibos occurred in phases. Significant “group-targeted” violence began as early as 1945, but the major and sustained phases began in 1966. About 30,000 Ibos, mostly civilians, were killed in three waves of genocidal attacks between May 29 and September 29, 1966.

The killings were indiscriminate except that victims were Ibos, and they were killed for being Ibos. The killings were not outcomes of mob actions or riots. Evidence from survivors, victims and observers of the genocides prove that the various acts of violence against the Igbos were deliberated and coordinated by highly placed northern politicians with the connivance of some officers of the federal government.

The instigation for violence against Ibos in 1966 derived from various incitements by government functionaries who complained bitterly about Ibo dominance of commerce in the north. This complaint was extended to mean the existence of an Igbo conspiracy to become the new rulers of independent Nigeria.

The pattern of violence during the pogroms (May 29, July 29 and September 29, 1966) was similar to the attack against the Ibos during the civil war that would last for more than 3 years, between July 1967 and January 1970. Although official hostilities were declared between the federal and Biafran side, the conduct of the war by the federal troops in some instances offended the laws of war and invoked images of the pre-war violence against the Ibo. Even when Biafran strongholds were overrun by the federal side and there were no effective resistances, the genocidal dimensions of the war continued to manifest. Several foreign and local journalists reported cruel attacks on Ibos who were neither belligerents or in the way of battle.

There are many documented testimonies of victims and observers about the gross cruelty and barbarism of the Nigerian soldiers meted on Igbos civilians even after the surrender of Biafran rebel soldiers, acts that raised the question of a genocidal motivation. At least that was the conclusion of the Investigators of the International Commission of Jurists led by Dr. Mensah of Ghana. According to Dr. Mensah he received evidence from two witnesses about mass graves where dead, sick and wounded Biafrans were buried alive with some sucklings and “the cries and wailing of the sick, the wounded and the babies could be heard from a long distance away.” In this testimony, it was also mentioned that, when these mass graves had been covered, the Federal soldiers danced native war dances over them. Dr Mensa concluded that “I am of the opinion that in many of these cases cited to me hatred of the Biafrans (mainly Igbos) and a wish to exterminate them was a foremost motivational factor.”3

There is no doubt from the evidence of international and local observers of the pogroms of 1966 and the three year civil war that Biafran civilians, especially Ibos, were victims of gross cruelty reminiscent of the Jewish genocide. There is sufficient evidence that the masterminds of these attacks were motivated, as Dr. Mensah put it in the ICJ Report, by a “wish to exterminate” the Ibos. But how does this motivation square up with the policy and politics of the war? Is it really the fact that other ethnic groups, especially the Hausa-Fulani in northern Nigeria, wanted the Ibos completely wiped out or driven out of Nigeria?

The difficulty in understanding the genocidal behavior derives mainly from the nature of the civil war: how to reconcile the genocidal intent with the determination to keep Biafrans in Nigeria? It will appear that rather than other Nigerian ethnic groups wanting the Igbo outside the federation, they wanted them inside. Given that genocide usually involves determination to drive the victimized ethnic or religious group out of the territorial space, how do we understand the sort of genocide that wants the victims inside rather than outside?

However, based on official statements, we can give the benefit of doubt to Gowon and conclude that in spite of brutality and violence against civilians, acts that contravened the Geneva Conventions, the policy for taking arms against Biafra was to crush Ojukwu’s rebellion and maintain the federation.

But this conclusion has to explain such egregious violence against ordinary Ibos and statements by Nigeria war commanders like Benjamin Adekunle, a.k.a. “Black Scorpion,” that “I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary and no UN delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo from having even one piece to eat before their capitulation. We shoot at everything that moves and when our troops march into the center of Ibo territory, we shoot at everything even at things that do not move…”9 Is such statement part of the conduct of a dirty war or does it evince a “motivation” to genocide? At a minimum, we can argue that there was strong hatred and demonization of the Ibos, which made such cruelty and gory killing of civilians conceivable and tolerable, even in the context of a civil war.

Do more

Dey play

Terrorist and not gunmen

naptu2:
https://punchng.com/breaking-gunmen-kill-eight-soldiers-policemen-in-imo/

In this dispensation , Yoruba will pay protection charge to Sam Larry and MC oluomo while Fulani and Hausa will pay to Bello turji.

Security will be worse off

Those communities can sue the APC for not protecting them

Tinubu is still sleeping on a bicycle

seunmsg:
Obasanjo is a shameless old man. He’s not even ashamed to say publicly that he got a lady twice out of wedlock.

are you seek?

ElSudani:
Nothing wrong at all until same thing is replicated elsewhere in the country.

they need this to drive traffic

Yorubaland thrives on propaganda. They have nothing . Only thugs

Tinubu and his alliance with questionable characters

Bubu did worse

Soludo is an error that should be corrected

Soludo is an error

Longinyamapucci:
Criminals claiming civilized society, how I wish another civil war will happen to separate us with these animals in human animals.

sad . The SW is gone

Useless son .. he is behaving like Reno omokri

2m has no value again

AfricanColumbus:
https://i0.wp.com/easternconsigliereblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Map-of-Anioma-Nigeria-1.jpg?resize=600%2C376&ssl=1

Supported 💯

What will the price of pms be if we were refining at home ?

adioolayi:
Whether it's quasi or Nkrumah subsidy, I no wan know...our economy cannot accommodate further increase in pump price.

Anything the government is doing to keep the pms price at the increase Nigerians don stylishly accommodate right now should be done...further increase will be suicidal.

Atleast, Government don save tangible amount from the initial humongous subsidy...so, paying NGN100/litre as subsidy right now is better by far to what they would have been paying (over NGN500/litre) had it been subsidy is not removed.


If you call it partial subsidy..please, let's have it!

Don't burn this Country!

clems88:
Yoruba and Hausa tribalism is what caused all this rubbish

I support you on this ..

I didn't know there were the root of tribalism in Nigeria

I spend 50k on fuel weekly .. I cannot continue like this

NLC must declare indefinite strike and perpetual protest immediately