₦airaland Forum

TAO11:
I am Yoruba!

I agree with you that the present monarchy of Benin is foreign from Ife. I know also that the equation of Ekaladerhan as Oduduwa has been debunked in academia as an interesting nonsense.

But I tell you of a truth that he coming of the Ife prince to Benin was not with a violent intention to conquer.

Although I have no reason to deny that some fightings may have taken place in the course of things, but the motive was not a military conquest.

Our folklore is not very explicit about how the war happened.
But it was emphatic on the war. There was a full out war between the Binis owners of Idu and the Oba from Ile ife who established Benin kingdom, the brutal war and upheaval forced the Igbo residents in Idu scampering back to East.

From the Ogiemien sources, the Yorubas came into Idu palace initially peacefully through marriage arrangements but with long term plan of taking control of the kingdom once they have established enough strong hold, which they indeed did.

oyatz:
You are distorting History.

1) Yoruba didn't conquer Igodomingodo (Idu).

2) The Oronmiyan dynasty came to through peaceful means and established by diplomatic marriage that produced Oba Eweka-1.

3) The arrival of Oba Oronmiyan in Igodomingodo, preceded the 17th century exodus of Ezechima and other Idu Clans by centuries.

There was nothing peaceful about Yoruba conquering of Idu. It was full out war which Idu lost out.
Its documented in Igbo folklore as " Agha Oba n'Idu".
No one ever took power peacefully, so I don't know who you are deceiving.
The recent fracture between the Ogiamien descendants and the Oba ile ife of Benin throne forced them to start spilling truth we(Igbos) always knew.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/guardian.ng/features/ogiso-and-ogiamien-are-aborigine-binis-while-oba-of-benin-is-of-yoruba-descent-high-chief-esotericist-monday-wehere/

oyatz:
You are wrong.

The Fulanis Jihard happened in the 19th century and Igalaland was not part of the theater of the Jihard.

Igalaland was well involved in the Fulani jihad, because many of her vassals up north were affected and many displaced communities up north poured into Igalaland who themselves poured into Igboland.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323295840_IGALA-HAUSAFULANI_RELATIONS_PAST_PRESENT_AND_WHAT_FUTURE_1818-2018


by 1824, Ilorin had fallen to the Jihadist conquest, Igu a vassal state of the Igala Kingdom was

sacked and burnt in 1833, and finally fell in 1860, but mainland Igala kingdom was well-

defended and never conquered. This led to the influx of refugees, the Bassa Nge and Bassa

Komo were the largest of this groups. In the 1870s, Ata Okoliko Onuche eventually ceded the

northernmost part of Dekina and Omala to the Jihad fleeing Bassa, as cities of sanctuary and

asylum. The previous gains of so vast a territory was to become Igala kingdom’s Achilles’

heel. These Fulani invasions led to the reconfiguration of the Igala vassal states on the fringes

of the Kingdom and the human landscape in Igala kingdom. Large number of people were

taken captives, others fled their homes, and refugees relocated to safer grounds. This is the

historical ground of the precolonial Igala suspicion of any form of Hausa/Fulani occupation of

Igala land. Prior to this, oral history holds that Attah Ayegba had invited Hausa men of war

and charm makers from Bebeji in Present day Kano to Idah in view of the looming war with

the Jukun. There are many Igala today in Idah and Ankpa who are of Hausa descent and trace

Atigba:
There is no reverse migration.

The Idu children who migrated from Igodomigodo to the east were never in the east and they are not Igbo. Igbo mean Igbon in our language slave, which were used by our Idu children for the Babessi people who are immigrants from Cameroon in the east.

Bini means Bu-ini in Igbolanguage. Which means full of bitterness. All Igbo returnees from Idu when the Benins (Oba people invaded) all had stories of anguish and bitterness to tell.
Stories of how the Benins were raiding them for slaves to the Portuguese and were using them for Yoruba Ogboni human sacrifices.

An Ezechima, Akalaka, etc could have never been anything but Igbo.
So whether you accept it or not, there was a reverse migration of Igbos in Idu following invasion of Idu by the Oba from Ife who established the Benin Kingdom, this very much history exists in Igbo folklore.

Idu people are the Esans, Urhobo, Isoko, Afemai, Uneme, etc.
Some Idu people betrayed Iduland and joined the Oba from Ife to fight against their own people, some Igbos even refused to return to Igboland and found positions in the new Oba from Ile Ife cabinet.

Idu people are Edo people, while Benin is a Yoruba dynasty made up of willing tools from all ethnicities that once resided in Idu, including the Igbos.

This is history as we know it in Igboland.
Binis don't want to accept this history because it exposes the shame which is the fact that they are currently being ruled by A Yoruba man, and this fact makes them appear inferior.
This is also why some cowards among your ranks have refused to help the true rulers of Idu, the Ogiemiens to wrestle power from the Oba Yoruba dynasty in your land, because doing so exposes the lies you have told for centuries as history.

Atigba:
You are missing the story

There is no tribe called Igbo, talkless of Igbiod or whatever you called it.

I have explained to you already the origin of Igbo as a name and those who were addressed as such. Not Idu children in the south east.

The Idu children who were driven out of their ancestral land and migrated to the east were never once in the east.

You understand me now, till date they dont see themselves as Igbo.

Igbon which the white men called Igbo today for ethnic nationalities in the east are made up of different people.

There has always been Igbo people.

We existed as independent clans and went by our clan names, while we called each other Igbos.
To understand the concept of "Igbo", as an Ogidi man, if I meet someone speaking an Igbo dialect I am not sure is Ogidi.
I would ask him: "Ibu onye Ogidi ka ibu onye Igbo", meaning : Are you an Ogidi person or are you an Igbo person.

The person will now reply : Abum onye Igbo or Abum onye Ogidi. I am Ogidi person or I am an Igbo person.

Assuming this person is from a town called Nanka and I visited Nanka and the person wants to know who I am, since he had observed my Igbo dialect doesn't sound like Nanka dialect.
He would ask me, " I bu onye Nanka ka ibu onye Igbo "meaning "Are you from Nanka or from Igbo".
I will then answer, A bum onye Igbo( I am an Igbo).

The concept of Igbo is that everyone who speak similar language to you is Igbo while you identify by your own clans name.

We call each other Igbo but never called ourselves Igbos, until the white came and did the obvious.

Atigba:
We are saying the same thing

What is fake about his write up is that, he is fraudulently trying to turn history upside down.

A significant amount of Igbo population are Idu children from Igodomigodo who fled the war. They migrated from Ika, Igbanke and Owa clans in our land Idu.

Saying people migrated east to the south is false.

We are not saying same thing.

The Igbos in Idu migrated to Idu from Igboland, and went back to Igboland when Idu fell to the hands of the Oba from Ile ife. They were not Idu descendants.
They came back to Igboland with stories of the war and their sufferings in Idu. These stories exists in Igbo folklore as "Agha Idu n'Oba" meaning the war between Idu and Oba.

It's akin to the modern Igbo folklore called "Oso Abiola" Igbos in Yorubaland had to make, following the upheaval in Yorubaland after Abiola election was annulled.
The Igbos who were resident in Yorubaland ran back to Igboland. Many of them were Yoruba speaking and had Yoruba wives, even though they all had Igbo names and spoke Igbo too. If this happened in the precolonial past, you will also hear ignorant descendants of these Igbos parrot about how their ancestors migrated from Yorubaland to Igboland and how they were Yorubas who became assimilated as Igbos and lost their Yoruba language , without acknowledging the fact that it was only a reverse migration and that their ancestors were never Yoruba people, even though they resided in Yorubaland and called themselves Lagosians.

The reverse migration of Igbo populations in Idu land back to Igbo land during "Agha Idu n'oba", is what the ignorant descendants of these Igbo returnees are misinterpreting as being descendants of Bini.

They were being bombed at home and market places by Nigerian Arab air raid mercenaries. As if their starvation was not bad enough. It was better they fought than die without putting up a fight.

Though I doubt this particular picture was from Biafra.

Atigba:
No research book say such, I have already search the various articles, the writer is a fraud. Quoting an author without proper reference is plagiarism but writing fake story and assigning authors to it, I dont know the type offence to call that.

There is nothing fake about the above write up.

The Benin history has been deliberately and fraudulently muddled up with Bini (Igbodomigodo) history by Benins for pride and land grabbing agenda.

We in Igbo land know for certain that there was an ancient Bini which we call Idu in Igboland.
We also have ancient tales of the war between the Idu and the Oba, it's called agha "Idu n'oba " in Igbo folklore.
Idu was the land where many Igbos migrated to and lived in the past. It so happened that Idu got invaded by the current Oba dynasty from Ile ife, who fought ferociously with Idu people causing the Igbo indigenous people there to migrate back to Igboland. The Oba dynasty would finally establish a parallel throne in Iduland and formed the current Beinin kingdom, whose contact with the Portuguese enabled it to gain weapons with which it went about terrorizing neighboring Idu( Edo tribes), Western Igbo and Eastern Yoruba tribes, to form the Benin empire.

Recently, there have been a recent attempt by Idu people led by the Ogiemien to resuscitate their dying kingdom from the Yoruba Oba invaders in Benin .

Abaramanasseho:
I am igala by tribe but all you wrote about my tribe are all lies and mind you it was igala people that migrate to igbo land in place like nsuka, part of abakiliki part of Delta part of bayelsa part of Edo state part of anambra and even iyala people in Cross river state are igala. because we Bear igbo name especially in my local government (ibaji) who share boundaries with anambra, enugu, Delta and Edo does not mean that igbo were part of us. it is because we tolerate people and try create friendship in the past and that is why you see some igbo men and women bearing igala name like idoko and abara and even onu.

Igala is nothing but an amalgam of Igbo, Yoruba and Jukun rulers.

Your kingdom in the past was invaded by Fulani jihadists forcing you lots to migrate into Nsukka areas as fugitives and were fully assimilated by native Igbos in the region.
Infact, places like Ibaji use to be totally inhabited by Igbos, but the great influx of Igala fugitives and invaders there changed the region demographics.
The Igbo have always been a densely populated people and area. People only moved to Igboland out of desperation (wars) because we were always accommodating of fugitives.

beauty7:
Even now,the story is still prevalent in some villages in Akwa Ibom state.

Elderly people who experienced the war still narrate the story.

They said that at a certain level in the war when the Biafran soldiers were making reasonable progress,

most people in the then eastern nigeria thought Biafra would win the war.

So consultations were secretly made to determine what the fate of minorities would be in the new nation.

It was determined that people occupying what is now known as Akwa Ibom should be massacred immediately after the war.

The plan was being leaked and even some Igbos were seen saying that our days were numbered.

They were saying that at the end of the war,we would all be eliminated.

This led to so much tears by Akwa Ibomites.

So many elderly women were seen wailing uncontrollably that soon their lives and those of their children would be cut short.

The tears were flowing in different villages and towns concerning this.

Some started praying that Biafra should fail if that will give them safety.

The prayer for the failure of Biafra soon became a common anthem in Akwa Ibom.

I was not born.

I am not a witness.

But I am just saying what has been told us.

Your parents lied to you maybe because they were brutalized by Nigerian Army when they captured your area.
But ndiigbo never did or plan such thing they were saying.
We are not a people to do or plan such a thing.

No such information of Ndiigbo going to massacre minorities ever existed because Akwacross people where holding big posts in Biafra and it would have been impossible for Biafra to hatch such a plan against her own citizens.

I have noticed there are too many lies spinned by your parents about Ndiigbo and passed to you lots.
I have even heard a grown up Efik man tell me that his parents told him that Igbos renamed Calabar to "New Onitsha" during the war and was planning to take over the city and kill all the minorities there if Biafra won. He also said Ojukwu appointed an Igbo man to administer Calabar in preparation for such plan.
He said his parents can't be lying.

I showed him articles where all Biafra provinces were listed and the name of their administrators with non named "New Onitsha" and with no non Igbo province having an Igbo administrator. He kept quiet for a while.


You lots needs to start rationalizing some of the things your fathers who were facing the Nigerian army bullets had to say in other to survive and be spared with a pinch of salt.
Because most of them never happened and were plain nonsensical.

24SEVEN:
The Yorubas that Igbos call Ndi Ofenmanu, are they neighbors with any Igbo clan? Trying to be smart by half.

Ofe mmanu simply means oily soup. Because Igbos noticed Yorubas soups are usually oily.
It's an appellation every Igbo man understands.

But Mmoghu?

That's strictly Ngwa Igbo thing, until I came to Aba around 2009, I never heard of the word "mmoghu" . We simply call Akwa ibomites "Ndi calabar". Mmoghu has no meaning in Igbo, only Ngwa people know what it means, and any Igbo man using Mmoghu for Akwa ibom people probably stayed in Aba or is an Ngwa man, otherwise, "Ndi Calabar" is what you will hear in Enugu, Onitsha, Abakaliki, Awka, etc streets, as a name for Akwa ibomites.

beauty7:
The issue with Akwa ibomites is that they suffer the most hatred that being a Nigeria offers.

When you are in the North and a Hausa man ask you where are you from.

If you say Akwa Ibom,they believe you are nyamiri(Igbo).

Some of them will immediately hate you.

So you suffer the hatred they have for the Igbos although you are not Igbo.

When a yoruba person knows you are from Akwa Ibom,he/she believes that you are Igbo,

and most yorubas hate Igbos more than hausas.

In fact the school my brother taught as a teacher in Sokoto,the head is yoruba and he rarely employs Igbos.

So as an Akwa Ibomites you bear the hatred yorubas have for Igbos.

When you tell and Igbo man that you are from Akwa Ibom,he/she will begin looking down on you as Onye mmong.

He or she will dispise you.

My grand father said that during the civil war,the Igbos were saying that if the war succeed,

they would kill all the Akwa Ibomites so that Biafra will be theirs and theirs alone.

They considered us as pest.

My grand father was a Biafran soldier from Akwa Ibom.

Remember that Biafra then included the present Akwa Ibom state.

So you see how Akwa Ibomites are suffering in Nigeria.

But there is hope for us.

Igbos don't call Akwaibom mmoghu. It's your Ngwa-Igbo neighbours and brothers that call you mmoghu.
The Igbo man from Anambra has no name for Akwaibom because we never had any interactions with you, neither does the Igbo from Imo and Enugu have interactions with Akwa ibom people.
You call your Ngwa/Abia neighbors "Uneghe" and they call you "Mmoghu", it's what you guys do for each other, it's not the business of an Igbo man from Anambra, Imo or Enugu.
Even those your Ngwa(Abia) neighbors that call you mmoghu, call other Igbos close to them "Ohuhu". Go and ask around.

During Biafra, Effiong was from Akwaibom and was the second in command in Biafra.
Many prominent Akwaibomites held big posts in Eastern region and Biafra.

No Igbo ever considered Akwaibom as pests. Akwa ibom always had heavyweights and were never pushovers even in the Eastern region. governor Akpabio uncle was a secretary to the government in Enugu.
So I don't know where you get the idea of Akwaibomites being seen as pests by Igbos.

And no Igbo man coveted Akwaibom land during the war.
Biafra was divided into provinces with each province having an indigenous administrator


biafra’S provinces & ADMINISTRATORS

Aba
Mr. Moses Onwuma*
Abakaliki
Mr. Samuel Mgbada
Annang
Chief Ekukinam Bassey
Awka
Mr. Paul Nwokedi
Calabar
Prof. Eyo Bassey Ndem
Degema
Mr. S. N. Dikibo
Eket
Mr. S. J. Edoho
Enugu
Mr. Christian Chukwuma Onoh
Nsukka
Mr. Frank Onyeke
Ogoja
Mr. Frank Ugbut
Oji River
Dr. Godwin A. Odenigwe
Okigwe
Mr. Sam I. Mbakwe
Onitsha
Mr. R. I. Iweka
Opobo
Dr. S. J. Cookey
Orlu
Mr. R. I. Uzoma
Owerri
Mr. Duke Njiribeakor
Port Harcourt
Mr. Emmanuel Aguma
Umuahia
Mr. Simeon Ojukwu
Uyo
Chief J. Udo-Affiah
Yenegoa
Chief Frank Opigo
====

Below is an honest testimony about Ndiigbo from a minority from Cross River.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.legit.ng/amp/1092790-opinion-why-igbos-never-marginalize-minorities-by-rex-egbe.html

[quote author= post=92984647]I asked if River Niger not an international waterway Then what was the agreement on the River, you are a Yoruba man not Delta or North that we share the water with, what's your headache [/quote]His headache is hate. They are full of hate, demonic disposition and envy, the very bane of black people.
He is more interested in how to hold Igbos down than on how to uplift Yorubas.

Santsal:
Why do you guys try so hard to devide the Ibos, there are Ibos in Delta state and Ibos in Rivers just to mention a few. The name they bear testifies to this. That we have our differences due to efforts to devide us does not make them less Ibo. The Yoruba speaking part of Kwara are not Yorubas then because they are in North Central

I'm Igbo and I agree there are Igbos in Rivers (Oyigbo and Egbema) and in Delta (Aniocha and Oshimili), but believe me, Ikwerre are not Igbos. Those lots are Igbophobic entities every Igbo should avoid.

oluwaahmed:
Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers state governor, on Friday declared that he was Igbo and could speak the language while President Goodluck Jonathan whose other name is Azikiwe could not.

Speaking before a crowd of supporters at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign in Aba, Abia state, Amaechi said: I am a bona fide Igbo man.

“My name is Amaechi, but President Jonathan who says his name is Azikiwe cannot speak the Igbo language.”

“He says his name Ebele; let him speak Igbo and let us see.”

So if I declare I am Yoruba and can speak Yoruba tomorrow, I automatically become a Yoruba man and start to represent Yorubas even when my town and village people remain non Yoruba?

Are you alright at all?

Yankee101:
Lol. Ameachi don penetrate igbo land
Later they'll say Ikwere is not igbo
When it suits them they become igbo

He penetrated no where.
Isiguzoro probably already collected money from Amaechi to release this useless article.

Amaechi should continue wasting his money on Isiguzoro and his likes. He will only irritate Ndiigbo more by insulting our sensibilities.

Amaechi is a Bini Ikwerre man, never Igbo.
But if he gives me money to publish that he is Igbo presidential candidate choice, I might as well collect my own share of the national cake from him, knowing that it changes nothing. No SEner sees Ikwerre as Igbo.

24SEVEN:
Oh God, don't let Igboid and Amarabae die from this news. Also my good friend Osagyefo.

No one takes Isiguzo and his clueless group serious in Igboland.
He was talking of SE presidency and then listed a Bini Ikwerre man first.
It shows how confused he is.

Iberibe group.

Amaechi is not an Igbo man neither is he from South East.

Isiguzo can never try and make use of his Isi.

mightyhazell:
Igbos are non violent,non belligerent.. Igbos are one of the tribes that really mind their business and have little or no time for frivolities and the likes..

Igbos will never mass up to attack you for any reasons..

igbos are the most lively and friendly ppl u will come across in Nigeria..

So I really can't fathom why (and where)all this bile is coming (from).

Okika na ese okwu. O na esesi okwu ike.

That's where the bile is coming from.

1. Mao Zedong (49-78 million deaths)


Breakdown: Policy reforms like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Mao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary, political theorist, and communist leader who led the People’s Republic of China. Mao, while controversial, is still widely considered a savior of the nation. I did a semester abroad in China in 2001 after falling in love with its history, and was surprised in my conversations that many people thought Mao had done 70% – 80% good things. During his first five years from 1949 – 53 he is said to have systematically killed between 4 to 6 million people by sentencing them to die or by sending them to “reform through labor” camps. He organized mass repressions, established execution quotas, and defended his actions in these early years as necessary for securing power for “The People’s Republic of China”.

His social programs the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are two of the most ill-fated, poorly named, initiatives ever. The first was an effort to rapidly industrialize China. His focus was on making China a premier exporter of steel, and to this end he asked everybody to make it. The problem was it got many citizens to make smelting shops in their backyards. Not only was the steel of little value, but it was made from everything lying around the house including their own cooking supplies! Without the tools to make food, no money coming in from the steel, and no money to survive ~ a lot of people starved to death. The estimates on this program alone are 20 million deaths! Think about that number. Really think about it. Then ask yourself… why would you EVER let someone back into power after such an insanely bad decision.Well, they took the reigns away from him for a short time.

In the interim Mao started the socialist education movement. He aimed the concept at young ones who would eventually wrest the power away from the older guard. By 1964 this movement was renamed the “four cleanups movement” whose goal was cleansing politics, economics, ideas, and organization of “reactionaries”. This led to the formation of the “Red Guards” who were organized to punish intellectuals and take out Mao’s political adversaries. The Cultural Revolution was now underway, and its overriding mission was to abolish: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. Something Mao fervently believed in was that destruction and chaos could bring re-birth. So he told his followers to destroy buildings, sacred objects, talk back to ones elders, punish them, turn them in, and kill those who did not agree. By 1968 things were starting to look pretty good for Mao all over again, and so he put into place the decade long “Down to the Countryside Movement” which forced young intellectuals to move out to the country to become farmers. Sadly, the people he pushed out there were the same Red Guards who had helped him get power. Estimates of the death toll are between 40,000 – 7 million depending on who you ask.

Finally, there is the 100 flowers movement which just needs an abbreviated mention here. Mao asked people to come forth and tell him how he should govern China. Intellectuals and liberals bit at the chance to tell him what they really thought, and were encouraged by the Communist party to do so. Then in a sudden change of heart, or an incredibly crafty mission to out his haters, the government persecuted 500,000 of them who were considered to be “dangerous thinkers”.

2. Jozef Stalin (23 million deaths)


Breakdown: The great purges and Ukraine’s famine.

Jozef Stalin was the first Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 – 1953. After Lenin’s death in 1924, he became the leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin didn’t take long in launching a new economy that screwed up food production across the country so bad it caused massive famine. Between 1922-23 it reached such catastrophic proportions everything went to shit. In Ukraine this dark period is known as Holodomor. Its widely believed that Soviet policies caused the famine there and was designed as an attack on Ukrainian nationalism. Estimates on the total number of casualties within Soviet Ukraine range from 2.6 million to 10 million! During the late 1930s Stalin launched another wonderfully titled initiative called the Great Purge (also known as the “Great Terror”). It was a paranoid campaign to kill off the people who opposed him, and his targets were often executed.

In 1939 Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact with the Nazis. Eventually Germany violated the pact, the Soviet Union joined the allies, and they racked up 23.9 million deaths (the largest death toll in the war).

3. Adolf Hitler (17 million deaths)


Breakdown: Concentration camps and civilians in WWII.

Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party. He was the absolute dictator of Germany from 1934 to 1945. He gained support by promoting values like German nationalism and anti-semitism. Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 and began the Third Reich. Hitler was power hungry as all hell, hated the shit out of Jews (and others), and wanted hegemony in Europe. The militarization that was needed to complete such a lofty goal led to the outbreak of World War II. Nazi forces engaged in the systematic murder of as many as 17 million civilians, an estimated six million of whom were Jews, and 1.5 million Romanis.

4. Leopold II of Belgium (2-15 million deaths)



Breakdown: Created a colony called the “Congo Free State”, enslaved its people, and forced them into labor plants.

Leopold II was the King of the Belgians, and believed in colonialism. He thought acquiring colonies overseas was essential to a great country and was always scheming. The problem was Belgium really didn’t care, and so Leopold went into business for himself. He started a company that seemed like it was doing good called the International African Society. A year later he used that company to travel to Congo, laid claim to a plot of land 14 times the size of Belgium, and made 14 countries agree (USA included) that he was free to rule it with his own private militia. He then forced the indigenous populations into forced labor, created a bustling rubber industry, and abused his workers grievously.
Estimates of the death toll range from two to fifteen million which could all have been avoided if 14 countries didn’t hand him the keys to the car!

5. Hideki Tojo (5 million deaths)


Breakdown: Waged unprovoked wars against China, USA, Netherlands, and France.

Hideki Tojo was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army. He assumed the position of Prime Minister and held Army Minister concurrently. As if that wasn’t enough he also held other major positions like Home Minister, Foreign Minister, Education Minister, and Commerce Minister. His major contributions to education were teaching militaristic and nationalist indoctrination. His version of homeland security was approving eugenics measures which essentially made a distinction between pure blood and mixed blood Japanese families.

During World War II Tojo started winning battles and the public loved him for it. He really bought into the Nazi Kool-aid, and held steadfastly with Germany. When the tide turned, and he began losing, it was devastating. Eventually he went into seclusion. He was tried for war crimes and found guilty of waging wars of aggression, wars in violation of international law, and waging unprovoked war against many countries. Not to mention ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War.

6. Ismail Enver Pasha (2.5 million deaths


Breakdown: 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-22) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-20)

He began his career as a Turkish military officer and leader in the Young Turk revolution. Eventually he rose to power and led the Ottoman Empire in both Balkan Wars and World War I. As a war minister Enver was not very useful, and was defeated over and over. His crushing loss at the Battle of Sarikamish needed a scapegoat, and that’s when he decided to blame Armenians for the failure. That is what began what is now known as the Armenian Genocide. The word “genocide” was coined to describe this event.

7. Pol Pot (1.7 million deaths)


Breakdown: Forced city folk to relocate to farms and forced them into hard labor.

Pol Pot was the leader of the communist movement in Cambodia. He attempted to “cleanse” the country and it resulted in the death of an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people. There was an interesting policy going around called agrarian collectivization which he put into practice in the late 1970’s. Basically it forced city folk to head out to the farms to do some labor and vice versa for farmers. As you might guess, and hindsight is 20/20, neither group was very good at their new jobs. Pol didn’t stop at enslaving his own people though. He also didn’t feed them well, gave them little medical care, and executed many of them. The net result was killing off approximately 1/5 of the Cambodian population!

8. Kim Il Sung (1.6 million deaths)

Breakdown: Unpopular among his people Kim used the U.S. as a scapegoat and forced the country to believe in his delusion or else.

Before our very own Kim Jong-Il was his murderous father Kim Il Sung who led North Korea in a terrible direction. He fought for a command economy that allowed the government to make all decisions for the country. For various reasons the people never seemed to love the man, and so his hold on power was tenuous at best. Like most crazies he blamed somebody else, in this case the USA, and said they had spread disease throughout its population. He also pulled a Stalin, and had large-scale purges. His underlying reason was that it would scare people into believing he was telling the truth. Kim’s purge was a little different than Stalin’s though in that there were no trials. During his tenure prison camps sprung up all over the country to contain the ever growing masses of people against Kim Il Sung.

9. Mengistu Haile Mariam (400,000 – 1.5 million deaths)

Breakdown: As president of Ethiopia and colonel of “the Derg” (communist militia) Mengitsu systematically killed those against him in the “Red Terror” campaign.

Mengistu Haile Mariam is (as in still alive) a politician who presided over Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991. The way he got into power was by smothering the previous president Haile Selassie although he has denied those rumors. His biggest claim to fame is the Ethiopian Red Terror which was a campaign of repression led by the Derg (communist militia in Ethiopia).
It was an auspicious beginning to say the least. Thousands were killed and found dead on the streets in the years that followed. Much of the murdering can be attributed to the friendly neighborhood watch there known as “Kebeles”. As if killing innocents wasn’t enough they would then charge the family a tax to return the dead body to them. The tax was aptly named “the wasted bullet”! Are you serious Mengitsu? However there was an even more gruesome fate of being left on the street where wild hyenas would fight over the dead. The campaign has been described as one of the worst mass murders ever in Africa. Mengitsu is even known to have garroted people to death.

10. Yakubu Gowon (1.1 million deaths)
Breakdown: 1 million civilians on the wrong side of a blockade caused by a war of secession in Nigeria and 100,000 soldiers who died in that war.

It starts as many sad stories do with precious beautiful oil. It had been found in the Niger delta where tensions were already high between the Eastern region (led by Ojukwu) and the rest of the country (governed by Yakubu). A dummy agreement was signed between them called the “Aburi Accord”, but it meant nothing to either leader. Yakubu started to put pressure on the region, and tested how much sway he had in the area versus Ojukwu. Well Ojukwu being no slouch declared secession from the rest of Nigeria and became the “Republic of Biafra”. This began a war that caused the deaths of 100,000 soldiers, and much worse, a blockade on the region which starved 1 million civilians.

Some people make horrible decisions, others are just bad presidents, a few are bloodthirsty, many are extremists, a couple are warmongers, and all of these guys are a mix. Ten of our political leaders in the last 130 years have been the architects of the most horrific genocides, systematic murders, blockades, brutal wars, and policy reforms history has ever recorded.

Where to begin? Maybe an icebreaker for you next dinner party? Did you know the word “genocide” was coined in 1943 to describe when the Armenians were slaughtered haphazardly by Turkish leader Ismail Enver? Until then there was no specific word for it in our language. It makes me think about how much more cognizant we’ve become in this last century to these events. So, a quick toast between you and I to a more peaceable future where less of what follows below is allowed to happen. Sit back, but don’t relax.



http://www.popten.net/2010/05/top-ten-most-evil-dictators-of-all-time-in-order-of-kill-count/?fbclid=IwAR0zYhPyPO8O9K27CZNK0DDizkWT8yfgPK_1IOmA7py18WGfc393enyrWW4

gasparpisciotta:
I appreciate your quote here.

Your reference to the political parties and Major Kaduna Nzeogwu threw more light on my point.

Our political class bastardized and Balkanized our economy.

I still insist that looting by the Military started with IBB, the dictators before him didn’t commit the atrocities witnessed from IBB till date.

Gowon and his super secretaries set the tune for the looting spree.
Gowon looted Nigeria blind and those after him continued the trend.

Traders are displaced everywhere including in Igboland.
The Igbos affected there will find a way, we always do find new better ways. Good luck to them.