₦airaland Forum

lol! You beat me to it T!

I love reading JeSoul, she is notorious for her crypted visuals. . . . they come hot and spicy!

I love you baby girl!!

Hey sweetie, if I had to give my input on what Farrakhan said you will disown me. Lol!

While I share your position on universal brotherhood, I must also acknowledge a need for people to create a supportive network of social and cultural as well as religious and philosophical means upon which their arts, sciences and various other endowments subsist, and that network need to have safeguards that protects it's interests from destabilizing influence. . . . . Whether from within or foreign. Foreign intervention of any kind is not good for the sustainability of pride and parity of values.

Yes, it is a hot subject and my admiration for you restrains me from loosing credits and favor under your "wrapper".

I only stepped in to say big hello to JeSoul.

I missed you pretty one, glad to know you are doing good

Had Ghaddaffi not negotiated away his nuclear capability, could it have served as an active deterrent for the coalition? Seeing what has happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. . . .does Iran not now have a strong case to argue in favor of a nuclear arsenal?

Well. . , .witnessing the motive and decisive action by the coalition to invade and attack on Libya, how can anyone now say that the Iran issue must follow diplomatic path and terms negotiation for resolution?

If the opposition duplicates in Iran what took place in Libya, would coalition duplicate its response by invading and attacking, including a demarcation of sovereign airspace in Iran - are they willing to go that far?

Libya is a benchmark for the coalition to demonstrate its fairness and true leadership on matters of global conflicts, whether they are internal disputes as is the case in Libya and Iran or they are cross-boundary tussles as is the case maybe elsewhere. This is a test of will of the international community generally.

. . . .we shall see how this ends!

Are you suggesting Biafrans should have capitulated at the sight of drunken aggressors and probably head to neighboring country’s border like some people did?

No Dede, not at all. Igbos fought the battle vigilantly to the best of your abilities but war is not limited to the violent act of bloodshed.

Nigeria should have been the first African nation to gain independence if Zik and Balewa had supported Awo's challenge to the British, which is simply that both charters of first, The League of Nations, and second, its successor The UN, made their continued presence in Nigeria illegitimate. If Britain would advocate against rival Netherlands and called their presence in South Africa an illegitimate station and demanded that they exit SA, then it ought to set a moral example for the world, by declaring sovereign independece for Nigeria.

Awo questioned the validity of England's intent when in middle 1800s it declared an end to slavery and patrolled the seas enforcing those demands. In effect and in its occupation of those lands, England was advocating economic interests, . . . . far from being a moral leader.

Awo never hid his contempt for the British but he was tactful and remained engaged to the extent that the interests of Western region was not thwarted.

The civil war did not start in 1966. . . . it erupted into bloodshed in that year, but it had brewed for years.

Artificial coalitions were created by Britain to frustrate the West. Part of that coalition was the military configuration mentioned earlier. If Yorubas had listened to Akintola instead of Awo, we would have ended up worse than Igbos are today. The plan was to put a coalition of North/East together to destroy West. Then use power and access to dominate East with North. In all of that the only winner will be Britain, because North will then be outwitted and contained.

Biafra fought the white man's war. . . thinking they fought a tribal war.

Eze,

You are funny and I'm glad that you find yourself amusing because I see you opened with laughter.

Look, I wish to disclose to you that the civil war was not your war. You fought a war that should have been directed externally at the British, not internally at other tribes.

Go and read Awo's conversation with Ojukwu. . . . reflect on what Awo was saying and you will get it. Ojukwu did not understand the implicit meaning.

Yoruba was disfavored by British because they knew our intent against their presence.

Idah (Igala)?


Nupe?


Nok? (whoever they were)


Old Calabar (Efik)?


Kwararafa Confederacy (Jukun)?



You haven't heard of any of these?


Also, I think you were ignoring another nation nearby the Yoruba "nation" (The Yoruba were not one unified ethnic "nation", not even under Oyo, until colonialism so the rest of your entire post is like the pot calling the kettle black, by the way).

Physics,

The indigenity of the cultures you mentioned is not in dispute, neither is their antiquity. In the context of the post that drew this response, I went bottom up to the protectorate ruler under the umbrella of which several other secondary and tributary people existed.

So if I say Yoruba empire was the only and authentic nation before the creation of the "new society" (Nigeria), I went as far back as possible to see if any of the current three major tribes had that attribute of an ancient Kingdom (Songhay, Oyo, Mali, Kanem, Benin, Ashanti. . . .etc) The Hausas do not have a nation either. The seven states belong to Fulani nation and was formulated after the model of Oyo empire, long after Oyo had been the single Protectorate in the region. The Igbo kingdom, so to speak, cannot even be identified in any of this context of state/nation/empire/kingdom.

Chinua Achebe was the first person in history to ever refer to the many separate but independent Igbo clans as a "nation". He did that out of realization of the points I am making . . . to the effect that, Igbo was not a nation, kingdom or empire in the traditional and historical sense of African rulership and tribal dominions. Yoruba was and is still a nation. Hausa was not until Fulani - Dan Fodio - established them as a nation.

So when you talk of "states" in the sense you are deriving it, then there had to have been a nation ruled by a paramount and to whom all the head rulers of the tributary territories pay homage and loyalty. Such a arrangement was never and is not in the Igbo history.

In Nigeria, Yoruba is the only original and indigenous nation. We established our own states and managed our territoriaL expansions and consolidations through warfare and treaties. This is why the British were incapable of setting up a new democracy for us and resolved to using other manuevers to strip us of power in a "new society" called Nigeria. They left qualified Yorubas out of military posts and authority. Anywhere a Yoruba officer is in charge he was deputized and enveloped with plenty other tribes to insulate him from fellow Yoruba officers and prevent against a face-off with the British. The case was not the same when the officer was Igbo or Hausa.

So it is wrong to assume that military and political legacy left to reward you thus equate to historical greatness. You need to change your mindset about warring in Nigeria. You have never fought a war of tribal control outside of the false sense of security made favorable to you by the British legacy.

Your talk about Aro and Nri setup and relationship and all the other references to nation, states, democracy are nothing but an attempt to re-define who you are as a people by mimicking greatness of others who have proven through history and traditions, customs and rituals how to be Great!

So all you Igbos need to shut up and stop boasting and beating your chests about greatness and power and strength and war. You are rip-off majority. . . . the Ijaws or Kalabaris would have been an appropriate majority in the share of federal power in this country.

The advantage you enjoy is that many of Yorubas and Hausas and other small tribs are not intimate with tis history and so whatever you say they just absorb it without a challenge. You continue to repeat the nonsense and with time it starts to gather strength and root itself as fact. . . but in actuality its BS.

Stop your nonsense or I will continue to reveal your secondary status in the dimensions of African Great kingdoms. Ok?

Eze,

To take Nri as an example again, the Nri Kingdom is an elective monarchy and it did not have a military. Any outcasts or slave were immediately freed in Nri.

You continue to supply me with feeders to further solidify my claim of Nri's secondary status in the East. I am beginning to wonder if I ought not to discuss this important topic with someone more knowledgable of the history. You are doing damage to your cause with your statements. Let me give you example.

". . .Nri kingdom is an elective monarchy and did not have a military"

All ancient African Kingdoms that predated the white man's "new society" were ruled by bloodline, not election. There is no exception to an African Empire or Kingdom that did not keep an army. I wonder why Igbo is an exception to both rules above.

. . . . you mentioned slaves again.

Who enslaved Igbos? How did millions of you end across the Ocean?

You ever wondered why British kept Yoruba numbers low in strategic military ranks and positions (officers) and gave guns and ammos to Hausas and Igbos to guard the periphery of Ikoyi and VI?

. . . . Because they knew you could not turn on them with it. They could not trust Yoruba to keep his finger off the trigger.

Andre,

The political heirarchy and value of Ndigbo as a top dog in the Eastern region is a recent and artificial placement that emerged out of colonial intervention to subdue historically dominant powers.

There are various outcomes of that and I will mention three, one for each region.

1. North was and is the de facto ruler of Nigerian politics because their obvious indifference to literacy and simple outlook on life would inadvertently support, in statutory ways, the ambitions of Britain, even after the colony is granted independence, to continue to enjoy material control of the nation's wealth and resources without the northerner's giving it any serious thought as an inappropriate and act of sovereign abuse.

2. The continuous uproar and political confrontations in the West was historical. In fact, the British were able to seize Lagos as a protectorate primarily due to a falsified treaty signed with Akitoye in return for protection of his throne from his rival Kosoko. The British arrived on Yoruba soil in the middle of political turmoil. So they knew the Yorubas were politically savvy and had a hightened sense of democratic powers and its limits. But the entire West was a homogeneous people and so they were maneuvered out of Nigerian political power using a different means of divide and conquer. They imprisoned Awo on false charges of treason and rewarded the North and East with political legacy as well as military heirarchies.

3. East, already taked it.

Biafra most certainly did not have the resources to embark on incessant bombing raids but that is not to say that it did not bomb the West in the early stages of the war.

A poster on this thread has confirmed that in his area in Fadeyi, bombs were dropped.

Biafran defendants make bogus and outright inaccurate accounts of everything to shore up their credits and appear venerable. They did not drop bomb in Lagos. They made attempt to advance on Lagos but their under-estimation of and wrong assessment of Yoruba reserve resulted in an embarassing defeat at Ore and a retreat back to East.

Who do you think coined the term "Jews of Africa?" It was the Igbo themselves. For some odd reason, the Ndigbo have always been likened to the Jews.

Ndigbo is always searching to boost its population and right its majority.

Ndi ichie, counsel of elders. Umunna meetings governed by the oldest member of the family. The Igbo village/county structure is as follows: Nuclear family > Compound > Extended family > Village Quarters > Village > after that Ekpe, Okonko, Ibin Ukpabi courts and the rest come into cases depending on the community. In the case of Nri and its sphere of influence there were the Nze (people who go on peace missions) who were Ozo in training (priests who lead peace missions), after the Ozo is the Eze Nri (an elected Ozo)

Every community has this social structure you describe. . . this is not a sophisticated arrangement for checking and correcting the power of the monarch. This is just a bottom-up structure for familial or clan heirarchy.

Im looking for a sophisticated check and balance to forestall abuse.

Attah of Igala? You mean Idah child of Nri, a kingdom established by the Nri-Igbo, was oppressing Nri? When?

Let the Igalas speak to it.

Dede,

What principles of check and balances did the Igbo democracy adopt? That's what I want you to explain.

If you ask what checks and balances exist for America you will be told the following - The declaration of Inependence, which then created Constitutional power, which enumerated the Executive, Legislative and Judicial powers.

I guess you haven't heard of the Nri Kingdom? When you get more information concerning that ancient Igbo kingdom, them come back to talk to me on that issues. And the Aro Confederacy could be technically classified as a kingdom, in which I hail from this region.

Eze,

In this response and the highlights is the answer to many questions sorrounding the age and status of what you term Igbo kingdom.

The kingdom, prior to British arrival and intervention, was oppressed and they paid homage and tax to superior crowns in the neighborhood. . . crowns such as Amakiri and Attah.

Your people have claimed that millions of Igbos were enslaved and shipped across the ocean and that majority of the Afro-Americans and Carribe-Americans, as well as those in Brazil descend from and can trace their African roots to the Igbo blood.

Is this true or not?

Yes Lagos was bombed; if you go through the last few pages of this thread, you will find the information to that effect.

Katsumoto,

In the tense and stressful moments of war, a bazzoka going off coincidentally with an overflight might be mistaken for a bomb.  

Ikoyi, in that era was nested adjacent to two military camps and a naval port.  The British intentionally sorrounded their settlements with garrisons of military stations for optimum protection against infiltration and surprised attack from the indigenes. After they left, Nigerian technocrats and administrators occupied Ikoyi and beyond, leaving the peripheral protected with military presence.  Dodan Barracks was one of the presence and the seat of the Nigerian military hierarchy.  The other one was Abatti Barracks.

If a bomb was dropped in Ikoyi and in a residential street , then it is evidence of unskilled warmanship on the part of the Igbo pilot.  For casualty and demolition, any of the military barracks would have been a score, not to mention high grade infrastructures such as bridges, government headquarters and such that littered from Ikoyi all the way to the foot of Carter bridge.  Eko bridge was not built till after the war.

Also, if a bomb was dropped in Ikoyi the site of the damage should still be on record of the Lagos Town Council, what the Lagos Administrative Council was called at the time.

I checked with my mom. . . just to be sure.  She attended Aunty Ayo Girls Secondary School at Keffi.  Keffi is the gateway to Ikoyi.  She said school continued throughout the war and they were never closed.  A bomb drop in the vicinity would have changed that.

So this propaganda, if it was aimed to be one, was badly thought out and presented.  Reconstruct it.

You don't know what democracy is, if you did such statement would not come out of you.

Democracy in real sense is the exchange of power and authority between the people and a central ruling entity installed for aggregation of interests and needs (order and progress) of the people. When that central entity fails in its contract to the people, the people reserve the right to abrogate its authority. Overlapping and layers of check and balances are therefore setup to manage that power of abrogation so that neither the central authority nor the poeple are unfairly abused in the misuse of power.

Every true democratic government has a system of check and balances to manage the use of this exchange. What were the check and balances in the Igbo democracy? Please share.

Yes, the Ijaws were indeed troublesome for the British, but they also said that about the fiercely independent Igbos.

Ijaws were trouble before the arrival of British. Igbo was never trouble for anyone prior, and not even for the British.

I always have to mention to some people that Igboland wasn't pacified till the 1920s. And one of the last African kingdoms that were finally was defeated in all of Nigeria was an Igbo kingdom.

Kingdom? Igbo Kingdom? Clans, yes, . .but kingdom? Who was the monarch and what dynasty?

And what do you mean about "boost our population." Igbo population has always been quite large. It would have probably been larger, if not for the slave trade that took many of our people to the new world.

Who enslaved your people?

Katsumoto,

I was told you made a claim that Lagos was bombed by Biafra in the civil war. Is this true, that Lagos was bombed?

bk.babe,

Other British anthropologist have viewed the Igbo in a very positive light. But in all sources that I have read, many have said Igbos are fiercely independent with a highly advanced democratic principles. [/QUOTE]

Eze,

Did you not see the NOTES in that caption: I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE HERE THE INFORMED CRITIQUE OF THE FIRST DRAFT OF THIS ARTICLE BY DR, JOHN ORJI, FROM WHICH I DERIVED MUCH BENEFIT.

Dr Orji reviewed, amended and approved a favorable draft before it went to press.


[quote]Why do you think the British colonialist favored the Igbo in the civil service? It was due to our ingenuity, and our capacity to handle complex things.

The reason was actually a political maneuver to punish the Kqalabari and the Ijaws as well as the Tivs for their continued contempt of the British settlers. This is why I have often repeated that you are a wrong majority. The British brought settlements from Camerron to boost your population in Nigeria and create an artificial majority in the East. This is how they countered and quietened the opposition from Ijaws and Kalabaris. Their political leaders were falsely charged and imprisoned in order to silence and bring the people into compliance. How many Igbo leader was ever charged or imprisonede by British for acts against the government? NONE! There was no need to - because your leaders were naturally compliant and ever ready to tdo the will of the British.

Thank God the great Chinua Achebe has illustrated Igbo culture in all of its glory for millions of people to see all around the world.

Chinua Achebe has exploited the silence of the neighboring tribes in the East. They did not refute his false claims and so a culture that was recently brought out of darkness and into the light of civilization by colonial British, has been given the glory usually reserved for cultures that pre-date the Roman calendar.

We do not have the results of the election to go by and make conclusions of whether or not Awo had in fact won the election, but given the social temperaments of the electorates of that era and coupled with the political sophistication of the regional peoples, as it would be measured against the interests of the departing British for a legacy of chaos and dependence . . . . if nothing else but this should be the criterion upon which the best determination and judgment can be made for a winner, then it is without question Awolowo was the winner.

The basis upon which the election was won by other than Awo were counter to the teachings and sciences of electoral polling and elections and could only have been achieved successfully through an external intervention lobbying against Awo as President.

I like how some of you ride the tailwind of "selective" but inaccurate historical accounts to console your hurting affections for Biafra.

I have repeatedly challenged you all to a face-off. . . a tell-all that takes this issue from the beginning of the twentieth century. Let's break the timelines into 10yr or even 5yr historical piecemeals and ramp up to the end of 1970.

Let's include your beginning in the story of Biafra. Let's see how an Igbo minority trampled under foot by Amakiri and Attah rose to become a political Eastern majority.

Are you ready for it?

Did Ndigbo forget this article? Cycle through and see how far since this discussion took place and you are still sitting on same spot of ideological stagnation.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-334770.352.html

Una still dey fight over who did what, heh?  

History is clear on these disputes.  Defenders of Biafra want to re-write history by force.  I am listening to that discussion on Camerron, I have facts to share on that when una finish.  Biafra is a wrong majority in Nigeria.  Ask the children of Amakiri, they know.  Where the Kalabari people to come speak up?

Hehehe!!!     Funny people!

Buzugee,

A very good question!

But seriously, why does Britain have to produce anything when you have people from other countries Nigerians and their Leaders
that are willing to loot their countries and bring it to the UK for safekeeping

Shango, I have observed your responses to serious issues like this one and I admit I like your well thought out responses to them.  Keep it up!

In my own response I will piggyback on Shango's response and add that the end of colonialism did not end our exploitation by Europeans.  When they were in control of Africa they sealed treaties that bind ownership of our resources to their sovereign lands - England, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy and so on. . .

When we gained independence, our government could have ended and nulled these treaties but did not do so.  Regime after regime, military and civilians, we continue to honor and uphold those bad treaties that siphon the royalties and gains of our natural resources away from our control and ownership to the pockets of foreigners in England.

@OP

The post is not only laughable but bloody goofy and wasteful endeavor.

Let's see if you can produce something better than it that advances your cause.

Most Nigerians are not fools or gullible dimwits to totally forget the debacle in Ilorin which involved Afonja.

Lol, it's strange that you will go that far back into history. What was your recollection of the Igbo parity in the lifetime of Afonja?

@negro_nts

And why should Yorubas get into this one again?

If the Igbos did not ask for our help, make you look the other way o. They've said it countless times that they will not fight in another man's land, so why should another man fight for them?

Ileke-Idi,

I read the entire response thread and observed that mindsets are fixated on 'fight", "war", "battle" and so on. Not once did any respondent offered a solution free from conflict. ShangoThor got close but then he wants us to involve UN as a first step in the process of negotiation.

"fight" is the redflag. . . . the keyword. . . . that get people on all sides agitated and contemptible against any alternative option.

If we decide to fight, we will not be alone. Arms dealers all around the globe as well as oil prospectors will get involved and invest heavily with supply of heavy weaponry to each warring side and stand on the sideline to watch us kill one another off while they mine the oil, gold, steel, coal, and whatever else there is to gain, sell them on the global market and then divert the earnings to pay their supplies while we starve. If we need money to procure food they will get it to us on loan. There will be refugees. After the war, we will still owe them and would have lost proprietary rights to our resources.

Negotiation is my preferred action plan for resolution.

AN IMPERATIVE

Here is a story once told to me by an ex-student of FSAS.

Some years ago when I was a student at FSAS, I belonged in a student fraternity that was revered on campus, we were not feared but we commanded respect. The respect came out of what outsiders did not know about us. Our membership was visible and you knew who belonged but initiation into the group was very tight and restricted. We searched for certain traits, persons who when engulfed in chaos and panic, remain reserved, calm and poised; and not incapable of managing and recovering normalcy to the situation. They are not loud, not flamboyant, not self-identifying, just a blend in the ordinary narrative of their environment, mysterious but personable. There were many other frats and groups on campus formed along varying interests and compatibility traits.

There was a particular gang that terrorized campus and bullied students. One day a female member of my frat was harassed at a party - she had refused advances from a member of this gang and to humiliate her, he groped her b r e a s t s and forced himself on her on the dance floor, ripped her clothes off and left her there in her shame, then stormed off. No one at the party had the gut to intervene for fear of reprisal from the gang. This humiliation was reported to the frat. We arranged to meet with the gang and at first they snubbed us but then later agreed to the meeting. We were determined on controlling the pace and spirit of the meeting. We started by telling them why we were there - the purpose - and then we wanted to know why this happened. They took the floor and spoke at length. They questioned our audacity to query their action, and made it known in many words that they were the alpha gang on campus and they had unrestrained access to any girl they fancied and anybody that dared challenge their authority was indeed drawing the line for battle. We listened but didn’t talk. They bragged about mischief and conquest on campus and off-campus, we listened but not talked. After all the self-glorifying was done, they asked if we had problem with their authority. The leader of my frat stood up and told them since this was a first encounter he would let this episode pass but that if ever in future there was a repeat or a complaint from any member of the frat about harassment coming from the gang that there would be bloodshed. He did not wait for a response, he headed out and we filed out behind him in silence.

I guess they doubted him because before the end of that day the same girl was again harassed and this time, threatened with rape. This happened on the Friday following the Tuesday party. The party had taken place at a home few streets from the school. Two weeks went by, nothing happened. Then one afternoon after school hours myself and another frat member got a call to come to a classroom. There were eight of us in the room. We held a ritual preparation for imminent face-off and possible bloodbath. We had watched and surveilled the gang habits for 10days, we were ready to take them on. The third week, on the third Monday since the rape threat was issued we ambushed two of the gang members as they sat in an empty classroom, ordered them to lie on the floor and keep still. They obeyed. Word was then sent to another of their member that these two guys needed rescue from a bad situation - not specifying what the situation was. He eagerly showed up and was ordered to join the crew on the floor. Word was again sent out, and two more came and joined the floor. On the third errand, we lured their leader in. He was ordered on the floor. He was shocked and defiant at first, so someone unsheathed a dagger. He complied and laid face down on the floor with the rest of his rascals. So in this position, we had our second meeting. This time, they listened we did the talking.

No member of the frat was ever troubled again for the remainder of my time there and for many years after our graduation, but the gang continued to harass, bully, flog and even extort protection money from students in exchange for safety. In a particular incidence, a student was beaten so severely that one of his eyes was bloodshot with pressure resulting from a ruptured vein and ultimately causing loss of vision in that eye. This event has remained etched in my memory and conscience ever since. Looking back, I have asked myself, time after time, if we should not have intervened and stopped the terror when we clearly had the opportunity to do so and dis-empower their ability to hurt people. We had a convincing impact on their assessment of our reserved silence but the concession was a honor confined only to the frat, not to the general student body. I am still embattled in my spirit and often wondered if the crime and violation that led to the blinding of that student can truly be faulted to the excesses and extreme acts of a gang known and reputed for violence or should the more reasonable and influential frat be blamed for failure to anticipate the risks and dangers ahead and then, acting as agent of change, influence and re-direct the energies of the violent gang. Perhaps, this student and many others after that “floor meeting” encounter might have been saved from their tormenting ordeal if we demanded it from the gang. There is no question in my mind, not now and not back then in that classroom, that we would obtain any concessions we desired - our strategy to ambush and then subdue them was very successful; it was rapid, it was ordered, we did not humiliate them but we were firm and kept the “unknown” factor alive the entire time they laid on the floor.

Life is lesson. . . . But our stories are the garment covering that makes it vibrantly colorful. You take the stories away and life will be naked and uninspiring!

I took time to open this post with this short but true life story because it has relevance and gives spice to the mission I intend. The lesson of this post itself is one that should be very troubling to the soul and spirit of any living mankind. It is the lesson of an unrelenting aggression and crime committed by one set of mankind against another set. It is relevant to the killing of the Igbo people by the Hausas. The Yoruba nation is looking on. We do not speak up except on such infrequent occasion when a child of O’Dua is a victim in the mix-up.

My question to the children of Oduduwa: Will you find comfort in your conscience to stand by and not do anything as the Hausas continue to violate the Igbos? The Hausas were not the only victims of Igbo aggression and disrespect in the 60s coup, we were victims as well, far worse so than the North. If we in the West lived by the sentiments of our memories we should single-handedly and over the years have finished wiping their traces and blood out of our region and land by now, but that’s not a noble way for mankind. In conquest, there is redemption. A magnanimous warrior conquers the spirit of the infidel and crushes his ego but must leave his soul intact so the petals of a new humility can open and blossom.

Indisputably, the Igbo man is loud, flamboyant, self-glorifying and arrogant. He suffers from an inability to correctly assess his own weakness and come out with an effective plan to advance reforms. . . .and so he trudges on in a cycle of self-destruction believing in the volume of his hoot and holler as a effective propaganda against a veteran of stealth and strategy.

We can resign the Igbo man to his own fate but how about the helpless Igbo woman and her child? Politically and militarily, the man continues to prove his incomplete and ineffective understanding of the wisdom of war and hence those in his care are dangerously exposed to the whims and violent emotions of the rival. We must recognize this error in judgment as an involuntary attribute and therefore intervene with a resolve to rescue the Igbo woman and her child; and if doing that results in saving the Igbo man from his path of self-destruction as well, then so be it. . . .but it is a moral imperative that demands our firm stand for what is right and honorable in the eye and laws of mankind.

That in the history of mankind, our default reluctance to stand up and intervene for the security of lives and property- of those who are indebted to us for wrongs and injuries - has too far often stripped us of God’s Holy Spirit when we most needed to soak in it. In that un-divine moment, man falls from grace, life loses value and meaning; the “man” becomes the “beast” and willingly responds to the instincts of his carnivore nature - totally and recklessly disrespecting the sanctity of blood and the holiness of life. Everywhere you look a body is gashed open or burnt while the life still in it or smashed violently with a blunt force that the blood is shocked into trauma and finally succumbs to death.

This is not the order of creation and it is not the order of a noble people. Our history is of noble roots and our generation is faced with the challenge in our backyard and under our nose to correct atrocities against the nobility of creation, we cannot turn away from this.

If we continue to watch the Igbo people repeatedly violated and killed and we do nothing, then the time must come in future when the Yoruba nation will look back, either as a co-habiter in Nigeria or as a separate Sovereign, and we would wish we had saved the Igbo people from the ordeal of these torments.

Let’s start by adding voice to a call for the humane treatment of Igbo people in Northern Nigeria. For the sake of the mother and child, let us act as agents of change for their future. We can do it!

Add your voice to this mission.

I thought you were signing out completely from NL or you could not resist the lure post more conspiracy crap.

You are late on the rebound, .I addressed your concern months ago.

ok you say

blackwater is in somila - where else do you expect them to be. The last time i checked blackwater was and is still paramilitary organisation

Blackwater has never been a paramilitary organization. It was and still is a mercenary unit.

Are you comfortable with their presence in Somalia, Nigeria or anywhere else in Africa?