₦airaland Forum

nnenna.1:
You see, you did not even get the gist of my post.

If Africans had the power to create media houses that enabled the masses (in the continent and out of it) to know its history by default, you would not need to defend its integrity every time by asking other posters to look up little known African history books on the net because they have no "knowledge." The fact that you do shows that we have zero talent in PR skills.

That the masses of youth have "no knowledge" is a testament to this. Don't shoot the messenger.

(By the way, "media" means much more than television channels)

You make a very good point. But research into African history is still ongoing. You can't put out documentaries, videos, etc. before you really understand all the facts. And besides that, most people would probably agree that there are some more immediate developmental problems that Africa faces that are drawing the attention of people away from historical issues and more toward current issues.

I'm inclined to believe the taxi driver's account. The two of them were drunk, then were fooling around in his taxi and then were really screwing and the outraged driver had to pull over and report them to the authorities. Now they're trying to run away from their punishment for committing an act that would be a crime in any country.

This "she was on her period" stuff sounds like a silly and weak attempt at an excuse that they think will get them off the hook, so they got their dishonest or naive lawyer to run with it. They are probably thinking - and perhaps rightly so - that the Dubai courts will not be waste the time, energy, and money it would take to get an experienced and honest obstetrician to subject her to any medical tests that could determine or at least reasonably estimate when she last had her period.

₱®ÌИСΞ:
YEA...awesome....never knew glenn the pizza boi was this HARDCORE

Glenn was a warrior in that episode. The fight scene in that interrogation room was one of the best scenes of this season so far.

i dont agree with you ...it looks to me that ricks rescue attempt would be foiled...and i see the brothers going against each other...True its merle's fault, but merle wont just go that easily...he alredy proved that twice ....lets see how it plays out
whats with that amatuer scientist / doctor / nerd?? which kin therapy be dat?? lwkmd ...i see him next on my list of people to die...tho he just cheated death thanks to andrea

Yeah Merle is a tough bastard. The governor, Shane (who's now dead and gone) and Rick are probably the only other characters in the show that would be tough enough to take him out. That's why I think that either the governor or Rick will end up killing Merle. But you're probably right that they won't have him killed off easily - they'll at least want to keep him around through the end of this season, since he's such a popular character.

I think the creepy fake scientist will die at or near the end of this season when it concludes next year, or around the beginning of the fourth season. I think they'll probably want to keep him around for a while in order to keep the mad scientist vibe running. That mad scientist idea is a source of potential plot twists and surprises - what if he discovers something about zombie behavior that no one else has uncovered so far, and finds a way to use them as weapons? To have that guy operating a small zombie army for a brief while before he's killed could be interesting. We also know from a scene in a previous episode that he's already developed a kind of jacket or light armor that is completely resistant to zombie bites. Who knows what other tricks they could have his character come up with?

My prediction for the mid season finale is this: if the governor sees that Michonne is still alive even though Merle claimed that he and his small group had killed her, and the governor realizes that Michonne (who was supposed to have been killed) led Rick's rescue team to Woodbury, the governor himself will kill Merle out of anger right after Merle finally reunites with his brother Darryl. The impending showdown is basically all Merle's fault since he kidnapped the two members of Rick's group in the first place, and the fact that Rick's rescue team is coming to Woodbury is also his fault, since they would not have found the place without Michonne, who Merle was supposed to eliminate. Taking all that into account, if things go badly (in terms of losses) for the governor after Rick's team invades, the governor will probably just destroy Merle to prevent any future screw-ups.

I'm probably wrong about how the episode will unfold and the show will probably go with something even more interesting and more dramatic, but I do think that that is a plausible scenario that the writers may have considered.

Yet another great episode from this season. A lot went on in that last episode.

- the creepy amateur scientist and his failed zombie experiment and how he almost got eaten before Andrea saved him
- Andrea's total obliviousness about what's really going on with the Governor and what he's really like
- Michonne joining Rick's group and going with a few of them to Woodbury on a commando-like rescue mission
- the clueless hermit that they had to mercy kill as he ran to open the door
- the governor showing his depravity with his treatment of Maggie during her interrogation
- the governor questioning Merle's loyalty at the end
- Glenn's stiff resistance during the interrogation/torture and the scene where he dealt with that walker even though he had been strapped down to a chair

Overall, a very good episode. With the two groups converging for a showdown, the mid-season finale looks like it's going to be a real classic.

RudySmith: That girl simply wanted 2 add another sucker 2 her long list of guys that wants her, 2 some e-diot women more FB friends= being popular. If she finally hands u her phone #, it's bcuz she saw on ur FB what she didn't c in u the first time u guys met.

bamshy: Simple...'they' take pride in the numbers of facebook friends or subscribers! You were going to be a tool to boost her anaemic self confidence via facebook...lol

^^^

This is probably the real reason.

Funny thread

Goop: What you are saying is true, you don't even need to mention the obviousness of what the zulus did to the british or how the Kongo Empire handled the Portuguese on the continent. One only has to point to the marital arts of the African diaspora that were birthed from Central African Engolo fighting style that struck fear in the hearts of slavers at the time- The Capoeira of Bahia, Brazil(the most well known); The knocking and kicking of Lowland country Georgia & South Carolina; and I forget what the names were in Jamaica and Cuba because they are extinct, as far as I can tell. These would become the some of the main reasons slave traders, began to deviate from bringing captives from CenAfr and began to look towards the W.Afr who they saw as more docile and obedient than the CenAfr Bantus.

Like you, I can't think of any resistance of Europeans coming from the Niger-Delta region, or any of the other West African regions or by their descendants in any significance, expect maybe the few skirmishes put up by the Fula based calvary against the British in what is today Northern Nigeria, and that was in the 20th century AFTER the slavery and the slave trade in the New World.

Goop: Yes, absolutely. You have to take into account that that for the context in which europeans first arrived in Africa. In west Africa from the time they landed they knew it was prime for slave trading and colonization, in fact the first slave sold to the Portuguese was by a West AFrican Guinea slave trader(traitor). Whereas in CenAfr the Portuguese were for the most part subservient merchants to the laws of the Kingdom of Kongo, who although they practiced indentured servitude, were against the Atlantic slave trade. Most of the slaves the Portuguese got from CenAfr were true captives, illegally stolen from there land. This in part would compel the Kingdom of Kongo to go to war with the Portuguese in 1622 and all but banish them from the CenAfr region. So, it's no surprise the CenAfr captured against their will, for the most part of unbeknownst reasons, would be more enraged by it than West African that were already serfs to a chiefs and kings that were in cahoots with Europeans slave traders the whole time.

lol @ this. One would think Samory Touré was a central African or something from these kind of statements. There are some very inaccurate statements and claims in the quotes above. I don't have time to go through and debunk this general idea about West Africans vs. Central Africans in detail, and it would probably not be worth the time it would take to do so, so I'll just refer you to three books that should give you a more realistic perspective:

John K. Thornton - Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800

John K. Thornton - Warfare in Atlantic Africa: 1500-1800

Junius Rodriguez (editor) - Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion (2 vols.)

I have only read parts of that encyclopedia, as I am not really in the habit of reading whole encyclopedias (that would be boring), but I have read the two books by Thornton in their entirety and I can say that they are especially insightful and are very well researched.

Go to a library and find whatever other sources (besides the ones above) you need to that cover these issues. People have studied a lot of this stuff in detail, you know. So coming up with all these silly theories based on rumor or mere assumption are unnecessary. Next time try and have a bit of real comprehension of some of the historical topics you're discussing.

Interesting topic, but I won't be available to judge. Good luck to the debaters.

Dede1: When such reckless defense could not hold up to a scrutiny of toddler, you and ilk came up with most outlandish defense by stating that eyewitness civilians on the Nigerian side were borderline imbecilic nitwits who could not strike a difference between Nigerian and Biafran soldiers.

I never at any time said anything like this nor did Katsumoto or anyone else. This is not about whether one could tell the Nigerian and Biafran soldiers apart, but whether one could identify all Biafran soldiers by their unit.

You claim that the exact units and commanders of the "Liberation Army" that was occupying the Midwest should have been identified by civilians as if those civilians had spontaneously decided to engage in some reconnaissance mission for which they had no expertise. Yet you seem to ignore the reality that the means of identifying them by insignia were mostly nonexistent for most soldiers and you also seem oblivious to the fact that the significance of any insignia, whether they indicated the branch, unit, or even rank of any soldier would not have been clear to civilians.

What has equipment got to do with dividing an army into units with identifiable insignia, at least, to avoid the instances of friendly fire? If the eyewitness civilian had seen soldiers who wore slippers and tatted uniforms, they should have said so. Unfortunately, the Biafran soldiers of 101 Division were well-equipped unit with insignia of the division as well of Biafran rising sun on their arms.

And what was the insignia of the division? (Not that that is even what is being discussed, but just for the record.)

Anyway, this argument cannot be about the insignia of the entire division, but about the insignia of the units that made up the division since you wanted units and their commanders to have been identified. If you think the issue is whether the entire division needed to be identified by insignia, then I don't see what sense you're making. There is not some sort of confusion about what the division occupying the Midwest was.

When the above ridiculous excuse fails to convince educated audiences, you latched onto the fact that war is always littered with atrocities. Granted that war can bring out the demon out of a human being is not a licensure for opposing sides to bear false allegation of commission of heinous crime against each other.

False allegation? I am not silly enough to believe that there were no atrocities that followed the looting of parts of the region during the occupation and I am not silly enough to accept the naive and ignorant assumptions of people who think that the soldiers on the "good" side (whatever one holds that to be) in a war don't ever commit atrocities and that only the "bad" side do such things. For all the criticism Zik has received from many different people from different places, it is to his credit that he was at least man enough to acknowledge what happened there when he did. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about some modern day denial engineers who insist on deluding themselves.

So it does not faze me when such Nigerians post pictures of doctored Biafran soldiers who were probably on training mission as combat units.

Yet another masterstroke from a master evasion artist.

If I intended to post a training picture, I would have posted something like this:

http://www.apimages.com/OneUp.aspx?st=k&kw=nigeria%20ethnic%20groups&showact=results&sort=relevance&intv=none&sh=14&kwstyle=or&adte=1353439601&pagez=60&cfasstyle=AND&rids=ec36c3da1084407fb6d7c44e5666b6f6&dbm=SContent&page=1&xslt=1&mediatype=Photo

and I would have said it was a training picture.

None of the photos below are "training mission" pictures, as the captions and even the content of some of the pictures indicate. Now can you identify the units these soldiers are in?:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/biafran-national-army-soldiers-prepare-to-resist-a-federal-news-photo/76052069

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/africa-nigeria-civil-war-biafra-under-fire-soldiers-hauling-news-photo/97366215

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/africa-nigeria-civil-war-biafra-at-the-front-line-young-news-photo/97366173

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/africa-nigeria-civil-war-biafra-same-officer-as-previous-news-photo/97366184

By the way, I doubt that you have even read the Oputa panel's report, otherwise you could not possibly cite that panel as a source which claims that there were no atrocities committed by Biafran troops, since its report claims the exact opposite. This is not to say that I think that their report is comprehensive or a final pronouncement on the matter, since it definitely leaves out some things, but just to say that their report does not support your position, but actually opposes it.

Dede1: It is rather unfortunate PhysicsQED could not grasp the idea why military units are divided into units and wore insignia of major military branch.

A "unit" is a term indicating something like a division or a brigade or company or battalion in the military. That's the standard use of the term, correct? It's not my particular preference or something. The term is not usually indicative of a major military branch like the navy, air force, army, marines, etc., which always have distinguishing insignia.

By claiming that Biafran soldiers in the Midwest could and should have been visually identified down to the unit by civilians, what else were you claiming but that a specific section of the "Biafran Liberation Army" occupying the Midwest (like one of its brigades) could be identified by its insignia? Or did you think there was some confusion on my part about whether air force and army units had distinguishing insignia? That's not even relevant here because the force under question is the "Biafran Liberation Army" that was occupying the Midwest. Now if you were not claiming that specific units in the BLA could be identified by non-Biafran civilians, then what were you claiming and why did you repeatedly use the term "unit"?

Even from the doctored photographs in the the above post anybody with eye problem can discern the soldiers wore arm badges of Biafra’s raising sun.

Doctored photographs? Who do you think doctored them and why? Some of those war time photographs are directly from Phillip Effiong Jr.'s website. If those ones are considered "doctored" to you as well, then maybe you should take it up with him.

Anyway, there are many pictures of Biafran soldiers with the arm badges of Biafra's rising sun. There are pictures of Ojukwu wearing it, Effiong wearing it, etc. And Rolf Steiner's actual unit insignia (the skull and crossbones) was worn underneath the Biafran rising sun badge on his arm. How are those badges of Biafra's rising sun supposed to be unique to a "unit" so that that unit can be identified and distinguished from others when that sun badge was being worn by many different units, and furthermore, how is that rising sun badge possibly supposed to be useful to a civilian in identifying the specific unit?

Once the fact is established the soldiers were indeed Biafrans, it is easy to determine the unit operating in certain area of the war zone through intelligent gathering.

"Easy" for you (if you're actually some sort of military consultant or something, like some people here claimed) or for someone with any intelligence gathering expertise, maybe. But not for an ordinary civilian. This should not be hard to grasp, but somehow it eludes you.

It has been more than forty years the war ended yet the wishful thinkers mainly the denial artists have failed to come up with iota of plausible evidence to back up their idiotic accusation that Biafran soldiers massacred civilians in midwestern region.

This is why Nnamdi Azikiwe said in 1969 that atrocities had been committed by Biafran occupiers in the Midwest, right?

It was ironic coming across a statement in a book recently in which a certain writer said that he had found "no credible corroboration" of the claims of atrocities being committed by Biafran soldiers that were in the Midwest in the same book where praises were heaped upon Nnamdi Azikiwe, who had already spoke in 1969 on the Biafran occupation atrocities that were committed in the Midwest. I guess not even Zik would remain credible to that writer who praised him effusively if the writer were to come across Zik's statement.

But I think that maybe you want people to dig up and identify bodies and look for bullet fragments to match with Biafran ammunition or something else that's not practically possible, and even if that were somehow carried out I still doubt that you would accept the truth. Because neither you nor others that talk about this issue seem to be willing to say what would constitute "credible corroboration" or "evidence."

I did not know that Nigerians who fought against Biafra were dumbazz eggheads who tend to wait for Biafra to publish the position of its fighting units in order for them to determine which unit committed an atrocity.

Who is even talking about "Nigerians that fought against Biafra"? I am talking about ordinary civilians. Why are you under the impression that ordinary civilians are capable of identifying a unit merely by glancing at soldiers' insignia that they don't understand? Also nice job, as an evasion artist, of evading the question asked of you to identify those Biafran soldiers by simply claiming the pictures were all "doctored".

I guess Nigerian army went to the airwave to inform the world that certain units of 3MCDO or 2nd Division or 1st Division will engage Biafran units on particular time and place. What a moronic conjecture. Biafra had intelligent units which shadowed every move of the vandals. It is safe to say that Biafra’s eye witness narrators were more intelligent than Nigerians who tend to sleep walk. Biafran civilians and authorities did not go to God in order discern that elements from 3MCDO committed atrocity in Ogba\Egbama, or elements from 2nd Division of Nigerian army committed atrocity in Asaba and Obosi.

If you were not being deliberately disingenuous, you would admit that an ordinary civilian would not be engaging in some kind intelligence gathering operation (for who?), but instead would be trying not to get killed or accused of being a spy/infiltrator for no reason.

And I've said it before, whether you'll like to admit it or not, not every commander and unit for every place where atrocities were committed by Biafra or Nigeria has been identified, nor is that what matters most because merely identifying the commander and unit that were in a certain area does not establish that something happened but rather the testimony of the people affected does.

^ That's funny. And thanks, but I think I'll stick with physics. I can sometimes put forward a good argument, but I don't think I would actually like to be a prosecutor.

Dede1: Anybody whose statement can not stand the test of scrutiny should shut up.

The point I am making is that contrary to what you might assume, not everyone who has mentioned atrocities committed by the federal troops or by the Biafrans has adopted this particular criterion of yours - specifying the name of the unit and commander - as something necessary to establish that murders were committed against civilians.

Furthermore, what is the "test of scrutiny"? What is the test, who is administering it, and what is required to establish beyond a doubt that something happened? I don't even see how merely naming a commander of a unit and a unit's name proves that something happened or that this commander or unit actually did something - the testimony of those affected by their actions seems to be what is really important - yet you use this as some kind of guideline to establish that certain atrocities were real, while other atrocities (including those by federal troops) are just mere claims from people and the people mentioning them should simply "shut up." An eyewitness account which describes people being pointed out to federal troops for executions or which describes Biafran atrocities without specifying the unit or the commander's name is of far more value as far as corroborating a story than someone just mentioning the name of a town or city, the unit that was in that city, and the commander's name.

It is a display of idiocy to accuse Biafra army of atrocity when the accuser can not even proffer an iota of evidence to support such nonsensical conjecture.

So basically if a man was the manager of a plantation, and Biafran soldiers killed him during the occupation while looting and suddenly after the invasion his child is fatherless, the son should, 40 years later, exhume the body from its grave (assuming they even found the body and buried it 40 years ago), subject it to a full autopsy (basically, mutilate the body) to try to recover bullet fragments, take these bullet fragments to some weapons expert to try and have them identified, and after somehow establishing that the bullets would have been in use circa 1967 by Biafran soldiers, try and track down Biafran soldiers (if they are still alive) of the exact unit that was in that area to see if they would admit to it?

Is that totally impossible scenario your idea of obtaining "evidence"? Or what is your idea of "evidence"? Is saying "This Biafran unit was in this or that area during this particular time that this atrocity happened and the name of the commander of the unit is such and such, therefore atrocities were committed by that unit. . ." what you consider "evidence"?

It is not just for fun that military is divided into units with distinguishable insignia to match. In addition, war zones are also divided into sectors for a very good reason.

No, not every unit would be uniquely distinguishable to civilians. The uniforms of the soldiers in that war on both sides from available pictures did not at all look as if they all had unique insignia on each uniform indicating their unit because even with close up, full pictures of some of these soldiers (Biafran and Nigerian), I certainly can't see any unique insignia on the uniforms of most ordinary soldiers that would easily distinguish one group from another.

Also, in case you somehow haven't grasped this, only the Biafrans were acutely aware of exactly where each specific unit of their army was in the Midwest during the occupation - they did not publish a list for distribution to the civilian population informing them of what area each unit would be in, the name of the commander of that unit and on what days they would be where because that would be an absurd thing to do.

I guess you are the only individual on earth who does not know that soldiers wear insignia of their unit and even trucks and other military equipments are marked accordingly. This is the reason the so-called eye witness account does not need to include the name of the soldiers.

This is easily one of the most ridiculous things I've read on this forum, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and analyze it as though it were an even remotely reasonable claim worth discussing in detail.

This image below is of Biafran officer's rank insignia:

https://www.philip-effiong.com/biafrapips.jpg

(The image is from Philip Effiong Jr.'s website where he identifies them as such, so if you have any issue with what they are said to be, then take it up with him.)

a) Are you claiming that every soldier was wearing an insigne such as the ones above (or a simpler one, not made out of metal, but out of cloth, like the one Rolf Steiner wore) on their uniform?

b) Are you actually trying to tell me that a non-Biafran civilian would have had any idea what the insignia of certain soldiers meant as far as names of individual units? I doubt they would even have understood what any insignia meant as far as rank, not to talk of insignia for specific units.

c) Do you actually think that insignia indicate the exact unit involved to someone who is a civilian and has not been told beforehand what the insignia are meant to indicate?

d) Assuming that each unit of soldiers was distinguishable by some very unique insignia, and not looking like many of the soldiers in those civil war pictures where no unique insignia are clearly visible on the majority of them, who is supposed to know what the insignia of a particular unit are or what name they correspond to, and assuming such information was actually visible, what civilian would even have time to note such information while fearing or fleeing for their life?

Is an ordinary laborer, mechanic, farmer, etc. supposed to know what one insigne corresponds to in terms of the name of the unit? In your view, was every person suddenly some kind of intelligence operative just because their land had been invaded?

e) Since you claim a non-Biafran civilian with no familiarity with Biafran army organization and insignia should have been able to identify the unit that Biafran soldiers belonged to, then as an expert, with much more time available to you, and many more resources and connections at your disposal, identify the unit that these Biafran soldiers were in, post-haste:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/BiafranSoldiersInAsaba.jpg

And each of these men?:

https://www.philip-effiong.com/Biafrans.jpg

https://www.philip-effiong.com/BiafranSoldiers.jpg

[img]http://beegeagle.files./2010/07/v6k9ol.jpg[/img]

https://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1605000/images/_1608188_military300.jpg


Your claim is that if you were an ordinary civilian and any of these men in the photographs above were around you, you would be able to tell the exact unit that they're from because of some supposedly visible unique unit insignia. Since that's what you're saying then prove it. Say what units these men are from and give some support or proof that they are from the units you say they are from. This is a very simple request. If you can't point out the unit-identifying insignia that you claim every soldier wore and identify the units that each and every one of these Biafran soldiers are in, then I don't think you have a point.

If the massacre took place in the night, it is foolhardy for any person to conclude Biafran soldiers were responsible.

Who said the killings all took place in the night? What are you talking about? Stop looking for excuses. It's amazing that you could think of calling me a "denial artist" when you can pull this scenario out of your hat in search of an avenue through which to construct a denial.

$tunna:
Oh, the TV documentary was of 2 Americans who went broke after the housing bubble in the US and went to Ghana to mine gold and made $130.000 in 3 months (20.000.000.00Naira) and are now going back to make millions of dollars and they show them arriving in Ghana and some Chinese with big guns where already mining the land the 2 guys got permit for and payed the local chiefs for and there was no damn thing the men could do!! poverty stricken africans living in mud houses were shown helping the Chinese with the work and i felt like i was going to explode in anger...!

TITTLE: "JUNGLE GOLD" on the 'Discovery channel' if you live in North America

Yeah I saw this on Sunday. It looked terrible. The two white guys were overly dramatic and kind of looked like they were putting on a show for the cameras, but their gold lust seemed genuine, as did their complete disinterest in the actual Ghanaian people and their country.

Dede1, I was talking about all military atrocities committed in the Midwest during the war. That you've decided to limit the atrocities under discussion to only those that took place under certain circumstances is your own choice. Not everyone has to accept that choice. And just to make sure I'm reading this right, are you admitting that "materials" were also a significant motivation for atrocities committed? If we agree on this, then maybe you'll understand that the murders committed in the course of looting are also considered atrocities and you'll stop this nonsense you've been promoting about no Biafran atrocities happening in the Midwest.

Also, are you sure you're comprehending what I said? You seem to think, simply because people are able to identify the units and commanders for some of the places where atrocities occurred, that every atrocity committed can just have a commander's name and unit attached to it easily as if the soldiers were all walking around with huge signs on their foreheads which indicated their name, unit and their unit's leader for civilian populations to use to identify them. Over a year ago, when, in the course of an argument, I was being informed about what federal troops did in Igbodo and other towns, I wasn't told the exact names of the units or those in command of those units and it didn't even seem relevant. Are you actually claiming that someone would need to supply those names and units before their account of what happened would be accepted?

As for the rest of your comment, it doesn't seem to directly address what I posted nor do I see how commenting on misleading claims or bizarre reasoning about the Biafran atrocities amounts to defending the federal troops' atrocities or other atrocities. Are you going to address the points I raised or not? If you are actually claiming that the only atrocities that happened during the war are those for which a commander and unit can be named, then come out and say so and stop beating around the bush. If that is really what you're claiming then there's not really a point in trying to discuss things any further.

afam4eva: I guess you should devote yourself with the doctor and those others in the mid-west that said Biafran forces committed atrocities to find out those responsble or else the accusation is dead on arrival.

After the federal recapture of the Midwest, killings occurred in more places than just at Asaba. Are you actually claiming that unless those that massacred Mid-west Igbos in places other than Asaba are identified by the name of the unit and its highest ranking officer, that the killings didn't actually happen? This is just terrible reasoning any way you look at it.

I don't know how people can think every soldier in every war who commits an atrocity can be identified by civilians. That's a completely ridiculous claim and point of view. Anyway, the vast majority of people, whether Igbo or non-Igbo, are not callous enough to dismiss and just reject the testimony of people from some Delta Igbo areas who come forward today with their accounts of what happened back then without such information, so the lack of identification of commanding officers and units never seems to matter. But in the case of non-Igbo Midwesterners, certain people on the internet and in real life seem unable to come to grips with reality and start imagining that they can just dismiss what happened by dismissing the source or claiming that those who were attacked or killed should have kept a directory or index of the names and units of the Biafran soldiers around them.

By the way, on the Midwest, it is naive to assume that Nigerian Midwesterners were the only ones who witnessed the Biafran atrocities that occurred. In the case of the Biafran atrocities in the Midwest, we have at least one confirmation from a foreigner of one of the atrocities (there were others still besides the one that this foreigner mentions), yet people still want to delude themselves about what really happened. Anyway, when brainwashed people are confronted with the truth, it will probably just be dismissed as being part of some anti-Biafran conspiracy no matter where it's coming from.

ossagy: Do I need your a/s/s to prove my point..Bleep you

ossagy: Even I myself am from Auchi Edo state and happily married an Anambra girl, lives and works in Onitsha.

So now you're from Auchi? Ok then. I'm sure next week you'll be from Uromi.

Anyway, carry on. I don't intend to derail the thread.

ossagy: Yea Benin my place is not bad at all. At least the new government is doing alot in that regard. Benin is also home to many non-indegenes.

Really? Are you really from Benin? [size=3pt]Why am I skeptical. . .[/size]

There are many prosperous ethnically homogenous cities around the world. There's no particular reason why Nigeria can't also have that kind of prosperity in ethnically homogenous places. It's one thing to say that the mix of groups of diverse origins converging in a place for business activities and educational opportunities gives some cities a significant advantage over others - that may be true - but it's another thing entirely to claim that a city needs to be heterogeneous to prosper. It doesn't seem like that would be the case in my opinion.

Thanks.

bokohalal: @PhysicsQED,where have you been?

I've been busier recently. I can't post on NL as consistently as I did during the summer. But I'll be around.

One_Naira: You must be kidding right? If you honestly believe that then i urge you to go read history of bight of benin which strenches from modern day Benin to sw. After doing so, go read Benin slavery trading.

Benin had a brief involvement (a few decades) in the early 16th century and possibly also in the 18th century (under Oba Ewuakpe) with the slave trade - though it's not clear if the 18th century trade was with Europeans or with other Africans. Throughout most of Benin's history there was little direct involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, and ironically enough, the majority of the slaves Benin sold to Europeans (in the 16th century) eventually found themselves in modern day Ghana and in Sao Tome, rather than across the ocean. Also, most of the slaves taken from the bight of Benin were purchased from those people more directly at the coast, not the Binis, and the fact that a purchased slave was said to come from 'Benin' (the kingdom) would not necessarily mean a Bini since there were certain other groups that were sometimes slaves in Benin.

Is this man related to Phillip Emeagwali?

Only if she's not a total prick about it. Her being smarter than me would be fine, but rubbing it in would be annoying.

ekt_bear: What is her ethnicity? Hard for me to identify it by her name or state of birth.

Not that it really matters, but I think she's from an ethnic group called the Margi (Marghi), that can be found in southern Borno and part of Adamawa.

The "evidence" I used to reach this conclusion is rather tenuous though and the reasoning behind this conclusion is not particularly solid, but it's my best guess.

Anyway, congratulations to her.

Obiagu1: Your problem is that you want to call every expansion made by the British "amalgamation" (after all merger of 2 or more lands is amalgamation) irrespective of whether that territory was in the crown's hand prior to such expansion.
You have refused to draw a line between the two.

I didn't call every expansion made by the British an amalgamation, but I don't see why it matters. Amalgamation is just another word for a merger. There were actual "acquisitions" of the NCP - such as forcibly adding Benin to the NCP that I didn't and haven't called an amalgamation, but I can call it that this one time if you think it'll prove your point that I actually am calling every addition an amalgamation. By the way, I don't see what your point is about whether a territory was or was not in the "crown's hand" prior to a merger. The British delineated the territory they were claiming for their empire in some cases before actually placing that territory under direct British control through force. For example, until the Ishan territories expedition of 1901, the Ishan areas were not under British control and had signed no treaties giving the British administrative rights or political rights over them. However, they were included in the protectorate of Southern Nigeria that was drawn up in 1900 even before they were invaded and colonized. So the British had (in their scheme) merged their land with NCP and (former) RNC land even before actually subjugating them.

Anyway, I have shown you multiple other publications that refer to the 1900 merger as an amalgamation, so why are you trying to make this about me and what lines I choose to draw or not draw between things? It's not even about me. At this point, you're arguing against history professors and specialists on British imperialism/colonialism who devote some of their careers to studying this stuff.

You went back to NCP, why didn't you go back to Yorubaland? Does it not apply to your "amalgamation" theory?

Well, the difference there is that the territories I was talking about simply were not acquired by the NCP as those places in Yorubaland were acquired by the Lagos colony. That's the point - you seemed not to grasp before what the NCP did or did not actually acquire or what its extent was. You actually seemed to believe (and for whatever reason, still seem to believe) that the NCP just acquired all of those huge stretches of territory despite there being no evidence that it did.

This is why I said you are dishonest. You left 1914 amalgamation debate to rage on but when I brought up 1906, here he comes, trying to derail my point, talking about bits and pieces.

How am I dishonest to leave the 1914 debate to "rage" when I said that 1) I believe it is/was more controversial and 2) when I said that the debate over the impact of other amalgamations, annexations, etc. is legitimate and could be discussed as well. In fact, I believe we discussed some of the pros and cons of one of those other amalgamations on a previous thread. Nothing is stopping anyone from discussing it.

Are you aware that the amalgamation could have been North and South, then Lagos? If it had happened that way, we won't be talking about this. Nigerians will be talking about sending Lagos (Yorubas) packing.

Are you aware that the original plan for the "Maritime Province" of Nigeria at the 1898 Niger Committee involved the Lagos colony being merged with the Niger Coast Protectorate first to form the Maritime Province of Nigeria? This "Maritime Province" plan was put aside in favor of the sequence of mergers that eventually was carried out. So, while the scenario you wrote above is a hypothetical one from somewhere in your imagination, the prospect of Lagos being merged with the NCP first was a real possibility that was at least considered by the people who actually eventually carried out the amalgamations. But as I have explained to you (since you were not aware), it was already decided that all of what is today Nigeria would be one unit in 1898, so the order of the mergers does not matter much.

Again, to help us understand NCP and RN, it seems you're an authority in that, provide us with complete map of the two showing which territory belongs to where? (This is an aside to 1906 amalgamation).

Do some actual digging in the archives on this if it's so important to you. I gave you a reference to an actual document which you can find and look up yourself - the 1898-1899 colonial report for the Niger Coast Protectorate from Ralph Moor, the consul-general and commissioner of the Niger Coast Protectorate, that he submitted to the consulate general in Old Calabar. That document confirms that the Niger Coast Protectorate up to the last year of its existence was as I said it was above, including only those districts. Unless you want to pretend those districts extend to places they couldn't have actually extended to, then I don't see what confusion you have about what the extent of the NCP was.

If you need a map so badly, then find one. I'm not going to go digging through university or institutional libraries for old British maps to scan and upload to the internet just to explain to you something so simple (that the NCP was a considerably smaller territory not in any way corresponding to the whole of the protectorate of Southern Nigeria) that you should have already understood by now, having had it confirmed already from multiple published sources from scholars.