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NNAMDI KANU WAS OFFERED BIAFRA IN PRISON IN 2017.

FG SAID HE COULD GO WITH THE 5 IGBO STATES. HE REFUSED, SAYING HE MUST HAVE THE SOUTH-SOUTH AND BENUE STATES.

THAT IS THE CRUX OF THE MATTER.

HE IS TARGETING THE HIGH MINERAL WEALTH OF BENUE PLUS THE NIGER DELTA OIL AND GAS DEPOSITS, WHICH HE WANTS TO CORNER FOR HIS IPOB GROUP.

That is the crux of their entire agitation couched deceptively as a movement for 'Igbo freedom' and 'Igbo self-determination'.

In truth, it's just a clumsily executed resource grab attempt.

SO PLEASE, PLEASE, Can you IPOBS stop repeating the EGREGIOUS LIE that 'Nigerians don't want Igbos to leave'', or that Nigeria is ''stopping Igbos from seceding''?

It is not true, and you know it.

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/rejected-biafra-5-igbo-states-nnamdi-kanu/

GENE POOL HUH?

RACISTS.

NAZIS.

WORTHLESS.

NO WONDER THEY WERE THROWING OUT BLACKS FROM EVACUATION TRAINS WHEN THE WAR STARTED.

THEY DIDN'T FIT THE 'GENE POOL'.

THESE ARE THE ANIMALS YOU PEOPLE ARE SUPPORTING.

TUFIAKWA.

Amen bro..

Asquare84:
Good Will bless the opp for reconisiance our concience as black. This are the kind of update that should be hitting front page

Hopefully....Thanks bro...

Boy, Nigeria was swimming in money in those days. I remember strolling through my neighbourhood in Lagos as a kid with my friends. We'd just be strolling and just run into an Owambe on a blocked street. We'd just enter, and collect seat. We wouldn't know anybody there o, but no wahala. You just go to the huge drum nearby and dip your hands in the chilled water and collect any drink you want including champagne! Girls would be coming round serving you rice with big meat.... Man. Naija was sweet.

This song by King Sunny Ade, 'Eshubiribiri' was played in every Owambe in those days.

It was the soundtrack of the Lagos 1970s oil boom Owambe scene. Memories...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFuoaibJLmc&ab_channel=OlatokunboDaramola%2CJr.

OldNairalander:
I still believed the West have a hand in Nigeria's current woes.
This country was fast rising to become a rich and powerful black empire of sort that will liberate all black men all over the world. Unfortunately for her,the West can't survive without Africa's resources. Hence the coded Carthage like treatment on Nigeria to destroy it's influence.

Oh, they were very nervous about Nigeria in the 1970s. Just a year after FESTAC, the Obasanjo regime nationalised British Petroleum, to register Nigeria's displeasure at Britain's support of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

British planes were constantly being detained at Lagos airport, and the year previously, Gen Murtala Muhammed had rejected an offer by the US Secretary of State, George Schultz, to visit him in Nigeria. This was when Nigeria was backing one set of rebels while the US backed the other in the Angolan war of independence.

Nigeria was the only country geographically removed from the 1970s southern African independence struggles (of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, South Africa) which was classed as a Frontline country in those anti-colonial wars.

She heavily funded the ANC with millions of dollars a month to fight the apartheid regime, and Nigerian leaders constantly railed against Britain and the United States for supporting the racist regime in South Africa.

There were serious discussions held about the possibility of Nigeria going nuclear. The then foreign minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, spoke endlessly in conferences and seminars about Nigeria's need to build the 'Black Bomb' to serve as a counter to western influence and nuclear hegemony.

This Nigerian urge to build the black bomb was only mellowed after the South African apartheid regime abandoned its nuclear programme and destroyed its nuclear warheads.

So Nigeria was a big headache to the western powers in the 70s and early 80s. This was when the term 'The Giant of Africa' was coined, and came to be widely used in world media to describe the federation.

The real surprise would be if they were not involved in curbing Nigeria's influence and power in later years, though various underhand methods..

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THE WORLD STILL CELEBRATES FESTAC 77 TILL THIS DAY

https://admin.veralistcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019.25.10_FESTAC-77_01-scaled.jpg

...................https://panafricanspacestation.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/nannce.jpg

Festac 77: A Black World’s Fair

Andrew Apter, University of California Los Angeles
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.798
Published online: 31 August 2021

From January 15 to February 12, 1977, Nigeria hosted an extravagant international festival celebrating Africa’s cultural achievements and legacies on the continent and throughout its diaspora communities. Named the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (or Festac 77), it was modeled on Léopold Senghor’s inaugural Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (World Festival of Black Arts, or Fesman) held
in Dakar in 1966 but expanded its Atlantic horizons of Africanity to include North Africa, India, Australia, and Papua New Guinea.

Festac’s broader vision of the Black and African world was further bolstered by Nigeria’s oil boom, which generated windfall revenues that accrued to the nation and underwrote a massive expansion of the public sector mirrored by the lavish scale of festival activities.

Festac’s major venues and events included the National Stadium with its opening and closing ceremonies; the state-of-the-art National Theatre in Lagos, with exhibits and dance-dramas linking tradition to modernity; the Lagos Lagoon featuring the canoe regattas of the riverine delta societies; and the polo fields of Kaduna in the north, celebrating the equestrian culture of the northern emirates through their ceremonial durbars. If Festac 77 invoked the history of colonial exhibitions, pan-African congresses, Black nationalist movements, and the freedom struggles that were still unfolding on the continent, it also signalled Nigeria’s emergence as an oil-rich regional and global power.

An estimated seventeen thousand Black and African participants from fifty-six countries and diaspora communities arrived in Lagos as painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, writers, poets, journalists, photographers, and scholars to express, debate, and reaffirm their collective cultural consciousness. Les Ballets Africains (Guinea) shared the limelight with the Danza Nacional de Cuba and the Chuck Davis Dance Company (United States), while Nigerian musicians Fela Kuti and King Sunny Adé played host to the likes of Mighty Sparrow (Trinidad), Tabu Ley Rochereau and “Franco” Luambo Makiadi of (then) Zaire, Giberto Gil (Brazil), Hugh Masekela, and Miriam Makeba, as well as a robust contingent of North American musicians that included Stevie Wonder, Sun Ra, Randy Weston, Donald Byrd, and The Carrol Gospel Singers.

Intellectuals like Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), Jacob Festus Adeniyi. Ajayi (Nigeria), and Joseph Ki-Zerbo (then Upper Volta) were joined by Malauna Ron Karenga as spokesperson of the US Colloquium delegation. Other notable African Americans who attended Festac included writers Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, and Louise Meriwhether, and artists Faith Ringgold, Samella Lewis, Barkley Hendricks, and Betye Saar.

https://history.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/festac_77.ore_.pdf

Arriving Lagos for FESTAC 77
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/37c6db32c63a69ba02e5f490e7c8e1aea9e2db7b/0_0_6200_4123/master/6200.png?width=1010&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=0e8656bddcff7196fbaab29c74142864

Racoon:
However, this reality then is now a part of irony as a supposed black power nation devoid of any meaningful development post-independence even after hosting the world in FESTAC-77.

There has been notable development since then, in many respects.

Not a single expressway existed in Nigeria in 1977. Lagos-Ibadan was our first, commissioned in 1978.

Today, such roads are the norm across Nigeria.

Many cities we have today like Calabar, Uyo, Awka, Abakiliki, Ikot-Ekpene, Abuja, Minna, Jalingo, etc were villages or glorified villages in 1977. Today they are modern cities with expressways, flyovers, universities, international conference centres, and shopping malls.

Even Lagos which hosted the event for the most part, is vastly improved today in terms of infrastructure and so on.

Don't take these developments for granted.

Rome was not built in a day.

gbaskiboy:
Wow! I have heard of it but never Knew it was celebrated this way. Africans are rich in culture and I love cultures too. Wish to see replica of this in future.


Africa Amaka
Igbo Amaka
Yoruba Amaka
Hausa Amaka

Which country can dare bring out 1.7 billion dollars to host such a thing in Africa today?

Bro, Nigeria was very rich back then. Money was not an issue for the country.

Some people used to bathe in champagne in those days.

Racoon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jm6Wemfvow&ab_channel=UNESCOAbujaOffice

What a rich black African Heritage for Nigeria to be on the global stage then during the real pan-nationalism era of its nationhood.Well, Nigeria was fortunate. The oil boom era of 1977 was also another plus for it then

Absolutely. It was a glorious period for Nigeria.

'During their stay, Black American artists visited Benin City and Ilé-Ifè, Nigerian cities with rich cultural history.'

African American and Nigerian artists in Ilé-Ifè.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/10/02/arts/02NANCE-BOOK-LAUNCH11/merlin_213681552_eb2e3b60-2ad9-4401-ae50-3f8d58fd0beb-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp

Stevie Wonder concert at the National Theatre, Lagos, at FESTAC '77
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b75315b57bcd61fa2bcce7a0018401d9f7ac9234/0_0_6200_4171/master/6200.png?width=700&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=09cbf2d8cd7154adae0e7cac23d2e78a

https://img.over-blog.com/600x587/1/15/09/26/Janvier-2013/360.097-98_IntAcrieur1.jpg

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0246/3027/articles/IMG_20180809_113016_249_1200x1200.jpg?v=1611009818

Afro-Americans stormed Nigeria in their thousands for FESTAC
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/564cac40e4b0fa2130e45e5e/1574378720441-UFSV36WARX8Y4RKYRQDW/JeffDonaldsonNEW.jpg

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HERE IS THE GLORIOUS, TRIUMPHANT FESTAC 77 ANTHEM

THIS SONG MORE OR LESS BECAME NIGERIA'S NATIONAL ANTHEM THROUGHOUT 1977 AND BEYOND.

IT WAS PLAYED EVERYWHERE AND EVERY TIME, ON TV, RADIO ETC.

The country had prepared and planned for this event for 12 years prior.

AT LONG LAST, '77 was here, and the song said so....:

'FESTAC.... 77...... 77 IS HERE.....''

'FESTAC.... 77...... 77 IS HERE.....!!!!!''


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jm6Wemfvow&ab_channel=UNESCOAbujaOffice

https://www.mottodistribution.com/shop/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/f/e/festac-77-the-2nd-world-festival-of-black-arts-and-culture-9783960984498-chimurenga-afterall-books-motto-05.jpg

US Ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, performs traditional Yoruba rites at FESTAC Village in 1977, with Africans and Americans looking on.

https://chimurengachronic.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/festac-town-7.jpg

KING SUNNY ADE'S FAMOUS SONG WELCOMING THE WORLD TO NIGERIA DURING FESTAC.

THIS SONG WAS PLAYED ENDLESSLY ON THE RADIO AND TV THROUGHOUT THE PERIOD.

''Welcome welcome, ladies and gentlemen
You are welcome to Nigeria....
Where the FESTAC is taking place...
You are welcome to Nigeria...''


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm9SJkg_Vrw&ab_channel=groovemonzter

AMAZING FOOTAGE FROM FESTAC '77


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAIGgWNHbY&ab_channel=SerenityLounge

https://chimurengachronic.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/No-Negritude-No-Whititude_edited-GRAYSCALE.jpg

Crowd at National Stadium, Surulere, exiting a FESTAC event
https://bookartville.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Festac-crow.jpg

https://wslamp70.s3.amazonaws.com/arts/s3fs-public/styles/main-image-gallery/public/uploads2/large_slideshow/LEAD%20IMAGE-Opening%20Procession%2C%20FESTAC%20%2777%20North%20American%20Delegation%2C%20including%20Chicago%20contingent%20Lagos%2C%20Nigeria%2C%201977.jpeg?itok=ABWdJjpA

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/10/02/arts/02NANCE-BOOK-LAUNCH-3-print/merlin_213681603_41adf5c6-38d9-4b2a-8896-662f7618b0e5-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale


https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/564cac40e4b0fa2130e45e5e/1574379132942-N3VTEAK3MXN4L7FOBGC7/019_32968338820_o.jpg

These golden, airconditioned FESTAC buses were seen everywhere in Lagos, and conveyed the world visitors to various events and around the Lagos metropolis.

Look at the quality of the buses. This is 1977 mind you. These were the most advanced buses on EARTH at the time. They even look viable for today's transport.

In those days Nigeria went for the best of everything. The very latest, no matter the cost. Money was not an issue.

UK Guardian report:


Nigeria’s FESTAC festival, which cost 1.75 billion dollars in today’s money, was an Olympic Games of Pan-African culture – with Stevie Wonder the joyous headliner

Stevie Wonder, Festac 1977, Lagos: a unifying moment of transatlantic black pride
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/02153394ba83b1bcf376995f0237cefb545a4c18/223_560_1388_833/master/1388.jpg?width=620&quality=85&dpr=1&s=none

Staged in Lagos, Nigeria, Festac 77 (The Second World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture, to give it its full name) was the cultural climax of the Pan-African movement, gathering musicians, dancers, fashion designers, artists and writers representing 70 countries from Africa and the African diaspora. It was a show of worldwide black unity and self-determination, and the catalyst for Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti’s anti-government protests. It was also the platform for Stevie Wonder to consolidate his affinity with the continent.

Festac 77 was big on a more prosaic level, too. Indeed, to even call it a “festival” in the contemporary sense would be doing it a disservice – this was Olympic Games scale. Four weeks of events across 10 venues including the specially built 5,000 capacity National Theatre; 15,000 participants housed in 5,000 high-end apartments and two luxury hotels, again all built for the event; a network of highways created to avoid Lagos’s legendary traffic congestion. It was 12 years in the planning, during which time it survived a civil war, a presidential assassination and two coups (one successful, one not) and the bill came in at $400m, or $1.75bn in today’s money.

The cost itself was a subplot: oil-rich Nigeria had staked a claim as the “Giant of Africa” and such largesse in the cause of African unity ticked several boxes. Festac’s international co-ordinator, Professor Chike Onwauchi, said at the time: “Billions are being spent keeping black people apart – it is impossible to spend too much money to bring black people together.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/19/stevie-wonder-festac-1977-a-unifying-moment-of-transatlantic-black-pride

Contd.