By Hassan Eze
“If you want to tell people the truth make them laugh otherwise, they will kill you”- Oscar Wilde.
Our ‘big sister’, an accomplished American scholar, sent a strain of bees to London and they struck and stung at the very heart of the British monarchy. The then dying Queen and now late sovereign Lady of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth ll could not dodge or escape.
Of course, her subjects made things fly around because the world was roused from sleep by the keyboard of a black lady. Some folks vowed not to swallow the bitter pill. We must not forget, that those whose monarchs and ancestors, turned Africa into a killing field, love a lot of things, but certainly not a reminder of their shameful past. Oyiboman thinks that Africans should allow the dirty past of yesterday to gather dust or just entertain private thoughts and tears. But Professor Uju Anya refused to suffer from amnesia; be it cultural or political.
Make no mistakes. It is still a world of double standards. Nothing has changed. It is still different strokes for different folks. The black man is still denied a say on who should be canonised or beatified. The Rome of Caesars and Popes is Oyibo man’s land. The conclave and the sacred election of the sovereign who holds the proverbial knife and yam is still a white man’s affair. Africans have no business as insiders. No. We are just spectators who must accept the verdicts of European judges.
King Leopold of Belgium, a blood-sucking monster, who slaughtered millions of Africans in Congo is still considered a benevolent saint who did the needful in other to bring salvation to Zairois. But Abacha, Gaddafi, Bokassa, Mobutu and Idi Amin are demons whose portraits must be hung in the hall of shame. George Bush junior did beautiful things in Iraq while searching for weapons of mass destruction that existed only in his dreams. Just imagine if Saint George Bush was from Liberia like Charles Tylor. Putin is currently sending fufu and egusi soup to Kyiv but the judges are out reading conflicting verdicts. Why? The answer does not need a visit to a Dibia or the sixth sense of a marabout. The drummer directs the dancing steps of every good dancer. Who is the dancer in the market square and where is the skillful drummer? Mazi George Orwell told us that, all blood-stained monarchies are sinners but some monarchs must be dressed in borrowed garbs, even when they used Africans as chewing sticks.
The white man came to Africa, a savage wilderness, to offer salvation and save cave-age Negros. Yet he savagely killed and stole all that does not belong to the black man. Irony. Colonialism was savagism. Isn’t it? When one looks at colonialists and their footprints, what comes to mind is the biblical thief who came only to steal and destroy. How can we forget that colonialists were loyal servants of Her Majesty’s Government?
The death of the longest-serving English monarch is a big issue but the bigger issue is that it took our sister to remind London of its atrocities in Iboland, Nigeria and Africa – realities many folks hate to hear and love to pretend did not happen. The pogrom in the North. The Biafran genocide. This burning issue must have reached the land of the dead and by now Kainene, Okigbo, Achuzia, Nzeogwu, Madiebo and Ojukwu must be on their way to Izu Umunna to rub minds on how to receive Daa Eliza, the saintly Queen. But something else must be a source of worry to these revered ancestors.
I hasten to remind us that our sister, their femme fatale, did not give heed to the counsel of elders. In Nsukka country where I hail from, a good child must hang to every word of an elder. Elders are sacred beings whose heads beam with wisdom. In Iboland, no Diala speaks ill of the dying or spits obscenities on the dead. Did Uju err? Will our ancestors beam their approval? But again, our wise men did not tell us not to point at evil men and women who brought starvation, bombs and bullets to Iboland with a left finger. If Mazi Okonkwo, the tragic hero in Dee Achebe’s Vade Mecum, Things Fall Apart, will offer his opinion on this vexing issue, he will recommend we empty our bowels on the sick bed or the grave of any man or woman who had to starve babies to win a war.
Or maybe Uju, our big sister, should have offered her Majesty a medal or the key to the gate of heaven for becoming an idol; a carved image without a human heart when barbarians visited Iboland under her watch? Did she not offer Dodan Barracks backyard support? For a people terrorised by mighty powers, it was a fight to stay alive. Biafra was all about survival from the fiery fangs of monsters with a craving appetite to destroy a people they considered rebels. Starvation was a weapon of mass annihilation. Ibo people were maliciously starved, raped, slaughtered and bombed. It was believed that a famished people will lose all dignity and strength and then fall into the wolfish embrace of smiling and edacious vultures who will enjoy the luxury of using them as tasty meals or wipe them off the map of Nigeria- Murtala Ramat Mohammed gave us a slice of this bread in Asaba.
The ghost of Biafra is a nightmare to Buckingham Palace. And to Countryman too! The evil that the Ibo endured has created many philosophers. If they are not rationalising, they are making excuses why the throat of an Ibo man must be slit, why his blood must wet the land and why the inhumanity must never be found in the pages of history. It’s a permanent and lucrative job, for many folks, this business of hating the “dot nation”. Don’t we know why an Ibo man must not be trusted with the key of Aso Rock? Don’t forget that crocodiles can only dance in the East but not in Katsina, Zamfara and Bornu. For a clan of parasites on the throne, the only crime the Ibo have committed is the fact that the majority of them don’t face Mecca or have refused to accept to keep quiet in a Nigeria where a section of the country will always seat on the throne while others are only benevolently allowed to become slaves who are glad to pick shreds falling from the table. Just mention Biafra and some people who have pretended since 1914 that they can’t hurt a fly will get pretty nasty with you and may even force the sword to be restless in the scabbard. Some folks can get mad that another man slept with their wife or girlfriend but the blood of an Ibo man will not upset them. Ibo blood is tasteful. Sacrificial lambs. It’s that bad. Poor Ibo!
We have to forgive Jack, the Londoner. He was a man without a ball between his legs; a junta of fortune without a mind of his own. He was a puppet willing to do dirty jobs for anyone with an address in London. Whatever was dictated from London was dogma to him. Could he have thought twice before gifting the city of Jos, in fact, the entire people of Plateau State to Dan-fodio and his descendants if that will get him a seat on the table in Dodan barracks and a few British virgins on the last day? He was a willing tool and those calling the shots from London knew this. The needless war that consumed over three million Ndigbo was not fought to keep Nigeria one. The fratricide was executed to ensure that the belly of the sharks in London was nourished with crude oil. Anyone or people that resisted the exploitation was visited with bombs, imperial bullets or the executioner’s wrath. Ken Saro Wiwa?
If we request for the head of Professor Anya on the platter because of her stunning blow that stained the royal robe of the British monarchy, what will happen to the engineers and executors of mindless massacre and starvation in Iboland? If the perpetrators of genocide in Iboland and their collaborators in London and Lagos, saw nothing wrong in starving thousands of innocent children, why should any person who claims to have a functional brain demand that a victim of rape must chew her words before giving a piece of her mind to the rapist; living or dead? The truth remains that the British monarchy cannot wash her hands sanctimoniously like Pontus Pilate or pretend about her so many dirty jobs that were executed in her former colonies. The ghost of Biafra will keep hovering around Buckingham Palace and Number 10 like a provoked pack of bees until Ibo get an apology and restitution.
If the Holocaust was evil and inhuman, why should anyone, who attempts to deny or cast a halo of civility on the pogrom and Biafran genocide not receive a visit from Amadioha? If Jewish lives mattered, Ibo lives should too!
Mazi Hassan Eze can be reached via the Twitter handle: @Martizo_hassan
Leave a Reply