My mission is to waste your best, to cut you off from your stronghold on civilization, advancement and attachment to westernization, you are too beautiful, too polished and automatically all attention goes to you, I cannot control my jealousy and heated envy against you, neither could I afford to blame my fathers for waking-up too late to match your father’s pace with modernity and civilization, on the account of all these I must seek the last reason to kill you, waste your best, dishonor your virgins, rape your wife before your sight at gun point, then kill you, your sisters will I take to wife with zero bride price paid, your under ten sons and brothers will watch me do all these for a hopeless memorial, all these I will do to achieve my mission.
The above was the mission statement that was ringing in the sub-contious minds of all those both Nigerians and their foreign collaborators who planned over many years and eventually over zero crisis swapped on my people like bees, what a shame to them, before the crisis, they helplessly could not match the radiating intelligence and glamour an average Asaba man glows with, it will not surprise you to recall that the great noble laureate, prof. wole Soyinka, in his work, the man died, recorded thus “the western Ibos (of which Asaba is chief) became the most Vulnerable Nigerians……… it required ten positive acts of loyality to one of the rest of the nation to prove themselves human beings. Ever since the Midwest invasion, they had been hounded, killed and considered greatest security risks than the real Igbo themselves human beings. Ever since the Midwest invasion, they had been hounded, killed and considered greatest Security risks than the real Igbo themselves”.
What other way can a Nigerian elite judge the situation at that critical days of horrow, that a mans advancement and inclination to civilization should attract for him such an un-negotiated wickedness, we and our future generation can neither stop talking, writing and publishing this ugly part of our history nor forget the trauma, poverty, crime and other alien vices the genocide established on our soil, on the question of whether we will forgive those who wasted our best and plunged us into poverty, lack and vulnerability, I ask you what will you do if you were in our shoes?.
Local and international press review attest to these horrible war crimes, of genocide magnitude, only a spineless mortal will not quake at the revelation of what befell the Asaba people during these dark days of massacre.
How else can we reflect on the media reports of the New York review of 21st December 1967, which reports in part “In some areas outside the east…… western Ibos were killed by local people with at least the acquiescence of the federal forces…. Over 1,000 western Ibo civilians perished in Benin in this way”
In the same light the Washington morning post of 27th September 1967, published that “after the federal troops took over Benin……. Federal troops killed armless western Ibo Civilians after a house – to house search”
You cannot beat the revelations of New York times of 10th January 1968, with the reports that “federal troops…. Killed, or stood by while mobs killed more than 5,000 western Ibos in warri, Sapele, Benin, Agbor etc”.
The London observer of 21st January 1968 captured a vivid picture of what Asaba suffered thus “the greatest single massacre occurred in the western Ibo town of Asaba where Over 700 Asaba male were lined up and shot”
Mr. Stephen lewis, a United Nations observer and Canadian M.P. give the real economical loss we suffered as a people, which loss we are yet to recover completely from, his reports as published by London guardian of October 11, 1968 flows thus: “The federal troops went on further and murdered innocent western Ibo men, women and children in their thousands from Benin to Asaba. Nigeria Lost in few months over sixty percent of her university graduates and eighty percent of PhD holders, among them were permanent secretaries, Judges, professors, statemen, clergymen and missionaries….. if my foreign observer says there is no genocide in western Ibo lands, he is either on the patrol of Britain or a bloody fool……….the conduct of the federal troops after the recapture of the Midwest was another massacre (genocide) of the western Ibos”
Jack shepherd, the editor of look magazine on the pages of the November 26th 1968 edition reported that ‘perhaps 8,000 western Ibo civilians died when the Midwest was liberated by troops under Col muritala mohammed………. Between 400 and 1000 men died in Ishiagu, federal troops shot at women and children as they moved with automatic weapons through every hut.
The personal account of General Cyrill Iweze boosts the veracity of the above position, which reads “ignoring his colleagues, I was given maximum cooperation by my Brigade major, Muhammadu Buhari, I succeeded in linking up Ogidi and Onitsha. The significance of this crucial victory by the federal army inomically executed by an Igbo officer can be imagined when the battle for Onitsha throughout the war remained the most deadly. Suspected by his comrades, marked down by his tribesmen, Iwezes greatest nightmare was to unfold immediately the Biaframs surrendered.
His celebrations were short lived, because his home town of Isheagu had been razed to the ground, he had lost 21 family members and the royal father, Obi Onyema was brutally killed”.
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