PROPOSED TRIP TO BIAFRA.
Correspondence March 14, 1968, Belgium.
American politician Victor J. Capron requests that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver a personal message of condolence to the President of Biafra, General C. Odumegwu Ojukwu.
MLK’s trip to Biafra in March of 1968 was canceled. (#MLK was killed on April 4, 1968.)
Source: The King Center.
Note: Every Igbo generation will agitate for Biafra. And, whether it takes 10 years or 1,000 years, Biafra will rise again!
Historians tell us that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed during the first Jewish-Roman war in 70 C.E. and Jews were stateless until 1948.
Arochukwu was burnt down by the British in 1901 and in 1907, Eze Nri Obalike was forced (with threats of complete destruction of those under his religious influence i.e. 2/3 of Igbos, to leave Nri and attend the colonial native court at Awka. As noted by the British anthropologist Thomas Northcote, Igbos present at the native court fled on seeing the Eze Nri in person for the first time (he was considered a living deity never or rarely seen).
By 1911, warrant chiefs were created to serve British interests as the Yoruba & Hausa aristocracy did. However, this indirect rule was challenged by Igbo women in 1929 (Igbo women’s war) following in the earlier example of Ndi Anioma (Ekumeku wars of 1883 - 1914).
On May, 30 1967, in response to the 1966 massacre of 30,000 Ndi Igbo & other easterners in the North of Nigeria, the Republic of Biafra (named after the Bight of Biafra) was proclaimed by the governor of the eastern region as demanded by the Eastern consultative assembly including the Eastern house of Chiefs.
The Fulani conquered Hausaland & parts of yorubaland in pre-colonial times and then finally subdued the Igbo in 1970 with the help of their Hausa/Northern relatives, and their Yoruba, British, American, Soviet, Syrian, Egyptian, Algerian & Bulgarian allies.
The struggle for our independence will and must indeed continue unabated.
Give us liberty or give us déàth.
