On the 8th of September, 2022, the British monarchy lost its head monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Within minutes of her passing, the whole world knew she was dead and tributes began pouring in from all over. Although, different people had quite distinct reactions to the development. Many were mournful, others liked the Irish expressed joy and a few others like me were indifferent.
While the Queen was on her deathbed, one Uju Anya, a Nigerian-born American professor made a controversial tweet. She tweeted, "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating."
While it might be morally wrong to disparage a person who is dying, or actually dead, we shouldn't forget that everyone has the right to free speech. This is one of the charters of the UN convention. Logically, no crime has been committed but from the standpoint of humanity and morality, it is all shades of wrong.
In her defense, one could easily say she made the tweet in reference to the British empire's colonisation efforts in places like Africa and India; the death and bloodshed that followed, and the direct result of the "Potato famine of 1845". Although, the Queen Elizabeth wasn't even born when most of these things happened or started but she met them when she ascended the throne.
She never for once acknowledged that whatever her progenitors did was wrong and apologised for it. She carried on as if all is well. In the area of colonisation, she continued with the family legacy. It could easily be assumed, that she supported the actions of her ancestors and in this light Uju Anya's take on Britain being a thieving, raping, genocidal empire is valid.
Uju Anya's tweet went viral and the rest of the world made sure to gaslight her for her unsavory remarks on the "dear Queen." Jeff Bezos, the second richest man in the world, among many other prominent and famous people, called her out in no unclear terms. Infact, one could say she was almost lynched with words.
Nigerians who are known to be supportive of their countrymen came to the rescue. Now, this is where I have a problem. Uju Anya, being Igbo, mainly Nigerians of Igbo extraction came to her defense. Not that anything is wrong with this but if you want to defend something, do it intelligently and not based on sentiments and uninformed hot takes. I read things that made me question my knowledge of political history.
Many of these people hurled vitriol at the late Queen, using the Nigerian civil war as their excuse, juxtaposing two parallel arguments. Their argument was that Britain under the Queen refused to sell arms to Biafra, supporting the Nigerian government against Biafra and that Britain was somehow responsible for the lives lost from the war.
While I disagree with this argument, it is a fact that for any event, there are causes and effects. A lot of Igbos have refused to acknowledge the causes of the war but are quick to remember the effects, solely because they bore the brunt.
The Nigerian Civil war was ignited by a series of unfortunate events that began from the January 1966 coup led by Kaduna Nzeogwu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna which culminated in the murder of 22 people, mainly from the North and Mid Western regions by people of mainly Eastern region origin. It was agreed by the coupists to kill the regional leaders of all the regions but at the end of the coup, the leaders of the Eastern region were all alive and well while those of the Northern and Mid Western regions had been killed. This is why the January 1966 coup was nicknamed an "Igbo coup."
After the coup, another Igbo man in the person of Aguiyi Ironsi became the Head of state. He promised to try the coupists and serve justice. This calmed the nerves of the North but at the end of the day, it was discovered that the coupists were only arrested but never tried. Infact, they were being paid their full salaries while in detention and were even billed for promotion. All this led to a counter coup by Northern military officers on July 29, 1966 and the unfortunate pogrom of 1966-1967 and the Civil war of 1967-1970.
If we go back to a few years after independence, it was Nnamdi Azikiwe, the great Zik of Africa that decided against the inclusion of a secession clause to the constitution. Today, his posterity is suffering from it.
All of this shows us, as a people, we are not aware of our history and because we are not aware of our own history, we have distorted it, such that propaganda and pseudo history has been orally passed down from one generation to another.
This is why many people believe they were just sitting down on their own, minding their business and "Hausa" people came and attacked them. There was no provocation or trigger that preceded the Nigerian Civil War. Hausa people just woke up one morning and decided to descend on the people of Eastern Nigeria because their breaths stunk and they didn't like their faces.
But this is definitely not what happened. However, since we have refused to write our own history, and worse still, we have refused to teach it in schools, there are millions of people who believe in this version of events. The really unfortunate thing is that this misinformation and misrepresentation of facts will continue.
In light of all of this, I believe it is obvious that the Queen, albeit being the biggest beneficiary of the atrocities of her progenitors, is not responsible and had hand no hand in the cause of the Nigerian Civil War. If we're looking for who to blame, we shouldn't look too far. We should look at ourselves.
If any Nigerian wants to blight the Queen, it should be on the basis of the fact that the British monarchy as an institution, of which the Queen is the single largest beneficiary plundered, pillaged and raped a large part of Africa for its personal benefit.
THE QUEEN IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CIVIL WAR
By
Tari Ogbowei