In 1941, the colonial government ordered all the houses in the city of Ibadan to dim or completely switch off their outdoor lights. This was during World War II which lasted from 1939 to 1945.
Nigeria, being a colony of the British Empire found herself caught in the war. Part of Nigeria’s contribution to the war was to ensure the safety of colonialists in the country and the safety of the colony itself. Hence, the Ibadan Lights Order was initiated in 1941…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
Ibadan Lights Order was an order in 1941 for the diminution and cessation of lightning in the city of Ibadan during the Second World War. In this order, every outdoor light was required to be obscured that no reflection thereof was visible from the air.
OldNaija gathered that Restrictions were announced for vehicles moving within a radius of 5 miles from the railway station in Ibadan. Between the hours of 6 o’clock in the evening to 6 o’clock in the morning, all vehicles on any highway were to draw into the side of the highway and remain stationary and all lights on such vehicles were to be extinguished. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
Reasons for the lights order were discussed at a meeting of the town’s inner council at Mapo Hall. The army of the free French together with British troops had entered Syria to keep the Germans from overrunning it, being a menace to the British governed Palestine and the oil fields in Iraq.
The order of 1941 was made in anticipation of a possible aggression of the Vichy government under pressure from Germany to capture British colonies which bordered colonies in Africa governed by the Vichy government of France. The lights order came into effect on the 12th day of June as promulgated by H.F.M. White, colonial resident of Oyo province.
You’d think that by the time people were coming up with ways to kill each other involving two boats and copious lashings of milk and honey that we were pretty much running out of ideas and freestyling but human ingenuity had plenty more in the tank when it came to being horrible…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
They were three guys when I met them. Martin, Joe and Laka. It was Martin who called and talked to me. They were new in town and were looking for friends. I agreed to be friends with them.
Jamaican artist, Donovan Nelson’s illustration paying tribute to the Igbo Landing Event.
Countless accounts of terrifying and dehumanizing events that happened during the slave trade era have been passed down from generations to generations; accounts of irrational cruelty, starvation, resistance, mass killings and suicide. The story of the Igbo landing is another tear-evoking account of resistance to slavery by the Igbo slaves from present-day Nigeria off U.S. coast in 1803…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
What Is The Igbo Landing Or Ibo Landing?
The Igbo landing, also written as ‘Ibo landing‘ or ‘Ebo landing‘, is a historic site at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia, U.S.A. where dozens of Igbo slaves took their own lives in a resistance to the cruelty of slavery in 1803.
In May, 1803, a ship named the wanderer, just like other slave ships, conveyed slaves from Africa to America. Among these slaves were set of Igbo people who were known by the then slave traders of the American South for being fiercely independent and unwilling to tolerate chattel slavery. The Igbo slaves were bought by the agents of John Couper and Thomas Spalding at $100 each for forced labour on their plantations in St. Simons Island, U.S.A.
The Igbo Landing, St. Simons Island
When the slave ship landed in Savannah, Georgia, the chained Igbo slaves were reloaded and shoved under the deck of a coastal vessel named the Schooner York (some accounts claimed the vessel name was Morovia) which would take them to St. Simons Island. It was during the voyage that the group of Igbo slaves numbering about seventy-five rebelled against their captors and forced them to plunge into the water where they drowned. The slaves successfully regained their freedom but it was of no use since they were already out and far away from Africa, and so, on the order of a high chief who was also a captive, they sang, marched ashore and then into the marshy waters of Dunbar Creek where they drowned themselves.
According to Professor Terri L. Snyder, “the enslaved cargo suffered much by mismanagement, rose from their confinement in the small vessel, and revolted against the crew, forcing them into the water where they drowned”. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
Another illustration paying tribute to the Igbo Landing Event by Donovan Nelson
A white man, Roswell King, who was an overseer on a plantation known as Pierce Butler plantation was the first to record the incident at the site now known as the Igbo landing. Roswell and another man, Captain Peterson, recovered thirteen bodies of the drowned Igbos while others bodies were lost forever in the water. OldNaija gathered that some of them might have survived the suicide episode and this make the actual number of deaths in the Igbo landing uncertain.
“Regardless of the numbers, the deaths signaled a powerful story of resistance as these captives overwhelmed their captors in a strange land, and many took their own lives rather than remain enslaved in the New World. The Igbo Landing gradually took on enormous symbolic importance in local African American folklore”. – Momodu, Samuel
Igbo Landing Site
People in the U.S.A termed the resistance and suicide by the Igbo slaves the first freedom march in the history of Africa and the United States. Local people claimed that the Landing and surrounding marshes in Dunbar Creek where the Igbo people committed mass suicide in May, 1803 were haunted by the souls of the dead Igbo slaves.
FREEING THE SOULS OF IGBO LANDING, THE NEVER-BEEN-RULED. “The Water Spirit Omambala brought us here. The Water Spirit Omambala will carry us home.” (Orimiri Omambala bu anyi bia. Orimiri Omambala ka anyi ga ejina. – Ancient Igbo Hymn)
In September, 2012, the Igbo Landing site was designated as a holy ground by the St. Simons African American community. The Igbo Landing is also now a part of the curriculum for coastal Georgia schools.
In recent times, many artists, songs, movies and others have paid tribute to the Igbo landing/ Ibo landing. A notable tribute is found in the ending part of Marvel’s comic movie, Black Panther, where Killmonger, played by Michael B Jordan, refer to the event by saying, “Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, ’cause they knew death was better than bondage”. Beyoncé also was not left out in the tribute paying as she portrayed the incident in of her music videos.
