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Pacesetter Frontier Magazine, organisers of the Frontier Discourse Annual Public Lecture Series and Awards have revealed that the third edition of the Public Lecture will feature the commemoration of the 74th anniversary of the massacre of coal miners in Enugu by Dr. Ferdinand Anikwe.

This was disclosed in a terse statement released in Enugu by the Acting Editor in Chief of the magazine, Daberechukwu Egbo.

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According to the statement, Egbo said the essence of remembering the sad incident was to educate young Nigerians, who make up a majority of guests at the public lecture and awards, and who may not have known of the occurrence of such incident 74 years ago.

She noted that the incident was one of the precursors to the call for independence in pre-independence Nigeria. 

The statement reads “One of the identities of Enugu is the presence of coal reserves which have been mined since the early nineties, the reason Enugu State is called the coal city.

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“Enugu has a sculpted image around that most persons do not know the story behind. Filling up this lacuna in history is what we hope to achieve by commemorating the massacre of the coal miners who protested their bad working conditions, demanding a better welfare for workers, a move that eventually led to their deaths.

“The incident happened on November 18, 1949 and incidentally, this year’s lecture is billed for November 18. So, at the board, we decided that it will be worthwhile to call the sacrifices of these heroes to remembrance, which was one of the earliest signals of the quest for self governance and independence from colonialists by Nigerians. 

“We will honour their memories by awarding and designating the incident with the ‘Most Significant Event of the Era’ award and a brief discourse on what actually transpired will be handled by renowned Historian and Scholar, Ozo Ferdinand Anikwe, Phd”, Egbo said. 

On November 18, 1949, over 21 coal miners were brutally massacred and more than 50 others injured by the British colonialists for daring to protest their poor working and living conditions and racial discrimination.

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