Nigeria: Where’s The Place Of The Igbos In This Federation? -By Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

For the Igbo, life in this federation has turned out to be a dream-killing experience; the kind that he would’ve gladly done anything to avert if he’d had the premonition at any time from the beginning. As always, he has come to believe that (for some reasons) his progenitors were a bit careless and did  not read any meaning to what was presented on the table as independence package when they accepted to join the ‘Nigeria project’. And like them, none of the other tribes actually thought that things will turn out this way. But then, who could tell the future? Certainly not those who raped Nigeria from the word go.

Organized resentment against the Igbos which started way back before Nigeria’s independence but began to manifest shortly after 1960; to be precise when certain members of the NPC used the party’s machinery to publish a pamphlet which derided the Ibo ethnic group, proceeding to insult members of the northern house of commons who were of Ibo descent as well and unto what we have today where at the mention of the tribe, every Nigerian is gripped with jealous anger.

To say that this resentment was only amplified with the unfortunate coup d’état of January 15^th, 1966 as well as the 30 months civil war is to state the obvious and since then every Nigerian has grown to overlook the needs of the tribe as if to say the Ibos are emigrant cum second-class citizens. But emigrants in saner countries like the US, UK and Canada are treated with a good degree of dignity. Nevertheless, the case of the Igbos has remained an issue that no one wants to talk about.

At a point in this country, it used to be the slangs Igbos too like money, much later it turned to be Ibos too dey show say them get sense and currently it has turned to yet another slang Ibo man greedy eh. What I find to be out of place in these derogative adjectives are the fact that it fitted as an apt description of the other tribes of Nigeria more than it fitted the Ibos for the following reasons. 1. The Ibos are nation-builders by virtue of their honest efforts to earn a living.

Therefore, if you called an entrepreneur covetous, what will you call the political profiteers in government; those whose company and/or factory location was the briefcase they carried around? What will you call those who register a company today (and without previous proof of competence or tax certificate) and are awarded a lucrative contract tomorrow? If you called them covetous that raise gigantic structures outside of southeast from the sweat of their labor, what will you call those who grab assets for free because they got elected to government?  

Can a trifle amount made dishonestly through a business deal be compared to budget padding where a handsome amount of money is diverted to offshore accounts? How much of the Ibo man’s monies are lying in numbered bank accounts in the Cayman Island today? Is it his trifle sum that is stashed in offshore accounts and helping the economies of countries where they’re hidden to prosper? Hence, it is clear enough who ‘likes money’ between the Ibo tribes and the others.

2. In the second slang, let’s use the current arrangement of political power to the exclusion of the Ibo tribe as template to find out ‘who dey show sense pass’. If the Igbos were showing sense, wouldn’t they have made it to at least the position of speaker federal house of representative? If we talk about the lockdown where we see the Igbos stayed at home and their shops under locks but where we also see them that formed the bulk population in the police and army turned the highway into toll gates!

We heard the announcement of interstate lockdown but we also hear of Almajiris arriving states in the dead of the night while everyone wondered how that happened. The fact remains that those who wouldn’t adhere to government directives in so far as their artificial and illegal toll gates are yielding monetary gains for them, loved money more. For the Igbos, creating own vehicle/investment preceded lust but for the others turning government agencies into private businesses preceded exemplary service.

3. The ‘too greedy’ slang is self-evident judging with the volume of national resources that has gone to some regions since 2010 compared to those that came to the region where the golden eggs are hatched. All of a sudden, strange deaths are peddled in the media as covid-19 induced but the real aim is to curry federal sympathy and perhaps get federal monies. Compare those who took over management of the Nigeria Railway Corp. from the Ibos in the 70’s with the businesses the Igbos created during same time.

You will find out who was ‘too greedy’ between the Ibo and the others. You will find out that while they cannot correctly explain to the world how they managed to ground these national assets – NRC, NA, NITEL and a whole lot of them – the Igbos can tell you how they groomed their businesses with the paltry 20 pounds they received after the civil war into the conglomerates that are celebrated today. The Ibos can tell how they recovered academically while those who shouted victory back in 1970 cannot explain why they’re educationally more backward.

Also, because the Igbos could run their businesses from petty trade to an industry without external assistance; If they had held power from independence, Nigeria would’ve become a lender to many nations instead of the borrower she currently is. The adage says that the fowl that will be aggressive can be known even while it is still a chicken. Nigeria has run for so long as an NGO only because it is in the hands of those who do not understand how to turn 20 pounds into multiple millions.

Through much research, I have come to conclude that every people, country or nation is designed with its own rescuer. India had Mahatma Ghandi, Singapore had Lee Kuan Yew, China had Sun Yat-sen, South Africa had Nelson Mandela, the Black Americans had Martin Luther King Jr., Cuba had Fidel Castro and Rwandans has Paul Kigame. These rescuers have certain things in common chief of which is that they are selfless and because of this, they are not afraid to lay down their lives for everyone.

Only the Igbos have the heart of selflessness for this country and, for evidence that stirs them to sow the gains of their sweat and hard toil in strange lands. Built with the mindset of industry and business administration, the Igbos are better prepared to run a successful government knowing that a government must be run as a profit-oriented business instead of a foreign-grant dependent NGO. Nigeria will continue to be guilty of sabotaging herself as long as she remained unable to answer this simple question: where’s the place of the Ibos in this federation?

Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh; an advocate of attitudinal change writes from Abuja, Nigeria. 08062577718