In Response To Femi Fani Kayode's Brazenly 'True Bitterness Against The Igbos'

By Chukwudi OHIRI

The polity, in the last couple of weeks has been inundated with a shameful debate, argument and counter arguments over Femi Fani Kayode’s open hate-infested piece that amounts to nothing but a biased and poorly edited account of the Nigerian History vis-à-vis the Igbo people. It is rather very unfortunate that a man of his calibre can throw out such virulent venom in the name of seeking political relevance among his people at a time the Igbos are trying hard to bury the hatchet and forge ahead under one united Nigeria.

I salute the courage of many well meaning Igbos who, rather than join in a baseless altercation with Fani Kayode who, considering the tone of his piece and other subsequent rejoinders, is evidently an intransigent tribalist, distorting history to suit his whims and caprices. In fact, his last piece titled, ‘A Word For Those That Call Me A Tribalist’ finally betrayed his idiosyncrasy and irresponsible personality when he publicly disclosed his personal private illicit affairs with some of his ex concubines or girl friends just to prove a useless and incoherent point. This alone smacks of gross puerileness in his character and deserves the snub he got on his infantile piece because, silence they say, is the best answer to a fool. The same piece also clearly depicted him as an attention-seeker when he lamented that nobody has put up a reasonable argument to refute or discredit his lies-infested message. However, he raised a very vital point which is that “The message is already out there and the genie is already out of the bottle”. Our children born and yet unborn may stumble into these imprecise and lethal accounts and believe them to be the true history. This is precisely why I think a few of his submissions need to be straightened for posterity sake.

Firstly, it will be very instructive to note that Femi Fani Kayode’s poison came at a time the Igbos and well meaning Nigerians across tribes and cultures were questioning the atrocious act of the Lagos State government who reportedly deported bonafide Nigerians from Lagos State to, be it Anambra, Ibadan, Osun, the North or any other part of the country. The Lagos State government that Fani Kayode is holding brief for has even owned up through its spokes persons that there was a fundamental error in the way and manner the supposed ‘rehabilitation’ was carried out. The blames were left at the doorstep of officials and agents who did not complete the assignment in the right way by dumping these people at an ungodly hour in an ungodly place. The Anambra State government also took a fair share of the blame for not responding responsibly to correspondences from the Lagos State government. In all, the act was roundly condemned by a respectable and more legitimate son of Yoruba land in the person of Femi Falana (SAN), a well revered Human Rights Activist. His condemnation of the act knows no boundary as it was holistic, whether perpetrated by Lagos, Anambra, Abia or any other state for that matter. His words: “Accordingly, the forceful removal of beggars from their chosen abode and repatriation to their states of origin is illegal and unconstitutional as they violate the fundamental rights of such citizens enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended. In particular, deportation is an affront to the human rights of the beggars to dignity of their persons (Section 34); personal liberty (Section 35); freedom of movement (Section 41); and right of residence in any part of Nigeria (Section 43)”. It still beats the imagination of many, how this simple and straightforward issue degenerated into digging up and distorting history to implant deep seated hatred among tribes. Only an ethnic bigot like Fani Kayode could have done this.

For the records, FFK alleged and I quote: “It is amazing how one or two of the numerous nationalities that make up Nigeria secretly wish that they were Yoruba and consistently  lay  claim  to  Lagos as being partly theirs. This is contradictory to his position that the Igbos have a domineering attitude otherwise how could the same people wish they were other tribes other than theirs. No Igbo man, no matter how long he or she has lived in another land would wish to be of that tribe, let alone being a Yoruba (with a negative toga of hooliganism, covetousness, Saboteur tendency, laziness and other vices hanging around their personality). For clarity and in all modesty, these allegations may be products of over-generalization and should not be considered as factual.

Again, the Igbos have never said they are the owners of the Lagos as maliciously claimed by FFK. Instead, what they tend to say is: “Live and let live. We are equally stakeholders in the land in view of our contribution to the development of the state as well as our personal huge investments that evidently litter every where in Lagos”. It is a deliberate mispresentation to say that Igbos covet the Yoruba land.

FFK shot himself in the leg when he, in the concluding paragraph of his ‘barrage of lies’ referred to Lagos State as “a melting pot where equal opportunities are available to all”. If this assertion is taken for its contextual meaning, it then implies that he concedes to himself that Lagos State is not the patrimony of the Yoruba even when nobody is contesting the fact. FFK is also stating the obvious that Lagos was the federal capital developed by federal wealth and individual acquisitions of all Nigerians including, but not limited to Igbos.

Another issue raised by FFK is that “the Yoruba, more than any other nationality in this country in the last 100 years, have been far too accommodating and tolerant when it comes to their relationship with other nationalities in this country and this is often done to their own detriment”. While not questioning the veracity of that contentious claim, it will interest all to know that hospitality is part and parcel of the Igbo customs as it is regarded as a taboo to treat your visitors badly. Non-Igbos who have travelled to the East can attest to this, especially Youth Corpers. The real issue here is that unlike the Igbos, the Yorubas are not the travelling type as not many of them live and work in the Eastern part of the country. It is only when you travel out and you are treated badly that you can actually begin to make comparison. Yet, there is no single reported case of Igbos stopping any Yoruba from doing what they (Igbos) are allowed to do in Yoruba land. The statement”… we have allowed them to do in our land and our territory what they have never allowed us to do in theirs” therefore does not hold water.

FFK in his infamous treatise referred to Igbos as “…those who never had any history at all and who never even had monarchs or structured, properly-organised hierachial societies that placed value on tradition and culture”. Unfortunately, he ended up exposing his ignorance and naivety by this calumnious assertion. It was obvious that he never had a single dose of history in his academic pursuit, yet he may claim to be a (half-baked) Lawyer since lawyers are great Historians.

The Igbos indeed have a history just as rich as the Yorubas. In governance, Pre-colonial Igbo political organization was based on communities, devoid of kings or governing chiefs. The development of a heterarchical society, as opposed to a hetriarchical society, marks Igbo development as sharply divergent from political trends in pre-colonial West Africa. With the exception of Igbo towns such as Onitsha, which had kings called Obis, and places like Nri and Arochukwu, which had priest kings known as Ezes, most Igbo village governments were ruled solely by an assembly of the common people. The Igbos had a more advanced political system and that is why their societies are seen as acephalous, Democratic, Republican and above all, egalitarian. This is far more advanced than monarchy as evidenced by modern political trends. This may still sound controversial, but just believe what you can.

 In his jaundiced judgement, Fani Kayode alleged again that “it is that same (domineering) attitude that they manifested in Lagos and the Western Region in the late ’30s and the early and mid-40s that alienated the Yoruba from them, that led to the establishment of the Action Group in April, 1951 and that resulted in the narrow defeat of Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe in the Western Regional elections of December, 1951”.  As was later revealed by a man of no mean repute in Nigeria’s historiography, Dr. Mbu clearly stated that the September 1951 election was won by NCNC in the western region. His was "Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was betrayed by the Western Region of Nigeria, not by the electorate, but by the leaders. The NCNC won the election against the Action Group (led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo), but the Action Group introduced what was unknown to Nigerian history", namely, "carpet crossing. They Action Group bought members of the NCNC to join the Action Group after these people had won election on the platform of the NCNC. Zik, the leader of a majority party in the Western Region became the Leader of Opposition overnight". In his own account, late Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe disclosed in his autobiography, ‘Rebirth Of A Nation’, that: "But in pursuance of the policy of creating a political climate healthy enough to make one a citizen wherever he lived, Dr. Azikiwe contested and won the general elections in 1951 into the Western House of Assembly. To stultify this policy of one Nigeria in favour of his tribally-based philosophy, Chief Awolowo got some elected members to cross carpet from the NCNC to his AG side. Zik the victor lost. And Awolowo's party was able to form the government of the Western Region." This was the major first case of betrayal and ethnic chauvinism in Nigerian politics. In spite of this, NCNC continued to win substantial number of seats in the West against the AG. In fact, Lagos had five seats in the West Regional Assembly all won by the NCNC in the election of 20 November 1951.

The point being buttressed here is that contrary to FFK’s claim that ethnic politics and Southern disunity was introduced by the Easterners, it was actually the Westerners who started and have maintained this status quo till date and have even gone as far as encouraging the Easterners to adopt the same methodology as a potent panacea to their present political doldrums and frustration in Nigeria.

Another point raised by FFK to prove the magnanimity of the Yorubas towards the Igbos is that Herbert Macaulay “saw no tribe and he happily handed the leadership of the party over to Azikiwe, an Igbo man, in 1945 when he was on his dying bed.” Firstly, the truth is that NCNC was co-founded by Herbert Macaulay and Dr Azikiwe. Every history book has this unbiased fact. It was only natural that as co-founder, the death of one of the principal partners would confer power to the next living partner as anything to the contrary would have been an aberration.

Somebody should educate FFK on the history and culture of the Igbo people (which he for the first time honestly said he does not know of), especially on the aspect that dogmatically explains how guests are treated. Igbos have an unwritten custom which forbids them to give up their guest, for whatever reason to an adversary. Even when the guest is guilty of the crime he is accused of, it is a taboo to hand over a refugee, visitor, guest to even his parents for punishment unless the said person leaves on his or her own. A typical example is that if a little child commits an offence and in the course being punished, he or she runs to even a younger person for refuge, the elder chasing the person must, as a custom, desist from touching the offending child until when the child is no longer in the custody of his little host. This elementary analogy is in response to FFK’s question: “Would Aguiyi-Ironsi, or any other Igbo officer, have stood for Fajuyi, or any other Yoruba officer, and sacrificed his life for him in the same way that Fajuyi did had the roles been reversed”? Unfortunately, there are no known case scenarios (that I can remember) where an Igbo man had to sacrifice his life for the Northerner or Yoruba and he fails. Moreover, if Fajuyi had not been killed before Ironsi, history would have taken another twist. Who knows if the Igbos would not have alleged a Yoruba conspiracy in the death of Ironsi.  

I want to believe that FFK is not expecting any response to his flimsy and unwarranted introduction of certain notable Yorubas as Nigeria’s firsts in their various fields of endeavour. While noting that the issue of Sapara and Nathaniel King introduced by FFK sounds like the submission of someone who suddenly stumbled into a public fact that he never knew of for ages and ignorantly believes he has made a novel discovery. This is quite debasing for someone of his status and so I cannot join him in the foray of listing notable Igbo ‘Firsts’. It might however interest him to here just this: While, as he claims, Yorubas “were (and still are) major industrialists and investors, “Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu (father of Emeka Ojukwu) was the first and founding President of The Nigerian Stock Exchange, the goose that laid the egg of Yoruba investment portfolio.

The claim that Igbos generate 55% of revenue accruing to Lagos State (which FFK feels slighted by) is an empirical claim that hardly requires any scientific proof. It is as clear as crystal and even the government of the day have never downplayed the contribution of the Igbos to the economy of Lagos. FFK may need to drive round major markets and business concerns that pay taxes in Lagos to ascertain for himself, the veracity of Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu’s claims. In some quarters, the 55% claim is often seen as an understatement. The Igbos do show pride in this feat, but are rather humbled that God, the giver of wealth and riches, is with them.

Fani Kayode shamelessly brought up the issue of Igbo abandoned property, lost jobs and accommodation in Lagos State as mark of Yoruba generosity. If they were magnanimous enough as he so claims why did it have to take resilient legal battles and litigations for the like of Chief Emeka Ojukwu to reclaim his father’s property in Lagos almost 30 years after the war? Many other Igbos totally lost their properties till date and if anyone recovered anything, it was just as much as was recovered elsewhere in the country. Note also that at the end of the war, Gowon declared ‘No Victor, no Vanquished’ encouraging the Igbos to return to their bases (though not guaranteeing reinstatement). Lagos, being the federal capital territory and the major commercial centre of Nigeria easily attracted the hardworking Igbos to return to commence their commercial ventures.

FFK failed to educate his gullible audience that it was Awolowo (whom Ojukwu unconditionally released from prison in Calabar) that brought the blueprint that ensured the decimation of the Igbos during the war. He perhaps, also forgot to include in his malicious article that Awolowo was solely instrumental to the starvation policy, 20 Pounds policy and numerous other anti-Igbo policies of the war and post war era. Giving full details of this and many more that are already in public domain will amount to falling victim of creating the same heinous animosity the world has condemned Fani Kayode for. However, attributing Awolowo’s hideous conspiracy to aid and abate the annihilation of Ndigbo will be out rightly an unfair sentencing of the Yoruba tribe as not all agreed with his (Awo’s) conspiracy. Many informed Yorubas have this opinion too.

In any case, Igbos have never been treated fairly since after the war as already alluded to by FFK so saying that the Yoruba treated the Igbos better is fallacious. Again, I need not prove, to avoid unnecessary arousal of negative sentiments.

The twelfth point raised by FFK which appears true to the point of political propaganda is that “people of the old Mid-West and the Eastern minorities (who make up the zone that is collectively known as the ‘’South-south’ today) have always viewed them with suspicion, have always feared them and have always resented them deeply”. My question is: “who is not suspicious of the Igbos in Nigeria?” The fact that Igbos are very enterprising people just like the Jews, United States and other advancement-conscious people is enough reason for anyone to fear domination. That they feared domination does not mean that they did not and cannot trust the Igbos.

The ‘minority’ question predates Nigeria’s independence and it was not peculiar to the Igbos alone. In fact, it was prevalent in all the three major regions leading to the agitation for the creation of more regions or states such as Rivers State, Midwest State, and Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers (COR) State. Just as the Eastern minorities feared the Igbo majority, the Midwestern minorities also had the same resentment and fear of domination against the Yoruba majority in the Western region despite having very strong cultural affinities with them. Which one is worse? Whereas these fears were only natural in any dealing between two heterogeneous groups, it remains to be proven that the Igbos actually maltreated the minorities. In fact, Ojukwus second in command was Philip Effiong, a minority.

FFK in his 13^th point deliberately distorted History by listing names of those who led the January 15, 1966 coup and edited the names of non-Igbos. Any naïve person reading this portion of the article will go home with a ferocious mindset about the Igbos. For the sake of straightening the mispresentated records, apart from those names mentioned in the piece, Captain Adeleke, Lt. Fola Oyewole, Brig. Victor Banjo, Lt Fola Olafimiha, Col. Ejoor, Maj. Alale and of course, Maj. Ademoyega were among the leaders. These names may not be at the highest echelon of the coup plot but are part and parcel of core plotters. Any account that omits these names has an underlying ulterior motive of inciting hatred and misleading the readers and the future generation by terming the coup, an Igbo coup. This allegation had been long debated and even well meaning northerners and Yorubas know the truth. It was a mere coincidence that Igbos, by virtue of their military positions in the army and of course their common affiliations that Igbos were more prominent and at the top.   

FFK cannot claim he is ignorant of a certain document popularly called ‘Ifeajuna’s manuscript’ that was stumbled into by the federal forces during the capture of Enugu which explicitly revealed the intentions of the January 15, 1966 coup plotters to hand over power to Chief Awolowo, one of the politicians trusted by the ‘boys’. If it were an Igbo coup, could they have thought of handing over to a ‘respectable’ Yoruba man afterwards? If it were an Igbo coup, why did Ojukwu refuse to and personally aided the foiling of the coup with Ironsi another Igbo man who was the GOC? Historians, political scientists and well meaning Nigerians have in later years adjudged the Nzeogwu/Ifeajuna coup as well intended, though a monumental miscalculation based on the final coincidental colouration it took.

Another point, which might be inimical to the growing synergy between the core Igbos and the Delta/Anioma Igbos is that the so called Igbos in the picture were mostly from the minority Igbos of the former Eastern Region. Col Animam Keshi, one of senior officers who was on ground at the January 1966 coup, but allegedly did not participate expounded on this based on his personal encounter with Nzeogwu. The piece titled ‘Stop Blaming Igbos Of The South East Nigeria For The 1966 Coup And Civil War. Anioma Igbos And Their Yoruba Coup Plotters Friends Started The War’ drew a line between the so called Igbos who were part of the plot and the core Igbos giving further insight on those who actually led the plot. In the piece, he inferred that the Igbos were drawn into the war in defense of their minority brothers whom they, till today regard as pure Igbos. Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Chukwuka, Nwawo, Iweze, Okwechime, Okonkwo, Igboba, Trimnell, Nzefili who were at the top echelon of the coup plot were all Anioma Igbos. For Keshi, the Core Igbos suffered brutally and are still suffering for the crimes of the non-core Igbos. In spite of this, core Igbos still see these people as Igbos all the same and have no regrets whatsoever calling them Igbos even when some of them tend to dissociate themselves the Igbo people and the Yoruba seem to claim them.

On the issue of selective killings that spared the lives of Igbos, especially Dr. Azikiwe and M. I Okpara, the history books written by unbiased authors have it that for yet inexplicable reasons, Zik was not in the country. There was a, though laughable myth around the person of Zik of Africa that he was invincible. This is a well known legend among the Igbos to the point that he was believed (until recently) to have the ‘keys to the River Niger’ and could unlock it at the slightest provocation. Ironsi had this type of myth about his personal crocodile staff around him too. Like I said, this is preposterous, but the point is that those insisting that Zik ought to have been killed forget that the Yoruba equivalent of Zik was Awolowo who had treason charges hanging on him at that time  and was supposed to be equally killed. Perhaps, because of the integrity of these 3 people mentioned amidst the overarching allegation of a corrupt political class, their lives were (overtly or covertly spared). Hassan Katsina and M.I. Okpara were both arrested but freely released because, like Zik, Balewa (who was only killed as an afterthought when the coup apparently headed for failure), no serious allegations of corruption were leveled against them. Ironsi was actually penciled down for killing, but he was tipped off by Adjutant General James Pam (who had to pay for it with his life), yet he did not run away, but faced the coupists and subdued them. His name appearing in the list of those to be killed was not for corruption charges, but his strategic position in the military. In fact, it is on record that despite serving in the military for 25 years, holding strategic office in the United Nations Peace mission in Congo, being the GOC and then Head of State with unfettered access to national coffers, 18, 500 Pounds debt overhang was on him at death depicting his as a less corrupt officer.

Having said this much, it is not controvertible that the Nzeogwu Coup (not Igbo Coup) was a generally welcomed revolution among the ranks of the Nigerian army. Both Northerners and the Southerners were actively involved in the killings (at least this much has never been denied), but the South, nay Igbos provided the requisite leadership by dint of their position and especially, the burning passion for a greater Nigeria. Every unfortunate coincidence that tended to change the real motive being capitalized on by tribal extremists who do not want the country to move forward were never premeditated. Later revelations have proved this to be true. 

Fani Kayode alleged that the Igbos were the first to stage a foiled coup in the country, but he forgot that the first coup ever in the history of Nigeria was that plotted by Awolowo for which he was jailed as early as 1962. Rather than seeing this as power-seeking, he cleverly pushed that to the Igbos as seeking to dominate Nigeria. In any case, even if the Igbos were and or are seeking to dominate the political landscape of Nigeria, it is evidently not for selfish reasons, but to turn the tides of years of maladministration deliberately unleashed on the country by the British  overlords (post independence era) in other to guarantee the continued servicing of their interests in Nigeria. FFK cannot deny the knowledge of this as our History books are replete with this assertion that the British were never comfortable with handing over power to the more enlightened South apparently to forestall early (if at all) liberation from their imperialist clouts. Suffice it to say more bluntly and with pride at this point that the Igbos have not given up on feeling the leadership lacuna that is still eluding this ‘great’ country since over 50 years of independence. If this is seen as a domineering attitude, then so be it because, more than any other tribe, the Igbos indubitably have sacrificed so much for this country and it is really painful to continue to watch it snowball into extinction.

“At Gun Point”, that was how Fani Kayode described the ascension to power of Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi after the botched coup, but he forgot that had Ironsi not acceded to power, there was an concluded arrangement to invite both the British and the American military to intervene as the country was in total chaos. Perhaps the history of Nigeria would have taken another twist if that had happened. Interestingly, FFK mentioned the names of 3 prominent Nigerians who were privy to the meeting that led to the emergence of Ironsi to power. He deliberately refused to inform Nigerians that Alhaji Shehu Shagari had long dispelled this erroneous insinuation that Ironsi forced them to hand over to him in an interview with a national daily years back. Ex-President in the interview was quoted to have said; “indeed he (Ironsi) confessed his personal reluctance to take over because of his ignorance of government, but insisted the boys were adamant” which implies that he was clearly doing the bidding of ‘the boys’ who, not only believed in his neutrality, but expected him to rescue the country from chaos as the GOC rather than invite foreigners who left barely few years ago. The language of the military has always been ‘force’ even when milk of human kindness is flowing under their sleeves. Perhaps, this accounted for why Ironsi, after being pressured had to say (in military language) that they (the remnants of Balewa’s cabine) “either hand over as gentlemen or hand over by force”.  It would have been foolhardiness to hand over to civilians when the polity was still very hot with lots of apprehensions in the air. Indeed, as FFK had put it, he could not guarantee their safety as the boys were on rampage and ready to revolt again if he rejected the political power. Everyone knows that the (ironsi’s) delay in decisively dealing with the coup plotters finally led to mistrust and subsequent counter coup. Ironsi meant well for the country. His search for the elusive unity cost him his life. Zik lost his pride of place among the Igbos because he cherished the unity of this country and Africa as a whole to the detriment of his people.

Again, FFK deliberately lied when he said Igbos drew the first blood during the January 1966 coup. In fact he made his preys believe that the reprisals by the Northerners marked the beginning of the wanton killing of Igbos in the North. He forgot that ever before the 1966 events, over 200 Igbos were killed in Kano in 1945. In 1953, anti-Ibo riots broke out in the north in protest of Ibo domination of social, political, business and military institutions. Ibos were hunted down and attacked in Kano, 245 were injured and more than 152 were killed. There was also another round of killings in Jos in 1945 and Kano genocide of 1953. By 1966, the figure jumped to an estimated 50,000 and continued until after the war.

Prior to the war, Igbos never considered any form of revenge even when provocative words were used by notable Northerners to malign the Igbos. Some authors have written this and are quoted copiously here. In 1953, when Independence loomed, Ahmadu Bello, the founder of Gamji said: "We cannot fight to dispense of white masters only to be ruled by new black masters called Ibo. Even here in the North, they run the post offices, railways, civil service and they have taken up all the shops we create. Call them Ibo, but you can also call them Zionists, but we shall not relinquish the estate of our fathers to such wretched people who have never had an administration before." Source: 1968: the year that shook the world, by Walter Schultz.

In 1964, Major Gibson Jalo, after downing a bottle or two at the Kachia Barracks mess, moaned: "we are captives to these Ibos. We can never enjoy our new nation until we chase every single Ibo man out the North." Source: The five majors. In 1967, Inuwa Wada, addressing Northern leaders in Luggard Hall, Kaduna, cried: "For long, we had cried that these vermins, Ibo, must be removed from our soil. Now we have seen the result of our negligence. A new opportunity of reducing the population is here (the war)." Source: Last days of Biafra, by A. Madiebo. Please, note that these quotes copied verbatim from another article on the subject matter si not in any way meant to incite any bitterness, but to straighten the records satanically tilted by FFK.

The anti Igbo sentiments that followed the first foiled coup, according to former President Ibrahim Babangida, IBB in an interview with a national daily was strictly a Northern elitist propaganda deployed at that time to win the sentiments of the northerners as a prelude to the counter coup, and it really worked. IBB himself confessed to this: Twenty-four years later, Babangida speaking to Newswatch on January 8, 1990 Interview said that January 15 (so called Igbo coup) “was not an Igbo based thing as far as I could imagine but the execution of the coup was poorly done and made people to think that it was one sided. I could recall Nzeogwu saying that some chaps in the south let him down because they had not been able to carry out the instruction the way he wanted them."

Quoting verbatim from ‘The inside Story of Nigeria’s First Military coup’ by Max Siollun, 2005, “Nzeogwu later described the detachment of troops accompanying him to (Ahmadu) Bello’s house as “a truly Nigerian gathering” (new Nigerian—18^th January, 1966). Nzeogwu pointed out that the northern soldiers accompanying him “had the chance to drop out. More than that, they had bullets. They had been issued with bullets, but I was unarmed. It they disagreed, they could have shot me…most of the other ranks were northerners, but they followed”. Atom Kpera, who later became the military governor of Benue State, was among the soldiers who executed Bello with Nzeogwu. In Lagos, a larger chunk of those who helped Ifeajuna abduct Tafawa Balewa were northerners who sincerely believed in the revolution. Why would FFK resurrect this long resolved issue at a time the nation is seriously in search of an elusive and most desired peace in the country and the powers that be are not reprimanding him officially?

In conclusion, it may sound fallacious, but with an embedded truth: Ojukwu revolted because of perceived injustice against the Yoruba when he refused to recognize Gowon as Head Of State, insisting that Brig Gen Ogundipe (a Yoruba) should take over since he was the highest ranking officer as at that time. In essence, he fought for the Yoruba, secession bid was simply an aftermath. Again, the first so called “Igbo Coup” was a fight for the Yoruba since Awolowo was to be the direct beneficiary if it had succeeded. I am sure FFK knows more than these before his venomous vituperations ever went to press, but deliberately chose to hide it for self-glory that he will never get, even from his fellow Yoruba.

(Chukwudi Ohiri is Public affairs analyst, a social critic and non-violent social crusader based in Lagos).

Email: chuksohiri@gmail.com

Contact: 07052415807)

  

   

News: Igbo Marginalization: The Alternative Route To Fre...

News: Igbo Marginalization: The Alternative Route To Fre...: The Igbos have severally cried out against apparent marginalization by the Nigerian federal authorities. The cry which is manifest in th...

Igbo Marginalization: The Alternative Route To Freedom

The Igbos have severally cried out against apparent marginalization by the Nigerian federal authorities. The cry which is manifest in the allocation of scarce resources to the region by the Nigerian nation is borne out of a lopsided balkanization of the country during events leading up to  the civil war. This balkanization now put them as a minority in a nation where they were a majority prior to that exercise. Having lived and cried with this for the past forty years, is it not time an alternative route is taken to self-release themselves from the shackles of this internal imperialism? 

By Chukwudi OHIRI

“The Yoruba-predominating west, headed by Chief Akintola, its new premier is nearly evenly divided among Moslems, Christians and pagans and embraces the federation’s capital, Lagos. It is perennially rivaled by the Ibo-populated Eastern region under Premier Michael Okpara, former health minister. EASTERN NIGERIA IS THE COUNTRY’S MOST ADVANCED” (emphasis mine). The above quote is an excerpt from a national newspaper published in the early 60s. For clarity, the quote above suggests unequivocally that within the period of its publication, the Eastern Region comprising of the present day South East, (home to a majority of the Igbo-speaking Nigerians) and of course, most part of the South-South region of today’s Nigeria was the most advanced region. The advancement touted in the above quote encompasses academic, technological, infrastructural as well as economic advancement. Truly, this was evident at that time leading to some kind of ‘healthy’ rivalry that almost catapulted Nigeria into one of the biggest economies in Africa and the entire third world until the later discovery of oil on one hand, and the balkanization of the country into States on the other hand.

The advancement credited to the Igbo then is now history as it can no longer be said of the people of the Igbo-speaking South East. Through what many have termed, a well calculated ploy by the powers that be from other ethnic nationalities to ensure that the region remains perennially underdeveloped, the advancement was reversed while successive leaders of the region even worsened the situation with bad governance.

A popular Nigerian musician once said “if a white man oppresses a black man, it is termed apartheid (or imperialism) but when a black man oppresses a fellow black man, it is christened ‘politics’. This has been the plight of the Igbos since the cessation of hostilities in 1970 following the three years civil war (1967-1970) between the Nigerian federal forces and the defunct Biafran forces despite the declaration of ‘No victor, no vanquished’. The aphorism that “politics is the continuation of war by other means” became very pronounced in the dealings with the Igbos under one Nigeria. The people of the region have continued to allege marginalization since after the war that saw the decimation of over three million people and destruction of properties worth millions of naira. Today, other regions of the federation have joined in the foray of ruing marginalization, apparently in a bid to taunt the Igbo people.

By definition, and according to a good number of dictionaries consulted, the word “marginalize” could mean “to treat someone or something as if they are not important.” It can mean “to take or keep somebody away from the centre of action” and can also be defined as the act of “relegating someone or a group of people to a lower or outer edge of a community or society”. According to Prof. Samuel Okoye in a treatise titled, ‘Marginalization in Nigeria: the way out for Nd'Igbo’, “marginalisation by nature is relative, but nevertheless a perception that may or may not be based on objective reality”. The question now is: Are Igbos truly marginalized and how?

Historians are almost unanimous that the origin of Igbo marginalization can be traced back to the time when 12 states were created out of the then existing four region in Nigeria. According to Prof. Okoye, “Indeed, marginalisation actually started when Nd’Igbo (who on account of their large population in the East, where they were by far the dominant majority ethnic group), were suddenly relegated to only one out of the three states created by Gowon out of the old Eastern region, and by a stroke of the pen, Gown rewrote demography and made Igbos a minority in their region in which hitherto they were in overwhelming majority. Since then the Igbos have never been able to get out of this minority status or to get this injustice reversed and as more states and local governments were created across the country, Nd’Igbo of course got more states and local governments but the original demographic and political relativities of the 1963 census as well as the former four-region federal Nigeria were irretrievably lost”. Explaining further, he said: “Indeed, according to the 1963 census, one out of every four Nigerian was an Igbo and if things were done equitably in Nigeria, Nd’Igbo should expect something like 25% representation in all federal institutions as well as 25% share of all states and local governments created after independence. This marginalisation became institutionalised when the principle of federal character was further enshrined in the Nigerian constitution.”

In summary, the erudite professor of Physics submitted that: “Since proportional representation in all federal institutions was based on the number of states rather than population, this meant that after the creation of states, representation of Nd’Igbo in Nigerian federal institutions was guaranteed never to reflect the relative strength of their population, but rather the number of states they were arbitrarily allocated, which itself even now fails woefully to reflect their numerical strength. Consequently, Nd’Igbo have always been under represented in the Federal Executive Council, the leadership of the federal bureaucracy, the armed forces and police, etc. Hence there are systemic, structural, and institutional elements to Igbo marginalisation in Nigeria, which is now so deep and pervasive that the only way to correct it is by way of a radical and extensive political restructuring through the much canvassed sovereign national conference of ethnic nationalities.

Only recently, and riled by the recurrent hue and cry of marginalization by the South East geopolitical zone and more especially, in response to the allegation made by former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu when he was a guest speaker at the British House of Commons that Ndigbo are highly marginalised within Nigeria, the presidency produced a document detailing how the South East got 35% of the entire federal appointments even though it controls only about 11% of the national population.

 Dr Kalu had told British MPs that Igbos have the least number of states, local governments and get the least allocation and appointments. “The implications of this”, Kalu said, was that “calculated fraud against my people are so massive and go entirely untold. They include unequal allocation of resources, unequal voice at the Federal Executive Council, unequal representation at the National Assembly, unequal participation in the administration of justice in the federation, unequal participation in the federal civil service and adjunct bodies and unequal representation in the armed forces and para-military organizations”.

According to the data released by the presidency in defense, offices held by Igbos in the current government include those of the deputy Senate President, the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Finance minister, as well as the Chief Economic adviser to the president. Others include the special adviser on project monitoring, the special adviser on the subsidy re-investment and empowerment programme, the chief of army staff, the executive vice chairman of the National Communications Commission and the managing director of the Asset Management Company of Nigeria.

 Other prominent positions held by Igbos in Nigeria include the managing director of the Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund and the Ministers of Power, Labour, Aviation and Health. Other high-ranking Igbo officials confirmed by the document include the chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, the director-general of the Bureau for Public Procurement, the director-general of the Debt Management Office, the director-general of the Securities Exchange Commission, the special adviser on the National Assembly and the head of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission. The document also indicated that the southeast got a number of strategic ambassadorial postings, including the heads of the missions in Canada, the United Nations, India, Switzerland, Spain and Singapore.

Many prominent Igbos have been reacting to this seemingly ‘shocking revelation’ on social media, public functions and opinion articles. Many were of the view that in fairness to the administration of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the South East has had a fair share of political appointments more than any other administration since after the Civil war. They point out, however that while appreciating the good gestures from the President, it is of importance to note that as long as there is still the structural imbalance in terms of state creation and fraudulent population data deliberately manipulated to favour other zones, whatever the present administration does to correct the lopsided political structure will remain transient and easily reversed by successive administrations. They therefore call for a constitutional reversal of the structural defects that gave vent to the marginalization quagmire in the first place. Others point the fact that federal appointments are but a single aspect of the cry over marginalization of the Igbos.

Dr Emezue, a public affairs analyst and social critic on his part opined that there is still a lopsided federal presence in the South East in terms of locating federal projects and revamping of federal infrastructure like roads, railways, healthcare delivery systems, federal schools, federal sponsored new electricity and potable water supplies projects, as well as lack of any substantial federal investments in the South East etc. He also reacted to the claim that South East produced both Deputy speaker of the house and the Deputy Senate president saying: “these are but nominal positions that hardly influence decisions in the house where majority will always have their way while the minority can only have their say”. Going on, he said: “politics is a game of numbers. Even if the South East gets the position of the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, as long as they are a minority group in the house, there is a limit to what they can influence, though they might be in a better position to play the politics and gamble”. He also pointed out that “although Igbos have recently been appointed heads of certain ministries and parastatals, it remains to be proven that such agencies have a proportionate number of Igbos working there and even so, the principle of federal character structured around land mass, state of origin and fictitious population figures will still work against the call for equity. “The only thing that will quench this burning cry about marginalization” he said, “is not even the Presidency of the country being ceded to the Igbos, but the total restructuring of the polity in equity, fairness and justice”. “By this I mean, balancing the representation at both legislative and Executive arm of the government,” he concluded.

The incessant cry of the Igbos about marginalization has got to such an alarming stage that a reappraisal of approach and strategic reconfiguration of solution mechanism is not only imperative, but appears to be the only panacea to arresting the situation. The Igbos must begin to relive its ‘think home philosophy’ by massively developing its region without reliance on external help.

The Igbos are not the only people ravaged by civil war experiences in history, but many of such countries rebounded and today, their economies are the envy of the developed world. The United States of America, between 1861 and 1865 went into a civil war, but today, they are a united and progressive country. Japan’s economy and infrastructure were literarily destroyed and left in shambles after the Second World War, but in no time, it turned war factories into other productive sectors and was able to recover and even overtake many countries that were hitherto ahead of it. Currently, the Hispanics and Latinos control a sizeable portion of America’s business to the extent that they cannot be ignored in the American enterprise. As a further step, they have constituted themselves into a voting block that no party wins a general election in the US without block vote from them. In the United Kingdom, the Asians control a large percentage of Britain’s business by just concentrating in running corner shops all over the Kingdom and that is giving them subterranean influence in the system.

Why can’t the Igbos then rally themselves together and form a power block using their ingenuity in commerce and business enterprise which is acclaimed unrivalled in the black race? After the civil war, Ojukwu, the late sage and leader of the defunct Biafra once boasted: "In the three years of the war necessity gave birth to invention. During those three years of heroic bound, we leapt across the great chasm that separates knowledge from know-how. We built rocket, and we designed and built our own delivery systems. We guided our rockets. We guided them far; we guided them accurately. For three years, blockaded without hope of import, we maintained all our vehicles. The state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in their back gardens. We built and maintained our airports, maintained them under heavy bombardment. Despite the heavy bombardment, we recovered so quickly after each raid that we were able to maintain the record for the busiest airport in the continent of Africa. We spoke to the world through telecommunication system engineered by local ingenuity; the world heard us and spoke back to us! We built armored cars and tanks. We modified aircraft from trainer to fighters, from passenger aircraft to bombers. In the three years of freedom we had broken the technological barrier. In the three years we became the most civilized, the most technologically advanced black people on earth."  The question is, where is this ingenuity of the Igbos for which the entire world gave a standing ovation to the defunct Biafra? The Igbos can simply re-enact this war time feat to launch itself back into reckoning again in Nigeria and in the entire black world, rather than continue to rue marginalization. The technological advancement recorded then can earn the Igbos some respect if reenacted in the present day Nigeria and less emphasis paid to political power.

Talking about economic power, it is high time Igbos jettisoned the overarching quest for political power. With economic power, getting at political power would appear a lot easier for the Igbos. This is why the Igbos must strive to change their business model. No doubt, the Igbos are recognized the world over for their industry and commercial enterprises but recently, analyst have proffered that there is a need to reengineer the nature of doing business to give room for greater expansion and ultimately, economies of scale. This is the view of Rudolph Okonkwo, a financial analyst, who insists that the present Igbo business model of merely buying and selling is unsustainable in the long run. In a recent publication by Nigerian OrientNews, Rudolph explained that “the Igbo business model of opening stores in markets across city centers is coming to an end. In a generation or two, there won’t be anything like that anymore. It would all go the way Mom and Pop stores disappeared in American cities where Walmart and Targets set up shop.” He further states: “The Igbo business model is simple. At the top is an importer. His job is to import items from overseas and have a chain of wholesalers move the goods across Nigeria. The wholesalers on their own have a chain of retailers who buy from them and sell at markets across Nigeria. In one swoop, the Chinese and Walmart will replace all the Igbo traders on this chain from importers to retailers.”

Our investigation revealed that this is already happening as traders at the popular Balogun market in Lagos who deal on Bags and Leather Wears staged a protest march against some Chinese businessmen, whom they accused of retailing leather products at a very cheap rate, thereby forcing the Nigerian traders to operate at a loss. Presently as reported in the publication, the incursion of such international conglomerates as Shoprite, Africa’s biggest retailer; Spar, Europe’s largest retail network; and Massmart, South Africa’s second-largest retailer, LG, Haier Thermocool, Sony, etc is already a warning signal to indigenous retail businesses. As projected in that report, these big retailers have continued to expand their influence across the country and this may throw the average Igbo trader out of business in no distant time. Unfortunately, the growing distrust over quality of even the imported products by the Igbo importers are already taking a toll on these importers as consumers now prefer patronizing retail shops of foreign manufacturers established in Nigeria even when the prices are a little bit on the high side.

In the light of this development, one of the analysts admonished the Igbo businessmen, to restrategize now saying: “It will be great if ten-year and twenty-year plans for transition are put in place. I believe that a plan to transition into manufacturing, turning Aba and Nnewi and Nkpor into manufacturing hubs will greatly keep the Igbo in play as the Chinese and Walmart take their places in Africa.”

Another hornet’s nest was steered by one Victor Aguku on the social media thread that was meant to respond to a post by one Adeyinka Grandson, a Yoruba who was lambasting the Igbos for alleging that they were being marginalized. Aguku called on the Igbos to disregard the post borne out of tribal ‘sentiments’, but pick on the hard facts contained in the post. His long and frantic response read thus: “. I know as a fact that many of us always claim we know better and are better than other tribes, many of us even claim that we are better businessmen and women etc etc and I have always pointed out that though we put in our best in business we are however largely misguided in our business approach. Those who would disagree with me should have at least lived in Lagos and if so they should tell me how many industries Igbos own in Nigeria. We are good in one man, hard labour business. We believe that no one can do it better than us but what results do we have to show for it. We have many business men and women with business set ups that if well organised as a corporation would go places and employ more people etc but what do you have, they remain largely one man business and moribund and once the founder dies the setup dies. Take a look at Dangote, Otedola, Mike Adenuga, the Baloguns, the Okoyas, Jimoh Ibrahim etc etc and give me their Igbo equivalent in terms of their organisational setup and the businesses they own. It is only in Banking that you see some Igbos trying to play catch up yet those are the Igbos from areas where some of them still deny their Igboness.

We have long used these as excuse but that can no longer hold water my dear. Take a close look at the style Dangote adopted and made a kill. The Yorubas realised Dangotes style and adopted it, where are our Igbo brother(s)? A few who make money by that style whether planned or accidental soon become misguided and begin to seek political office even though it is very clear they are not professional politicians. If you look closely at Dangote’s style which many Nigerian business people did not know, you will agree with me that he was not successful essentially because he was a Northerner. Author Eze adopted it with Abacha and made a killing but he could not sustain it or maybe he did it by accident and not as a business policy hence he could not sustain the tempo. What about the Ubas. Then you talk about politics. Tell me sincerely if we Igbos know how to play Nigerian politics. Just tell me and give me examples using current events in our political space”. This honest assertion ought to be food for thought for our Igbo businessmen. They will need to restrategize to take over the economic power of this country as a gateway to political power that has eluded them over the years. They can. In the words of Prof. Okoye, “a common Igbo agendum appropriate to all the possibilities above is that Nd’Igbo should empower themselves to decide and steer their future social and economic welfare”. Barring the use of the barrels of a gun, the sure route to political power in the modern world is through financial power. Consequently Nd’Igbo must strive to become big players in the financial game and in the Nigerian economy.

In the quest to attain the above, Prof. Okoye said: “Nd’Igbo should be able to enjoy the freedom, to develop and maximise their collective and individual potentials through unfettered access, use and exploitation of their God-given resources - human and material. Thus, they should be able to create opportunities for every lgbo son and daughter to develop their individual talents to the maximum extent possible for their own good and the general good of Nd’Igbo”. He observed that “before the civil war, Nd’Igbo believed strongly in industry, hard work, and education (rather than money) as the tool for social upward movement and personal economic progress, to the extent that communities will even raise funds to jointly sponsor their sons to acquire the “golden fleece..”  In colonial Nigeria where merit and excellence held sway, Nd’Igbo were thus able to bridge the generational lead of the Yorubas in education very quickly”.

Professor Sam Okoye equally advocated a redirection of the thought and belief system of the average Igboman who seems deeply engrossed in the notion that “to make it in life” and to achieve success and importance in today’s Nigeria, one must have money at all costs”. He submitted that “revolutionaries in societies have always sought to change things by the power of thought, not action, because they know that thought produces action, and that to get a person thinking in a certain way is to get that person to act in the desired way. The crucial point being that any action is based on belief”. He called on Igbos to aspire for self help and begin to loathe dependency theories that lead to enslavement. To change these mentality and belief systems, the education system (from both primary and secondary), the church, the nuclear and extended family systems, pan-Igbo groups as well as town unions and associations must be mobilized for action and reorientation under a well focused leadership based not on a single charismatic leader (like Awolowo or Sarduana), but on a personality cult anchored on collective leadership. The proliferation of Pan-Igbo groups such as is the Aka Ikenga, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, MASSOB, Igbo Ezue, Njiko Igbo, World Igbo Assembly etc without a harmony of opinion and interest in their operations will remain antithetical in result.

In the vanguard of the so called Pan-Igbo movement is the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB whose ideology, sequential program, clear modus operandi are not known. There is therefore the need to reengineer the operations of this group using ideological and social mobilization tactics rather than being confrontational with or without arms. Biafra and its founder at least had a manifesto which represented its ideology enshrined in the book—‘Ahiara Declaration’. This appealed to some while others detested it, but at least, there was a focus.

Today, the mere mention of MASSOB sends jitters down the pines of the federal government who immediately unleash the venom of hatred and animosity in clamping down on the group like traitors. As at press time, their leader, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike and many faithful are still incarcerated and awaiting trial for treason while the entire Igbo race fold their arms in indifference. In the light of the above, changing the name and tactics could turn the fortunes of this group around. Terrorist tendencies may have worked for other ethnic groups, the fact of the day is that unless the tempo is raised high above the current insurgency in the country (which is not advisable), any attempt to adopt brutality will always elicit greater brutality in response by the federal might. That the sit-at-home protest organized by MASSOB was a near success does not confer legitimacy or acceptance of it. Modern political and democratic tools such as a referendum can be adopted to test the popularity and give credence to the group.

The unfortunate thing is that when the Niger Delta militants revolted with arms, its leaders were called to a round table where, rather than incarcerate them, they were pacified with Amnesty package. The likes of Asari Dokubo are now in the payroll of the federal government for taking up arms against the FG.  If Boko Haram had accepted the carrot dangled before it by the Federal Government, today, they would have been deified as national heroes too. Billions of Naira would have been expended on them to pacify them too, but when an Igboman as much as attempts a peaceful demonstration, hell is let loose. These are clear signs that what is good for the goose in Nigeria is not good for the gander. But the Igbos, who claim to be the wiser tribe in the country ought to show maturity and great wisdom in knowing that once the rhythm of a song changes, the dance steps must equally change. It is time to apply superior fire power other than guns, bombs, mortars and other physical weapons of warfare. This superior power lies in the control of the economy which is intrinsically innate in the veins of the average blood. Igbos are known for industry, hard work, commerce etc, but there is the need to take it to the next level.

  As the famous American diplomat, Henry Kissinger once put it: “The Ibos are the wandering Jews of West Africa… gifted, aggressive, Westernized; at best envied and resented, but mostly despised by the mass of their neighbours in the Federation.”

While the Igbos continue to allege marginalization, how have its own directly elected leaders fared in governance and representation? The Igbos must hold their leaders accountable for developing the South-East through people-oriented policies that will affect the lives of the citizens positively. If the region excels in governance over and above other regions in Nigeria, chances are that other regions will begin to take them serious.

In conclusion, as Prof Okoye put it, “Igbo marginalization today is real, as well as being all of systemic, structural, institutional, extensive, and deep , and it is this marginalisation that spawns the divergent stance of MASSOB. For that reason, changing the political captain, be it one of Igbo extraction, on the Nigerian boat is unlikely to provide immediate succour or more importantly, a permanent solution to Igbo marginalization”. If this priority is continuously misplaced or unaddressed, “Nd’Igbo will then realize sooner than later and to their utter consternation and frustration that without changing the constitutional/political system, any changes they may wish to make to their present lot will only be temporary and cosmetic”.  And since it is not entirely in their hands to change this situation, alternative tactics of seeking economic power will enforce the desired change. As a popular saying goes: “In the past when men made fortune out of war, war was business. But nowadays when men made fortune out of business, business is war”. Let the Nd’igbo try ‘business war’ strategy.