One of the important developments, in my reckoning, of the last ten years is the clarification of certain historical untruths about the Nigerian state; by certain irreconcilable events in our polity. Modern Nigeria has thrived on great falsehood. These untruths were carry-overs, from the last war when a massive propaganda machinery was deployed by both sides of the Nigerian conflict, to win popular support. As an instrument of war, propaganda is effective if only to engage and rearrange our sentiments. But it does seem that the principles that constructed Nigeria's propaganda strategy from 1967 to 1970 were not reviewed in peace time. They were not reviewed because Nigeria went into a constant state of warfare. The federal army, the vandals - was in drunken elation. The soldiers were still in the battlefield, raping, killing and destroying the Nigerian state. The victims were Nigerians.
The war situation and its mentality was fuelled largely because, a clear, honest and just civil process did not go into the resolution of the conflict. The reconstruction process did not lift from the paper upon which it was conceived. The soldiers who negotiated the end of the war, still in their battle gears, saw not a proper state, but a vast prebendal booty: oil fields, money to be made in the heady years of petrodollar boom, huge defence contracts, cement armadas and such things that tempted and convinced them that any reorganization towards a sane society would limit their stake in the entire business. So, therefrom, not statesmen but buccaneers, emerged to direct the proper obituary of Nigeria B a country still writhing in pain from the effects of the three-year war, several years after the last shots rang.
The issue of reconstruction was obscured by the dilemma of choice between the rulers of Nigeria whose personal ambition for power and wealth had to be served: it was in this period that an array of bureaucrats and administrators converged like hawks around a burning fire, to design power in their own image. Among some of the instruments were public policy statements and laws which inscribed the perpetual enslavement of the Nigerian people. One of these, the Petroleum Act of 1969, anteceding the law creating the twelve states, disempowered the active units of the union. That law, was a deal-makers act, which virtually handed Nigeria's vast oil fields to friendly, multinational oil corporations.
Of course, later on, many of these men of power, who designed and pushed that process, found themselves on the boards of these international oil companies. (Many are still there, and are still pushing the decimation of Nigeria, with the deregulation bogey. But that is another story). Before too long, however, it became clear that the critical alliance that won the war, including their civilian collaborators, would have to invent a reason for keeping Nigeria one. That reason would simply obscure the true reasons why the war was fought in the first place. Most Nigerians were, in fact, not aware, that the Nigerian civil war was fought over these same oil fields, located mostly in Eastern Nigeria. Other factors were merely ancillary.
One ludicrous reason which the Federal Government, prosecuting the war on no other justifiable basis found, was its claim that it fought to free the Eastern minority peoples from the oppression and stranglehold of the majority Igbo ethnic group. This was its second most important mantra after the "to keep Nigeria one" fallacy. But the truth came out last week, from no other figure than the president and commander in chief of this flawed country, General Olusegun Obasanjo. On a visit to one of those scenes of war, now called Bayelsa State, General Obasanjo who also saw the final liquidation of Biafra as commander of the Third Marine Commando, reminded the people on the folly of their agitation for equity, and resource control.
Obasanjo warned them not to forget the last war and its causes: It was a war fought to deny the East of Nigeria the resources on its land. The collaboration of other parts of Nigeria would be understandable, seeing that by 1964, the Eastern region was already touted as the fastest growing economy in the world by secret research reports commissioned by the World Bank and by Harvard University in the United States.
The Eastern Nigerian Economic reconstruction plan (1954-1964) - the ten year plan - drawn by the visionary Zik, and the eminently brilliant Mbonu Ojike, the most acute economic mind of that generation of argonauts, and later fully implemented by the inimitable Michael Okpara, had placed the East on a development route, that by the 1960s all the talk of "Igbo domination" was merely a metaphor of the progress in the East.
But as it happened, group envy led to war. The irony is that Easterners of the minority ethnic groups, became collaborators in the liquidation of their own society. So thoroughly propagandized to "hate and fear" their Igbo neighbours, many have sold their birthrights - the resource under their feet - in a bid to achieving an imponderable form of phyrric victory . But it is gratifying, however, that a shift is taking place: the M. T Mbu group that is reconnecting the Eastern peoples to once more glimpse their common dilemma, is a proper challenge. All the new geographies invented to limit Eastern Nigerian capacity to reorganize and challenge the impoverishment of their landscape must be reviewed, by the people themselves.
It is only when ablutions are made, of past misdeed, and truths told, of how the people have been used against each other, that the real nature of the marginalization and destruction of Eastern Nigeria as both a political and economic unit will crystallize. As to the Mbu initiative, I say welcome to the Eastern re-union.
Established 1947. Grand Patron: Chief Harold Dappa Biriye. Copyright Reserved: www.Niger Delta Congress.com.
posted
Odili: Good post. People like Ekpo should go and fight their own efulefu the same way that we are discrediting the efulefu of Igboland. There is a lot of anti-Igbo rhetoric coming out of the so-called Niger-Delta. But, let me warn those responsible that at no time did the Igbos and others in the so-called Niger-Delta vote to be put in that contraption. The Ijaw or Ogoni Igbo hater should speak for himself only. He certainly does not speak for the Ibibio or the Urhobo.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Good talk. As Obinna and other commentators have noted, the eastern minorities have been socialized for decades to distance themselves from the Igbo and offered illusory incentives by the Nigerian state to minimize any political association with Ndi'Igbo. This is part of a grand strategy that includes as a central plank, the demonization of Igbos as the ultimate regional hegemonists.
Having this at the back of our minds, Igbos must embark on a 'hearts and minds' campaign to win back the friendship and political cooperation between Ndi'Igbo and the eastern minorities that Zik and the argonauts established in the 1940s and 50s when in the old eastern region, we had E.O.Eyo as premier, Dr. S.E. Imoke as health minister, Mr. Erekosima as principal of Government College, Umuahia among many other minorities people in government. Those glory days can be reclaimed. Rather than constantly fulminating at the eastern minorities for alleged 'treachery' during the civil war, 'abandoned property', denial of Igbo identity etc, Ndi'Igbo should seek to reassure them of our goodwill and desire for genuine friendship and partnership ON EQUAL TERMS.
I would like to suggest a few practical steps. 1. Ndi'Igbo should collectively acknowledge wrongdoing on the part of the Igbo elite in the ousting of Eyo Ita from government in 1953. Although, following the exclusion of Zik from leadership of the Western region by Awo's ethnic politics, it was necessary for Zik to have a regional based, if you look carefully, this episode marked the beginning of the end of the political alliance between the Igbos and the eastern minorities and made the minorities to fear that they would be perpetually oppressed by the Igbos. 2. Igbo residents in the lands of eastern minorities should stop their brash, arrogant excoriation of eastern minorities as lazy, promiscuous etc. It does not help neighbourly relations if your neighbour harbours in his heart, a constant suspicion that you have no respect for him as a human being or as an individual and that you feel his people are a nation of efulefu.I have had so many personal experiences in mixed gatherings where Igbo people tell e.g. Efiks that their men are lazy and their women are promiscuous and only good for food and sex. Ditto for Kalabaris and other Rivers people. Do you blame them when they resent Igbos and prefer to associate politically with the North and West? 3. Though this is a controversial stand and a painful one to me personally, I think we should move beyond the abandoned property issue. Afterall, we are not dead because of it and we have built more houses in Igboland and elsewhere since then. Raising the issue only renews tensions.It was unjust and it was oppressive but I plead with my people to let it be. Lets have closure on the issue and move on. We may seek and acknowledgement of moral wrongdoing on the part of the Rivers state people but that should be that. 4. We the young generation of Igbos abroad should reach out to the eastern minorities. We should seek to inter-act with them, attend their festivals and parties, invite them to ours, mix socially, engage them intellectually, engage them physically including dating and marrying their women and men etc. I personally don't subscribe to theories of collective morality and I am yet to see any empirical statistical evidence of the alleged immorality of the women of the eastern minority ethnic groups. We Igbos are not saints either and I have more a few things to say about sexual morality among the Igbo but I will leave for a more appropriate forum. 5. We MUST engage them POLITICALLY as in build political platforms with them. Not create and invite them to join - invite them to join in creating these political structures.
There - thats my two cents
Posts: 58 | From: Boston | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Sundiatta, Thank you so much for your great posting, this has always been my thought about how we can bring trust back between us and our sibilings from Cross river, Akwa-ibom Rivers and other areas that make up Biafra.
We must tune down some of our hateful rehtoric, all it does is push us further apart. Let us not degenerate to the level of clement Ikpatt, and steve Nwabuzor who continue to use the internet to call for the head of all Igbos.
I recently attended a wedding, and the families of the Bride/Bridegroom were from Akwa-ibom, Ninety nine plus nine percent of those present were from South South, and South East. Noboody could distinguish who is from where, The culture was the same, the attire was very unique from what you will see in a typical Nigerian gathering.
It was a very impressive coming together of people with very great similarity in culture and tradition. We are all in the same boat, in this fraud called Nigeria, and must work together to free ourselves from this bondange.
The approach is to see ourselves as partners in pursuit of our freedoom and not as foes as our enemies would like to see us.Our enemies whose business is to divide and keep us in Nigeria at all cost so as to continue to steal our resources.
Let us let bye gone be bye gone, and start to chart a new course for success. We are better off paddling our own canoe. Our children yet unborn will be grateful that we brought them out of this slavery in Nigeria, when they read our history in years to come.
[ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: chima njoku ]
[ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: chima njoku ]
Excellent points! for starters, do you know of any website where one can go to and exchange cultural ideas with say Ibibios, Effiks or Annangs.
I went to primary school with many Ibibios. The perjorative teasing that Sundiatta mentioned is not a general thing, but depends on individual's character.
On the war time actions of the Igbo neighbours, with the exception of the Ijaw, the rest of them just were trying to survive the multinational instigated war.
God is on our side! Our Ikwerre kin are re-tracing their steps home and we must reach out.Please see this news item below which I found on the "Nigeria Today/Phone News" service. I don't know any Ibibio or Efik groups or websites but there must be; we should find them and we should reach out. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Some 27 years after the Nigerian civil war, the rift between Igbos and their kinsmen outside the mainland appears to be breached by a new socio-political organization. The new group, Ohaneze Ikwerre, was formed by Igbos in Rivers [State] to re-establish relations with their Igbos across the country. The chairman, Mr Evans Dimkpa, said in Port Harcourt that Ohaneze was the en masse movement designed to give the people a focused leadership. Mr Dimkpa, a native of Ahaoda, said that the Ohaneze Ikwerre will be a parallel organ to the Okpako Ikwerre, whose present leadership has failed to properly direct the people.
Posts: 58 | From: Boston | Registered: Dec 2001
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___________________ Awo's political idea was based on the assumption that any town beyond Owo was Igbo or Hausa. Awo was not socialised; he was not a good mixer because he did not have the opportunity, which the secondary school offered. ~TOS Benson, Baba Oba of Lagos
___________________ Awo's political idea was based on the assumption that any town beyond Owo was Igbo or Hausa. Awo was not socialised; he was not a good mixer because he did not have the opportunity, which the secondary school offered. ~TOS Benson, Baba Oba of Lagos Posts: 2644 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Apr 2001
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I found the following interesting article. Shows our eastern leaders had good intentions and were not just hell-bent on ripping off our neighbours as has been much touted. I've deleted the writer's name to protect his identity.
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Nd'Igbo, ndewo nu! Please advise me on this: where to get the book by U******. It sounds like he did some deep analysis of the conditions of underdevelopment. His issue with economic production/local consumption is important. This principle in fact undergirds the entire framework of the Eastern Nigerian Economic development plan (1954-1964), also known as "The ten year plan", drawn between Nnamdi Azikiwe and Mbonu Ojike, both first class economists. (Few people know that Azikiwe's specialist field was political Economy and Economic History). This plan was further articulated by Pius Okigbo when he assumed the position of Economic adviser to the Eastern government, by which time Mbonu Ojike had died (I956), and Okigbo's friend, M.I Okpara had assumed the premiership of the region with Azikiwe's retirement from politics and ascension to the ceremonial post of Governor-general (later president of the Nigerian federation) in 1958. The Eastern Nigerian Economic Reconstruction plan (1954) was based on the concept that Azikiwe clearly called "Economic determinism". Ojike was to articulate it in a more accessible language when he proclaimed that we should "boycott the boycottable.". The four important anchors to the Economic vision were: a. EDUCATION: To that end, an education policy was designed for "strategic manpower development". It was to create "producers", not masters. The concept of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, chartered in 1956, although admitting its first students in 1960, was at the base of this program. It was different from the colonial University of Ibadan, which was based on "classical" education. Nsukka was concieved as "a workshop", where one learnt that credo of the Arthurian Camelot: "In serving our fellow men we serve ourselves". It was fully compressed into the motto of the University, something about the dignity of man. The point was that early in Nsukka, unlike in Ibadan where you were served, at Nsukka you helped yourself. Azikiwe had in fact criticized the idea of the University College, Ibadan in 1948 as "a one million dollar baby" because it was so unsuited to the developmental needs of a decolonizing society. Its values were too burgeois, too isolate from the reality of its own history. (My father went there!) That critique is of course lost in history, for by the end of the war, the fundamental ideas of the university of Nigeria was totally disfigured, when the federal government acquired UNN, and merged it into the more elitist function of the education philosphy of the rest of Nigeria which has so far produced a generation of unusable manpower. Nsukka's case was particularly imperative because it was also the "hotbed for Biafran agitation". But this is another story. Before the war, the philosphy of education in the East was based on a mass literacy program that would produce very roundedly educated people. Although the eastern government could not sustain a free education system, even though it tried it from 1957-1958, it understood that it needed a solid, well-trained manpower. Curriculum development was elaborate and eclectic. A scholarship program, from the community/the county/the Region was devised. By 1958, every county in the former Eastern region had Community Grammar Schools built by community development strategies, with a government grants-in-aid. The result is the current reality - that the Igbo are possibly the most educated of the world's black peoples. Forget the fallacy that is unsupported by figures that the west of Nigeria has the most educated group. This is in fact not true, and one should look closely into the records. But again, that is a different matter. The second principle of the Eastern plan was INUSTRIAL PRODUCTION. The East had the first industrial developement plan in Africa. Note that All Eastern Nigerian "townships" / cities had designed within them, an industrial zone: Aba (factory Road),Umuahia (Factory Road) Calabar (Factory road), Enugu and Port-harcourt had Industrial Free zones - the Emene Industrial Lay out and the Trans-Amadi Industrial lay-out. So did Owerri, which had an inustrial layout,so did Onitsha etc. etc. Owerri,Aba and Port Harcourt were already designed in what was clalled "A three city nexus" (see works plan of the Eastern Survey Dept. in Enugu) which would connect them into the megacity, with a local metroline service. (part of this plan was revived by Ndubisi kanu when he became governor of the new Imo state i 1976, and he contracted a Dutch firm to design Owerri as a modern capital using an already established model (Amsterdam). But Adekunle Lawal took one look at the Owerri plan and threw it away as "too expensive". He stipped the scale down when he arrived to be governor. Enugu was also to connect Port-Harcourt, through Umuahia by Underground rail (see Eastern Surveyor-General's report 1965). Calabar was already concieved as an Industrial free zone for Exports nd was to serve the Aba industrial city through its ports. But in practical terms, the first steel plant in Africa, Nigersteel, was concieved in Enugu, So was Nigergas, the integretated gas plant, one in Enugu, one in Port-harcourt.As part of its agreements with the eastern regional government, Shell was to build gas power plant with turbines to serve the domestic and industrial uses for the industrial cities of Aba and port-harcourt.An Eastern Nigerian industrial plan was already afoot, and the east was rapidly evolving into the modern indutrial giant of the African continent. So much that a 1964 Harvard/World bank report stated very clearly that the Eastern Nigerian Economy was the fastest growing in the world. Ten years after the Eastern Economic Reconstruction plan came into being!.That was the rise of the term "Aba made". The other critical anchor was AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. Okpara pursued this part of the plan very vigorously because he knew that every industrial power must be sustained by food production. He also knew that there had to be a radical shift from traditional agrarian practices to a modern agricultural production. There was of course the difficult issue of the land tenure practice in Igbo land/ the rest of the East. His solution was brilliant. He did not allow monopolies, he created modern farm settlements based on the system of farm collectives. By 1963, every boarding school in Eastern Nigeria was required to serve its students at least an egg a day because there was excess production. The fourth basis the the empowerment of COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES. This feature of Igbo political organization is indeed what we have retained, and how we have survived the oppression of our people from the top. It is self evident and requires no further commentary. I have drawn attention to these facts, just to point that we have complementry development documents and U******'s might just be another important addition. But I will just make three quick observations: I do suscribe to his strategy of credit, it does exist even in the Igbo economic system, and in Mbaise it is called "nna na aka". But we must reformulate the credit system, and not make the mistakes of western economic models which is currently leading them into a cul de sac: credit must revolve around production, and around a co-operative system rather than the "wall street model". The original methods of the stock exchange that transformed Western systems of economic exchange is what we must get back to. Three we must go back to redesign our school system to create, not consumers - both in the cultural and material sense - but producers. I also think that we mus re-invaginate dissent into our democratic structures, and begin to teach our children the authentic philosophies of self-respect, and respect for humanity and for the race. That would renew them, not damage them permanently. For too long we have been guided by the ethic of "Ike" (power) which is destructive.We must return to the humane ethic of the Igbo, and realize that the race that survives is not one in which the hawks roam the sky.The igbo consciousness is in fact suspicious of the powerful, especially the absolutely powerful. The story of Anukili n'Umugama is a valid Igbo eschatology. The Igbo religious system, based on the Eri canon is based on "udo" - peace (see Angulu Onwuejiogwu). "Onye biri onye biri". In this case, Igbo land. The destruction o the Igbo ethic would mean, the destruction of Igbo identity - an issue that the erudite MJC Echeruo addressed in his Ahiajoku lectures in 1979. I guess my point is, that while we need an economic and political program, we also need a cultural program, in order to empower the sense of our mission as a people. For instance what did Azikiwe mean when he declared in Aba in 1947 that God has kept the Igbo to lead the black peoples out of the bond of ages?. What did he mean when he said that the Igbos would rule the world because they "did not succumb to the carthaginian treaty". These are questions of identity philosophy, the same that has engaged the western mind from Kant, Nieztche, Hegel, to Hume and even the contemporary Fukuyama, all of them theorists in the tradition of European enlightenment - the basis of the western dominance of the world in the last 500 years!. We must begin the spade work. The road is long...
___________________ Awo's political idea was based on the assumption that any town beyond Owo was Igbo or Hausa. Awo was not socialised; he was not a good mixer because he did not have the opportunity, which the secondary school offered. ~TOS Benson, Baba Oba of Lagos
quote:He also assured his supporters that there would not be any form of marginalisation in Biafraland noting that, "the first Biafran President will not come from the Igbo speaking areas."
___________________ Awo's political idea was based on the assumption that any town beyond Owo was Igbo or Hausa. Awo was not socialised; he was not a good mixer because he did not have the opportunity, which the secondary school offered. ~TOS Benson, Baba Oba of Lagos Posts: 2644 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Jude Olisa, Sorry for not responding earlier. As for Ekpo, he is wasting his time looking for reasons to create hatred between Igbos and their neighbors.
THE Easterners should unite or else we will always find ourselves powerless. It's a shame that the so called Nigerdelta has been turned into a battle field. The Ijaw, Urhobo, Itsekiris must realise that they can't talk about injustice when they out there in the streets murdering eachther over stupid reasons.
No matter what people say about the relationship between Igbos and their neighbors we are all genetically related to eachother. I myself has Efik/Ibibio blood in me. My own relatives are 50/50 efik and Igbo.
South South and SouthEast must work together peacefully.
Ndigbo have done no and should not entertain any feeling of wrongdoing to the minorities ethnic groups in the then eastern Nigeria. If I had enough time in my hand, I could give few detailed history of the interaction between Ndigbo and minority neighbors. Every ethnic group has few straits other ethnic groups lacked. What you may regard as brash and arrogant, I term as tenacity. It is an aberration for sundiatta to insinuate that Ndigbo should own up to the wrongdoing done to Chief Eyo Ita in 1953. Let me make it clear that the polity in Nigeria leading to the independence was laden with tribal, regional and colonial political tussles. When the politicians of western and northern regions were emphatically telling the minorities in among them who owns the land, the eastern regional politicians were promoting the minorities in their midst in any form or shape. In the west, the Egbe Omo Oduduwa demanded the schools in then Mid-western region be taught in Yourba language. Even Oba of Benin, Akezua II was not regarded as a first class chief by regional government in Ibadan. In the north, the Fualnis and Kanuris manhandled the Hausas and Tivs. Of course, the eastern Nigerian was a heaven for the minorities. People like Eyo Ita, Margaret Ekpo, A.U Akpan, Graham Duaglas, S.E Imoke, Chief Frank Opigo, Chief Kubani and Chief E. O. Bassey held leadership positions in the government. Even Obong of Calaber was the leader in the house of chiefs. The trouble of eastern started when crude oil was struck in the region about 1951. The study by the British proved that eastern region will be the most viable piece of real estate in the entire British colony including India. Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe was a young dynamic intellectual who has joined the fight against British continued colonization in Africa. When Zik’s program to create political arena devoid of any tribal politics failed woefully in western region, he retreated to his home base. In Enugu, Zik never requested to be the premier rather he setup a plan that would further make eastern region an economic powerhouse. He initiated the motion to create ACB (African Continental Bank) from the fund allocated to eastern Nigerian financial board. The moment the opponents of Zik, British and northern Nigerian included, found out that eastern Nigeria is on her way to economic greatness, they setup plan to destabilize it. A plan was hashed to blackmail Zik financially with the intention to destroy his political ambitions. One of the agents used in this grand plan was Chief Eyo Ita. It could be recalled that due to financial circumstances that led to the formation of ACB, Chief Eyo Ita and his cronies moved a motion of financial improprieties against Zik. But this motion was dead on arrival as prominent Ibibio political stalwarts in the legislature did not joined him in this political suicide. This political transgression was not taken lightly by other members of N.C.N.C. as Ita was declared persona non-grata. Chief Eyo Ita joined Action Group (AG) which was another detractor of eastern region. I am one Igbo man who does not care much about the minorities in the eastern Nigeria except for the Ibibios and Annangs. The abandon property was not instigated in any part of Nigeria but Rivers State. Also, the excision of crude oil producing areas of Igboland to the communities of the ethnic minority in Rivers State is another pointer. Ironically, the only thing constant in this world is change. Nigeria may not remain as currently constituted forever.
Posts: 28 | From: U.S.A | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
This is my first time in this site and I like what I have seen so far - people who still remember that we are just foreigners under Nigeria and still with hope of independent Biafra. But as most of you guys said already, for us to be successful in this our quest to regain our independence, we have to be and start acting as one Biafra, no matter whether you are Ibo or Ibibos etc. It is of my opinion that one of the reasons why we lost the war was that we were not united as one. So we cannot make the same mistake again. We should learn from our mistake, then unite as one and take back what belong to us which is the Federal Republic of Biafra
[ March 29, 2004, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: Mekus ]
Posts: 1 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Egede1....i like all you said,they are just plain and truthful,asof other contributors to this trend,men you guys are great bros and sis....Keep the flame burning till we actualize our course.
___________________ Udo ga adi Posts: 74 | From: Biafra | Registered: Nov 2006
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