During the presidential media chat on Wednesday 30th December 2015, Nigerian President Muhammed Buhari said that Igbos were not maltreated, and should stop screaming marginalization.
Speaking of the continue protests and struggle for the realization on Biafra Republic in parts of the South East and South South, the former miliary head of state said:
“Why does it have to worry me, when I have militants, Boko Haram and other. They said they are being marginalsed but they haven’t defined the extent of their marginalisation. Who marginalised them? How? Where? Do you know?,” he queried.”Who is the minister of state for petroleum, is he not Igbo? Who is the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria? Is he not Igbo? Who is minister of labour, science and technology? What do the Igbos want?”

And now, Obi Nwakanma, a Poet, journalist, biographer and literary critic, has written an article in answer to the question, “What do the Igbos want?”

Enjoy:

In Biafra, under three years, they were making their own rockets and calculating its distances; distilling their own oil and making aviation fuel, creating in their Chemical and Biological laboratories, new cures for diseases like Cholera, shaping their own spare parts, and turning the entire East into a vast workshop, as Ojukwu put it.

At the end of the war, the Ukpabi Asika regime brought together these Biafran scientists and set up PRODA. The initiative led, in the first five years between 1970-1975 under the late Prof. Gordian Ezekwe and Mang Ndukwe, to designs of industrial machinery models and prototypes for the East Central State Industrial Masterplan, which remain undeveloped even today. The Murtala/Obasanjo regime took over PRODA in 1975 by decree, starved it of funds, and basically destroyed its aims.



2ndly, Federal government policies centralized all potentials for innovation and entrepreneurship. Before 1983, states had their Ministries of Trade and Industry. These were charged with local business registration, trade, and investment promotion, and so on. But today in Nigeria, if you wish to do any business, you’d have to go to Abuja (it used to be Lagos) to register under the Corporate Affairs Commission. It used to be that local business registration was state and municipal functions. The concentration of the leverage for trade utterly limited Igbo entrepreneurs, particularly in the era of import licensing, once your quota was exhausted, you could not do business.

This affected the old Igbo money in Aba and Onitsha, who were the arrow-heads of innovation and traditional partners in the advance of Igbo industrial economy. It is remarkable that as at 1985, a least by a book published by the Oxford Economist Tom Forrest in 1980, The Advance of African Capital, the Igbo had the highest investment in machine tools industries in all of Africa, and the highest depth of investment in rural, cottage industries. In his prediction in 1980, if that rate of investment continued, according to Forrest in 1980, the Igbo part of Africa would accomplish an industrial revolution by 1987. Now, by 1983/85, Federal government policies helped to dismantle the growth of indigenous Igbo Industry through its targeted national economic policies. As I have said, there is a corollary between industrial development and innovation.

3rdly, the severe, strategic staunching of huge capital in-flow into the East starved Igbo businesses and institutions of the capacity to utilize or even expand their capacities. There were no strategic Federal Capital projects in the East. There were no huge infrastructural investments in the East. The last major Federal government investment in Igbo land was the Niger Bridge which was commissioned in 1966. Any region starved of government funds experiences catatony and attrition. Private capital is often not enough to create the kind of synergy necessary for innovation. Rather than invest in the East, from 1970 to date, the Federal government has strategically closed down every capacity for technological advancement in the East and stripped that region of its capacity.

By 1966, the Eastern Nigerian Gas masterplan had been completed under Okpara. But in its review of a Nigeria gas masterplan, the Federal government strategically circumvented the East. Oil and Gas are under Federal oversight. The Trans-Amadi to Aba Industrial Gas network/linkage had been completed in 1966, to pipe gas from Port-Harcourt to Aba. The Federal government let that go into abeyance and uprooted the already reticulated pipes. The East was denied access to energy with the destruction of the Power stations during the war.

The Mbakwe government sought to remedy this by embarking on two highly critical area of investment necessary for industrial life: the 5 Zonal water projects, which were 75 completed by 1983, and set for commissioning in 1984, which was to supply clean water for domestic and industrial use to all parts of the old Imo state, and the Amaraku and Izombe Power stations, under the Imo Rural Electrification Project. These were the first ever massive independent power projects ever carried out by any state government in Nigeria which would have made significant part of Igbo land energy independent today. The supply of daily electricity was possible in Imo as at 1984. The Amaraku station had come on stream, and the Izombe Gas station was underway, when Buhari and his men struck.

The first order of business under the Buhari govt in January 1984, was to declare all that investment by Mbakwe “white elephant projects.” They were abandoned, and left to decay.

Ground had already been acquired and cleared on the Umuahia-Okigwe road to commence work by the South Korean Auto firm, Hyundai, under a partnership with Imo for the Hyundai Assembly plant in Umuahia, to cater to a West African market. The first order of business under the Buhari government in January 1984, was to declare all that investment by Mbakwe “white elephant projects.” They were abandoned, and left to decay. The equipment at the Amaraku power station was later sold in parts by Joe Aneke during Abacha’s government. Some of the industries like the Paint and Resins company, and the Aluminium Extrusion plant in Inyishi were privatized, and sold. Projects like the massive Ezinachi Clay & Brick works at Okigwe are at various stages of decay, as memorial to all that effort.

4thly, you may not remember but Odumegwu Ojukwu founded and opened the first Nigerian University of Technology – the University of Technology Port-Harcourt in 1967, under the leadership of prof. Kenneth Dike. He had also compelled Shell to establish the First Petroleum Technology Training Institute in Port-Harcourt in 1966. All these were dismantled. The PTI was take from Port-Harcourt to Warri, while University of Tech, P/H was reduced to a campus of UNN, until 1975, when it became Uniport. You will recall that for years, up till 1981, the only institutions of higher learning in Central Eastern Nigeria were the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, IMT Enugu and Alvan Ikoku College of Ed, in Owerri. There is no innovation without centers of strategic research.
Mbakwe and Jim Nwobodo changed all that in 1981, when they pushed through their various states Assembly, the bills establishing the old Anambra State Univ. of Tech (ASUTHECH), under the presidency of Kenneth Dike, and the IMOSU with its five campuses under the presidency of Prof MJC Echeruo. The master plan for these universities as epicenters of research and innovation in the East were effectively grounded with the second coming of the military in 1984, and the diminution of their mission through underfunding, etc. As I have said, I have given you the very short version. After a brief glimpse of light between 1979-83, Igbo land witnessed the highest form of attrition from 1983- date, and the destruction of the efforts of its public leadership to restore it to its feet has been strategic.

Some have been intimidated, and the Igbo themselves have grown very cynical from that experience of deep alienation from Nigeria. I think you should be a little less cynical of Igbo attempts to re-situate themselves in the Nigerian federation: starved of funds, starved of investments, subjected to regulatory strictures from a powerful central government which sees the East in adversarial terms, and often threatened, the Igbo themselves grew cynical of it all. You may recall, the first move by the governors of the former Eastern Region to meet under the aegis of the old Eastern Region’s Governors Conference in 1999, was basically checkmated by Obasanjo who threatened them after they called for confederation in response to the Sharia issue in the North.

Their attempts to establish liaison offices in Enugu and create a regional partnership was considered very threatening by the federal government under Obasanjo, that not too long after, they abandoned that move, and that was it. If people cannot be allowed to organize for the good of their constituents, then it only means one thing: it is not in the interest of certain vested interests in Nigeria for a return of a common ground in the Eastern part of Nigeria because establishing that kind of common ground threatens the balance of power. It is even immaterial if such a common ground leads to Nigeria’s ultimate benefit. There are people who just find the idea of a common, progressive partnership of the old Eastern Region threatening to their own long term interests. This is precisely what is going on – its undercurrent. This of course cannot be permitted to go on forever. A generation arises which often says, “No! in Thunder.”

The Trans-Amadi to Aba Industrial Gas network/linkage

had been completed in 1966, to pipe gas from Port

Harcourt to Aba. The FG let that go into abeyance and

uprooted the already reticulated pipes.

Igbo population is quite huge, and people who truly know understand that the Igbo constitute the single largest ethnic nation in Nigeria. Much has been made about how this so-called “small” Igbo land space could accommodate the vast Igbo population. But People also forget that Igbo land accommodated Igbo who fled from everywhere else in 1967. So, the question of whether Igbo land is large enough to contain the Igbo is a non-issue. In any case, Biafra is not only the land of the Igbo. It goes far beyond Igbo land. But even for the sake of building scenarios, we stick to Igbo land alone – the great Igbo cities of Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Owerri, Aba, Onitsha, Asaba, Abakaliki, Umuahia, Awka and Onitsha are yet to be reach even 30% of their capacities.

New arteries can be built, facilities expanded; there are innovative ways of moving populations through new transportation platforms -underneath, above, on the surface, and by waterways. The East of Nigeria has one of the most complex and connected, and largely disused system of natural river waterways in the world. New, ecologically habitable towns can be expanded to form new cities from the Grade A Townships – Agbor, Obiaruku, Aboh, Oguta, Mgbidi, Orlu, Ihiala, Amawbia/Ekwuluobia, Elele/Ahoada, Owerrinta, Bonny, Asa, Arochukwu, Afikpo, Okigwe, and so on. The Igbo will be fine. The Japanese and the Dutch, for example, have proved that there are innovative ways of using constricted space.

As for the economy: it is supply and demand. New economic policies will integrated Igbo economy to the central West African and West African Markets. The Igbo will create a new vast export network, unhindered by idiotic economic and foreign policies. The re-activation of the PH port systems will for e.g. open the closed economic corridor once and for all to global trade. As anybody knows, it might take a fast train no more than 45 minutes to move goods from the Warri or Sapele ports to Aba and even in less time to Onitsha. As Diette Spiff once observed while playing golf at Oguta, all it would take to connect Warri and Oguta is just a long bridge, and the vast economic movement will commence between Warri and its traditional trading areas of Onitsha and the rest of the East.

The quantum of economic activity will see the growth of that corridor between Aba-Oguta- Obiaruku down to Warri as the crow flies. The impact of trade between the Calabar ports and Aba will explode. In fact, the old trading stations along the Qua-Iboe River (the Cross River) at Arochukwu, Afikpo, down to Oron and Mamfe in the Cameroons will explode and create new prosperity and new opportunities. I am giving the short version. So, the Igbo will be alright. They would simply be just able to define their own development strategies, deploy their highly trained manpower currently wasting unutilized, and the basis of its vast middle class will create new consumers, and generate an internal energy that will thrive on Igbo innovation, industry, and know-how, which Nigeria currently suppresses. This is exactly one very possible scenario.

So, Tanko Yakassi is wrong. May be if the Igbo leave Kano, the Emir will no longer need to buy his bulb from an Igbo trader in Kano. He will have to buy it either from an Hausa, a Fulani, a Lebanese, or some such person. But those will have to come to Igbo land to buy it first before selling to the Emir. There was a time when all of West Africa came to Onitsha or Aba to buy and trade because it was safe, and those cities were the largest market emporia in the continent. People came from as far away as the Congo to buy stuff in Aba and sell in the Congo. It could happen again, only this time on a vaster, more controlled scale. The network of Igbo global trade will not stop if they left Nigeria. In fact, they will have more access to an indigenous credit system that would expand that trade, currently unobtainable and unavailable today to them, because Nigeria makes it impossible for Igbo business to grow through all kinds of restrictions strategically imposed on it, including port restrictions.

However, although I do think that the Igbo would do quite well alone, they could do a lot better with Nigeria, if the conditions are right. This agitation is for the conditions to be made right; for Nigeria and its political and economic policies to stop being a wedge on Igbo aspirations. And Igbo aspiration is quite simple: to match the rest of the developed world inch by every inch, and not to be held down by the Nigerian millstone of corruption, inefficiency, and inferiority. The Igbo think that control of their public policies on education, research and innovation, economic and monetary policies, and recruitment, control and deployment of its own work force both in public and private sectors will give them the leverage they need to build a coherent and civilized society.

They point to the example of Biafra, where under three years, they were making their own rockets and calculating its distances; distilling their own oil and making aviation fuel, creating in their Chemical and Biological laboratories, new cures for diseases like Cholera, shaping their own spare parts, and turning the entire East into a vast workshop, as Ojukwu put it, while Nigeria was busy doing owambe, importing even toothpick, and creating new wartime millionaires from corrupt contracting systems by a powerful oligopoly. It is a fallacy much driven by ignorance that Igbo will not thrive and that Igbo land will not accommodate Igbo population if they leave. That is not true. There is no scientific basis for it.

The dynamics of human movement will take great care of all that. It’s a lame excuse. What people who wish for Nigeria to stay together should do is not to make such puerile statements, because it is meaningless. What we should all do is to find the strategic means of containing Igbo discontent by LISTENING to the Igbo, and seeking peaceful and productive ways of fully freeing their energy to instigate growth both of themselves and of Nigeria within Nigeria for everyone’s benefit. Threatening them will not work. It has never worked, and it is important to understand a bit of Igbo cultural psychology: the more you threaten him, the more the Igbo person digs in very stubbornly. Igbo, with a long tradition of diplomacy, thrive on consensus not on threat of the use of force, or the like.

Frankly, those who continue to think that the Igbo have no options are yet to understand the complexity of this movement as we speak. They still look at the surface of events while the train is revving and about to leave the station. We need to work very carefully on this issue. I myself, I prefer Nigeria. I like its color of many peoples and cultures. That in itself is the very condition for growth and regeneration. A single Igbo nation may be more prosperous, but will be less interesting, and that is the more valid argument.

By Obi Nwakanma

http://oblongmedia.net/2016/01/02/buhari-what-do-igbos-want-obi-nwakanma-writes-a-response/

Nti chiri bubu

Interesting

Inasmuch as I am a firm supporter of self-determination, I refuse to buy into the blame game the author of this article is trying to play.
What did the S/Eastern governors do with all the monthly allocations?
Does it means that the S/East won't develop without d actualization of Biafra?
Just asking.

mistarsam:
Inasmuch as I am a firm supporter of self-determination, I refuse to buy into the blame game the author of this article is trying to play.
What did the S/Eastern governors do with all the monthly allocations?
Does it means that the S/East won't develop without d actualization of Biafra?
Just asking.

The Southeast governors have been underperforming because like other governors in Nigerian federation are under the same cloud of badly structured country where no person is held accountable for his actions.

How I wish PMB ll be creative with this artical and make Nigeria one...

iykecicero:


The Southeast governors have been underperforming because like other governors in Nigerian federation are under the same cloud of badly structured country where no person is held accountable for his actions.

Since we know who d culprits are, I think d most reasonable and expedient thing to do is to beam 'your' searchlight on them instead
IMHO, the elites will still find their way back into leadership positions if Biafra is eventually actualized.
And the story will still remain the same af hole cession drama.

iykecicero:


The Southeast governors have been underperforming because like other governors in Nigerian federation are under the same cloud of badly structured country where no person is held accountable for his actions.

Since we know who d culprits are, I think d most reasonable and expedient thing to do is to beam 'your' searchlight on them instead
IMHO, the elites will still find their way back into leadership positions if Biafra is eventually actualized.
And the story will still remain the same after d whole secession drama.

Its pains me when people don't understand the nature and dynamics of igbo political structure and philosophy, which is as old as igbo itself.

In igboland, we consider heads in leadership not one head. We consider sole rulership as enemy. Consider the word Ezebuilo .
Igbo enweghi Eze I.e igbo not igbos do not have king.

Consider 'madu bu chi ibeya I.e man is god to his fellow man, meaning that even the destiny of a man with the king title lies in the hands of his fellow igbo.

My point is this, the igbos have a way of ruling themselves and ensuring peace and tranqulity. The so called Nigerian leaders of igbo extraction will NEVER command the amount of
Power and authority they have in Nigeria in the proposed Biafra. Its will never be like that.

Do you know that these igbo politicians may not be at peace with their clan men or even village, some of them are even ignored when they return home. Do you know that they may have close cousins that have never begged them for one naira.
That is the power of self determination. Every igbo man believes he can achieve any level of success, regardless his current situation.

He stays puts and drink his garri rather than being a beggar. Its only in igbo land that I have seen young people challenge a rich man saying he has eaten their luck, that's is why he returns every december to kill cow for the villagers.
He dares to challenge the rich man, if he must always be the one to buy cow every year, he dares him to a bet, that he will be the one to kill cow for the villagers next year.

These are practical things that happen in igboland. Instead of turning Alamajiri for one Alhaji, he sets off koboless to Lagos and Abuja, and returns home after a year with hummer jeep.

If I were Nigeria, I will allow the igbo man be !

Biko ha hapu anyi ka anyi Jebere onwe anyi ha juo . Odighi Nma

mistarsam:

Since we know who d culprits are, I think d most reasonable and expedient thing to do is to beam 'your' searchlight on them instead
IMHO, the elites will still find their way back into leadership positions if Biafra is eventually actualized.
And the story will still remain the same after d whole secession drama.

Beam which searchlight?
With whose agency?
British agency or nigerian agency?

this is the article of the year BIAFRA will be achieved some days

walahi Buhari wil not read al dis he wl only listen to rumour

wordcat:


Beam which searchlight?
With whose agency?
British agency or nigerian agency?

sorry for being ambigous. what i mean is putting them on their toes.
radio biafra for example, could have been used to raise the level of political awareness of d south easterners instead of being a pirate radio.
something in the mould of wikileaks - exposing the excesses of d igbo leaders/elites
easier said than done though

iykecicero:
During the presidential media chat on Wednesday 30th December 2015, Nigerian President Muhammed Buhari said that Igbos were not maltreated, and should stop screaming marginalization.
Speaking of the continue protests and struggle for the realization on Biafra Republic in parts of the South East and South South, the former miliary head of state said:
“Why does it have to worry me, when I have militants, Boko Haram and other. They said they are being marginalsed but they haven’t defined the extent of their marginalisation. Who marginalised them? How? Where? Do you know?,” he queried.”Who is the minister of state for petroleum, is he not Igbo? Who is the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria? Is he not Igbo? Who is minister of labour, science and technology? What do the Igbos want?”

And now, Obi Nwakanma, a Poet, journalist, biographer and literary critic, has written an article in answer to the question, “What do the Igbos want?”

Enjoy:

In Biafra, under three years, they were making their own rockets and calculating its distances; distilling their own oil and making aviation fuel, creating in their Chemical and Biological laboratories, new cures for diseases like Cholera, shaping their own spare parts, and turning the entire East into a vast workshop, as Ojukwu put it.

At the end of the war, the Ukpabi Asika regime brought together these Biafran scientists and set up PRODA. The initiative led, in the first five years between 1970-1975 under the late Prof. Gordian Ezekwe and Mang Ndukwe, to designs of industrial machinery models and prototypes for the East Central State Industrial Masterplan, which remain undeveloped even today. The Murtala/Obasanjo regime took over PRODA in 1975 by decree, starved it of funds, and basically destroyed its aims.



2ndly, Federal government policies centralized all potentials for innovation and entrepreneurship. Before 1983, states had their Ministries of Trade and Industry. These were charged with local business registration, trade, and investment promotion, and so on. But today in Nigeria, if you wish to do any business, you’d have to go to Abuja (it used to be Lagos) to register under the Corporate Affairs Commission. It used to be that local business registration was state and municipal functions. The concentration of the leverage for trade utterly limited Igbo entrepreneurs, particularly in the era of import licensing, once your quota was exhausted, you could not do business.

This affected the old Igbo money in Aba and Onitsha, who were the arrow-heads of innovation and traditional partners in the advance of Igbo industrial economy. It is remarkable that as at 1985, a least by a book published by the Oxford Economist Tom Forrest in 1980, The Advance of African Capital, the Igbo had the highest investment in machine tools industries in all of Africa, and the highest depth of investment in rural, cottage industries. In his prediction in 1980, if that rate of investment continued, according to Forrest in 1980, the Igbo part of Africa would accomplish an industrial revolution by 1987. Now, by 1983/85, Federal government policies helped to dismantle the growth of indigenous Igbo Industry through its targeted national economic policies. As I have said, there is a corollary between industrial development and innovation.

3rdly, the severe, strategic staunching of huge capital in-flow into the East starved Igbo businesses and institutions of the capacity to utilize or even expand their capacities. There were no strategic Federal Capital projects in the East. There were no huge infrastructural investments in the East. The last major Federal government investment in Igbo land was the Niger Bridge which was commissioned in 1966. Any region starved of government funds experiences catatony and attrition. Private capital is often not enough to create the kind of synergy necessary for innovation. Rather than invest in the East, from 1970 to date, the Federal government has strategically closed down every capacity for technological advancement in the East and stripped that region of its capacity.

By 1966, the Eastern Nigerian Gas masterplan had been completed under Okpara. But in its review of a Nigeria gas masterplan, the Federal government strategically circumvented the East. Oil and Gas are under Federal oversight. The Trans-Amadi to Aba Industrial Gas network/linkage had been completed in 1966, to pipe gas from Port-Harcourt to Aba. The Federal government let that go into abeyance and uprooted the already reticulated pipes. The East was denied access to energy with the destruction of the Power stations during the war.

The Mbakwe government sought to remedy this by embarking on two highly critical area of investment necessary for industrial life: the 5 Zonal water projects, which were 75 completed by 1983, and set for commissioning in 1984, which was to supply clean water for domestic and industrial use to all parts of the old Imo state, and the Amaraku and Izombe Power stations, under the Imo Rural Electrification Project. These were the first ever massive independent power projects ever carried out by any state government in Nigeria which would have made significant part of Igbo land energy independent today. The supply of daily electricity was possible in Imo as at 1984. The Amaraku station had come on stream, and the Izombe Gas station was underway, when Buhari and his men struck.

The first order of business under the Buhari govt in January 1984, was to declare all that investment by Mbakwe “white elephant projects.” They were abandoned, and left to decay.

Ground had already been acquired and cleared on the Umuahia-Okigwe road to commence work by the South Korean Auto firm, Hyundai, under a partnership with Imo for the Hyundai Assembly plant in Umuahia, to cater to a West African market. The first order of business under the Buhari government in January 1984, was to declare all that investment by Mbakwe “white elephant projects.” They were abandoned, and left to decay. The equipment at the Amaraku power station was later sold in parts by Joe Aneke during Abacha’s government. Some of the industries like the Paint and Resins company, and the Aluminium Extrusion plant in Inyishi were privatized, and sold. Projects like the massive Ezinachi Clay & Brick works at Okigwe are at various stages of decay, as memorial to all that effort.

4thly, you may not remember but Odumegwu Ojukwu founded and opened the first Nigerian University of Technology – the University of Technology Port-Harcourt in 1967, under the leadership of prof. Kenneth Dike. He had also compelled Shell to establish the First Petroleum Technology Training Institute in Port-Harcourt in 1966. All these were dismantled. The PTI was take from Port-Harcourt to Warri, while University of Tech, P/H was reduced to a campus of UNN, until 1975, when it became Uniport. You will recall that for years, up till 1981, the only institutions of higher learning in Central Eastern Nigeria were the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, IMT Enugu and Alvan Ikoku College of Ed, in Owerri. There is no innovation without centers of strategic research.
Mbakwe and Jim Nwobodo changed all that in 1981, when they pushed through their various states Assembly, the bills establishing the old Anambra State Univ. of Tech (ASUTHECH), under the presidency of Kenneth Dike, and the IMOSU with its five campuses under the presidency of Prof MJC Echeruo. The master plan for these universities as epicenters of research and innovation in the East were effectively grounded with the second coming of the military in 1984, and the diminution of their mission through underfunding, etc. As I have said, I have given you the very short version. After a brief glimpse of light between 1979-83, Igbo land witnessed the highest form of attrition from 1983- date, and the destruction of the efforts of its public leadership to restore it to its feet has been strategic.

Some have been intimidated, and the Igbo themselves have grown very cynical from that experience of deep alienation from Nigeria. I think you should be a little less cynical of Igbo attempts to re-situate themselves in the Nigerian federation: starved of funds, starved of investments, subjected to regulatory strictures from a powerful central government which sees the East in adversarial terms, and often threatened, the Igbo themselves grew cynical of it all. You may recall, the first move by the governors of the former Eastern Region to meet under the aegis of the old Eastern Region’s Governors Conference in 1999, was basically checkmated by Obasanjo who threatened them after they called for confederation in response to the Sharia issue in the North.

Their attempts to establish liaison offices in Enugu and create a regional partnership was considered very threatening by the federal government under Obasanjo, that not too long after, they abandoned that move, and that was it. If people cannot be allowed to organize for the good of their constituents, then it only means one thing: it is not in the interest of certain vested interests in Nigeria for a return of a common ground in the Eastern part of Nigeria because establishing that kind of common ground threatens the balance of power. It is even immaterial if such a common ground leads to Nigeria’s ultimate benefit. There are people who just find the idea of a common, progressive partnership of the old Eastern Region threatening to their own long term interests. This is precisely what is going on – its undercurrent. This of course cannot be permitted to go on forever. A generation arises which often says, “No! in Thunder.”

The Trans-Amadi to Aba Industrial Gas network/linkage

had been completed in 1966, to pipe gas from Port

Harcourt to Aba. The FG let that go into abeyance and

uprooted the already reticulated pipes.

Igbo population is quite huge, and people who truly know understand that the Igbo constitute the single largest ethnic nation in Nigeria. Much has been made about how this so-called “small” Igbo land space could accommodate the vast Igbo population. But People also forget that Igbo land accommodated Igbo who fled from everywhere else in 1967. So, the question of whether Igbo land is large enough to contain the Igbo is a non-issue. In any case, Biafra is not only the land of the Igbo. It goes far beyond Igbo land. But even for the sake of building scenarios, we stick to Igbo land alone – the great Igbo cities of Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Owerri, Aba, Onitsha, Asaba, Abakaliki, Umuahia, Awka and Onitsha are yet to be reach even 30% of their capacities.

New arteries can be built, facilities expanded; there are innovative ways of moving populations through new transportation platforms -underneath, above, on the surface, and by waterways. The East of Nigeria has one of the most complex and connected, and largely disused system of natural river waterways in the world. New, ecologically habitable towns can be expanded to form new cities from the Grade A Townships – Agbor, Obiaruku, Aboh, Oguta, Mgbidi, Orlu, Ihiala, Amawbia/Ekwuluobia, Elele/Ahoada, Owerrinta, Bonny, Asa, Arochukwu, Afikpo, Okigwe, and so on. The Igbo will be fine. The Japanese and the Dutch, for example, have proved that there are innovative ways of using constricted space.

As for the economy: it is supply and demand. New economic policies will integrated Igbo economy to the central West African and West African Markets. The Igbo will create a new vast export network, unhindered by idiotic economic and foreign policies. The re-activation of the PH port systems will for e.g. open the closed economic corridor once and for all to global trade. As anybody knows, it might take a fast train no more than 45 minutes to move goods from the Warri or Sapele ports to Aba and even in less time to Onitsha. As Diette Spiff once observed while playing golf at Oguta, all it would take to connect Warri and Oguta is just a long bridge, and the vast economic movement will commence between Warri and its traditional trading areas of Onitsha and the rest of the East.

The quantum of economic activity will see the growth of that corridor between Aba-Oguta- Obiaruku down to Warri as the crow flies. The impact of trade between the Calabar ports and Aba will explode. In fact, the old trading stations along the Qua-Iboe River (the Cross River) at Arochukwu, Afikpo, down to Oron and Mamfe in the Cameroons will explode and create new prosperity and new opportunities. I am giving the short version. So, the Igbo will be alright. They would simply be just able to define their own development strategies, deploy their highly trained manpower currently wasting unutilized, and the basis of its vast middle class will create new consumers, and generate an internal energy that will thrive on Igbo innovation, industry, and know-how, which Nigeria currently suppresses. This is exactly one very possible scenario.

So, Tanko Yakassi is wrong. May be if the Igbo leave Kano, the Emir will no longer need to buy his bulb from an Igbo trader in Kano. He will have to buy it either from an Hausa, a Fulani, a Lebanese, or some such person. But those will have to come to Igbo land to buy it first before selling to the Emir. There was a time when all of West Africa came to Onitsha or Aba to buy and trade because it was safe, and those cities were the largest market emporia in the continent. People came from as far away as the Congo to buy stuff in Aba and sell in the Congo. It could happen again, only this time on a vaster, more controlled scale. The network of Igbo global trade will not stop if they left Nigeria. In fact, they will have more access to an indigenous credit system that would expand that trade, currently unobtainable and unavailable today to them, because Nigeria makes it impossible for Igbo business to grow through all kinds of restrictions strategically imposed on it, including port restrictions.

However, although I do think that the Igbo would do quite well alone, they could do a lot better with Nigeria, if the conditions are right. This agitation is for the conditions to be made right; for Nigeria and its political and economic policies to stop being a wedge on Igbo aspirations. And Igbo aspiration is quite simple: to match the rest of the developed world inch by every inch, and not to be held down by the Nigerian millstone of corruption, inefficiency, and inferiority. The Igbo think that control of their public policies on education, research and innovation, economic and monetary policies, and recruitment, control and deployment of its own work force both in public and private sectors will give them the leverage they need to build a coherent and civilized society.

They point to the example of Biafra, where under three years, they were making their own rockets and calculating its distances; distilling their own oil and making aviation fuel, creating in their Chemical and Biological laboratories, new cures for diseases like Cholera, shaping their own spare parts, and turning the entire East into a vast workshop, as Ojukwu put it, while Nigeria was busy doing owambe, importing even toothpick, and creating new wartime millionaires from corrupt contracting systems by a powerful oligopoly. It is a fallacy much driven by ignorance that Igbo will not thrive and that Igbo land will not accommodate Igbo population if they leave. That is not true. There is no scientific basis for it.

The dynamics of human movement will take great care of all that. It’s a lame excuse. What people who wish for Nigeria to stay together should do is not to make such puerile statements, because it is meaningless. What we should all do is to find the strategic means of containing Igbo discontent by LISTENING to the Igbo, and seeking peaceful and productive ways of fully freeing their energy to instigate growth both of themselves and of Nigeria within Nigeria for everyone’s benefit. Threatening them will not work. It has never worked, and it is important to understand a bit of Igbo cultural psychology: the more you threaten him, the more the Igbo person digs in very stubbornly. Igbo, with a long tradition of diplomacy, thrive on consensus not on threat of the use of force, or the like.

Frankly, those who continue to think that the Igbo have no options are yet to understand the complexity of this movement as we speak. They still look at the surface of events while the train is revving and about to leave the station. We need to work very carefully on this issue. I myself, I prefer Nigeria. I like its color of many peoples and cultures. That in itself is the very condition for growth and regeneration. A single Igbo nation may be more prosperous, but will be less interesting, and that is the more valid argument.

By Obi Nwakanma

http://oblongmedia.net/2016/01/02/buhari-what-do-igbos-want-obi-nwakanma-writes-a-response/

I swear, even the highly trained and academic elites of Ibo society are immature compared with their peers, say amongst Yoruba or Hausa.

What is this This professor or Dr or whatever he is wrote this chest beating and braggadocio as a show and tell to communicate how Ibo is marginalized. Really

So if you have the biggest diamond mine in the world that makes you marginalized? If you own Port Harcourt, Aba, Onistha, Asaba, Owerri, Enugu...that makes you marginalized? If Onitsha and Aba is the only place in the world where Fulani Emir can buy electric bulb then it makes Ibo marginalized? If America comes to Abakaliki market to purchase their aircraft carrier that makes you marginalized

Geez...this dude is mental!

In fact the poster that brought this Nwakanma poet here is delusional as well. This is no response to the issue of marginalization. This Nwankanma exposed himself as a sympathiser of the defunct Biafran movement and a supporter of treasonable actions against the nation.

If every society list what they have done to move their society forward all these items he listed will have the Ibo trailing the rest.

Facts were laid bare and u call it chest beating. Is the current status quo any good? The simple gist of what the author stated is that the Igbos function best on a level ground where hard work n merit are respected n rewarded. The other developed countries did not get to where they are by the sick kind of Federal structure operated in Nigeria.

It is best to work with people of like minds and beliefs. This pull-him-down syndrome u just manifested by ur comment is what makes u see achievemens n possibilities of the Igbos as bragging. That is why an Igbo man will go somewhere, establish n develop his business and expand. Years later,after land owners have willingly exchanged their lands for money in simple business transactions u turn around and call Igbos land grabbers with expansionist tendencies. Meanwhile they never killed or forced anyone out to occupy an area.

Nigeria can do better as separate countries entirely or autonomous federating units...it's time to do things differently for a change.

MayorofLagos:





I swear, even the highly trained and academic elites of Ibo society are immature compared with their peers, say amongst Yoruba or Hausa.

What is this This professor or Dr or whatever he is wrote this chest beating and braggadocio as a show and tell to communicate how Ibo is marginalized. Really

So if you have the biggest diamond mine in the world that makes you marginalized? If you own Port Harcourt, Aba, Onistha, Asaba, Owerri, Enugu...that makes you marginalized? If Onitsha and Aba is the only place in the world where Fulani Emir can buy electric bulb then it makes Ibo marginalized? If America comes to Abakaliki market to purchase their aircraft carrier that makes you marginalized

Geez...this dude is mental!

Am here.. Obj will nt go unpunished....

Exactly! So let everyone come up with theirs as he has done for the Igbos and let there be healthy competition with common goals! If they trail behind they simply go back to the drawing board and restrategise! Is there anything he said there that is a lie or impossible? Is self-determination a crime? Efforts made were truncated to d detriment of a people and u say it's not marginalization? What is it then?

Can the current Nigerian structure make any reasonable strides when people are constantly put down to make room for some less-qualified people in the name of federal character? The same federal character that is thrown aside at will to favour any tribe in power?

MayorofLagos:
In fact the poster that brought this Nwakanma poet here is delusional as well. This is no response to the issue of marginalization. This Nwankanma exposed himself as a sympathiser of the defunct Biafran movement and a supporter of treasonable actions against the nation.

If every society list what they have done to move their society forward all these items he listed will have the Ibo trailing the rest.

I dey come first, Na SCROLL be this ooooo

There is a problem with terminology,Eastern Nigeria meant Rivers Bayelsa Imo Abia Enugu Anambra Ebonyi Akwa Ibom and Cross River. That is what Eastern Nigeria meant so it was not confined to just Ibo land but we see this Ibo mind set that the East is Ibo and Ibo is the East so we can imagine what would have happened under Biafra.

Having said that there are several federal investments in the EAST including Highways ,Universities,airports etc Eboes should stop lying. Before the war Aba road from PH was a two lane road and not an expressway. Obasanjo built the PH Aba express road after the war in the seventies all the way to Enugu

kenny987:
Exactly! So let everyone come up with theirs as he has done for the Igbos and let there be healthy competition with common goals! If they trail behind they simply go back to the drawing board and restrategise! Is there anything he said there that is a lie or impossible? Is self-determination a crime? Efforts made were truncated to d detriment of a people and u say it's not marginalization? What is it then?

Can the current Nigerian structure make any reasonable strides when people are constantly put down to make room for some less-qualified people in the name of federal character? The same federal character that is thrown aside at will to favour any tribe in power?

The problem with Eboes is they lie so naturally

In 1979 9 years after the war The firsst election

Alex Ekwueme VP

Senate President Joe Wayas

Edwin Ume Ezeoke Speaker House of Reps


Which of them is Yoruba or Edo or Tiv Or Ijaw or Idoma or Kanuri

No one was saying Eboes waged war against us let us punish them. No the mood was to reconcile but Eboes are always greedy and vainglorious thinking they are better than anyone. In that government the Yoruba did not one day shout marginalization.

MayorofLagos:





I swear, even the highly trained and academic elites of Ibo society are immature compared with their peers, say amongst Yoruba or Hausa.

What is this This professor or Dr or whatever he is wrote this chest beating and braggadocio as a show and tell to communicate how Ibo is marginalized. Really

So if you have the biggest diamond mine in the world that makes you marginalized? If you own Port Harcourt, Aba, Onistha, Asaba, Owerri, Enugu...that makes you marginalized? If Onitsha and Aba is the only place in the world where Fulani Emir can buy electric bulb then it makes Ibo marginalized? If America comes to Abakaliki market to purchase their aircraft carrier that makes you marginalized

Geez...this dude is mental!

You exhibit lack of understanding, your poor attitude to reality and the truth: that's why Nigeria is going no where 50 years after independence.

Dem dey sell aircraft carrier for ONEETCHA?

kenny987:
Facts were laid bare and u call it chest beating. Is the current status quo any good? The simple gist of what the author stated is that the Igbos function best on a level ground where hard work n merit are respected n rewarded. The other developed countries did not get to where they are by the sick kind of Federal structure operated in Nigeria.

It is best to work with people of like minds and beliefs. This pull-him-down syndrome u just manifested by ur comment is what makes u see achievemens n possibilities of the Igbos as bragging. That is why an Igbo man will go somewhere, establish n develop his business and expand. Years later,after land owners have willingly exchanged their lands for money in simple business transactions u turn around and call Igbos land grabbers with expansionist tendencies. Meanwhile they never killed or forced anyone out to occupy an area.

Nigeria can do better as separate countries entirely or autonomous federating units...it's time to do things differently for a change.

If every ethnic group bared their facts and their grievances we will find Ibo at the root of all the problems that beleaguered this nation from its infancy in 1960.

Example...listen to what Nwankamna said about your Premier, Micharl Okpara.

He said Okpara had completed a plan in 1966 to pipe gas direct from PH to Iboland.

So, we should ask when did the plan start and who were the contractors that built this infrastructure?

Do you mind answering this question?

omonnakoda:
Dem dey sell aircraft carrier for ONEETCHA?

Ahh, from all accounts it goes that the best and only market in continental Africa is in Iboland. If the Emir of Kano cannot find bulb to buy anywhere else apart from an Ibo trader, does that not vindicate Ahmadu Bello's assertions about Ibos penchant for greediness and their ambition to dominate and rule over everybody?

Ibo wants a landscape where everyone depends on him for their livelihood. When denied the opportunity he sulks at being marginalized. Simple!

naijaking1:


You exhibit lack of understanding, your poor attitude to reality and the truth: that's why Nigeria is going no where 50 years after independence.

Nigeria cant go anywhere forward because everytime we take three steps forward Ibo drag us eight steps backward.

We just snatched Nigeria from your grips after running everything to the ground from 2011 to 2015. You ruined GEJs administration!

omonnakoda:


The problem with Eboes is they lie so naturally

In 1979 9 years after the war The firsst election

Alex Ekwueme VP

Senate President Joe Wayas

Edwin Ume Ezeoke Speaker House of Reps


Which of them is Yoruba or Edo or Tiv Or Ijaw or Idoma or Kanuri

No one was saying Eboes waged war against us let us punish them. No the mood was to reconcile but Eboes are always greedy and vainglorious thinking they are better than anyone. In that government the Yoruba did not one day shout marginalization.

Correct, thank u!

I still reiterate that biafran Igbos are making mockery of this their agitation.
To stay within a group and still think that only you is right thinking and others has no capacity to comprehend, in itself is a travesty and outright insult to the others.
When did they realized that they were marginalized and the cry of marginalization has turned to a 'talking tom'?
Probably after GEJ lost and the assumption of a man that they so much detest and wish he never become their leader.

Logically the most marginalized geopolitical zone in Nigeria is the North East and their not complaining.
Careful look at the past president of Nigeria both military or civilian will tell you that this people have never assumed the topmost seat of the Nigerian state. The same region that is ravaged by boko haram, deteriorated government institutions and near economic collapse.
Maybe when you see sane family living under a tree with a make shift tent in a scorched sun as against a modest bungalow in the south East you'll understand the true meaning of an oppressed, subjugated, suppressed, helpless and marginalized community.

kenny987:
Exactly! So let everyone come up with theirs as he has done for the Igbos and let there be healthy competition with common goals! If they trail behind they simply go back to the drawing board and restrategise! Is there anything he said there that is a lie or impossible? Is self-determination a crime? Efforts made were truncated to d detriment of a people and u say it's not marginalization? What is it then?

Can the current Nigerian structure make any reasonable strides when people are constantly put down to make room for some less-qualified people in the name of federal character? The same federal character that is thrown aside at will to favour any tribe in power?

As i already said, everyone's story will be a trajectory of forward movement until the point Ibo threw a curveball and truncated regional progress and fvkd it all up.

Even today Ibo is still fvckng up for everyone. Look how you go to every region of the country and try to usurp ethnic customs and society with your right to constitutional correctness. Which other ethnic group come to Iboland and misbehave? .....and when corrected start to quote constitution as if the law endorses bad behavior.

Leave marginalisation for IPOB jare