TRUTH UNADULTERATED ABOUT IGBO

"FOR THOSE WHO DON'T APPRECIATE WHERE IGBOS WERE COMING FROM:
By Ena Ofugara an Urhobo man.

How Much Respect Do You Show Igbos?
I am not Igbo. I am proud of my Urhobo. However, as a student of history, I wish to show just what these great people came/come against and yet thrive.

Okay, the incessant killings in the North will be glossed over so as to make this article not overly long. The civil war will also not be discussed.

However, post civil war, as I explained in my post MINORITY REPORT: THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED AGAINST YOU, the rich in Nigeria have major roots in the Indigenisation decree of 1972 and 1977.

I reminded people how the banks gave people of other tribes, predominantly Hausas and Yorubas loans to buy up companies owned by foreigners. Now imagine the Federal government forced Chevron to sell 51 percent of its shares and that Access Bank will give you loans to buy the shares.

How rich will you be in a year? 5 Years? That is how many Yorubas and Hausas got to own UAC, all those Dunlop, Leventis, Cadbury etc.
Now while this was ongoing, Gowon told the Nigerian banks to give TOPS twenty naira to any Igbo man that had money in the bank before the war. That is, if you had 5 naira before the war, you will be given the 5 naira. But if you had a hundred naira, you get just twenty naira in full fulfilment of the banks duty to give you your money.

Ask yourselves "why would the banks give Igbos only twenty naira? Did the banks collapse? So why pay less than you were given?

So while the banks were giving loans to Hausa and Yorubas to buy Oyibo companies they did not build, Igbos were being cheated out of their rightful moneys.

Now not also that these people lost Houses and business across the land. It is safe to say that as at 1970/71. the richest Igbo had 20 naira that may be the equivalent of maybe one million.
Let us look at how Dangote made his money. He Dagote (a great man and pride to Nigeria) has an uncle called Dantata who owned huge chunks of the groundnut pyramids of the 50's and 60's. He gave Dangote a loan and Dangote paid it back in record time. CLAP CLAP. Then add that Dangote has had his "brothers" in government, from Buhari, IBB to Abacha and Abdulsalaam.

When they now agreed to democracy, he was rich enough to have funded Obasanjo and so government policies, be it monopoly afforded him for rice, sugar flour and of course a large share of subsidy etc ensures he is the wealthiest Nigerian. (note that many had same opportunity but did not use it. We kowtow to Dangote's investment capabilities)

However, for the Igbo man, where will he see an uncle that will loan him money? The richest man in their family has how much as at then? So while Fani Kayode can inherit property of his father and grandfather and great grand father, a Chidi Kalu cannot inherit anything from his grandfather who had business in Kano or even Port Harcourt.

Neighbours have made his dad's storey building theirs, and even someone as educated as Saro Wiwa lived in an Igbo war emigrant house as his. (a sore point of the Niger Delta and Igbo Unity).

WAEC building was Ojukwu's dad's building and like that building, thousands and the lands with it....lands worth billions today were taken from Igbos and each and every Igbo had tops 20 naira, destroyed homeland, stolen and destroyed wealth away from the east. Also his brother is never president that will give him oil block or fuel lifting. Of 33, only one Igbo man and because he was in Obasanjo's good graces.

YET LOOK HOW PROUD THEY STAND TODAY!!! Look what they have achieved for themselves....FIRST GENERATION WEALTH...top second generation. From being unable to send their first sons to school so he could help look after the shop, to producing first class brains in all departments of modern learning.

So today, as you accuse Igbos of wanting their Biafra or of Baby Factory, or liking money and ready to do anything for money, remember that just forty years ago, while the banks were dashing your uncles loans to buy all the companies of Nigeria, it stole from the Igbos. Know that appointments have not favoured them.

Note that they remain persecuted and many speak such ill and hate towards a people forced by need to survive to be extra-aggressive towards their sustenance.

Maybe if you took their history into consideration, you will not be so critical of them, but instead say "what a resilient people" and give God the glory that FOR NOW, we and such a great people are compatriots.
Igbo Kwenu!"

nice one Ena

We have always been managing to survive, it's instinctive (resilience)

This is our story, we share it amongst ourselves.

But the sad ending, our over-zealous mods will close this topic very soon (tribalism)















Even on nl, Igbos are being depressed..

Great write up. Its a pity that they are their own biggest enemies

coolebux:
Just like you

Ain't we all?... am guilty as charged

eyeview:

It is a wrong notion to hold that view. I believe that notion was rather from outsiders than from within the igbo clime. And sadly,even many igbos are bending to believe it. But on the contrary,the igbos are the most united and brotherly in this nation. Let's take a few examples. Go and look at most successful entrepreneurs and businessmen of igbo extraction today,their stories all started with an uncle or so that took them from the village,brought them to town and introduced them to serve in their line of business or the other. That's empowerment in its purest form.You don't get that elsewhere.
Igbos are still the only people who will find themselves in diaspora and still converge monthly or weekly in wherever they are to continue their brotherly ties,keep abreast of happenings at home and periodically channel contributions home for developmental purposes,never forsaking their root.

I agree with you as well. The division is most accentuated not in business but in politics... and at the end of the day, politics is king

Suprnov3r:
Great write up. Its a pity that they are their own biggest enemies

It is a wrong notion to hold that view. I believe that notion was rather from outsiders than from within the igbo clime. And sadly,even many igbos are bending to believe it. But on the contrary,the igbos are the most united and brotherly in this nation. Let's take a few examples. Go and look at most successful entrepreneurs and businessmen of igbo extraction today,their stories all started with an uncle or so that took them from the village,brought them to town and introduced them to serve in their line of business or the other. That's empowerment in its purest form.You don't get that elsewhere.
Igbos are still the only people who will find themselves in diaspora and still converge monthly or weekly in wherever they are to continue their brotherly ties,keep abreast of happenings at home and periodically channel contributions home for developmental purposes,never forsaking their root.

Ok

Suprnov3r:
Great write up. Its a pity that they are their own biggest enemies

Just like you

Where they're coming from doesn't justify the politics of hate they practice ........ open support for criminality and corruption........... the hate and division they encourage.......... etc.

Everybody has a difficult past but moving ahead is what makes them strong, not fester in the situation till they're soaked in hate.

Nice write-up, resilient is d word.

The Igbo man is seen by the average Nigerian as a threat. A people that must be constantly monitored and checked.... A people that should not be accepted into the mainstream, but will also not allow to go.... The average Nigerian erroneously believes that the Igbo man is his problem. Nairaland is a testament to it. However, whom God has blessed, no man can course....

Another masterpiece from Ena. Now where is my best Nlder MagicBishop the true son of Urhoboland who warned yoruba Tajus to start planting cocoa years ago but they refused because oil was sweeter.

ba7man:
Where they're coming from doesn't justify the politics of hate they practice ........ open support for criminality and corruption........... the hate and division they encourage.......... etc.

Everybody has a difficult past but moving ahead is what makes them strong, not fester in the situation till they're soaked in hate.

Your muslim oba loved Igbo so much that he threatened Igbos because of a fulani presidiot. So much love from yorubas.

eyeview:

It is a wrong notion to hold that view. I believe that notion was rather from outsiders than from within the igbo clime. And sadly,even many igbos are bending to believe it. But on the contrary,the igbos are the most united and brotherly in this nation. Let's take a few examples. Go and look at most successful entrepreneurs and businessmen of igbo extraction today,their stories all started with an uncle or so that took them from the village,brought them to town and introduced them to serve in their line of business or the other. That's empowerment in its purest form.You don't get that elsewhere.
Igbos are still the only people who will find themselves in diaspora and still converge monthly or weekly in wherever they are to continue their brotherly ties,keep abreast of happenings at home and periodically channel contributions home for developmental purposes,never forsaking their root.

Stop schooling them. They know these things and actually envy Igbos for their communal based enterpreneural principles. Only to sell 'Igbos are divided bullocks'. Is there any part of southern nigeria that is more divided like yoruba muslims and christians killing themselves in Oshogbo because of ordinary muslim scarf- hijab?

Suprnov3r:
Great write up. Its a pity that they are their own biggest enemies



Ain't we all?... am guilty as charged




I agree with you as well. The division is most accentuated not in business but in politics... and at the end of the day, politics is king

You don de misbehave now... abi?

BudeYahooCom:


Your muslim oba loved Igbo so much that he threatened Igbos because of a fulani presidiot. So much love from yorubas.

Thank God for that threat or else the Igbos would have interrupted the continuity in govt which favored the state.

They wanted to put PDP in Lagos to fuel the sentimental politics they love to play.

Anything that will stop or interrupt the progress of the southwest is immediately viewed as an enemy and dealt with.

What a brilliant article! I encourage every Nigerian to do some extensive research on this country's history; the first time I learnt about this country's treatment of the Igbos pre and post-civil war, I almost wept. It's such a shame to see that we were treated better under direct British rule than under the leadership of people who were supposed to be our 'brothers'. There was a country...