On the 15th of August 1945, the axis nations fighting in the Pacific
theater defeated imperial Japan and two weeks later, Japan formally
surrendered to allied forces led by the U.S. General, Douglas
McArthur, who formally accepted the signed articles of surrender.
But though the U.S. defeated Japan, they never decimated Japan’s
great technological and industrial complex. They were visionary
enough to distinguish these from Japan’s military industrial
complex, which they scrapped.

Realizing that Japan was decades ahead of the West in many
technologies, the allied powers, led by the US, allowed those
industries to remain as a going concern and took the unique step of
enacting legislation and policies to enable them flourish.

What they did in Japan, they also did in Europe. In Europe, the US,
acting unilaterally, even went a step further by introducing the
Marshall Plan through which America sent financial and other types
of aid to help Europe (and especially Germany) recover from the
ravages of the Second World War.

The point of the allied and American actions in Japan and Europe is
that technological advancement belongs to the human race and
should not be allowed to suffer because of a quarrel or war amongst
humans.
This lesson was thoroughly established in 642 AD when the Library of
Alexandria was burnt to the ground during the Muslim conquest of
Egypt.

It has been argued that that act set the world several centuries back
in technological advancement and has become something to watch
out for during the prosecution of a war.

A war is a quarrel between or amongst people that is settled by
means of violence. It is not a quarrel between or amongst technology,
so civilized nations have pursued the policy of fighting wars while
preserving technology.

Gone should be the days of the scorched earth policy which is why
despite the bestiality of the apartheid regime, President Nelson
Mandela did not do a Mugabe, but rather left intact White owned
farms, industry and universities and only insisted that they be opened
to Blacks and other races.

This brings me to Nigeria. I would like to state a fact that will be
argued against, but still a fact that even those who would argue
against it know to be true.

The Igbo (or Ibo) ethnic nationality of Nigeria are the most
technologically advanced Black race on planet earth, bar none!
This is a fact. A fact that was proven to be true for 30 months while
they were landlocked in their constantly shrinking enclave known as
Biafra.

Cut off from the rest of the world, the ingenuity of the Igbo came to
the fore during the civil war as they constructed the Uli airstrip and
when that airstrip was bombed, they repaired it in record time and
under the most trying circumstances. They would go on to repair Uli
not once and not twice.

The Igbos refined petrol from a variety of non fossil fuels, including
from but not limited to palm products (from which they also produced
diesel) and manufactured surface to air missiles which they also
adapted to surface to surface missiles (theOgbunigwe).

They converted commercial planes to fighter jets and weaponized
them. That was no mean feat in 1967.

In fact, when in 2012, the Nigerian Army rolled out the igirigi and
promoted it as the first indigenous armored personnel carrier, they
were wrong. I am not a Biafran. I am proudly Nigerian. And beyond
that, I am a proud dark skinned Black African yet I make bold to say
that the igirigi is not the first indigenous APC. In fact, the first
indigenous armored personnel carrier in Black Africa is the Red Devil,
built by the Igbos during the Nigerian Civil War.

The Nigerian Civil War ended in January 1970 and the Nigerian Army
unveiled theigirigi in July of 2012. If they had converted the Red Devil
to their own use, they would probably be talking about a greater feat
in the year 2012.

My question is what happened in the intervening 42 years between
1970 and 2012? Why didn’t the Nigerian Army integrate the military
industrial complex of Biafra into its Defence Industry Corporation of
Nigeria, DICON?
Why did we have to reinvent the wheel at great cost in terms of time
and money?

The Nigerian Civil War ended on a note of ‘no victor no
vanquished’. That was a watershed moment inspired by the
Christlike mind of General Yakubu Gowon. That gesture is to be
applauded.

But why did we as a nation not go the whole hog and take advantage
of Biafra’s technological advances and integrate her scientists into
our Research and Development sector much like the US did with
German and Japanese scientists?

That is where we failed as a nation.
I remember growing up as a child and how other Nigerians scoffed at
‘Igbo made’ electronic products. There was hardly anything
including electronics, pharmaceuticals, spirits and wines that the
Igbos could not counterfeit.

And rather than our leaders seeing the potential in those products, we
all scoffed at them. Igbo made products were a pariah.
Did it ever occur to any of our leaders that if government had
supported these technological advancement, Nigeria could have
become an industrialized nation today and Igbo made products would
have been exported abroad as made in Nigeria products?
It would surprise many that a number of the greatest technological
advancement and products that came out of America after the Second
World War were the work of German or Japanese scientists!
In an operation code named Operation Paperclip, 1500 German
scientists, engineers and technicians were airlifted to the United
States and given US permanent US residency and citizenship
immediately after the defeat of Germany in 1945. The primary aim of
Operation Paperclip was to prevent these skilled men and women
from falling into Soviet Russian hands.

Hans Erich (Eric) Hollmann who was one of the fathers of radar
technology was one of such scientists airlifted to America. Kurt
Lehovec the pioneer of the integrated circuit systems in electrical
engineering is another. He was airlifted to America in 1945 where he
became a Professor at the University of Southern California and
passed on his knowledge to America’s next generation of scientists.
The allies had been having issues with the jet engine and were not
able to develop planes like the German Messerschmitt Me 262. But
after the defeat of Germany, US forces gave safe passage to Rudi
Beichel who went to the US and became an adviser to the US army on
liquid propulsion. Other German scientists such as Magnus
“Mac” Freiherr von Braun and his brother, Wernher Von Braun
helped reverse engineer German jets which led to the development of
the US American F-86 Sabres, a plane that helped the US dominate
the air during the Korean War.

More importantly, Wernher Von Braun provided much of the know
how that helped America build the Apollo spacecraft which allowed
America beat Russia as the first nation to get to the moon.

Methamphetamine was invented by Japanese a Japanese chemist,
Nagai Nagayoshi and the drug was shared with their German allies
and helped their soldiers stay awake and focus. After the war, German
scientists helped American scientist synthesize the drug which
revolutionized the US health industry.

Why can’t we do the same in Nigeria? Can you imagine what our
technological base would have been if we as a nation had a policy of
patronizing the so called Igbo made products right from the end of
the war till today? What if we had absorbed the the Research and
Production Organisation of Biafra (RAP as it was then known) into the
Nigerian Army Corps of Engineers?

By now, we may have been manufacturing jets and we would not be
dependent on foreign nations for weapons to fight terrorists.
This is why I was so disgusted with the minister of science and
technology, Ogbonnaya Onu for aspiring, on Nigeria’s behalf, to
produce pencils by 2018!

I mean this man is the first civilian governor of the old Abia state
which today encompasses both Abia and Ebonyi states.
Right there, under his own nose, Nigerians of Igbo extraction, without
ANY governmental support, are manufacturing electronics and heavy
machinery components and Onu is caught up on pencils!
Onu should visit Nnewi if he knows where it is. Right there he would
see a city that does not wait for government. Nnewi people are so
industrious that after years of waiting endlessly for government to
provide basic amenities, they have built their own roads, have their
own power stations and their own water works.
Just like Japan, Nnewi has manufacturers of such things like
batteries, pistons, automobiles and other products. These Nnewi
manufacturers have built schools for the kids of their workers on site,
just like in Japan.

You just need to visit Nnewi or Aba to see what is going on in
Biafra. These guys are Nigeria’s most guarded secret because even
the federal government is not aware of them.
And the reason why this is so is because these people are Igbos!
It is time for Nigeria to forgive the Igbos for being Igbo and accept
them as full partners and equal partners in the Nigerian project and
use the entire strength of the Nigerian federal government to provide
them the support to fulfill their destiny as the Black African people
that are nucleus of the technological advancement of Africa.
Notice I say Africa, not just Nigeria. I don’t say this lightly. All over
West and Central Africa, Nigerians of Igbo extraction are the backbone
of the commercial and technological sectors.

I can say what I have said above without any accusation of self or
group interest promotion because I am not Igbo neither am I married
to one. I have said the truth as my conscience sees it because I am
committed to advancement of the Black Race because as a proud
Black man, I know that no black African tribe is as great as the Black
Race when it is united.



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Proudly Igbo.

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