ONE RECIPE OUT OF MANY FOR CHECK AGAINST MARGINALIZATION OF THE IGBO IN NIGERIA.
BY SIR DON UBANI; KSC, JP
OKWUBUNKA OF ASA
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
CENTRE FOR EQUITY AND ERADICATION OF RURAL POVERTY.
1ST JULY, 2017.

The time in which we are in Nigeria has, to put it mildly, not been the best for a people that have co-habited for one hundred and three years.

Naturally, it should be taken for granted that for a people to have lived as fellow citizens of a given country for more than a century, such people, no matter how heterogeneous, must have effectively, even if painfully, passed through the crucibles of national understanding, cohesion, fusion and integration.

By that calculation, Nigeria should have, by now, been at the final stage of national consolidation. As the largest group of peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa, with unquantifiable resources, both material and human, the country should have long been ranked within the same class of developed economies as China, India Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and others in Asia and Europe.

Regrettably, Nigeria has remained the weeping child of the African continent. In juxtaposition with resources available to us, our poverty index is one that justifies no excuse, not even explanation.

God, in no way, has any blame to apologize for. There is hardly any good thing that can guarantee the growth of a polity that He did not bequeath us.

The writer has fundamental roles he or she plays in the society. He functions as custodian of the society's conscience and secondly as the mirror through which the society could capture true reflections of its engagements, activities and contributions.

An altruistic writer could be likened to a true prophet who does not prophesy on personal or parochial promptings but rather on the inspiration of divine direction.

The writer is, therefore, altruistic, outspoken, universal and courageously responsive to the spur of the moment. The writer has the natural inclination to pencil it down the way he sees and perceives it.

The feeling of calculated marginalization has been a chorus among the Igbo since after the Nigeria/Biafra war fifty years ago. The Igbo sensitivity and subsequent response to marginalization have culminated in the quest for self-determination by the youths of South-east, though in a non-violent manner.

Despite the non-violence inherent in the agitation for a Republic of Biafra, which on May 27th this year climaxed in an overwhelming and unprecedented sit-at-home order by the Indigenous People of Biafra under the leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, in the five States of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, a coalition of Northern Youths Organization had handed down a quit notice to the Igbo living in the North to vacate there on or before 1st October, this year of our Lord, 2017.

Even though Governors in the North came heavily against the hateful order and the Acting President; Prof Yemi Osibanjo, had engaged in extensive consultations, the atmosphere remains replete with suspicion, distrust, precariousness and palpable fear. This is so because the core traditional northern establishment,as represented by the voices of Prof Ango Abdulahi and Dr Junaid Mohammed, had almost spontaneously fiercely spoken in defence of the Northern Coalition of Youths. The country is in a quagmire.

At best, the situation currently in Nigeria is at sixes and sevens.

For those that have been following my thoughts and postulation, they would have known by now that I am Igbo in every sense of nationhood. Where ever the Igbo are, there I am. My thoughts will always be in the overall interest of the Igbo and, no doubt, humanity.

I would, therefore, pray that my audience appreciates my my posers and positions on a very sound critical basis. When crucial decisions and positions are to be taken by a people, emotions or sentiments should be done away with. For the Igbo in Nigeria, a time like this does not require playing to the gallery.

The Igbo must tell themselves the truth. It is only when we are able to tell ourselves the truth, that we would be able to know where we were beaten by the rain.

My first question is, Is Marginalization Only Externally Perpetrated?

I agree that the Nigerian government, through the instrumentality of Hausa/Fulani dominated military dictatorship that spanned over twenty-nine years, delt ruthlessly with the Igbo in many areas of national concern, including creation of states and local government areas.

The fundamental question that one, again, will not fail to ask is, how transparent and effective did or have governors of South-east put into use the resources that had accumulated over the years, say 1999-date, in the overall interest of their people.

Did these governors not over ambitiously become richer than their states over night? How many of them can point at solid roads covering up-to two hundred kilometres within their states for the eight years each governed?

How many of them allowed local government councils in their states to function even minimally to guarantee development in the grassroots?

Was there any time the governors of the South-east ever thought of and pursued regional integration that could help the Igbo?

Centre For Equity And Eradication Of Rural Poverty is strongly of the opinion that one major step the Igbo should take as a recipe against marginalization is insistence that our governors should not only be just and transparent but be seen to be so.

Otherwise, if the trend that started in 1999, except only in one or highest two states, continues, the agitation for self-determination would amount to searching for a shell filled with emptiness.

Executive Director.

Okay

These governors you talk about owe their success and existence to the benevolence of those who do not want the survival of the Igbo. They were just from the stock of self-seeking Igbo who can sell their own while seeking opportunities from the Nigerian system. How do you expect them to develop Igbo land. IPOB is about growing IGBO from bottom up approach. From here will emerge those leaders who believe in hard work and enterprise; justice and equity. Its either we restructure or outright separation to allow us realign with our cultural values after its decimation by the Nigerian civil war and the subsequent oppressive and wicked policies that followed. I know we can.