Buhari: What Do Igbos
Want?

Obi Nwakanma Writes

A Response.
JANUARY 2, 2016 BY DURUEBUBE


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


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

I wouldn't mind with the summary

Summary highly needed...

Land not for sale..

Good question baba asked!!

So I don't get it


The ma asks what they want now


One goat is telling me a story about how Obasanjo took over proda in 1975

lasisi69:
I wouldn't mind with the summary

Summary: A single Igbo nation Hope ds would help.

Pretty much understood

Everything you stated predated 2000. So definitely it isn't Buhari or APC that's marginalizing you.


now the question is from 2000 till date there has been some democratic government. Did they also marginalized you?

1. If yes, why did you still support the party with your block votes in the election and why didn't you protest marginalization then.

2. If no, that means you were not marginalized so why are you crying marginalization.

3. If "none of the above" it means you're still confused about WHAT IGBOS WANT.

shepherd77:
Everything you stated predated 2000. So definitely it isn't Buhari or APC that's marginalizing you.


now the question is from 2000 till date there has been some democratic government. Did they also marginalized you?

1. If yes, why did you still support the party with your block votes in the election and why didn't you protest marginalization then.

2. If no, that means you were not marginalized so why are you crying marginalization.

3. If "none of the above" it means you're still confused about WHAT IGBOS WANT.

Predated 2000? And u forgot buhari was once a president in that era too? Read the piece again

I think the igbos should be allowed to go. Since some Nigerians think they are nuisance, why hold them back by force?

Someone answer me: will the northern Nigeria be allowed to go out, if they are ones agitating?

Tell them

cutestcee:
Someone answer me: will the northern Nigeria be allowed to go out, if they are ones agitating?

Bad question that would leave many of our western brothers numb in answering.