IkpuMmadu:
My friends who are not from the East of Nigeria where Igbos come from often ask me why there is so much anger in the East and among Igbos. Some wonder why, despite the famed Igbo” wealth’ and enterprise all over Nigeria, the people still complain that Nigeria is unfair to them. Some insinuate that the anger comes from the loss of the 2015 election by Jonathan who the Igbos heavily backed.

And why is it that the current generation of Igbos are so angry as to contemplate carrying arms against the country? With lots are following Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB with his secessionist message. Those not following may despise his antics and rhetoric but are sympathetic to his underlying message? And what is that message? That Igbos don’t feel wanted in Nigeria. That decades of official marginalization and discrimination should be stopped or they would be ready to take their chances in a new nation.

First, for those who think this is all about Jonathan and Buhari. It is not. Igbos were disappointed that Jonathan did not win. But those whose candidates lose elections lick their wounds. It is allowed. It happens when your candidate loses election. Why did the Igbos invest so much emotions in Jonathan, a non-Igbo Ijaw? It was more because of the fear of their experience in the past 50 years. Nigeria has placed an embargo on any Igbo man becoming Nigerian president. Jonathan was the next best thing. Other parts of Nigeria have supported their sons to the presidency. Some have bombed Nigeria into submission to get their son to Aso Rock. Igbos have little capacity to blackmail Nigeria to the presidency. They chose Jonathan as their “Igbo” . But that’s not to say that they are angry enough because he lost to contemplate going to war on his behalf. Jonathan was not really the model of a President you would go to war for. And his Ijaw people have accepted his loss. So?

Igbo anger has been building up in Nigeria since I was a kid in the 70s. As kids, we made choices in our school years based on the narrative of the Igbo place in Nigeria. We knew of the glass ceiling against Igbos before we were out of puberty. After the civil war, despite the “No winner, no vanquished” program, Nigeria placed glass ceilings and no-go areas for Igbos. The war reconstruction program was observed more in the breach. There was the “abandoned” property program that was introduced to drive a wedge between components of the former South-East Nigeria. While the country was too embarrassed to put the discrimination program down in an official gazette, it was there for anyone who cared to look. It was evident in the Igbo police officer who stayed in one position while less qualifies juniors progressed to become his bosses. It was evident when no Igbo qualified to become the Inspector General of Police, or leader any division in the armed forces. It was there when ‘ sensitive” or ‘lucrative “ positions were shared in Nigeria and Igbos were conspicuously absent. It was there when Igbos were only fit enough to be made Minister of Information until Obasanjo came to power. And even recently, it was there when Buhari appointed 47 people to man the critical roles in his government and no one from the South east was there. Any time there is a federal appointment in Nigeria, its usually the east that shouts. It was there from Buhari first term to his second term and anyone in-between.

The Igbo elite called it marginalization. Other Nigerians countered by saying no part of Nigeria was getting enough. Marginalization was universal. But they forgot something. The Igbo cry of marginalization was official policy. It was expected. It was programmed. And occasionally, key government officials let it slip that Igbos should not complain. After all, they fought a war with Nigeria. Talk about No Victor, No Vanquished. There was a Victor alright. And they were reminded of that at every turn. Every appointment. Every national project. Nigeria was only pretending. Igbos were licking their wounds and complaining and the rest of Nigeria was too busy to notice.

Go to the South-East today. Since the 70s and the oil boom. Nigeria has invested in commercial industries across the country. None has been sited in the South east. None. Refineries, Steel Plants, Cement Firms. Any Industry. The South East was systematically de-industrialized. Even when it was the best location for any industry, there was always a reason why it should not be sited there. What this means was that any Igbo man that wanted to work in a commercial federal establishment had to leave the east. Add this to the indigenization policy of the early 70s that pushed the Igbos out of private companies. It meant that international companies also avoided expansion into the south east. The Nigerian Breweries, the Dunlop and other such firms sited their plants outside the East and only set up distribution centers to sell in the region. This is one of the main reasons the exodus of Igbos from the zone accelerated after the war and continues to this day despite the hostility they face in certain parts of Nigeria. And why most became traders and commercial business men. Because access to organized work either in the government, government commercial institutions and even commercial institutions were limited.

The only industrial enterprise in the east are built by easterners; Nnewi, Aba, Onitsha. These are Igbo indigenous industrial cities.

This has been the practice since the end of the war.

In addition to this, the Federal Government has systematically made it difficult for Easterners to do commercial business even in the East. The Federal Roads in the East are some of the worst in Nigeria. The Eastern Sea ports have been made ineffective. It was a war to get the Enugu Airport upgraded to an International Airport. The former Finance Minister shed tears on the day the first International Flight landed in Enugu. Yes, Okonjo Iwealla cried! Recently, it was only the South East that was conspicuously missing in the New Railway Plan of the Federal Government. Nigeria has 6 regions. And one was missing in a national railway plan. Incidentally, Igbos who reside here are the most itinerant in the country and would benefit most from a national transport plan. Even our President changed the plan to include his village but a zone of the country was not included.

When you go to the east, despite the lack of federal presence, the presence of police all over the east tells a story. They mount road blocks and make it difficult to have commercial activity. Recently, Customs has joined. And lastly the army. It is an occupied territory. They extort money. They intimate. They recently have started killing.

Nigeria has made the east unlivable. Purposely. Carefully.

I am often in conversations where people accuse the east of being clannish. That while we are welcome in all parts of Nigeria, outsiders cannot come to the East. My question is: why would you come to the east? To do what? There is no business to do in the east. Nigeria has ensured that. Why would someone from the South West of Nigeria go to the East to invest? No one would prevent you. But it hardly makes commercial sense. Nigeria has ensured that. Those from the North are there in droves. Igbos love to celebrate with cows. And the cattlemen go there to sell their cattle. No one molests them. In my village and most villages in the East, they live unmolested. But those are the only people who can find commercial reason to be there!

So those who wonder why Igbos are angry, wonder no more. While most would not dare carry arms against Nigeria, don’t under estimate the level of disconnection and anger especially among the younger generation. Nigeria is made of nations that came together to form a country. No nation will like to be in perpetual servitude. That Nnamdi Kanu’s supporters starred down army tanks with sticks is a sign that the next generation will be ready to fight bare hands if necessary to stop Nigeria treating the Igbo nation as second-class citizens. There will be fiercer and angrier Kanus in our immediate future if Nigeria does not officially stop the “vanquished “program against the Igbos who fought the civil war. You cannot preach unity and indivisibility of the country on TV and all your actions point at discriminating against the components of the country. It is as dangerous as it is foolhardy. Let those who preach unity walk the talk and stop open discrimination of their countrymen. History has shown that you cannot decree peace. You cannot decree unity. You cannot force any group to belong to a country by force, it may work for a time. But never sustainable.

Nigeria has a lot to look forward to as a united country. It also has enough for the regions and nations that make up the country. Our diversity is a blessing. Our failure to reach our potential is caused mostly by the internal contradictions and the inability to build a fair country that can bring out the best out of her component regions. Those who shout most about loving Nigeria today are mostly those its current unfair structure favor. But Nigeria will continue being as strong as its weakest link. And the weak links are all there to see. The East is one of the weakest links. Until it stops being a weak link, Nigeria cannot truly make progress.




https://etimes.com.ng/igbos-angry-nigeria-collins-onuegbu/

chino11:
yorooba marginalization and continued pauparisation is a welcome development to Nigerians, ofcos Nigeria will be a better place minus yoroobas

omoeso:
Enough said, never knew Ibos hate yorubas this much. So, most of the Ibo friends I have are just plutonic friends and deep down they hate me so much, Wow. Anyway, if Ibos hate hausas so much dat, or is hausas that hate Ibos so much that every slight opportunity, they are killed in their hundreds up in the north. And come down west they hate the yorubas this much, So, who actually do they tolerate? And to think about it, who gives a damn about marginalization in the first place. How did OBJ personally affects my life as an individual? Same questions goes for GEJ, how has his government brings succor to an average man walking down the road in SE? My brothers, every politician to himself and himself alone. Makes to difference to me. If OBJ did not improve the welfare of the yorubas during his tenure as president, how much has GEJ done to improve the living condition of the SE/SS, I beg, everyman for himself!!!

chino11:
yorooba marginalization and continued pauparisation is a welcome development to Nigerians, ofcos Nigeria will be a better place minus yoroobas

chino11:




You are quite pathetic. The yooroba people deserve all the punishment they are getting now for wasting 8yrs thru Obasanjo, no infrastructural development, no education, he made sure that Ndigbo are effectively schemed out politically. In the case of your yabbing no yorobaman including you has the gut and liver to deal with any Igboman let alone me, even if we have the rare opportunity of coming to meet one on one. What I have written earlier was not because yorooba people has done anything personal to me but because of how you daft yoorobas attack anything Igbo on the NL. I challenge you today whatever you have wished me or any Igboman is sent to you in multiple folds. May you fail in anything Igboman is part of, may you be cursed as you continue in your drive against the Igbos, may your suffering surpass any worst situation you can ever imagine. May whatever evil you wish anybody continue to dwell in your household. As the Igbos are holding sensitive positions today in Nigeria may you never benefit from it, as we did not benefit from the Obj wasted 8yrs ruin

htajz:
stuuuuupid yorubas , after collecting 50 kobo before election to be marginalised they want to come back. anyway GEJ should have given them wh\t they really came for(money) so they can shut up, these yorubas hate themselves soo much even more then they hate other groups, imagine after 8 years of obasanjo yoruba land is competing with the north for position of the most backward region in nigeria .

diegwu01:
The anger in the east against Nigeria was propagated by Kanu and IPOB. once they go, Nigeria would be a peaceful country

chino11:
yorooba marginalization and continued pauparisation is a welcome development to Nigerians, ofcos Nigeria will be a better place minus yoroobas

Lushore1:
Thesame people that supported and encouraged GEJ to marginalized yoruba are now worry about being marginalize....hmmmm

Sunofgod:


http://www.tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/27267-yoruba-elders-meet-jonathan-over-marginalisation

aljharem:
this people are funny u know. Just i thought this people want to eat there cake and have it again

they all voted for ACN thus they want regional government ie fedralism

yet they still want the advantages of being in the mainstream politics

abeg make them go sit down

when it is time they should go meet tinubu there master

Afam4eva:
Al_harem has spoken the truth. You cannot eat your cake and still want to have. PDP controls the center.So, states that will benefit from the center are PDP states. They should go and meet oga Tinubu if they feel marginalized.

ak47mann:
so why are you people crying marginalization then? slow Bottom muderphuker so SW assassinating there politicians and selling their own brothers ABIOLA etc are going to say that they are sophisticated or they are clever in politics and not greedy? so why all these things keep happening in your region

kalufelix:
Op This One No Be Exposure Naa...Ibo Pikin Wey Still Dey Belle Don Know All This Things

Another Thing Is Greedy And Selfish Leaders And Representatives In The Nigerian Front

Truely Nigeria Placed Embargo On Ibos But More Worrisomly Ibos Also Place Embargo On Ibos...

Ibos Are Disunited In Their Bid To Out Do Each Other.