AN ideology is a general concept that informs
collective understanding and focus for policy
formulation, planning and implementation. It is the philosophy that informs state and
individual actions towards development.
Ordinarily, the mention of ideology takes
everyone’s mind to capitalism or socialism.

This should not be so because it is not only
capitalism or socialism that can develop a
people. It could be an ideology that combines all and
even more provided it is relevant to the
developmental needs of the people. This is
because as an instrument of society
development, ideology should be appropriate
and sensitive to the peculiar needs of the people. Therefore every ideology must be
ready to resolve the imbalances in the society,
provide a roadmap towards the true
development of society and truly develop it.

My point of interest today is on Rochas
Okorocha’s ideology for the true development of Ndigbo. As an aspirant for the gubernatorial
election in Imo State under the APGA political
party, he has maintained that his key agendum
is free education. How relevant is this free education ideology to
the development of the Igbo in Nigeria? Before
we answer this question, let us retrospect on
the ideologies that have sustained Nigeria’s major ethnic groups and state why free
education should be the best to liberate and
develop the Igbo in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, the Igbo is one of the major three
ethnic groups that have been ruling the
country since independence. The others are the
Yoruba and the Hausa-Fulani. In the social, economic and political
considerations, one can easily say that the
Yoruba had survived in Nigeria mainly because
of the free education implemented by the
Western Region under the late sage, Chief
Obafemi Awolowo. While others were busy castigating Yoruba for
producing less qualified professors, the Yoruba
were busy producing them and hoping that in
due time, the quality will improve and today
they remain the best educated in Nigeria to the
extent that they are in control of all the professions and industrial sectors of the
country. To the Hausa-Fulani, their own key means of
survival in Nigeria today is political leadership
of the country. To the Igbo, the most obvious
important means of survival is trade business.
Remove education from the Yoruba, political
leadership from the Hausa-Fulani and trading from the Igbo and tell me how these people
would have fared in Nigeria? Consequently, the Yoruba had been investing
his best in mass education and the Hausa-
Fulani is doing same in political leadership.
These investments are funded mainly through
federal, state and local government funds. To
the Igbo, the strength of public funds in supporting trade development in Igboland is
very minimal.

During the Eastern Region era, scholarship was
strictly available for the children of the chiefs
and the elites. The rest merely struggled to
send their children to school. It would have
been asking too much from the individuals to
also fund free education up to the tertiary level so as to improve the quality of trade activities
by the Igbo. That was the reason trading has
not been well refined and improved to
adequately support Igbo development.

Instead of improving state investments
(through regional or state or local government
funding) in free education to support trade
development, governments in Igboland had
been engaged in other inappropriate
ideologies. They had the republican ideology that negated strong collective efforts at society
development. This gave room to too much of individualism in
the process of survival.

Later, it was the
nationalistic ideology championed by the Rt.
Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. This ideology was not
to reverse the republican stuff, but for Nigeria
and maybe Africa to immediately become Americans or Europeans. What about his own
people in a heterogeneous federation?

In a federal state, the well being of the state
must first begin from the well- being of the
composite units. That was why Nigeria under
the regional arrangement was economically
stronger than she is today, despite the
abundance of the petrodollars. From there, Igbo went on to secession ideology
championed by Col. Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu. But Ralph Uwechue would argue that Ojukwu
should have explored the ideology of
constructive diplomacy where he would have
demanded for the safety of his people instead
of going for secession. The rest is history.

After the war, the rulers of
Igbo agreed and settled for another ideology
called re-integration derived from General
Yakubu Gowon’s Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation (the 3Rs)
post-war policy. Reintegration informed the
post-civil war attitude of the Igbo for survival in
Nigeria; hence, they cried against any
government action that seemed not to carry
them along as marginalisation.

For example, in the creation of states, local
governments, building of airports, appointment
of military chiefs etc, the Igbo had always cried
marginalisation which pointed to the fact that
the Igbo is not being reintegrated into the
Nigerian system. But we need to ask, in the republican, nationalist, secessionist and
reintegration ideologies, who had been the
ultimate beneficiary? The Igbo elite!

Today, an Igbo is Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Has this made Igbo duly
integrated into Nigeria the way it should be?
No! So, all these are whitewash ideas that
cannot develop Igbo. Rather, they made the
elites richer.

Therefore, one would argue for ideologies that
should be of benefit to the masses of Igbo. For
example, constructive diplomacy and the
consistent demand for the safety of the Igbo in
Nigeria would not have claimed many lives as
did the secession ideology. Indeed, the best ideology after the war should have been mass
free education instead of re-integration.

Let us
now address the significance of the Rochas
Okorocha’s free education ideology in the lives of Igbo youths who are traders and mostly
illiterates. Free education means that every child of school
age is entitled to attend school at no cost by
his/her parents. Why is free education relevant
to the Igbo, especially after the civil war? We
are aware that after the war, the Igbo were
socially, economically, politically, environmentally and physically devastated. What else could have raised sufficient
knowledge power for Igbo development if not
mass free education? With free education, the
educational glory Igbo lost would have been
regained.


BY OKACHIKWU DIBIA, a commentator on
national issues , wrote from Abuja.

www.vanguardngr.com/2011/04/relevant-ideology-key-to-igbo-development/

I thought this fool said he was not Igbo. Why is the affairs of Igbo always his headace?

So, free education is not relevant to Igbos? What type of weed is this guy smoking of late?