₦airaland Forum

GstringAngela:
missed call
I am not from Ife nor Modakeke neither am I a Yoruba .............. Eric Umeofia does not want to invest in the SE because he is an Osu ibo. He is afraid of going back to iboland. He does not want the evil ibo gods to feed on his flesh

Urhobo versus Ijaw
Urhobo versus Itshekiri
Ibibio versus Annang
Fulani versus Plateau people
Fulani versus Tiv
Boko Haram versus other northerners including fellow muslims

These are all love stories, yes?

You sound very foolish.

GstringAngela:
The Ezza ibo and Ezilo ibo in Ebonyi state slaughters themselves at the slightest provocation

The Ngwa ibo in Abia state are human flesh eating cannibals

The Mbaise ibo in Imo state have the highest number of witches in the whole world

The Arochukwu ibo in Abia state are fake ibo

The Osu ibo are Amadioha's food

Ife and modakeke comes to mind. You are a simpleton

As a veritable Igbo man, I am not ashamed to be labelled a tribalist if my tribalism is about advocating for Igbos to invest first in Igboland before doing so elsewhere outside Igboland. There are only few Yoruba and virtually no Hausa-owned companies in igboland. Why should Igbos invest masively in those places?

Kudos to all Igbos who invest their wealth more in Igboland than outside Igboland. That is the way to self-develop your region. I really give no damn about anything non-Igbo in Nigeria. I nether hate nor love them. I am indifferent to them. Call me a tribalist, who cares?

gwales:
it is true, he started his first business in sokoto selling spare parts

Here him, himself

Britain just did that. The Nigerian government should ensure that any foreigner that comes here has a good reason to be here. I have businesses in Angola and UAE, all the nonsense they are doing here, they cannot try it in Angola.

. By the grace of God, we are very contented and that contentment made me to[b] come back home to establish companies despite the successes we are making in Angola and UAE[/b].

YoruBanger:
Don't mind him. His real grouse is that the guy didn't setup the factory in the SE. Very myopic somebody.

Duh! He set it up outside the SE and it is now crumbling. He was also duped in Ogun of land that he purchased. Penny wise pound foolish.

Innoson Motors and others in Igboland are doing well.

Day169:
This to me proves two things :

2. The greatest impediment to the progress of the Igbos is a fellow Igbo man.

A friend once told me that America is so great that only America can destroy America. No external power can do so.

This also is the case with Biafra, in terms of its interest being undermined more by Igbos themselves than by outsiders.

caprini1:
The genesis of this mans wealth started from sokoto,in fact he speaks Hausa better than Igbo.....he has invested in all geo political region in Nigeria.Pls let him be.

You lie. He was abroad before returning to Nigeria. Read that article with an open mind

YoruBanger:
Yinmu. Keep playing the ostrich there instead of placing the blame where it really belongs.

Erisco himself put the blame where it truly belongs when he said:



Interestingly enough, Dangote also runs a Tomato paste factory, I think the biggest in the country, and I'm yet to hear him complain. Perhaps he too needs to be interviewed to hear his view.

Previous government includes who and who? Does that include Obasanjo too?

Regarding Dangote, he is a ''government pikin'' (all govts have favored him), with his hands in many cookie jars. Tomato paste is just a bit of what he is doing. In contrast, this man's business life is just about tomatoes. Do you see the difference now?

For example, a tomato paste should at least have 40% real tomato; other ingredients are water and salt. So it means that in each tank you are mixing , you need to use six to eight drums of tomato; it depends on the quantity you are producing. That will make it to be concentrated, but in some countries, they use a drum of tomato and add starch , colour to make it look like real tomatoes.That colour they are adding is dangerous to our health as it blocks blood vessels. We found out the Chinese tricks, we reported to NAFDAC, but NAFDAC has not done anything about it.

This businessman is a half backed food scientist. Food colorants are not in themselves inherently deadly; otherwise the US and EU food regulatory authorities would not permit them in American and European made tomatoes. It depends on what is mixed with a specific batch of colorant, which I agree the Chinese can do and bring into zoo countries such as Nigeria where there are no regulations.

In any case, to start with, who ever is heading NAFDAC as of today should be fired. That person is completely incompetent.

YoruBanger:
Akuko! Like say SE people sef no dey inside customs. Besides, a lot of those importers got connections and illegal waivers from the 'ogas at the top' which were mostly sealed during the SE-favoured last administration of 'anything goes', to bring in these contrabands and consequently messing up the poor guy's business. You should be attacking GEJ's admin and those unscrupulous importers bro.

Like say there is no Yoruba man who imports anything into Nigeria. Also, is it today that the Yoruba and hausa-fulani-dominated Customs began collecting bribes to allow importation of all junk into Nigeria? Get lost, you hypocritical Yoruba bat.

IyaIode:
So gej killed this iboman's busy, what kind o ibo hero is that?

About three years ago in Ogun State, I bought land wanting to expand my factory, I paid everything payable to government after buying land from some people, just to get C of O, but two and a half years after, no C of O. I wrote petitions and yet they say they want investors. How can investors come when you can’t issue ordinary C of O? What is good about industrialization in this country? There is frustration left and right . If not that I have courage, I would have been frustrated out of this country.

Ogun people don dupe the Igbo mugu

Even if he has the farms in Sokoto and Jigawa because there is cheap land in those places, he should have built the factory in the East. There is no land in Lagos and he does not own his tomato farm in Lagos, yet he has his factory there. What a useless set of anti-Igbo people.

YoruBanger:
Ironically, it's his SE brothers who are the major culprit with respect to the importation of the substandard tomato paste into the market.

And your SW and Northern brothers are the customs officers who collect bribes to let them import every thing on earth into Nigeria. Shame on the customs and exercise authorities. It takes two to tango, remember?

Doing business in Nigeria riskier than fighting Boko Haram – Eric Umeofia, Erisco Foods CEO

on January 03, 2016 / in Business, News 8:57 am

By Jimoh Babatunde

Talking to the Chief Executive Officer of Erisco Foods Limited, Chief Eric Umeofia, you will feel the pains of a man that has high hopes for the country’s manufacturing sector, but feels dejected by the activities of those holding the economy down. His tomato paste plant in Lagos, one of the biggest in Africa, provides jobs for many Nigerians and he believes he can create more jobs if the system is clean. Today, the industry is plagued by importation of substandard but cheap tomato paste from China, so, Umeofia is left to fight to keep his local plant afloat and has become a strong advocate for the manufacture of goods locally as against importation. In this interview, Umeofia shares his pains and hopes for the manufacturing sector.

On the manufacturing sector

The sector is not doing well for now because of the bad foundation laid by previous governments.

There is no pretence about it, the manufacturing sector anywhere in the world is given due attention.

Manufacturers are respected anywhere in the world ,except Nigeria because we have not realized the importance of the real sector to grow the economy.

The English people know why they call it the real sector. In some clime, manufacturers have estates where they are provided everything from roads to water, they can even buy cars on loan. There is no sector of the economy that creates employment more than the manufacturing sector anywhere in the world. Before the advent of this government, some of us manufacturers felt we made the greatest mistakes of our lives by being investors. If not for President Buhari, I would have shut down this business by now or take it elsewhere.
Eric Umeofia

Eric Umeofia

The previous governments, particularly that of Jonathan, allowed importation, to the detriment of manufacturers. They were interested in making more money than paying attention to quality by allowing substandard goods to come into the country.

For example, a tomato paste should at least have 40% real tomato; other ingredients are water and salt. So it means that in each tank you are mixing , you need to use six to eight drums of tomato; it depends on the quantity you are producing. That will make it to be concentrated, but in some countries, they use a drum of tomato and add starch , colour to make it look like real tomatoes.That colour they are adding is dangerous to our health as it blocks blood vessels. We found out the Chinese tricks, we reported to NAFDAC, but NAFDAC has not done anything about it.

If not that CBN came to help us with the foreign exchange policy that triggered our sales, we would have gone under. Now, these people have found means of smuggling these products across our borders. So as manufacturers in this country, even criminals on the street are more respected than us. Sometimes I ask myself why am I wasting my time manufacturing as those who went into trading are richer than me all because I chose to help my country. It should not be so. Nigeria is not a manufacturing nation.

Foreigners come here saying they want to invest, but all they are interested in is to exploit the system. If you know the damages they are doing to our economy, you will not believe it. If we have good economic policies, no Nigeria will be out of work as there will be enough for all in the next four years except you are lazy. A situation where a foreigner comes to invest N100 million, after 2-3 years takes out N1 billion out of the economy is unacceptable. That person is wounding the economy the more. There is no country that its economy is driven by foreigners.

But in our country, government policies favour foreigners, whatever they say is law. And in their countries, that is not possible. They will jail you, but here because of corruption, they are free. The foreigners bleed our economy, criminalize our people, introduce corruption to government agencies, yet nobody is imprisoned. In their countries, Nigerians are imprisoned for flimsy excuses.

Government needs to do something urgently on our immigration policy to stop these people.

Britain just did that. The Nigerian government should ensure that any foreigner that comes here has a good reason to be here. I have businesses in Angola and UAE, all the nonsense they are doing here, they cannot try it in Angola.

Last year, about 21 of them were sent packing from Angola with their properties confiscated.

They are making our people slaves in their country. A time will come when the people will revolt.

On the reason for still remaining in manufacturing

The passion to grow my country’s economy is what is keeping me going . I read a book on how five

people made America what it is today, so I said to myself if people can achieve that in America, I want to be among those that will make Nigeria great. In 1994, my company gave every state government one utility car when we launched Erisco Bonpet, that will show you the type of love I have for my country. By the grace of God, we are very contented and that contentment made me to come back home to establish companies despite the successes we are making in Angola and UAE.

But, little did I know that it was a risky venture doing business here in Nigeria. It is riskier than going to fight Boko Haram in Maiduguri to be an indigenous manufacturer here. Because your government agencies work against you as they support foreigners to the detriment of their people.

If I produce with six drums of tomato and someone in China does so with one drum, how can we compete with them?

I wrote a petition to the House of Reps on this and they are working on it . We are creating jobs for their people, I will continue to appeal to Nigerians to avoid foreign foods and other products for the economy to grow. The government agencies did not listen to us, but now they are seeing why we have been shouting.

My life and business are at risk because I am saying what I am seeing. I know reports have been submitted to NAFDAC on the activities of these people, but they will not do the right thing. Indian government recently confiscated $50 million worth of goods belonging to a multi-national and other charges filed in court against it. For infractions. Here, in Nigeria who will do it?

NAFDAC boss will not do it, because he says all is well, but we know it is not.

How do you relate this to some of our governors going abroad to look for investors?

About three years ago in Ogun State, I bought land wanting to expand my factory, I paid everything payable to government after buying land from some people, just to get C of O, but two and a half years after, no C of O. I wrote petitions and yet they say they want investors. How can investors come when you can’t issue ordinary C of O? What is good about industrialization in this country? There is frustration left and right . If not that I have courage, I would have been frustrated out of this country.

On policies that can assist manufacturers

The CBN governor is doing well now. I have come to realise that not that they don’t know what is good, it is because the person at the helm of affairs was not interested then. By the action of the CBN governor now, you will realize that he was interested in performing but didn’t get the support and so he is performing now. I can tell you now that they are listening to advise and by the time they follow the advice step by step, you will see how the government will be praised by those making noise. I want to draw your attention to this again, before now they will create an intervention fund but after six weeks, the whole fund is in India or Lebanon as these people manipulate documents to take the money out of the system. They frustrate Nigerians.

On access to bank facilities

Our commercial banks are opportunistic, they don’t have conscience. They will tell you their board wants them to make profits, but must they kill to make profit?They steal people’s money through agreement, but when you discover they will tell you it was a mistake. It will take them over 90 days to correct the mistake, but if you owe them a dime, they will put all kind of pressure on you to recover their money. The commercial banks are killing the economy because of their selfish interest, none of them is interested in supporting industries. I wanted to build a tomato concentrate plant in Kano in 2009, but a big bank in this country advised me to import instead of investing in the country. They are not interested in committing to development all they are after is buying and selling.

On his company’s backward integration plan

We have 460 hectares of tomato plantation in Jigawa, we are about having same hectares in Sokoto now. In this business it has been our target to have tomato grown everywhere, though the money is not there. When you want to do backward integration of tomato in this country, you need a minimum of one line to process tomato into concentrate; and it costs $30 to $50 million to do one line. In China, 95 per cent of the factories are owned by government. The same machine that will work 60-90 days a year, will work just 35 days in China. So, getting the money isn’t easy. We grow tomato twice a year here in Nigeria. In China, they grow just once a year, the same China that produce once in a year we are importing from them. That shows we don’t know what we are doing. This is why I made up my mind to produce tomato here. When we started producing tomato in can here they said it was not possible, but today we are doing it. Some people are still deceiving Nigerians that it is still not possible all in a bid to continue importing .So with our backward integration on course, I pray God gives us the power to produce everything about tomato here from planting to packing very soon. We are going into tractor project now as you cannot do agriculture without tractorization.

This is my area, agriculture spare and machinery. So, I am doing everything possible for Nigeria to be rich in agriculture machineries as this is where the world is going now.

There is none in the country that is functioning now, we are the only one, so we plan with our backward integration to support export from this country.

I want to impact my society and this informed my building churches and mosques, I don’t want people to use religion to deceive the people all in the name of tithe. I am a Christian, but I don’t support this idea of tithe. I give what I have to people who need them. I will rather pay my staff well than give tithe to pastor and and also those that come my way.

On his company’s market share in the tomato business

If the CBN gives us N100 billion loan and the market is not here, I will not be able to pay back, even without interest . We have a plant for about 450,000 metric tons of tomato paste in a year. As a matter of fact, myself and Dantata can meet the demand needs of Nigeria and export more, but there is no market. Now in the factory, we manage to operate one line. Everywhere is filled up with products, so I have the capacity to produce, but the substandard products from China have taken over the market. Smuggled products have taken a large chunk of our market share .But, I have the confidence that with this new government things will turn around. I tell Chinese when they come that if you want to do business here bring the plants to Nigeria.

If you give me anything to import for N20 billion and make profit of N18 billion, I will tell you no, let us produce here. That is why I am going back to Sokoto in the first quarter of next year to start production of 20-30, 000 tractors per year.

The government of Sokoto is willing to assist us and we are also doing tomato there.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/01/doing-business-in-nigeria-riskier-than-fighting-boko-haram-eric-umeofia-erisco-foods-ceo/

Achuwa1:
If a professor in nigeria,can take up the position of a minister of state of education where a mere jornalist is the minister of education ,which implies that the jornalist is the boss of the professor,i think tht profesor doesnt know his worth

I agree with you. Both Buhari and that professor are mad.

Buhari

Barbaric

TedBaker:
ok i get it. U frm Somalia shey? Una no get somalialand wat re u doin here? nairaland is only 4 nigerians.

Clearly u are as failed as Nigeria. Oloshi, onye ara, barawo.

TedBaker:
Haba u shouldnt ve used the word failed state

You cannot see this even in Somali, a failed state. So I guess Nigeria is actually worse than being dubbed a failed state.

This is at Bauchi airport NIGERIA, TRENDING ON TWITTER. THERE COULD BE NOTHING MORE EXEMPLIFYING THE FAILED STATE OF NIGERIA

Ioannes:
what stops them from bringing out the best of themselves right now?

Because when they work hard, they do not get the reward for hard work under the current system. So they start behaving like the rest of them Nigerians. Laziness and complacency are infectious, you know?

Ioannes:
that's my point. others are not bragging, so we can forgive their slums. but since Igbos are extra special creatures we should expect their enclave to be slum free, right? or at least better than what we see around...

You mean Yorubas are not bragging? You live in planet Mars?

SunshineP:
you better don't mention biafra before they ban you too. Rule 9 must be obey.

Ban? What does that mean? Nairaland is the least of items on my plate. They can ban all they want; I am too busy with MORE IMPORTANT stuff to even think about that.

Ioannes:
delusions of grandeur.

do you want me to post pictures of Aba for you?

Pictures of Aba= Pictures of Lagos = pictures of Ibadan. All have slums, no?

SunshineP:
The igbos re not around dear, so this thread will end in page 1. don't know the tribe to replace them. I miss their wahala. Some re facing bans. Nairaland is bit bored though.

Where re the niger deltas na?

Where did all the Igbos of Nairaland go to? Have they all relocated to B.....iafraland?

Hahaha! Anyways, what about non-Biafra Igbos? Are they also on break?

You see how boring Nigeria will become when Igbos leave for B..iafra? This is only on cyberspace and it's already boring.

I guess Igbos in NIGERIA can only become anything significant if they have their own country and compete among themselves to the best of their individual abilities. For now there is no single competition coming from half of the country (the North), little from the South South, and a bit more from the SW. The igbos are primed to compete at the highest level, to bring out the best in them; Nigeria is not giving them the space and motivation to do so. I wonder what the remains of Nigeria would look like should Igbos leave, and do so peacefully, with all their ''Ghana must go bags'' intact and repatriated to their ancestral lands. Hahahah!

Igbotic! Go Figure!

Although the Chinese and Indians are still very conspicuously above even the best African nationalities, their superiority disappears when the Nigerian and other groups are broken down even further according to their different tribal ethnicities.

Groups like the famous Igbo tribe, which has contributed much genetically to the African American blacks, are well known to be high academic achievers within Nigeria. In fact, their performance seems to be at least as high as the “model minority” Chinese and Indians in the UK, as seen when some recent African immigrants are divided into languages spoken at home (which also indicates that these are not multigenerational descendants but children of recent immigrants).

Africans speaking Luganda and Krio did better than the Chinese students in 2011. The igbo were even more impressive given their much bigger numbers (and their consistently high performance over the years, gaining a 100 percent pass rate in 2009!). The superior Igbo achievement on GCSEs is not new and has been noted in studies that came before the recent media discovery of African performance.

A 2007 report on “case study” model schools in Lambeth also included a rare disclosure of specified Igbo performance (recorded as Ibo in the table below) and it confirms that Igbos have been performing exceptionally well for a long time (5 + A*-C GCSEs); in fact, it is difficult to find a time when they ever performed below British whites.

It should be noted that in fact, the Chinese and Indian groups in the UK have the smallest number of pupils qualified for free school meals, a proxy for level of poverty.

In the world of intellectually gifted schools, perhaps the most selective in the United States is a special program called the Davidson Academy started by Jan and Bob Davison in 2006 in Reno, Nevada.

The tiny school boasts of selecting only the most profoundly gifted children (the highest of the five levels of giftedness) whose IQ is so high that “only one in every ten thousand children in America” can qualify to the school in any one cohort; it is more selective than Stanford or Harvard can ever be.

The school makes no efforts or pretensions to affirmative action and as such, they have had very little “diversity.” However, a search through the promotional materials of the school for a black student – all schools and colleges will always show some black faces in their promotional materials if they have any – reveals that they have had at least one black student, and it was, unsurprisingly, a Nigerian Igbo name (the parent is interviewed in the ad posted on Youtube - Davidson Academy - Overview Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOfnqQtr0PY).

READ THE WHOLE RESEARCH HERE. THEN LOVE OR HATE US MORE
http://www.unz.com/…/the-iq-gap-is-no-longer-a-black-and-w…/

Pathetic situation. Question though is, are they worse off than other Benue folks who are not Igbos? Are they worse off than Igbos in SE? Are they worse off than other Nigerians in general? My answer would be no. Everyone ordinary person currently in Nigeria is a robot, used and dumped by the privileged. Your country should be shut down and recolonized, this time by the Chinese or Singaporeans.

We’ve been abandoned, Igbos in Benue cry out 0

BY EMMANUEL UZOR, ONITSHA 

There are over one million of them spread across four local government areas of Benue State. You can find them in Ado, Oju, Okpoku and Obi, all in Benue State. They are ethnic Igbos. Before the Nigerian civil war, they lived a happy and meaningful life, mingling freely with their kith and kin in the state. But today, things have fallen apart. Instead of the joyful songs, they were used to, they now sing dirges.

The Benue Igbos who are called by the name Umuezeokoha are not happy that they have been neglected for a long time now by successive governments, federal, state or local, and they are blaming this on their ethnic origin and the fact that they are in the wrong state. Interestingly, the people share the same Benue South Senatorial Constituency with Senate President, David Mark. Though Igbos , the Umuezeokoha Community, due perhaps to accident of history, are found in Benue State instead of Ebonyi State , being the closest Igbo state where their kinsmen, the Ezza Ezekuna kindred are found.

According to the President, Benue Igbo Union, Mr. Nweke Cedrick Ifeanyi, his people are wallowing in poverty and neglect and are often denied democracy dividends, including obtaining local government identification letters for employment in and outside the state.

Historical background of Igbos in Benue

Mr. Nweke said the Igbos in Benue State, particularly those in Ado, Oju, Okpoku and Obi Local Government Areas were in existence before the advent of Christianity in Nigeria. But since then, he lamented, they have not been recognized by successive governments both at the state and federal levels in both Ebonyi and Benue states.

“Although before the independence and the Nigerian civil war, which lasted for about three years, we used to experience government attention to the extent that the missionaries then established one local primary school at Umuezeokoha community which comprises over 300 villages of Igbo speaking areas that time. The school was generally accepted by our elders then and we did witness medical attention.

“But since after the civil war, we in the entire 300  Igbo-speaking villages in Benue State have been dumped by the Nigerian government. It is worse for those in Benue South Senatorial District. We have never experienced any government attention, let alone a project from the local, state and federal governments up till date.”

The  Igbo Union President also disclosed that a place with a population of over one million people has no designated political ward, no councillorship representative at the local government level nor at the state government level despite their voting population. He said even Senator David Mark and Governor Gabriel Suswan have been winning all their elections in the area.

Mr. Nweke also narrated how their children die in their large numbers because of lack of immunization,  which he said they have never witnessed since the return of democracy. He also painted a gory picture of how they were swindled of N6,000 each for insecticide treated mosquito nets, which were given free  to neighbouring communities by the federal government.

“We are lacking so many things, including a health centre, political ward, good roads, good water, electricity. There is no salary earner in our place to the extent that the mosquito treated insecticide nets given freely by the federal government was sold to us at the rate of N6,000 each,  some even paid without claiming it till date,” Nweke said.

“All our roads are narrow; we do not have any motorable road in our area at all, last time when we visited the local government chairmen and complained about the issue of selling mosquito nets to us, what they said was that the era of mosquito nets had come and gone. This attracted exchange of gazes, and the question weather we are still a part of this country. Imagine as we are in this dry season, we hardly see water to drink, wash and cook, talk less of taking bath. Before we see water to do something, one has to trek  up to 30 kilometres to a place where there is an unpurified dam water, but in this place, you must queue up in a line before it will get to your turn,” he said.

Another member of the community, Chief John Nwali also narrated the ordeal of the people in the hands of successive governments in the state, adding, “sometimes we do lament whether we are different from other human beings created by God. Some of them that claim to be natives of the state mock us by telling us to wait to benefit from government only  when the Biafran nation which we fought for comes into reality.”

“At times we nurse the idea of belonging to another country. In fact, if we are close to another country, we could have declared our intention to become their citizens, but this one we are in the midst of Nigeria, we speak Nigerian language, practice Nigerian culture and religion, in every election we vote and still we are treated with great scorn and neglect as if we are not existing.  Yet, we have somebody like the Senate President, living in Abuja with our mandate.

“Even in the last 2011 general election, I was the PDP Campaign Coordinator for Benue Igbo branch, but since that time till now, we are still in the same condition. We have been regarded as slaves in the country of our own.  Even the only primary school that was built by the missionary before Independence is no more attracting government attention. The school is now in a sorry state.  The only secondary school we have as of now is one at Saint Charles Catholic Church at Apa Ogbozu community, which was initiated by one Reverend Father.”

“We do not have anybody in the Benue State Government cabinet both in the local, state and in federal levels. We are all confused on what to do and where to  go because we do not know when this indefinite discrimination will come to an end because even to the extent that the local government identification letters are no more being given to  us any longer as Nigerian citizens.”

Chief Nwali also said that during rainy season, their people get drowned in water and disclosed that none of the streams, rivers and lakes has any bridge and lamented that during the last flood incident, they lost almost all their farm lands and  every other thing they had laboured for.

“The political oppression which we have been subjected to is very serious.  Even one of the biggest rivers we have has not attracted government attention, just to build a bridge across it. Last year, more than 20 people died while trying to cross the river for their normal daily business. We have made so many efforts to visit our Governor, Gabriel Suswan and our Senator, David Mark, to table our problem before them, but all to no avail.”

An octogenarian, Pa Nwankwo Alo said: “Our children have not been immunized over the years, let alone polio eradication programme. Our women do not even know what is hospital when they are pregnant because there are no hospitals to attend and yet we have up to 32 polling units. We have even called for more polling units because we are more than the present one but the government refused even as this national confab draws nearer, there is nobody to speak for us.”
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/weve-abandoned-igbos-benue-cry/