₦airaland Forum

Katsumoto:
Read this

An article written by Zik published on the front page of the Pilot, and entitled 'Football Illiad, 1940 Edition' shocked many people.

A football team composed of students of the Christ King's College, Onitsha came to Lagos to paly a 'Win the war' football match against St Gregory's college. The CKC team from Onitsha defeated St. Gergory's team by 5 goals to 4. To the ordinary man in the street, let alone the highly sophisticated elements, there was nothing extraordinary or unusual in one school or college defeating another in a game of soccer. But not so with Dr. Zik. He saw in the sporting exploits and triumph of the team from Onitsha the inherent superiority of the easterners over thier opponent and he went to very great pains to establish this fact, by means of careful choosing words and emphasis. These extracts from the article are relevant:

"And to think of the great combination if the Spartan heroes who crossed the lordly Niger, journeyed through the good earth of Benin, hurried across the domains of the Oshemawe of Ondo, of the Atanla of Owo, of the Owa of Ilesha, of the Oni of Ife, of the Alake of Abeokuta in their invasion of these islands!
Who, but heroes of mighty brawn and exceptionally developed brain would have dared to make this invasion and to succeed in carrying to their River Niger home, the Golden Fleece of Inter-Collegiate Soccer Championship of the Eastern and Western Provinces?
Yet they came to Lagos, they saw the irresistible defence put up by their opponents, and they conquered impressively, convincingly, and were graceful even in victory!
Could their achievement be paralleled?
Would it not be better for me to leave the answer to the laps of the gods?"

On 24 August 1940, the same CKC team played the Olubadan XI in another 'Win the War' match. The CKC were beaten 3-2 by the Olubadan XI which was an undiluted Yoruba team. Nothing was written on the Pilot. It was after there had been clamours in the Daily Service, in form of letters to the editor, that the news of this Ibadan match was published some 2 weeks after and it was a small item on the back page. It was explained in it that CKC team were already tired and that some of them in fact limping, before they went into the field against Olubadan XI. This was of course untrue.

“ So that you can buy a bottle of fresh milk which is made in Nigeria, one hundred per cent in Lagos or other parts of the country. The government will not be wasting its valuable oil money to import milk from Europe and America. I am an African. Africans must learn to stand on their feets. The business of leaning to the West is nonsense. The problem I find all the time is that Africans think they are useless. All they say is: ‘It is not my fault’. They are happy to say: ‘I am a black man’, every time something goes wrong.  I want to change that mentality. Then I can make some money at the same time.

He harped on the fact that one of the biggest problems in Nigeria is too much oil wells. And that has created a lot of dependency on the West. The banks make easy money from oil. “To make money out of lending to farmers is hard work.
Bank managers should be coming here every six months. And should be sitting down on the table with the farmers, saying: ‘How we help you?’”

Retziaff  regretted that initially the banks in Nigeria were not even interested in giving loan to farmers. “Some of them are now just beginning to be interested in giving us loans after five years of our operation in Nigeria. Now we are selling our milk to WAMCO. That money goes into the banks. They are now trying to understand that when you lend money to a farmer, he must have 20 years to pay back. Agriculture is the wealth of any country not oil. Oil wells can run out, but the people must eat food all the time,” he said.

Subsistent or personal agriculture he said degrades the soil and the environment. “Up till now, all the milk you buy in Nigeria was produced by white farmers in Europe. Now when you drink Peak Milk, you are drinking part of  the milk we are producing in Shonga. The money is staying in the country. It is creating wealth.”

For the industry to be sustainable, he agreed that he can not afford to continue to import cows from Europe or America to the country. “We have to improve the Fulani cows, there is no other way. We are working on cross-breeding the Fulani cows with the high breeds from Europe already. I already have 20 of them on the ground. A Fulani cow is a milking cow, it is just that to justify creating a commercial dairy industry, we need to push up its production a little bit. In order to justify expending capital on milking machine, trucks, etc.”

Despite her age, she is a spirited woman: “You have to keep working to keep fit. Once you stop working, you die. Work is work, it depends on what you put into it. And we are able to teach people. Isn’t that what we are here for? To teach Nigerians agriculture, and we are doing a great job. The people around this area are very willing to learn how to do things. Studying microbiology and other things is very different from managing fresh milk.”

The General Manager submitted that one has to come and work on the farm to get the technology of commercial agriculture. “ Other states have to open up more farms and do the same things that we are doing here. You can’t just farm on one hectare of land and expect to make money. You got to have a big farm. You need to have the factory to process your products like cassava on the farm. So that you don’t have to look for transport, because your roads are not good. I don’t  even know how those drivers manage.”

“If you do your agriculture properly, you will be able to export to other countries. Export Banana, Pineapple, pawpaw etc. Zimbabwe used to be the food basket of Africa. It used to produce enough food and vegetable to fly a plane out, every night to Europe. But all that is over, because of poor management. It is very sad.
Zimbabwe is just the size of one of your states. You got the Niger River, you could do fishing and all that for export,” she said.

Kobojunkie:
"Have to" simply means we not get into unnecessary debt.   This goes with the message "Not all debt is good debt".

hhm m m ,  I hope you re-read the above to understand how I think it is sort of from a biased point of view. You have no real info on what exactly the money Lagos has borrowed so far has been, and is being, spent on but you are all too willing to say "BORROW-ON, MR GOVERNOR"?

Enugu, Anambra, Kaduna  . . . . Yes, some are oil producing states but even oil producing entities CAN borrow  for projects as well.

To this, again I say, not all debt is good debt, and debt is no guarantee for development.

Plus, you have to pay the debt back at some point.

So it makes sense, again, to ensure that we only borrow when we have to. I mean this is all I have been saying and continue to say.

Kobojunkie:
Sigh!
But the reality  is that has not been the case! I rather we deal with the reality of our situation when we look at these things, FOR OUR OWN GOOD. The President is borrowing money too, and people are concerned, rightly so too.

sigh . . .  We would all love to see Lagos become a Dubai/London/NY too

but the fact is NOT ALL DEBT is GOOD DEBT and so as the state acquires more of it, it is sensible for people to question the need for all the debt.

There are other states out there, equally developing, but not accruing debt at the same pace Lagos is.

seanet02:
The same place where ODECHUKWU wants to build floating cities on water

komando7:
I fail to see how this will put food on the table of the average Nigerian. All the same kudos to her.

excanny:
P.S  Unfortunately the 'gb' in Igbo and in the neighbouring Yoruba 'gb' are very different in sound. But it can be a close guide for anyone who  wants to learn how to pronounce it in Igbo.

sbeezy8:
helll noooo he should go sit down NORTHERNER in 2015 or orji kalu or orji for president in 2015

sbeezy8:
lol hes right but i like his older more relaxed image

hes beginning to talk to much

cheikh:
eku bear


@eku bear

You sound like an unreformed 'militant' even a cow or two will not pacify you?

fstranger3:
Salient, succinct, very descriptive, comprehensible; yet, utterly profound and elegant in its simplicity.

PhysicsMHD:
On an unrelated note, Zik seems to think the Igbos were one of the few groups in Africa to "escape" the conqueror's sword of another African group, when there were actually many African groups that could say the same; read p. 242: http://books.google.com/books?id=Iec7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA243&lpg=PA243&dq=the+martial+progress+of+the+igbo+nation+zik&source=bl&ots=2KoTKUCHT5&sig=WJ6-nsa5Hr2rRs3g0uVYR_MP2LU&hl=en&ei=v6hVTZ3AEc73gAeG1tynDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Zik took rhetoric to such heights that he lost sight of the ground. You have to respect his oratory skill, but he said some fanciful stuff sometimes.