NwaforIgbo:
I believe we should first take our language as serious as possible. We should make sure we develope and expand already existing cities and industrial areas. We have to focus on tourism, I tell u it is a major source of income.

How a Political and Economic Integration Can Transform Igboland into an African Economic Hub
by Chinedu George Nnawetanma

https://ynaija.com/opinion-political-economic-integration-path-transforming-igboland-african-economic-hub/


Igboland is an ethnocultural region in the present-day southeastern Nigeria. It differs from the South East Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria in that it encompasses both the zone and other adjoining territories of the eponymous Igbo ethnic group.

With an estimated 35 million inhabitants, it is comparable to the US state of California in population and would be the 12th most populous country in Africa were it independent, surpassing the likes of Ghana, Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Senegal and Zambia.

A repository of natural resources, including coal, natural gas, petroleum and arable land, in addition to its wealth of human capital, Igboland is well-equipped to become one of Africa’s foremost engines of growth and development. However, repeated failures in optimising these human and natural resources have seen it serially underachieve.

Like much of the rest of the continent, it is enmeshed in underdevelopment, with the usual subplots of pervasive unemployment, infrastructure deficit and a very low production base featuring prominently. It is also particularly beset by an acute emigration rate among its economically active population, as they are regularly haemorrhaged for better opportunities.

Whilst myriads of factors have contributed to Igboland’s hobble over the years, the chief culprit has been its administrative balkanization. Unlike many other homogeneous regions the world over, it does not constitute a single polity. Rather, it is politically broken up into five Nigerian states, namely Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo and Abia; with parts of its territory jutting out into a further eight – Delta, Rivers, Cross River, Benue, Akwa Ibom, Kogi, Edo and Bayelsa.

As different governments often translate to different modi operandi and even partisan inclinations, this arrangement has robbed the region of cohesion in the utilization of its resources, a predicament that is compounded by the pint size and multiethnic composition of most of these states, leaving only fragments of its resources in the hands of each state government and intensifying communalism over their distribution in the process.

Amidst the reluctance of the Nigerian federal government to restructure Nigeria’s convoluted 36-state system into fewer, larger and more viable regions along ethnic lines – as stronger federating units would whittle down the power and influence of the center – the key to extricating Igboland from economic stagnation in the interim and navigating it towards sustained development is politico-economic integration.

The coalescence of the political pieces of Igboland into an economic union of harmonised policies, combined resources, shared responsibilities and collective goals will, among other things, unlock the potential of the region by mitigating the bureaucratic, political and socioeconomic bottlenecks scuttling its progress thus far.

A single market covering Igboland will represent one of Africa’s most attractive investment destinations. Its huge population (which is more than the combined population of the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland), compact land mass and considerable mineral wealth will provide a large labour pool, proximate consumer base, readily available raw materials and easy accessibility for investors coming into the region.

Buoyed by that and its strategic location near the intersection of West and Central Africa (and, by extension, Anglophone and Francophone Africa), it can serve as a springboard for businesses reaching out to both subregions whose combined population of 530 million outstrips that of each of the European Union and the United States of America.

As well as putting Igboland on the world map as an attractive investment destination, a politico-economic integration will equally pave the way for the realization of joint projects that will boost the socioeconomic profile and investment climate of the region, such as a rail link between its major northern corridor cities of Asaba, Onitsha, Nnewi, Awka, Enugu and Abakaliki and its major central and southern corridor cities of Orlu, Okigwe, Owerri, Umuahia and Aba.

It will also galvanise public-private partnership in the region by presenting a central platform for high-level collaboration between the private sector and the government in bringing investments that will create much-needed job opportunities necessary for retaining its teeming economically active population and preventing them from putting their skills to use elsewhere.

It is no longer news that at least 50% of the economic means of Ndigbo are domiciled outside Igboland. An Igboland Economic Union will arrest this anomaly by persuading Igbos worldwide to make Igboland the centrepiece of their investment drives and its fast-tracked development a top priority.

In a century when the drivers of the world’s economic growth are expected to shift from Asia to Africa, Igboland must be foresighted by repositioning itself now to be integral to and benefit from this process. As a first step, adequate and accelerated measures must be put in place to realise the comprehensive integration of Igboland, without which it will never come close to reaching its full capability and competing favourably on the global turf.

Chinedu George Nnawetanma; Email: chinnawetanma@gmail.com; Twitter: @Chinedu17George

It was a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, Robert H. Jackson, who said that "it is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.” Nigerians, it seems, are beginning to wake up to this responsibility.

Over the years, Nigeria, like many of its counterparts in Africa, has been particularly plagued with bad leadership. The late literary icon, Professor Chinua Achebe, singled out bad leadership as the bane of Nigeria's development as a nation in his 1983 seminal work, The Trouble With Nigeria.

In his words, "the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership."

Since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, Nigeria's democracy has been truncated thrice: in 1966, 1983 and 1993; spawning a total of 8 military juntas in the process. And it's not that the civilian leaders have been paragons of virtue, either.

The current president, Muhammadu Buhari, toppled Nigeria's second civilian administration in 1983 as a young military officer. As a "democrat," he rode to power in May 2015 on the mantra of a CHANGE from the status quo. But almost two years on, Nigerians are yet to discern any distinction between his administration and what they are accustomed to.

The country entered its first recession in two decades in mid-2016. The unemployment rate has soared to 13.9%, inflation is at 18.3% and the local currency, the naira, has plunged from an exchange rate of N210=$1 in March 2015 to about N506=$1 in the parallel markets as of February 10, 2017.

Much of this worsening economic condition is due to the government's laxity and fitting of square pegs into round holes. For instance, it took President Muhammadu Buhari nearly six months to appoint his ministers while the country virtually drifted in autopilot. When he eventually did, he conflated three of Nigerians most critical ministries – Power, Works and Housing – and handed it over to a lawyer; appointed a scandal-plagued ex-governor of an oil-rich Niger Delta state into his cabinet; and named a sports minister who would go on to declare that he was against Nigeria's participation in the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Ordinarily, Nigerians would have taken this lying down. But, empowered by the social media and exposed to happenings in other parts of the world, they've had enough. A popular musician, TuFace Idibia, organized anti-government protests in many cities of the country, leveraging his celebrity status to galvanize support from the masses.

Though he would later pull out at the last minute, citing security fears, the protests went ahead as scheduled on Monday the 6th of February, sparked off several other protests and became the top trending story in Nigeria during the week.

What is heartwarming is not the protests themselves. Protests have been organized in Nigeria before, even during the military interregnums, with some recording higher turnouts than this week's. The take-home is the fact that the latent activist in many Nigerians was awoken.

As more and more Nigerians become equipped with the internet and other channels of information, they will not only learn from history, but also from current world events the importance and gains of imbibing the culture of holding elected officials accountable. I hope that these demonstrations represent a giant leap in this direction, rather than a fad whereafter everyone retreats to their comfort zones.

Chinedu George Nnawetanma is a Nigerian writer and social commentator.