₦airaland Forum

udezue:
Ibime,
Quit being a moronn. No its not opata that they are yarning but the truth. If his actions during the Biafran are unrelated to his demise then why did he find it necessary to go to Ohanaeze meeting in Enugu and ask for forgiveness for the evil role he played against Biafrans including his Ogoni people who were fighting on the Biafran side?

You do realize that the other 8 that were killed, by Saro-Wiwa's own admission, fought against Nigeria right? Stop and think logically and don't let blind rage color your perception of history.

okooyinbo:
So Nowa is your source? OK! Clap clap clap! Bravo!!!!

You dont mean it do you? So blackmailing and propaganda were the tactics of the AG govt to convince the Midwest? I see! And what Party produced the Premier of that Midwestern region? The NCNC? The NPC? The United Edo Convention Peoples party? Urhobo-Isoko progressive Party of Nigerian Midwest? The Anioma Igbo convention? The National Council of Ijo and Cameroon? Or maybe they rigged that elections too sha.

Blackmailing and smear campaigns were the tactics of the AG. And the NCNC, which was very strongly supported by ALL groups in the Midwest produced the premier of the Midwest. Dennis Osadebay, who had been leader of the opposition, and who had convinced Delta Igbos to support the creation of the Midwest, was MADE the Premier on a rotational zoning agreement, he was not elected, rather he was occupying the turn of Delta Igbos to produced the premier, after which it would shifted to some other group to prevent Edo/Urhobo domination of the other groups (Ijaw, Itsekiri, Delta Igbo). Other ethnic groups were occupying the other key positions and would also rotate under the agreement.

BTW, how many people were brutalized, murdered, maimed, and how many traditional leaders removed through the thuggery of the AG?

A state of emergency was almost created in the Western region over AG attempts to intimidate the Midwest movement

Meanwhile, back in the Midwest, the NCNC and Action Group were locking horns in increasingly aggressive confrontation between party thugs regarding the alleged misuse by the AG of customary courts and tax assessments to harass political opponents, particularly in Ishan division, where the pro-Midwestern Prince Shaka Momodu was active, but just as much elsewhere [West African Pilot, August 30, 1961].   In the near crisis atmosphere that this created in the Midwest, Michael Okpara and the NCNC wanted the Balewa government to declare a state of emergency in the West, but Balewa resisted the temptation, seeing as it had other problems on its hands such as the controversy over the Anglo-Nigerian defence pact and the Congo controversy.  Balewa also wanted to reach out to the Action Group during this period.

He went on to criticize the[b] Western region Chiefs Law No. 20 of 1957 which was being used with effect to intimidate traditional rulers and influence the selection of chiefs and Dukes inside the Midwest[/b].

Supporting testimony from the Ishan division, [b]where the Action Group had deposed the Onogies of Idoa and Ubiaja was also heard [/b]from G. Ebea, A. Ibhazo, Prince Shaka Momodu, and His Royal Highness, Enosegbe II, Enogie of Ewohimi.

POLLING DAY, July 13th, 1963



[b]In most constituencies – except in the Benin and Asaba divisions - polling went off without major problems.  In Benin City, Mr. C. Akere, a known Action Grouper, reportedly kept coming in and out of the Headquarters of the referendum on Ring Road with complaints, particularly about the unexpected massive turn-out of voters.   On each occasion, Mr. Longe would ask him to bring evidence of malpractice but he had none to show.  



According to Mr. D. A. Omoigui, ADRO for Benin NorthEast (I) there were few Police patrols in his constituency.  The Police stayed put at Ehor without transport, cutting off polling officials in the Eyaen area from any kind of formal security protection.  Many were beaten up or rough-handled by Action Group thugs who even tried to prevent voters from voting.  For example, Mr. H.R.A. Iruegbae, then Presiding Officer at the Ugha Native Authority School Idumwumgha was beaten and his plastic bag seized. When the ADRO went to get Police at Ehor, he found them at Adobadan.  The procession then returned to Idumwungha where for unexplained reasons the Police Officer in Charge, Mr. Izevbizua-Iyamu, refused to arrest the thugs or clear them out of the polling station.  This type of Police behavior was not universal.  At Ehor, for example, another Police officer, one Mr. Omonudo, carried out his security assignments with despatch and seriousness when reports were made to him.   At Orio, a privately hired bodyguard called “Dogo” from Auchi physically threw obstructionists out of the polling station when the Police did not show up.



During counting at the Conference Hall in Benin, a special representative of Chief Akintola who had been sent to “monitor” the counting, was chased out of the Hall by members of the Owegbe society, when it transpired that his name was not on the official list of agents representing the various political parties.[/b]

And since the taxes of Benin, Warri, Asaba, and you forgot to mention Sapele were gone, why were the Ijebu factories not grounded to a halt? Why were the whole Industrial complexes in Ikeja, Apapa and Ibadan to name just a few were not a shadow of themselves after the partition of the rich Midwest? Why did a lot of you Midwesterners still ques to farm in the West after you got your freedom? Why?

Chump, where did I ever say the Midwest was the West's cash cow? I pointed out that there was a clear and direct and undeniable loss of tax money of 20% of the population of the West that could no longer be used almost exclusively on the Yoruba 80%. That must have been why the AG goon's were so desperate to try all sorts of litigation and other bullshit after the referendum was already over to try to keep the Midwest in the West. Loss of 20% cannot sink 80% or cause 80% to stop working and I never implied or insinuated such a thing.

I believe Edo state is richer than Ondo state, but go look your roads and come look the roads in Ondo state. And the governor upon all his shout is an under performing one for that matter, I mean our governor o. No be say make come misinterpret again say i dey yab Oshi o mo ole.

Edo state and Delta state have a higher GDP per capita than EVERY other state that was at one time in the Western region.

Summary: Junior, stop that! Daddy does not really enjoy this your unfounded insuniation at all.

Foolish old man.

okooyinbo:
Have you thought about this? If the Midwest was really our cash cow, wouldn't we have whined about it being splitted away from us? Wouldnt we have become poorer? Ironically, we did not weep, and we actually had more resources to go around after the partitioning of the Midwest from the West. Imagine that?

Who said the Midwest was the West's cash cow? Nobody. And for the record the Yoruba-AG government did lie and moan and spread propaganda and try all sorts of underhanded tactics to try to keep the Midwest in the West. From smear campaigns (against Bini, against Igbo), to deposing traditional monarchs supporting autonomy, to stopping meetings, to outright deception (Awolowo, Sowole motion, etc.), to litigation (Akintola), to sending spies and hired thugs to intimidate people in Ishan and other divisions on the actual voting day.

As for having more resources to go around that's laughable because there were no Benin, Warri, Asaba tax monies to take and use and develop Ibadan infrastructure or Ijebu rubber factories, so that's a clear loss of monetary resources.

Acquaint yourself with

"Benin and the Midwest Referendum" by Nowa Omogui

http://www.dawodu.com/omoigui22.htm

And stop asking senseless questions.

I'm done. I've got more important things to do.

okooyinbo:
Abeg oga professor, in what book is it written that both pronvinces were not part of the West?

In every credible book on Nigerian history. The Benin and Warri Provinces were not part of the West because the West did not exist until 1939. Prior to that there was just Southern Protectorate, in which these were two of many provinces. Get your facts right.

None of the regions in the south were independent of each other.

Why are you talking of regions? I'm talking about Provinces, which existed for 40 years before anyone colonial ever dreamed up the idea of a Western region.[q

It is only the colony of Lagos that was not part of the the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. When out of the colony and the 2 protectorates of Nigeria the 3 regions and the colony of Lagos through the constitutional amendment were implemented, it was natural that those two pronvinces stay in the West and not the East or North.

It wasn't natural, because prior to that they had in fact had nothing to do with the other Provinces that made up the West for 40 years

As you can see, Benin and the Delta pronvinces have never been independence.

This is just brazenly false. Stop making up stuff. Pick up a book. Warri Province existed in 1900. Western region only existed in 1939.

If it were so, the oyinbo man would have given you a region outright.

The oyinbo man made the three regions in 1939 based on administrative convenience, by their own admission and also didn't care care about ethnicity or previous status of independence when they split the country along the rivers.

The Midwest was a creation of political manouvering to checkmate the West in 1963.

Yup.

Let me ask you this: Why was it only the Midwest that was created out of all the regions agitating for autonomy?

Because the Action Group was weak and could be defeated, period. This question has already been dealt with on a thread on this forum called "Definition of Middle Belt"

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-556755.64.html

Now, it is your turn to go back to read your books very well.

No. It's time to take a break from the beer parlor historical discussions where you obviously get all this nonsense.

okooyinbo:
Exemption was the Midwest ofcourse. And the creation of the Midwest was rather treacherous. The sole aim was to put the West in check back then. And it is quite of note that the Yorubas have never accused the Eastern region and indeed the Midwest of betrayal, even though the SS and especially the SE as they are known now really played an important role in that particular treacherous act.

Of course they've never accused anybody of betrayal. To their credit, they're not silly enough to accuse people who they managed to alienate through their own prejudice (Midwest) or people they were already political rivals and opponents of (East) of treachery or betrayal. It's amazing that you're actually ignorant enough about history to think that you, as a Yoruba, could do so make such an accusation, so I might as well not take you seriously after this.

Prior to 1939 the Benin Province and the Warri Province that made up what would later become the Midwest were completely separate from the Yoruba and had nothing to do with them and the move to regain their previous autonomy from Yorubas after 20 years of being screwed over can only be viewed by anyone with a brain as a return to normalcy. Any interpretation of the Midwest state creation as treachery could only come from some one who was enormously ignorant of history.

Pick up a book and stop getting your history from beer parlors.

Oh my goodness. Where do I begin. So many errors.

okooyinbo:
I know, but I wont clarify why I used that word.

Your use of "substantial" was absolutely incorrect and served the purpose of distorting things.

Indeed they not able because they are not capable of it. No civilian govt has ever done that before in Nigeria. State / Region creation has always been a reserve of the colonial rulers and the Armies. There is no unison among the politicians about state creation because of the sharing formula might become more "imbalance".

What sort of rationale is this for preserving a scam? Lack of organization and cowardice are the reasons Northern civilian politicians aren't trying to change the structure of the state? Lagos state has 20 LG's but Kano state supposedly only about ten thousand more than Lagos state in population has 44 LG's and you're sitting here and actually trying to justify this by giving flimsy excuses. How about just admitting that Kano state civilian politicians are only to happy to profit disproportionately from the military's arrangement and get a "substantial chunk" more than they are due and take money while you there in the west as well as the rest of the south sit around and get played like fools.

I believe Kano state has got a high population, but I have my doubt as well as to the real population figure of that state. However, there is absolutely no doubt about it having a high population. The population figures of Jigawa, Kebbi, Bauchi, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kaduna states do put questions on my mind more than that of Kano.

The entire population of the North is questionable.

I am ofcourse including all allocations put together. And it really dwarfs that of Kano State.

It SHOULD dwarf that of Kano State. Kano's contributions to national revenue pale in significance compared to that of Rivers. I'm glad Kano's allocations are dwarfed, considering that they should actually get less, with a fake population, fake local government areas. Rivers get a greater allocation because it's more important economically, period.

Well, the words and acts of the people determines them being termed as greedy.

According to who? Are you somehow not understanding that neither you or I have paramount authority to sit in judgment on some pedestal, pulpit, high horse, exalted position, golden stool,etc. and decide what constitutes a greedy person?

I would not say they are greedy for doing that actually.

Then you absolutely and completely failed to understand the analogy I was making.

I would praise them for using the little they had to archieve such a tremendous feat.

Complete and utter rubbish. Using the logic being applied to the ND, the cocoa and rubber they used belong to NIGERIA and not to them. It wasn't the "little they had" it was Nigeria's resources and they used it only to develop themselves, even setting up TV, which they didn't need, when other areas, like say, Middlebelt, could have used the excessive cocoa money to catch up with them in other areas and "eat too." This is what a parasite believes, anyways. Are you starting to see how ludicrous arguing against resource control gets?

The ND could learn one or two things from that.

They could learn how to use 50% or more of the revenue from their resources for their own development alone and then turn around and hypocritically deny others the right to do so from that. But that is more Northerners than Westerners as the  West didn't go on to determine derivation, so I'll leave off on this.

They should use what they are getting now to do tangible things.

What they are getting now is a sham. Imagine if the Western region would have been forced to get only 25% (because population wise, they had somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of Nigeria's population, if one accepts the probably rigged (in favor of the North) census) of the revenues from cocoa and rubber? They would have achieved only 1/4 as much and their achievements would have been nothing to write home about.

And btw, as noted by you, money was also taken from the West and the North by the federal government. And these regions never shouted 100% resource control as some are demanding.

False. Did you read the article I quote from? Money from mining royalties and import revenue taxes was taken from all regions by the colonial government and used to reduce to redress the fiscal imbalance between the West and rest. The West's actual ability to derive massive revenue from its cocoa, rubber, or other resources was not affected.

When the FGN was depleting the solid minerals of the other regions, why was nobody shouting 100% resource control back then?

Stop building nonfactual conjectures upon nonfactual conjectures. At no point did the FGN "deplete the solid minerals of the other regions." The minerals of the regions were used by the regions, and not at some nonsense 13% return.

As I said above, the Western Region was not greedy building infrastructure.

Why should they be allowed to use their immediate resources to develop only themselves? Why didn't Awolowo take his profits from cocoa and divvy them up amongst the rest of the federation instead of channeling it all into development of infrastructure of cities in the West? Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds as a question? These are the kind of parasitic, silly questions one asks when one asks that the ND should divvy up proceeds from oil at their expense.

The infrastructures were absolutely needed

Who determines what is absolutely needed? Is a TV station "absolutely needed"? Under any reasonable use of  "absolutely needed" it wouldn't be. But you should now see my point here on how one can't sit in judgment and decree what constitutes needed or deserved things.

and thats why the other regions and the federal govt followed the example pace-setted by the West.

The other regions were doing their own thing entirely.

So, how could you claim that that is greediness?

I made a simple analogy. People who claim that ND would be greedy to the oil to develop primarily (50% derivation) themselves are calling Yorubas in the Western region greedy for previously doing the same thing with their own resources. I never claimed that actually was greed, I made a logical comparison, which you apparently did not understand.

Or did you read somewhere that the money earnmarked for such projects in other regions was misappropriated by the West?
Greediness is not about telling someone to stop doing what he likes either peacifully or coercifully. As such, you have no moral standing to ask the West or someone else for that matter to desist from developing.

Why should the West get to use the oh-so-valuable cocoa and rubber for their benefit and development when if I had a parasitic Nigerian mentality I would only approve them getting 13% or 25% of what should rightfully go them? I absolutely have the moral standing to tell the West that they must desist from using certain revenues to develop when as a parasite, I hold that these revenues from their region's resources are earmarked to be divvied up between the rest of the country. Fortunately I don't have that parasitic mindset so I'm not making that demand.

As far as I understand, nobody is asking the ND to not develop. We are actually encouraging them to do so. You can not just want more and more money without providing a tangible evidence of having diligently used the little you have already gotten.

Who said I thought people were asking the ND not to develop. This is obviously based on the stuff written above, which was completely logically flawed. And you don't seem to grasp that neither you, who have no authority of any kind whatsoever, nor any other Nigerian, should be the one grading them and evaluating when they will have met  your arbitrary and undisclosed criteria of diligent use of what they are getting now. What's funny is the extreme deflection and evasion inherent in this line of parasitic logic: its just claimed with absolutely no proof or evidence that "more and more money" (greater derivation) is being withheld on account of bad governance but at the same time it is being argued that they cannot be the only ones to benefit from their resource (so greater derivation/more money MUST be withheld) because "others have to eat too." On the one hand it implies that there could be no greater derivation without better governance while simultaneously claiming that there cannot be greater derivation because "others have to eat too" so the first part is redundant as justification of why there is not greater derivation and is really an evasive tactic. Evading the reality of acknowledging one's parasitic stance.

But they are clamouring for 100% resource control as I understood. Well, it could be they have sliced it. Even if any state gets 100% initially, they just gonna give up some to the federal govt and then share with other states. So has it been done, so will it be done.

It was always 50% before the militancy. I have no doubt the militants want 100% and there's actually no reason they shouldn't get it, actually. But I've only heard 50% from activists, politicians, etc., which would be a return to the 1950s. 100% is fine, as far I'm concerned.

50% is also far too much, it just wont happen.

Who says it's too much? You Who are YOU to decide what is or is  not too much? The fact that 50% derivation, which is what Nigeria STARTED WITH, and not "far too much" may not happen is one of the factors that makes the breakup of Nigeria more and more likely. You cannot have the federal government take 87% but then have that same federal government dominated by one section of the country (Northerners), and furthermore, by one obnoxious minority (Fulani).

Bear in mind, my local govt also produces oil. Nay, oil is also being exploited in my local govt.

Congratulations.

Its a lie! You dont mean[b] the ND people with all their fat houses[/b] are eating less from the oil "cake"?

What on earth could possibly be the meaning of the part in bold? Are you actually under the impression that those in the ND are doing better than those in other parts of the South?

Ha, friend, the mineral resouces in other places like Cola, Fanta, Dr Pepper are also being consumed. But nothing oils the food better than the OIL. It helps it slip through the Oesophagus with less stress.

At least the hypocritical, parasitic lust is being openly displayed and admitted.

The West was stingy and provided infrastructure in the Edo and Delta pronvinces.

False. They managed to NOT provide adequate infrastructure in Edo and Delta while still collecting tax revenue from those provinces!


from "Benin and the Midwest Referendum" by Nowa Omogui

"Detailed testimony was heard from a broad range of witnesses, including Chiefs Ezomo, Oliha, Ineh and Osula.  Other witnesses included the Chairmen of the Iyekovia, Uhunmwode and Benin City councils, namely Messrs Adonrin, Atohengbe and Ogbebor.  Edo women made a submission through Madam Eweka.  Complaints included lack of rubber markets and processing facilities, excessive local taxation, including “head taxes” which would then be remitted to Ibadan, poor infrastructure, and discrimination in the award of scholarships and opportunities for Edo women traders at Ibadan.  More recently, Mr. Isaac Asemota recalled that, “While Benin- City stayed in the dark with no electricity, running water, good roads, separate and unequal schools and grossly inadequate health clinics, there in Ibadan, Edo tax monies were being squandered in the construction of Cocoa House, Mapo Hall and Commercial Broadcasting Service Radio Station whose frequency we couldn’t even pick up in Benin-City. The best we could hope for was Redifussion radio which had a very low frequency and could not be heard more than two miles away from the broadcasting booth. “ (Isaac Asemota: “The last Edo Political Titan:  Chief Humphrey Omo-Osagie” unpublished manuscript, Edo-Nation Egroup, July 2, 2002.)

The most powerful and emotional testimony from Benin came from Chief H Omo-Osagie.  He lamented the insidious cultural role of Ifa divination and Ogboni activities in inserting Yoruba values and ways into Benin society.  He explained that Ifa divination required knowledge of Yoruba, while the Yoruba derived Ogboni society, was, according to him, “more dangerous than freemasonry.”  In fact he openly stated that after independence, laws would likely be passed, making membership of the ROF compulsory.  He went on to criticize the Western region Chiefs Law No. 20 of 1957 which was being used with effect to intimidate traditional rulers and influence the selection of chiefs and Dukes inside the Midwest.  The Chief also went into additional detail about perceptions of Yoruba domination of the Police, government boards, the public service, and the use of scholarships as a tool for punishing separatist divisions.  The Benin division, for example, had not, under the period of review, received any scholarships, while the Ijebu province (home to Chief Awolowo) had secured 17 such awards.  Another complaint was that Rubber was being developed in the Ijebu province when investment in the promised Ikpoba Rubber processing factory for already established rubber plantations of the Midwest was being help up.  A similar shenanigan affected the Koko port.  He went on to use examples of the decision by the Action Group government to dissolve the Benin Divisional Council in 1955 as an example of arbitrary misuse of power.  In conclusion, Chief Omo-Osagie opposed the new “Welsh-type” arrangement implemented by the Action Group through t he establishment of the “Ministry of Midwest Affairs” and the Midwest Advisory Council, and demanded either the creation of a Midwest region or a return to a unitary government at the center with provinces at the periphery.

Supporting testimony from the Ishan division, where the Action Group had deposed the Onogies of Idoa and Ubiaja was also heard from G. Ebea, A. Ibhazo, Prince Shaka Momodu, and His Royal Highness, Enosegbe II, Enogie of Ewohimi.  Similarly, the Commission heard from the Oba of Agbede who bluntly stated that the Oba of Benin, and not any of the Yoruba Obas, was his Oba.  On their part, Messrs Utomi, Onyia and Odiakosa provided the views of the Asaba division. "


"Among its observations, the commission noted that actual expenditure on road development in the Midwest area up to March 31, 1957, was only 15% of the estimates, compared with 50% in the Yoruba West."

"One of the criticisms of the Western region government was the alleged decision to spend 225,000 pounds in Awolowo’s home province of Ijebu with a population of 383,000, as compared with 169,000 pounds in the Benin province with a population of 624,000"

Free Education was also not an exclusive right of the Yorubas only in the old West. Even a lot of the elites from the ND across the Niger also benefited from the "stingyness" of the West to provide free universal education to all.

And? What does this have to do with the FACT that the Yoruba-AG government was stingy in using Western resources to develop the non-Yoruba parts of the West? I hope you can see how stalling the development of rubber in the non-Yoruba Midwest, the historical rubber center of all of Nigeria, and then going on to develop it in Ijebu is stinginess. Either that or outright prejudice.

So stingy are the Yoruba people!

Viewed historically, the Yoruba-AG controlled government of Obafemi Awolowo was worse than stingy. That is a fact.

It is also a very good sign of greediness not to show grattitude for any good deed at all.

Gratitude for what? Stop this rubbish. Acquaint yourself with history and read up on the Midwest state creation movement. There is nothing to "show gratitude" for.

You are blaming others for displaying the spirit of "na only me", although you yourself are equally guilty.

You can't comprehend that I'm mocking how parasitic minded individuals can call the ND people greedy or selfish but are perfectly fine with the exact same kind of supposed selfishness being displayed by their ethnic group or political region. This is raw, unfettered hypocrisy.

Yes, the railway and the port of Portharcourt was built to ease the easy export of i.e. the minerals of the middle belt. It is in the colonial record. And you should have learnt it too if you went to school in Nigeria some decades back when education was still something in that now corruption ridden land.

No, no, no. I want to see fact showings that Port Harcourt was built WITH or FROM revenues accrued from Northern/Middle Belt materials. That 's a completely different claim and it's what you originally said, not this stuff about WHY Port Harcourt was built, which isn't of any relevance this discussion.

Politically, it was not in the time we are talking about. The political Niger delta is quite a new phenomenon in the politics of Nigeria. You know that very well, dont be a cynics.

I know it extremely well, so how can you say the ND had no palm oil when at least 1/3 of what is now the ND had palm oil and then group Delta out of the ND and back into the West just to say that the modern political ND had no palm oil. That's complete and utter dishonesty and it's kind of disgusting. Just admit that what is now the ND had palm oil the revenues of which contributed to stabilizing the finances of the North and keep quiet instead of performing geo-political acrobatics to justify nonfactual and parasitic reasoning about non-ND resources being used to develop the ND. Fact is, if at any point palm oil from what became Delta state was relevant to paying for the excess costs of the North, then the Niger Delta was necessary to pay the North's bills and allow it to not be heavily in debt before it could even have its groundnut, tin, etc. streak.

A good deed is a good deed no matter how hard you tried to talk it little. Let the parasites go on ego trip, and they might consider doling out more percentage. Commend them and at the same time let them know there is more to be done. Now, that is politics. Learn to be a parasite yourself.

You don't get a leech to admit that he's a leech through flattery though, you confront him about it and make life miserable for him until he can no longer leech.

My condolences, Comrade.

okooyinbo:
If you can subsist on the allocation you get, then it is substantial.

Lol, I think you know this sentence wasn't  particularly clear when you typed it. Subsistence does not imply "substantial". If anything it's the opposite. If you can only subsist, then what you have or are being given is not substantial.

Admittedly, some states are getting more than they deserve, but hey it is not the fault of the politicians. The Army is to blame for that situation.

Please clarify. Are the civilian politicians incapable of changing the structure of the state?

Anyway, I beg to differ on the population of Kano state. Up till now, there has not been any concrete evidence put forward that suggest Kano state indeed does not have such a high population.

Perhaps. As far as I can tell, they determine the population of Kano state by just asserting that it's slightly more populous than Lagos state by adjusting the numbers whenever the population of Lagos state is counted. Since they (the Nigerian government) acknowledge that the city of Kano itself is not half the size of the city of Lagos, their whole claim is based on asserting that every single other area of Kano state is very highly populated. Once again, not impossible, but the very fact that they're trying to portray the place as bigger than Lagos in population is what makes me think the figures are cooked. If they had settled for second or third best, I might not even be doubting that they do indeed have one of the most highly populated states.

But I don't think a credible census has ever been performed in Nigeria, including the very first one which gave the Northerners the supposedly higher population that no doubt influenced later censuses.

Mind you, it does not mean it deserves those large number of LGs though. And now back to substinence: Since the allocation to Rivers state still dwarfs that of Kano, my arguement still remains that they (ND) get a substantial share of the resources.

Rivers state gets an allocation from the 87% that "dwarfs" what Kano gets? Or are you including what they get from the 13% as well here for Rivers? What they get from the 13% is even less than what is due to them if it is from their oil.

Greediness according to one dictionary could be understood as: "Excessively desirous of acquiring or possessing, especially wishing to possess more than what one needs or deserves."  Hope this answers your question adequately?

Who determines what another group of people need or deserve? You or me? How about the group themselves determining what they need or deserve. My question is not answered because I don't see how the Western region was allowed to use cocoa profits mostly on themselves and the Northern region allowed to use groundnut mostly on themselves. Using the logic now being applied to the ND, who said that the West and North should have been allowed to spend the profits from their resources primarily on themselves? Who said they needed to or that they deserved those profits? The Western region was even noted as being ahead of the other regions financially in an article I quoted above. Aren't they therefore extremely greedy for ever building up more regional wealth than they "needed" to subsist? Instead they were building all sorts of stuff they didn't need, setting up TV in West Africa, etc. who says they need or deserved TV?

What if I feel that if somebody in the Middle Belt or Eastern region can't yet have fancy new-fangled television then the Western region shouldn't have TV and that to spend their excess money setting up a TV station they are being greedy and hoarding wealth obtained from resources from their region only for their development? What if I demand in the 50s/60s that the Western region cease and desist from all expenditures aimed at obtaining television on these grounds? You see how ridiculous I would be to make such a request yet you and some others are making essentially the same claim with regard to the ND.

There is no society / country where only one part get all resources. Not even during the terrible dictator times of Abacha. 100% resource allocation is a fanciful dream that will never materialize.

Who says giving them all the profits from their oil amounts to giving them profits from all the resources? That's a stretch. There are other resources. Limestone is only found in certain parts of the country and if limestone was more valuable than oil I wouldn't start claiming that part with limestone must carry the whole country on its back.

50% was what they were originally calling for. Not 100%. So they seem to be aware of this. However there is not actually any practical reason why it could not be 100% for every state, except that there is currently a parasitic scam mentality going on.

Others have to eat too you know?

They can use either their own immediate resources, or their own hard work to feed themselves. Beaf made a thread in this forum "Your state is rich!" which clarified that every state had mineral resources. (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-342885.0.html) If "Others" are not willing to invest in developing exports or productive uses of those resources, why should those who have an easier and more valuable mineral to work with have to eat less than they might be able to?

For instance, the port of Portharcourt was not built with crude oil money. The rail network to the port was not built with oil money.

Of course they were not built with revenue from oil money.

There abound numerous other examples, but I would not want to delve into that. Well, the cocoa and rubber plantations of the old western region did built some infrastructures not only in the West, but also somewhere else.

Where else? The West was stingy with using its resources to build even within the West, but what I should note is that the DPA was only implemented in taking away part of their regional money (not cocoa money, anyways) and leaving it to federal use but not necessarily regional infrastructural use as you are claiming with no proof. Please state the infrastructure that was built in the ND with non-ND money.

And mind you, Portharcourt got it port not because of the Enugu coal but also due to the cotton and groundnut, as well as the Tin and columbite from the North.

Could you substantiate this claim about groundnut and columbite building Port Harcourt?

Yeah, you had palm oil, but the bulk of Palm oil production was actually in the old Midwest, the old Cross River State, and Igboland not the Niger Delta (Rivers, Bayelsa states). The Oil palm does not thrive in a swampy enviroment. I am also a swamp dweller, I should know.

So Delta state is not ND because it was in the Midwest? This makes no sense to me.

The people needs it more than the leaders. They are more than below par. If the society were not as bad, we would not have been producing bad leaders incessantly. I guess nobody wants to die, but we all wanna go to heaven. Anyway, if we are sure there is a heaven, maybe we would all gladly die sha*IRONY*. Back to topic! The people MUST first remove the log in their own eyes before they point to the dust in their leaders eyes. New orientation for all.

Perhaps, but it's not clear to me that generally good people must produce good leaders if the atmosphere of corruption and cover-ups is allowed to reign over the whole country or that corrupt, evil people-if whole groups of people actually exist that could be blatantly labeled evil and corrupt- will necessarily produce bad leaders in a good society with an atmosphere of transparency over the nation and with upright political parties with actual ideals.

Atleast somebody managed to push 13 percent through, he should be commended. We remember that there used to be someone who eliminated genuine freedom fighters on trumped up charges in a kangaroo tribunal. It helps sometimes to aknowledge a right deed no matter how little it is. It motivates to do more.

It isn't a "right deed" though. It's a scam. It should be 50%, as it was in the 1950's. The people who "pushed 13 percent through" are actually ND leaders who were calling for much more than 13%  but met with stiff opposition from parasitic quarters and had to settle for a tiny increase instead. What is there to be acknowledged about a group of people deigning to give one a small fraction of what rightfully belongs to one and thinking they (that group) are being so generous while doing so?

okooyinbo:
A substantial chunk is a substantial chunk. It is not only the states that get allocation, the LGs also get allocations from the rest 87%.

Yes, but not any more than other states, so how are they getting a "substantial chunk"? They're actually getting a "regular chunk"!

In fact, Kano state has 44 LG's when it doesn't have the population to merit such. It would actually be fair to say that Kano is getting a substantial chunk, but certainly not an ND state.

If anyone is telling lies, it is people who are blinded by their greediness.

Indeed. But how do we define greediness? Unwillingness to be ripped off or willingness to rip others off?

Before oil was discovered, other peoples money was used to build Infastructure in the ND.

When and where? Where was this infrastructure built with other people's money? What is this infrastructure that you are referring to?

Are you talking about Cocoa? What specific infrastructure did Western region Cocoa build in the ND? Western region cocoa couldn't even build infrastructure in the non-Yoruba parts of the Western region. Or groundnut? If so I should remind you that palm oil was in the ND and the economically deficient North had to be rescued from financial ruin by the colonials by amalgamating them with these palm oil producing areas earlier so should people now claim that ND money was used to build Northern people's infrastructure without mentioning actual specific infrastructure?

It is very certain that even if the ND get 1000% of the oil revenue, the situation of the masses will never change over there. The leaders and especially the led need a new orientation.

All of the Nigerian leaders in all parts of the country are below par and need a new orientation.

The people have to learn to fight to make the leaders accountable,

Are national leaders not accountable or allowed to be fought for the 13% scam that they're perpetrating?

and not just to have a piece of the cake.

So you admit that there's a cake . Now that's established we have to ask ourselves, why do other people want any part of the cake for free, when the ingredients are not sourced from their kitchen. That sounds like pastry theft.

Only then will Nigeria move forward.

Admittedly the leadership in that region has been lacking in quality. That seems more like a national thing than anything though.

texazzpete:
That's why i ask you to do proper research. Those figures are from the split of 'profit oil'.
Now, let's take 100 barrels of oil as an example.
In the Joint Venture situation i mentioned earlier, as soon as the oil comes out, the Federal Government take 80% off as Royalties.

That 80 out of 100 barrels.

Of the remaining 20% (20 barrels), the entire sum is then taxed. Oil Industry taxes are not known for being negligible  . Let's assume for this case, that the tax is 25%. So that's 5 barrels gone and 15 barrels remaining. And that's 85% (85 barrels to Nigeria).
Now after the taxes are applied, the investors (IOCs, NOC) are allowed to recover their cost from the remaining. Let's say 2 % (2 barrels goes towards cost recovery).

The last remaining 13 barrels (13%) is known as the PROFIT OIL, and is the amount that is now shared according to the JV stake (i.e NNPC 55%, Shell 30% etc)

So at the end of the day, out of the 100 barrels recovered, around 90% ends up with the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I don't know why this sounds so implausible to you, this is rather in line with what happens around the world and Nigeria is no exception. The oil business yields so much money that even the 10% left for the IOCs is still rather lucrative.

I don't know why many people have this idea of an almost equal split in oil revenue between the FG and IOCs. The FG gets the bulk of the oil money and the minimum of the blame. That's a win-win situation for them  

PS: As stated, the cost recovery and the post royalty tax splits  i used are assumptions for this discussion. Don't take them as canon. The Royalty figure is fixed at 80% though.

Well thanks for explaining it. The oil industry is certainly not my specialty nor is it even remotely interesting to me to be honest, so there's no way I would have the level of interest to where I could know enough to distinguish between these terms. Like I said, now that I see the facts I believe it, but in the future don't interpret any criticism of the status quo as due to a vested interest. I don't have anything to gain from criticizing the IOC's nor am I blaming them for anything more than colluding with the crooked government to not clean up any mess they make until lawsuits are brought against them.  Really it's the federal government I'm trying to degrade here but you came out of nowhere and grouped me into a group of "you people" who "blame the IOC's for everything" when my original statement that I now know to be incorrect was not even about blaming the IOC's for the plight of the people in the Niger Delta but implying that the IOC's are ripping the moronic federal government off and thus could be blamed for their greed and desire to rip off third world countries, not for "everything". Now that I know that that's not the case I can rest easier as it means the federal government might be a little bit less dumb than they seem to be.

texazzpete:
Don't be mischievous. By 'Oil Reforms', anyone remotely interested in Nigeria should know i'm talking about the Petroleum Industry Bill. This Bill is an unstoppable juggernaut at the moment, and it WILL be passed.
The bill formerly had a provision for 10% equity share of the proceeds from oil for the host communities. This has recently been changed (for legal and practical reasons) to a dividend share to the communities depending on the value of the hydrocarbon in their communities.

http://www.nigeriannewsservice.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1577:fg-jettisons-10-equity-for-oil-communities&Itemid=231&tmpl=component&print=1

Who's being mischievous? That was a legitimate question to which I now know part of the answer. The problem, as far as I can tell is that

1) Who says that they don't deserve more than 10% equity? Why should anyone other than the host communities profit from the resources? I don't see how this oil reform isn't more along the lines of dictating to people that you're helping them by deigning to give them a fraction of what is theirs. This still makes the people in Abuja seem like thieving goons.

2) What do oil reforms that have yet to be passed have to do with events currently occurring? How is it a deterrent to thieves that an agreement that has yet to come into effect, but certainly will come into effect (meaning their bunkering will not even affect whether their people do eventually get money or not) because of militancy, is going to eventually bring money to their communities. To be specific, how does the statement "Under the oil reforms, the communities would get a stake from it. From the oil stolen by bunkerers, the only person to gain from it is the oil thief and his boys." make sense, when it suggests that current bunkerers should stop making profit on oil currently available when it will not even affect (decrease the amount of) what their communities would get out of a future 10%? The future oil reforms are irrelevant to what they're currently doing. Unless the bunkerers destroy so many of the pipes available, which so far hasn't been their MO, there won't even be any significant decrease in the proceeds that would come from their community in the future, and even then it's implausible that the oil corporations and the federal government would let their proceeds in these important and proven oil areas fall to a very low level considering the federal government's immense desire to increase the amount of oil Nigeria produces. What they do currently might affect the 2 or 3 percent that their state currently gets, but since that 2 or 3 percent is a rip-off and is unlikely to ever trickle down to the average person, I don't see how supposedly depriving their communities of some of that amount that they currently get would even be a reasonable deterrent against current direct profit on the part of individuals.

3) It seems quite clear that if not for pressure from militants, there would not even have been any efforts to give anything to the host communities. The link you posted even explicitly claims that the 10% equity is coming out as a consequence of efforts to cripple the oil industry by the militants. So it would seem by presenting the 10% equity as some sort of great concession, you admit that militancy, although not bunkering, is effective and the correct course of action. So you implicitly agree with the validity as a course of action of the first option (taking up arms) that I mentioned in my first post in this thread. At least there is some common ground.

Yeah, go ahead and deliberately misconstrue my statements. That make you feel smarter?

I misconstrued nothing. You must have mistyped. You clearly said "state." If you mean region clearly state so. There's a world of difference between 13% and 1% or 2%. And for the record, this isn't about trying to seem smarter. There's no way to know from across the internet whether you even know how to put on a pair of trousers or whether some sort of more intelligent caretaker has to do it for you. I've never even read anything you've posted on this board that would indicate that you were particularly intelligent, so feeling smarter than you would mean nothing. By the way,  the real issue is whether the 13% cut is actually appropriate, so saying they "would at least get their 13% cut" is pointless because it sidesteps the actual issue of why the region is getting only 13% and even implies they should settle for their allotment. If they're being ripped off already, why should they sit tight and play the honest fool and let dishonest people in some far away desert capital embezzle their money and let their unelected, unaccountable local PDP elites misuse that part of 13% when they can make some money directly themselves?


1964   50  
1970 45
1975 20
1979 nil
1982-89 1.5
1999- 13

^^^
13% is a recent creation. As oil became a more significant part of the Nigerian economy, the percentage of revenue allocated to be split directly among states decreased:

Federalism, Fiscal Centralism and the Realities of Democratisation in Nigeria: The Case of the Niger Delta by Edlyne E. Anugwom

Overview of the History of Revenue Allocation in Nigeria
The derivation principle was first mooted by the Phillipson Commission of 1946 that saw it as the principle through which a region would benefit from its non-declared revenue according to the proportion of its contribution to the central revenue (Adebayo, 1988).  Despite the fact that this principle was equally challenged early enough by the Northern delegates to the General Conference on the review of the Richards Constitution at Ibadan in 1950, it was retained. Between 1954 and 1957, the derivation principle became the chief allocation principle mainly as a result of the dominance of Nigeria�s export market by primary products from the three major ethnic groups especially the cocoa rich Western region. Also in 1957, a new revenue commission, the Raisman and Tress Commission argued for a reduction of the fiscal gap or imbalance between the Western and other regions. Thus, the committee narrowed the scope of the application of derivation by setting up the Distributive Pool Account (DPA) for other taxes not declared regional or federal. These were made up of mining royalties (30%) and general import revenue (30%) that are to be allocated to the regional governments.

The Raisman and Tress Commission recommendations formed the basis of revenue allocation in Nigeria until the late 1960s. The effort of the next Dina Commission that recommended a federal control of the larger part of revenues was brought to nought by the non-implementation of its recommendations. This effectively created a lacuna that enabled the military government to centralise revenue allocation. This attempt was given legal backing through Decrees 15 of 1967; 13 of 1970 and 6 of 1975 all of which established a fiscal policy centralised at the federal level. These Decrees were hinged on a progressive enlargement of the DPA and the reduction of derivation. This really marked the advent of acute fiscal centralism that reached its climax during the authoritarian Babangida/Abacha government between 1983 and 1997.

The history of revenue allocation in Nigeria especially in connection with the derivation principle and the Niger Delta problem has been quite intriguing. Prior to the emergence of oil as a serious foreign exchange earner, the revenue allocation principle was mainly on the basis of derivation as already stated. Even though oil export began in Nigeria in 1958 it was not until 1980 that the share of oil revenue in the national income rose to 80% (see, Ikein and Briggs-Anigboh, 1998) from about 27% in 1970. Thus oil became prominent in Nigeria�s revenue from 1980 and has been on the increase since then, constituting over 90% of national revenue nowadays. However, while the revenue from oil was increasing the percentage of revenue allocated through derivation to the states on whose soil the oil was being produced kept decreasing.

At the onset, the oil communities enjoyed the 50% derivation that was also in operation during the heyday of primary products exports. But this 50% was at a time the oil only contributed about 3% of national revenue (that was before 1971). This 50% was reduced by the DPA Decree No.13 of 1970 to 45%. The DPA is usually distributed by the federal government to the states or regions using mainly the criteria of size and population. The DPA was further increased by Decree No. 6 of 1975 to 80% thereby leaving the states with oil with only 20% of the revenue.

The 1979 Constitution that conferred on the federal government with rights over both onshore and offshore minerals enabled the drastic slashing of the derivation allocation to a paltry 5% by the Shehu Shagari government. This was further reduced to 3% by the military government of Ibrahim Babangida. The total picture which emerges from the above is that the powers that be allowed the derivation principle a larger scope only when the revenue from oil was not massive (1965 � 1970) but the moment oil jumped far ahead of all other export commodities in revenue yield especially from 1980, the derivation share plummeted through the issuance of Decrees and other arbitrary laws especially by the military that held sway for most of the period.

Your statement makes it seem as if part of 13% is what they should content themselves with, when its actually an encroachment on the normal amount at their expense and for the benefit of people who, historically, wouldn't even allow them to have any say in the political affairs of their own country. 13% is a complete scam. If all regions were equally significant to Nigeria's economy we wouldn't see this scam continue to be perpetuated while people suggest the people being cheated should settle for part of 13%.

You may have the mental image of hundreds or thousands of youths boring into pipelines and siphoning away crude to support themselves and their families and to improve their region. That's naive. As will all organized criminal syndicates, the bulk of the money goes to the overlord, while the guys doing the menial work get a pittance. Either way, these criminals can be found in nightclubs frittering away their stolen cash, while their bosses funnel their money outside Nigeria.
As i said before, a 'Robin Hood' scenario would have been welcome. But that's hardly the Nigerian way, is it?  

Please don't construct mental images for me that I don't have. I never said anything about "thousands of youths supporting their families." I said survive or thrive. The former for the category of people too poor and desperate to resort to anything but criminality to survive and the latter for the category of people who are massive profiteers off a situation and living lavishly (wasting money in nightclubs or taking the lion's share of loot in criminal syndicates). You don't seem to be getting this. It's not about whether they manage to become Robin Hood characters to  me. How sympathetic they make themselves look by actions committed after the bunkering is mostly irrelevant to whether they are basically justified in taking the initial action of bunkering. I feel that they would be would justified in committing the initial crime regardless.  I'm also not concerned with whether the structure of the organizations is pyramidal or what they spend the money on or whether it's spent in countries outside Nigeria. The scenario is as simple as this as far as I can tell:

1. Are those criminals working for those syndicates from the affected communities in many cases? Yes.
2. Would the money generated from the oil ever trickle down to them naturally to allow them to enjoy a nightclub? No. Why? Their local and national leaders are in bed with the same federal government that is building a national refinery in Kaduna or a federal road to Lagos with this same money. Basically there is not even one government in the land that can be shown to give a damn about them.
3. So why should they sit around and get a minute amount of the profit from oil while people who actually run their country and let them have no significant say in anything are directly conspiring to rip them off? Because it makes them good (that is, complacent and unquestioning) citizens to do so?
4. The people they're robbing don't give a damn about them.



All in all, I don't support or condone crime but I just cannot see a strong argument against bunkering. By doing it one takes money that people are deliberately conspiring to take at one's expense directly into one's hands,  decreases the money of those of your countrymen profiting at your expense, has no significant effect on the amount of revenue going to improve your community as the amount currently being dispensed already is a rip-off which a local government answerable only to a Northern political party is not even able to improve your community with and because under the current arrangement the federal government can never afford to stop taking massive amounts of oil from your area so the amount of oil proceeds originating from your area, and thus the rip-off allocation in either percentage or monetary amount for your state, can never decrease. As you decrease the proceeds by bunkering, more and more oil is obtained by a desperate government trying constantly increase the amount of barrels of oil it produces so the money your community gets only stays the same or increases.

Great news (even though it's old).

What's a "subtantial chunk"? 2.4% per state? ((1/36) x 87%)

Why lie?

Parasitic fears have some people concocting fairy tales.

texazzpete:
Oil companies taking '50% or more' of the oil revenue? Abeg do proper research so you don't make really brainless comments like this again. Haba, what's happening to you? Your first couple of posts were actually intelligent.
Using the NNPC-Shell-Agip-Elf Joint Venture as an example, government take is in the region of 90%.

Perhaps I misread this then, so you could explain it to me, I've never seen any joint operation between the federal government and foreign companies where the Nigerian government got up to 90%, and in fact that figure sounds very implausible. Surely those companies know that they could get a better deal, as they are the ones doing the real work and with the real expertise. But then again, if I see the actual facts/figures, I'll believe it.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/nigeria/oil.html

Nigeria's Oil Industry: A Cursed Blessing?  
Posted: July 2003




The 11th and final country to join the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1971, Nigeria's 25 billion barrels of proven oil reserves place it among the world's top oil-producing nations. The country plans to boost its oil reserves to at least 40 billion barrels by 2010 after recently discovering large oil deposits in deeper offshore waters, according to OPEC and the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

Nigeria's economy is heavily dependent on its oil sector, which accounts for some 90 percent of export revenues and 41 percent of its gross domestic product, according to a 2002 report by the World Bank and information from the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

The United States is Nigeria's top export partner. Nigeria in 2002 ranked as the U.S.'s fifth-largest oil supplier, although its exports have dropped by 8 percent since 1997, according to the Nigerian oil equipmentCentral Bank of Nigeria. The U.S. Office of Trade characterizes Nigerian-American commercial relations as "essentially strong," noting that U.S. imports from Nigeria, mostly oil, totaled $5 billion for the first half of 2001.

Despite its relative abundance of natural resources, the expansion of Nigeria's oil sector has been stymied by its antiquated infrastructure and the "frustratingly slow" movement of goods through Nigeria's major ports, according to the U.S. Office of Trade in 2002. The U.S. government attributes these problems — which continue in 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Energy — to mismanagement during the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha from 1993 to 1998.

Nigerian law has historically barred foreign firms from owning 100 percent of oil enterprises and other businesses the government deemed important to national security. However, President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's leader since 1999, has introduced reforms to privatize the government-owned and -subsidized oil operations, or parastatals, partly in an attempt to attract more capital investment and foreign business partners.

In 2003, Obasanjo's administration announced the government would be selling off the four state-owned oil refineries, all of its petrochemical plants and its oil marketing company, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC). The U.S. Trade Office welcomed the move, although it cautioned that Nigeria's privatization process appeared to be prone to delay, according to its 2002 country commercial guide.

A small number of domestic private oil businesses, such as Famfa Oil Limited, have increased their stake in the oil sector, following the Nigerian government's 1990 program to help boost indigenous participation. Those companies, however, represent a much smaller stake in Nigeria's petroleum industry than the multinational firms.

Otherwise, nearly all of Nigeria's oil production and development projects are owned by joint venture operations between the government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and multinational corporations.

The biggest joint venture operation, the Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd., accounts for more than half of Nigeria's daily oil production and reserves. The massive operation is partly owned by the NNPC, which controls a 55 percent stake and the Netherlands-based Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies, with a 30 percent interest. Elf Petroleum, a subsidiary of the Paris-based TotalFinaElf, owns 10 percent, while Agip, a subsidiary of Italian energy giant Eni, holds a 5 percent stake.

The Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited is the second-largest joint venture operation, of which the NNPC owns 60 percent and the Texas-based Exxon Mobil holds the remaining 40 percent.

The Oil Industry's Conflicts With Indigenous Communities


Nigeria's government took in more than $17 billion from oil exports in 2002, but the petroleum industry generates few employment opportunities or income for the majority of Nigerians, whose per capita income falls below $300 per year, according to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria's 2002 commercial guide.

Most of Nigeria's oil fields are located in the swamps of the Niger Delta, an oil-rich region that is also the main location of ongoing social conflict and political violence.

The high unemployment and poverty levels in the Delta region have exacerbated a long-running conflict between the indigenous community and the oil companies. Some elements of the population have even turned to hostile activities like sabotage, kidnapping and extortion.

Oil equipment According to a 2002 World Bank report, additional sources of conflict stem from the multinational petroleum corporations' decisions to contract foreign workers instead of members of the local population, which has kept the indigenous communities from enjoying the benefits of their region's oil resources. Native communities have also protested the environmental pollution and damage they say has come from oil companies' development projects, for which the native peoples claim they rarely receive compensation, according to lawsuit transcripts filed on their behalf.

^^^^^^


So I'm misinterpreting that? I'm seeing numbers like 55% and 60% for Nigeria. Or is that something completely different? I've simply never seen a figure like 90% anywhere.

Of course it's much easier for you people to blame the IOCs for everything instead of making any effort to find out the truth for yourselves.

People like me? What exactly is that supposed to mean? Am I a militant or an oil-bunkerer? I'm actually somewhat of an objective observer in all of this actually. I belong neither to any of the groups being accused of "internally colonizing" another area, certainly not to that group (North) being blamed for being particularly parasitic, nor do I belong to the groups who are really being exploited in the Niger Delta. That's why I can approach the matter focusing on truth rather than trying to prove this or that side wrong. If there are facts and reasonable arguments to be made, if there's truth, I'll readily accept it. I don't actually have anything to lose. But don't make moronic assumptions about people's character, biases, or interests without any evidence.

I'd be much more tolerant to the ND bunkering situation if we found ourselves in a 'Robin Hood' situation, where those bunkering would use their profits to develop their areas and uplift their people.

But they are "their people." By helping themselves to profits, they're helping their community, no? Sure there's environmental damage, but that would be there anyways and the government will never do anything about any environmental damage because the people controlling government are in some far away desert and those not in that desert are directly beholden, or aligned with, those in that desert. If they can't go about their lives normally due to all the environmental damage already on ground before the bunkering, why not be able to make a profit?

Wanna know why Hezbollah is so well loved in Lebanon? Those 'terrorists' build schools, give loans, help the poor etc. Go and find out what benefit a bunkerer like Ateke Tom ever brought to the people in his area.

Hezbollah's love in Lebanon is directly dependent on Israeli aggression and Iranian funding. If Iran was to cut off money they wouldn't have the resources to carry out terrorist activities and support their communities. If at the same time Israel was to suddenly cave and say they give into almost all anti-Israel Arab or Muslim demands, even going so far as to leave Palestine and go back to Europe and America, Lebanese people and Lebanese politicians would suddenly realize that Hezbollah, in addition to being a blot on their image, are basically a bunch of jobless, useless bums.

If you like, keep lending  a tacit support for bunkerers.

Okay. Sure. Whatever.

At least if the oil was produced the legal way the state would get it's 13% cut.

I think this is a case of "not doing proper research and making really brainless comments." The Federal Government (central government) gets 87% of oil revenue. The remaining 9 oil producing states share the remaining 13% according to the amount of oil produced by that state. For example, Delta state gets 3.9% and Bayelsa gets 2.3%. Or do you think 9 x 13% < 100%?

Under the oil reforms, the communities would get a stake from it. From the oil stolen by bunkerers, the only person to gain from it is the oil thief and his boys.

Oil reforms? Do tell!. . .Would this be something like, say, 50% derivation? Or revoking the Land Use Act? Or would it be mere government paper-shuffling and phrase-mongering? I would just like to know, as an objective observer, what reforms the boys in the Delta should be waiting for thieving incompetent, and unconcerned goons in Abuja to pass.

I'm seriously beginning to wonder about the mental health of certain posters in this thread.

If your local leaders are robbing you blind, if your national leaders are profiting disproportionately from revenue earned at the expense of both the environmental and economic viability of your land, if multinational oil firms are taking 50% or more of the revenue while allowing your government to keep the rest- a government that can't be trusted to do anything meaningful and which is "curiously" prejudiced against your people having any national political voice on account of your not belonging to or being aligned with a certain ruling cabal (an ethnic minority- the Fulani) - only for that government to spend the revenue on absolute rubbish like a refinery in Kaduna (!) amongst other things; if all of these things and more were staring you plainly in the face, you might 1) take up arms 2) try and survive or thrive (profit) from a messed up situation that you can't get out of by bunkering, knowing that those who you're robbing (corrupt federal government and oil companies) don't give a damn about you or 3) try forming peaceful (that is, ignorable, in the Nigerian context) resistance and protest groups and petitioning until you gave up. . .

But don't act like there's something so wrong with people in the Niger Delta. I don't support criminal activity, whether it's extreme militancy without negotiation, or massive environmentally damaging oil bunkering, but some people in this thread need to realize that more drastic and damaging options than those three that I listed could emerge (I leave that to your imagination) and that the solution to the problem, and the key to removing all of these avenues, lies primarily with the federal government as the ball is in their court. We don't have to live off of Niger Delta oil and in fact when we didn't we were probably better off. The only ones so desperate to avoid any kind of change from the status quo are those people with a parasitic mindset, people whose fear of their own people's lack of confidence and ability make them fear the possibility of having to stand on their own.

That 2000 map is not accurate. The Palestinians have more land than that.

As for the news itself it is a great development. The government of Netanyahu played their cards wrongly and now they'll lose out massively on the world stage or their own arrogance and greed. How much right-wing support would it have cost to just admit that they should stop the new settlements and get rid of some of the old ones? Probably a lot. Probably enough to where he wouldn't be prime minister or have a chance at re-election. And if this thing gains momentum, they stand to be forced to give up much more land than they would ever have been asked to give up on their own accord. 190 countries vs. U.S. & Israel, diplomatically, can't possibly go in Israel's favor. At some point the U.S. would just concede out of embarrassment and frustration at having to defend a stubborn ally.

Anybody's who read a transcript of the infamous Bar-Ilan speech would know that there is little sympathy to be had for Israel on the particular issue of what should compose the Palestinian state.



also, an interesting article (mentions the 67 borders and Netanyahu's underhanded tactics):

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/07/netanyahu_america_is_a_thing_y.html

spearman:
Funniest post on Next website
Posted by Karl on Dec 05 2010

All the Powers cannot Pull Him Down. Our National hero. Our World champion: Philip Chukwuma Mohammed Oladipo Emeagwali (GCFR FRS HSBC FAAN UAC FRSC AFRC UTC KLM OM NL GBP MD LH FAS FNASA etc etc). Proud Father of INTERNET. Worthy Son of Abubakar. Diligent Husband of two wives: Donita Brown (internet entrepreneur and eminent historian) and Dame Dale Emeagwali (distinguished science professor and inventor). Lives in a big house in Abuja and also in Washington so as to be near the White House. Genius who invented the Internet at age 14. Invented the condom when he was 6, but when the Vatican objected, he withdrew his patent. Invented snake oil to cure cancer. Invented the equations and the space vessel that landed man on the moon. The only man to have travelled to Mars, which is named after him. Invented the supercomputer as a gift to humanity. As for him, the fastest brain in the universe, hath no need for computers as his brain is five times faster than the speed of light. (It is rumored that the US has offered USD 4.19 trillion to buy the SuperBrain's secret papers and scribbled notes.) Discoverer of the cure for HIV/AIDS, and of the vaccine against ignorance. The world's most sought after neuroscientist and brain surgeon. Discoverer of the Postage Stamp. Won, at age 19, the NOBBELL PRIZE for Everything, the only one of its kind, and never to be repeated. Has also won the Congressional Medal of Honour. Whereupon, President Clinton invited him to be President of the National Academy of Sciences, and that was how he left for America with his wife, his family, staff, and relations. Has so many inventions patents and claims we stopped counting at 419! A truly wonderous inventor of the Emeagwali Perpetual Motion Acrobat (Patent No. 2,333,899,675,888,888,214,653,980,564,873,098, 419). Single handedly won the Gulf War, employing cyberwarfare, thereby saving all of humanity. Consultant to the Pentagon, the World Bank, the Security Council, INEC, WikiLeaks, and the Red Army. His equations fuel China's economy and helped end the Global Recession. He is Chair of Rebrand Nigeria. Has helped both the US and Nigeria break Iran's nuclear and other codes. Giant mathematician that cannot be ignored. Ask BP: When they (for racist reasons) doubted his equations, the great Gulf Spill happened until they apologized! Currently developing an invention to relocate himself and family to the Sun. From there, he will reverse global warming, enforce world peace, cancel the slave trade, and rule a corruption-free Nigeria run on his equations on nuclear fusion. The relocation will make it harder for ill- motivated detractors to pull him down. Auntie Dora cannot investigate him, unless to get impregnatd to bear a replacement genius. All the powers bow down to him, the Patron of WikiLeaks. AMEN.

LMAO. That was masterful.

igbobuigbo:
So where did you read anything about him obtaining degrees earlier than 1998? How do you gave him an age when you do not know anything about him? Why not educate yourself a bit more here http://naijatechtalk./2009/02/20/how-to-develop-africas-infotech-policy-by-ndubuisi-ekekwe/

Hmmmm, well then the information he or someone else supplied to the TED conferences about a scholarship in 1978 would be wrong then. It also mentions him being an adjunct professor at Babcock university but the website doesn't list him in the faculty so it's certainly possible the TED site just has a bad profile of him. On that same site it says he was the youngest scholar to deliver a lecture at FUT Owerri, but talks about a 1978 scholarship, which seems like a clear contradiction.

The specific scholarship mentioned with the date of 1978 in parentheses is not a pre-collegiate scholarship ("Ex-Ed" is executive education). Even if it were somehow actually a non-collegiate scholarship, it would still imply a much greater age for Ekekwe.

I readily admit that the information could be wrong but let's take this step by step. He certainly doesn't look 50, so I may have completely misinterpreted the information supplied by TED, but there are other things which made me not certain that his first degree was in 1998.


If I were assume a scenario where the gets the Bsc in engineering in 1998, and proceeds to  get 4 masters in two different countries (two universities in Nigeria- University of Calabar and FUT Akure, two universities in America- Tuskegee University and Johns Hopkins) then get two Ph.Ds  in two different countries (one univeristy in Turks and Caicos Islands- St. Clements University,one university in America- Johns Hopkins) the only way he will get 6 degrees in 11 years is if he does some of them simultaneously. However, if he does there are three countries involved, so it is a question of whether he can obtain the degrees online somehow which I don't see happening for a reputable graduate program. My main doubt was about the two doctorates being earned in that same time frame of 11 years. However the question has since been resolved for me looking at the link you posted.

Now one of the comments on the very page you linked me to said

"This guy is definitely genuine. But I am disappointed to know that he got a DBA degree from Clemen’s University. That is unacceptable. It cast a cloud of doubt over his achievements. I think he needs to get rid of that from his resume. That is no school, it is a virtual “degree mill”."- R.Smith

So we can negate any time necessary to obtain the St. Clements "doctorate" as that could maybe be earned in a couple of weeks or something.

Now assuming he can get each masters in one year (which is a bit of a stretch actually, because usually the MBA part of the B.sc engineering+MBA combo usually  takes more than one year and then there is the issue of whether he really could do each of the other three masters in 1 year rather than 2 years, but let's just assume the most optimistic situation). That would mean 4 years to get those masters from those 4 institutions. So from our 11 years between 1998 and 2009 (when he got the Johns Hopkins Ph.D), we would have a whole 7 years left. Certainly that's more than enough time to get get the Johns Hopkins engineering Ph.D and could possibly be enough time for two doctorates if they were obtained in a 2-5 or 3-4  or some other combination of years. The problem arises when one considers

a) working at diamond bank

b) working for NNPC

However, these could have happened while in Akure and then Calabar getting a master's.

So, working backwards then we can conclude:

Ph.D - Johns Hopkins
MSE- Johns Hopkins
MS- Tuskegee

The "doctorate" from St. Clements could come at any time

MTech-FUT Akure
MBA- University of Calabar

B. Eng.- FUT Owerri

So it's certainly plausible that he could have gotten the B.sc engineering and then worked for NNPC and Diamond Bank while doing so after getting his first degree in 1998.

I do wish he would have listed dates, though, as that would have made things a whole lot easier for anybody to verify. Then again, the guy has his own companies and his own institute now, so he won't have to answer to anybody or tender a CV. If there is misinformation out there, as this TED stuff about a 1978 scholarship might be, it should be cleaned up and sorted out or properly explained so that his shine is not diminished.

This Ekekwe may start making waves and headlines now- maybe because he knows he can't afford not to do something substantial now after getting so many degrees, but I don't think spending so much time getting so many degrees is that smart. Then again it may pay off. The combination of business knowledge at the highest level with engineering knowledge at a high level is no doubt a powerful advantage for en entrepeneur.

He's isn't young- he got a collegiate business scholarship in 1978 according to this (http://www.ted.com/profiles/bio/id/373125)  profile, got his bachelors in engineering in 1998,  and he got his second doctorate (the one in engineering) only in 2009. So he's probably around 50.


Normally I would assume that he was doing something in between the business stuff he was studying in the late 70s and the engineering stuff he went for in the 90s and from that TED profile it mentions a banking job. From going the full length (bachelors->master's->doctorate) in two different courses one course after the other rather than simultaneously, I think it's completely reasonably to estimate that this man spent more than 20 years amassing degrees!   

So as far as him being the most educated Nigerian, he might technically have the most degrees, but his choice here, to spend over a decade getting business degrees and then afterward spend over a decade getting engineering degrees is just not a strategy most people would follow because of the financial cost and time spent. His choice to actually do so would  easily explain why he is so far ahead of the pack in degrees- most people would just achieve without feeling the need to rack up so many graduate degrees.

When many of those degrees might be in business, as his past history (business scholarship, banking job, M.B.A.), suggests, I would disagree with the idea of him being the most educated Nigerian  because that (business) isn't exactly what I think of as an education. But maybe I'm too biased on that. Until he actually lists what area these degrees are in, everything seems to suggest his earlier degrees were in business before he started engineering in the 90s. I would then conclude that he has just a bachelor's, master's and Ph.D in engineering, but the rest is probably various areas of business or related subjects.

Aderemi Kuku is an algebraist, with a long list of publications (47) though most of them with low-citation counts and certainly not major breakthroughs. He holds an endowed professorship, but at some 3rd tier university. He's published 4 books. He was a former president of the African Mathematical Union, and worked with the IMU for development of mathematical sciences in Africa. He's worked on improving math education and science and technology development in Africa and was one of the people behind the formation of Nigeria's National Mathematical Centre and that's probably what he's getting the award for.

lol@ this thread degenerating into something completely different from what it was originally about

Anyways, nothing in this book is actually of any significance as far as real science is concerned as is patently clear from the chapter abstracts, just economics, technology diffusion, policy, etc. . . .so in addition to the award having little significance, the actual material in the chapters is of little significance. . .



20 papers & no Ph.D, nor years of enrollment in a progam? The only time I ever see stuff like that is when somebody is in research group as an affiliate working under some experimental HEP guy and publishing papers as part of a large group, but there was clear mention of some sort of environmental bio area instead. Also, being a reviewer for some journal with no Ph.D kind of implies  low impact, low repute journal (not as a rule, but in general). Not trying to start anything, just that the whole thing seems spotty.

As for the actual guy (Ndubuisi Ekekwe) being referred to as the brain box (he's not from Anambra though, lol) although the award being talked about in this thread is insignificant, he is a rising research engineer and technology advocate, he was a TED fellow and has even founded his own institute (see http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2010/02/introducing_ted_22.html) to diffuse new technologies into African economies, which is very commendable.

The one thing I don't particularly get is the point of 4 masters and 2 doctorates. What's the purpose exactly? Jack Kilby never bothered to get one Ph.D

Nobody would be a graduate student in mechanical engineering and be involved in gang banging. . . .think sensibly here. He was trying to be funny, saying where he lived people were actually gang banging and actually living that street life yet somebody in "soft" UK was complaining about their weak criminals. . . it's just humor and light mockery. You can't be a bookworm who's studying mechanical engineering at the graduate level, and be on your laptop for so much of your time and truly have the mindset of a gang banger or be involved in it. . .it was just his sense of humor coming out in that comment

houvest:
Reading through Physics posts really get me confused. The Igbo delegates pushed for a 6 Gzone federation as against the earlier lopside 4 zone structure and Physics says it tantamounts to dumping the eastern minorities.

I'm not getting this. Did I not already clarify? If this article is accurate, they (Igbo) realigned a group (Eastern minorities) which, to their continual frustration, would not be aligned with themselves, to another group (Midwestern minorities) that the Eastern minorities are actually less similar to and which they were not previously allied with. Now to me this seems like a clear case of dumping a potential ally because they fail to ally with you and instead ally with your enemies. How is the word "dumping" here being construed to be mean some sort of behavior they should be faulted for or something? If something is causing you problems, you dump it, there's nothing wrong with one's character or anything for doing so. The removal of a liability is part of the motivation for the six zone structure, the other is greater spread of power and weakening the Northern power block. You seem to interpret only the part where more power was given to the Eastern minorities as what occurred, when the very article explaining the move disagrees strongly with that and also says it was a gambit to stop Northerners from having a pawn against Igbos. If I had said that they "removed a potential weapon against Igbos from the Northern arsenal" instead of "dumped a liability" would you have somehow have been happier and not gone on this pathetic rant even though those two statements are completely equivalent? If this whole thing is about the use of the word "dumped" then this argument really is not worth my time.

So PHYSICS, What do you suggest for Ndigbo to have done about the 6gzone structure  and now about GEJ that will satisfy you and all Nigerians. Do they just do nothing? Or move to another Country to express their restless spirit?

This may perhaps be some sort of comprehension problem because on the very first page, and on my very first post I called the Igbo politicians who created the South South enlightened and put in bold the part of the article that said "It is working, and Nigeria will be the better for it in the long run." Now how would you interpret that? As me not liking the 6 zones idea?  Nonsense. I have no problem with the idea  but there is often a difference between a good idea and what obtains in real life when an idea is applied.


The thing is that you don't even know or understand what my particular problem was with the South South zone idea but are here talking  about "what should Ndigbo do to satisfy me and all Nigerians." In reality other Nigerians are fine with it, except for a few Igbos stuck in the 1960s. I'm not exactly fine with it though I don't hate it but I never even stated it explicitly in this thread what my problem was. If you haven't realized it already, part of, but not the whole of my problem with the South South idea is the unresolved baggage between Ijaw and Igbo from their disputes leaking into every discussion or mention of the entire South South vis-a-vis Igbos and how this actually seems to increase political contention and conflict between the whole South South and South East (Igbos) even though that is not the purpose of the South South idea. This is why I laughed at the thought of it reducing conflict between the former Eastern minorities and the Igbos. It may reduce conflict and contention in the sense of Northerners not being able to use them against the Igbos, but in other areas it seems to increase it where it hadn't existed. A good example is this ludicrous character called Edwin Clarke, an individual that might be quite obscure and useless to an Ibibio as much as to an Edo, discriminating against Igbos (Odili) on behalf of the entire minority South South, and then all Igbos becoming more opposed to the whole South South. That's just annoying, for one thing. If this trend continues to repeat itself, I don't see what the use of this South South thing will be to myself in the future as somebody who isn't Ijaw! Imagine if a Yoruba from one of the small Yoruba communities (Olukumi) in Delta state or an Igbo from there were to be in the same position as Odili was and some jobless old man would just emerge out of nowhere and just declare that person unfit to represent regional interests because of his ethnicity even if he were a better or more justifiable candidate for the region (it turns out Odili was more corrupt than Jonathan is alleged to be, so that's not a good example of this though). What's the point of isolating one's self from every group in the South and allying only with the North?

But for the record there are far more Igbo people on this Nairaland forum complaining about the existence of this "South South" and its political legitimacy than there are actual Southern minorities. You could at least admit that if you were honest. So the very 6 zone structure they suggested resulted in South South sticking but the zones they suggested for the North not sticking, but the most complaints about the idea of South South are from Igbos, so don't tell me, as a Southern minority, that I need to say "what Ndigbo should have done about the 6zone structure" because you need to direct that question to the Igbos who complain about it.

And emotional appeals aren't going to do much in a discussion with me, so I don't care for the rest of that stuff you wrote as it has nothing to do with me, those aren't my perceptions and have nothing to do with my views and I actually find it rather repulsive that you would even make some large general rant and conflate people who think there is a hidden agenda in every Igbo move with my statements on here.  I don't express blind sympathy for people who seem oblivious to facts and want to distort everything just to whine. The fact is that the Igbo author about this article on Igbo intelligentsia creating the South South clearly stated that Igbo politicians had two motivations for creating the South South. I mentioned both of them. You only mentioned one ("pushed for a 6 Gzone federation as against the earlier lopside 4 zone structure" and then got annoyed or felt I was blaming the Igbos for something which I wasn't blaming them for when I mentioned the other motivation. That's just dishonest. Now if you think the other motivation alleged by the author is false, state that and construct an argument of how it is false and don't go after me for believing his argument.

With regard to this other motivation, Dapobear mentioned "moving out a fifth column" on the very first page of this thread, why didn't you mention him, or is that because you might actually think that is not exactly the same thing as "dumping a liability/burden"? It is in fact the exact same statement. If this sudden rant is about the wording used then I won't even bother arguing this if it's brought up in subsequent posts. Whether you call it "removing a fifth column" or "removing a weapon against Igbos in the Northerners' arsenal" or you call it "dumping a liability" should not make the action or strategy be seen more positively or less positively or in anyway negatively based on the wording used when nothing negative about the action itself is even being conveyed, whichever of these ways one chooses to word it.

SapeleGuy:
There is no doubt that military intervention in 1966 stopped the democratic creation of the COR zone from the Eastern region. The precedent was already in place via the creation of the Mid West region in 1963. The balkanisation of the Northern region would have followed suit.

The COR state movement failed to beat the NCNC in the area that would compose the new state. So how would that COR state have been created?

How would the balkanization of the North have followed suit? On what grounds? The NPC had most of the Northern region in its hands, including the Middle Belt.

The idea of  6 or 7 zones was put forward by Eyo Ita a very long time ago

Was it the same as these proposed 6 zones? I already mentioned in the first post that the idea of 6 regions had been in the political lexicon from the 1950s.

and later actualised via state creation by Gowon

Gowon created six zones? Let's not conflate zones with states. Under Gowon, were the Bendel state,the Cross River State, and the Rivers State regarded as one political unit (zone)?

etc etc and revisited by Abacha via a constitutional conference in 94/95 chaired by Justice Mr. Adolphus Karibi-Whyte.

Ok.

Dara, Ekuweme and  many others were members of this constitutional conference committee.

Well, isn't there a difference between

a) being in a committee or just approving things or negotiating details of a plan

and

b) actually coming up with the plan that is to be approved and negotiated?

To accord the idea solely to some Igbo think tank or  Ekuweme is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty, arrogance and ethnic jingoism.

The author of that article did not seem jingoistic, really.

He seemed to have sourced the exact origins of the idea of a Southern minority zone (Mkpoko Igbo pre-Conference summit in Enugu in April 1994), so until we see evidence that it was otherwise, why would we assume that this think tank did not come up with the idea?

How is it intellectual dishonesty if you can't directly disprove that it is not as was claimed in the article?

And do you really believe that Western and Eastern minorities, apropos of nothing, decided to just group together politically?

Bold. Got to respect that.

Onlytruth:
^^

What you are saying still doesn't make sense. Notice that I cannot address your obvious fallacies quote by quote because it will be tantamount to spamming this site. You make long posts which is why the spam bot keeps kicking you out.

Uh, okay. The spam bot has been fine with all of my recent long posts and most of my previous ones outside of that Middle Belt thread, so I'm not sure about that. Anyways on three different occasions it has deleted posts of four lines or less that occurred at completely different and far apart times so I don't know that it has much real consistency once it starts banning the first long post it sees with links in it.

Back to topic. As I said earlier, the only thing Ijaw agitated for was POLITICAL self determination. They wanted it from the regional government

And they didn't get it.

and even as the national government didn't bow to their requests,

When did they go to the national government? If you mean prior to independence, then yes, the colonial government failed to address their desire for a state then and continued to keep them in the Eastern region.

they went for independence from Nigeria. The independence was two stages: one from regional "domination" and the other from NATIONAL domination as was demonstrated by the 12 day "revolution".

Actually, when they completely failed to win independence from the region through valid legal political means, Boro just tried to win independence outright from Nigeria because the plight of his people was unbearable to him given how easily it could be rectified and because both the regional and national (federal) government seemed to be ignoring it.

The rationale for trying to seek complete independence from Nigeria is the impossibility of achieving regional independence legally given the current political realities:

Isaac Adaka Boro: Let me summarise the quest for a state.
- Firstly, the N.C.N.C. had no interest in the creation of a Niger Delta State. This became obvious when, even
before 1965, it was crystal clear that the oil rich Niger Delta had become the booty of Nigeria.
- Secondly, the entire representatives of the Niger Delta, nine in number, except one, were N.C.N.C. members
and could do nothing in their party circles for the creation of a state.
- Thirdly, even if they belonged to an indigenous party, they were too few to control a majority vote directed
towards the implementation of the creation. For instance, in the Eastern House of Assembly, the Delta membership
was four against a hundred and ten other representatives. In the Mid—western Assembly, Delta representation
was two against fifty-eight.
- Fourthly, the provisions for the creation of states in the Nigerian Constitution were undemocratic and didn’t
take into account the country’s political circumstances. An area agitating for a state had to get the approval of the
regional government or governments within which the area demanding the state falls as well as one other regional
government and also that of the Federal government.
Alternatively, if the government or governments of the area proved stubborn, it could then get the backing of the
Federal government. In the state of affairs as at the end of 1965, the Niger Delta could probably get the support of
the governments of the North and West and the Federal Government, but never those of the East and Mid-west.
The approval of the North and the West were also extreme probabilities because the Middle Belt area of the North,
too, were agitating for a state.
[b]If, therefore, these two governments approved the creation of a Niger Delta state, then a counteracting approval
would be given to the creation of the Middle Belt State by the N.C.N.C.-controlled government of the East and
Mid-West, to precipitate a stalemate. Either would thus require the approval of one more region. [/b]The situation was
particularly annoying to the Ijaws because when the plebiscite campaign for the creation of the Mid-west state was
on, the promise given to them in the West was that on the event of the creation of a state in the Niger Delta, they
would be allowed to join their kith and kin in the East. Despite that promise, there was the fear as to whether the
promise would be fulfilled. Consequently, during the state referendum, ballot boxes were carried away by
Protestants and were only discovered four days after the rest of the results had been announced.
One may be led to blame the Ibos for desiring to retain a closed territory principally to satisfy their own economic
and political considerations, but they were only momentary opportunists. The whole discredit is attributable to the
then British government.

^^^^

So if any kind of autonomy was to be gained by the Ijaws, things had reached a point by 1966 that it would have to have been outright secession given the political impossibility of autonomy from the Eastern region. This (secession) is not something they had initially planned for, contrary to the claim that they planned in stages to get regional autonomy and then full independence from Nigeria. Rather what would have happened was

1) Ijaws in Midwest support Midwest State creation. (They did)
2) Eastern government allows Niger Delta or Rivers state creation. (Didn't)
3) Ijaws in Midwest join (that is, leave Midwest region) the newly created Eastern state as was promised them.
4) Isaac Boro goes sits down, goes home, runs for government, gets elected, builds pipes, increases scholarships, improves transportation, etc. like all other developing people's governors or premiers does and lives happily ever after, until. . .
5) Boro and others realize the nation is still profiting disproportionately from resources on their land and call for resource control.
6) They don't get more resource control.
7) Etc. Etc.
8 ) Then, much later they try independence from Nigeria (see Ogonis and their movement for example)
9) They fail to get independence from Nigeria without the larger entities in Nigeria also wanting to break up Nigeria.


Obviously there is a missing link somewhere (# 2) which stops #4 from happening, so an alternative story (the real story) takes place.

Even during the civil war, the same Adaka Boro schemed to give the Ijaw the upper hand in Nigerian politics by joining the Nigerian army and leading troops against his fellow Easterners.

Boro was released from prison on the condition that he provide the kind of military support that could be used to divide the East. Now that the state creation he had longed for for so long was finally enacted by military fiat by Gowon why would he possibly not side with the Federals over those who wanted to preserve the very structure he loathed and had been bent on seeing his people (Ijaw) carved out of ? How does that amount to scheming when he had wanted for years to be free of these "fellow Easterners." Maybe you don't get it but he was an Ijaw nationalist and wasted no time in saying so. Just as there are Yoruba nationalists, Igbo nationalists, etc. . . he didn't give a damn about the East and made no bones about hiding it. How is it "scheming" to get an upper hand when it clearly seems more like a case of attacking those directly opposed to your own goals (those who were for Ijaws staying in an Eastern region)?

Olusegun Obasanjo, My Command:

"Eket. Here, Isaac Boro and his Rivers men of 'Sea School Boys' had become a significant factor in the operations of the Division. Their knowledge of the riverine areas, their understanding of the local languages, their ability to live off the land and their SWIFT though tactically less accomplished movement accounted for their HUGE success in areas around Opobo, Andoni, Obodo, Opolom, Oranga, Buguma, etc"

Yeah, he fought against the East, but not against those he considered "fellows."

When the war ended, Ijaw elements also championed the abandoned property saga while working furiously with the conquering army of Gowon to seize Igbo properties in Port Harcourt.

Unfortunate and despicable. Ignoring law and order is something that should never be allowed to happen by those who think they are in the right.

All these tie to the same goal- taking advantage of Igbo downfall to gain the upper hand as the predominant POLITICAL voice from eastern Nigeria.

I'm sorry but this doesn't seem to make any sense. Boro's complaints about the awful economic and developmental state of his people (Ijaw) were quite real and his arguments for how the mineral and other wealth of the land could easily be used to make these same backwards people have normal living conditions and education were quite real so how could one then conclude that after making these arguments that he was after political superiority to Igbos?  Maybe you mean some other Ijaw or minority leaders, and if so, please inform me on who these people are.

Let's see. . .

Isaac Adaka Boro: First, we may run our eyes through the health services. For the area concerned, covering a territory of 10,000
square miles and about two million inhabitants, there are just a few hospitals of ordinary health centre status. One
is at Degema, the second at Yenagoa and the other at Okrika. It takes two days to travel by canoe from most of the
remote villages to any of the hospitals.
I was present when a schoolboy, cutting a tree trunk to carve a paddle for presentation as his handicraft, got his
shin bone crushed by the trunk. He was being conveyed by canoe to Yenagoa, but he died six hours later on the
way owing to bleeding.
There are a few dispensaries not better than first aid boxes scattered about in some of the villages. There are no
maternity homes. How do people in such an environment survive? No wonder the high death rate. The survivors
of these horrid conditions live paramountly on native herbs. In the educational field, the area is infested with many
missionary elementary schools whose buildings are mainly thatch-huts or sandy half-walled block buildings, a
majority of which are under water during the floods especially those on the fresh water banks. There are four
mission—owned secondary schools none of which can boast of a modern building. That organisation is very poor,
so also is staffing. Perhaps we may leave the Okrika Grammar School as an exception although compared to
schools in other parts of the country, it is also neither here nor there.
There are no technical institutions. Yearly, six post-secondary scholarships are awarded by the two
governments within which the area falls. This means, for the population of two million, after a century,
there would be six hundred high level manpower trained out of which less than a hundred may be in active
service, the rest having died or are merely existing.
The Federal Government, however, supplements this number with ten special area scholarships.
Economic development of the area is certainly the most appalling aspect. There is not even a single industry. The
only fishery industry which ought to be situated in a properly riverine area is- sited about eighty miles inland at
Abat. The boatyard at Opobo had its headquarters at Enugu and had recently been sold to an overseas company.
Personnel in these industries and also in the oil stations are predominantly non—ljaw.
In the complex network of communications throughout the country, the area is only supplied with few postal
agencies. There has been no postal concern of post office status. Letters are unduly delayed and the reader may
have observed in the record of these memoirs that the first setback I had arose from the impossible communication
link between my place and the outside world.
Added to this problem of communication is that of transport. The only available means of mobility is the canoe.
Apart from the fact that it is too slow, it is too risky for natives or non-natives to engage in profitable trade. Small
powered boats have been introduced to the area by private ownership but these are too few and often overloaded,
causing untold disasters. There is an Inland Waterways boat travelling once a month at intervals. This does not help
the situation much. Its arrivals are unscheduled. Besides it takes four to five days to travel between Port
Harcourt and Odi on the upstream length of the River Nun.

^^^
Does that sound political to you? 

They didn't see the futility or delusion in that.

Okay.

So it was never about "automony".

I think this is the sort of obliviousness to reality which led to the inevitability of the fracturing of the East. There can't be a problem, and then one says it does not exist and does not have to resolved merely because it doesn't affect one's self.

It was always about competition with ( some say envy against) their majority neighbors.

Not necessarily. I mean, if they had gotten autonomy and resource control, would they really care? They'd be rich.

The same feelings are accurately demonstrated by the actions of Ijaw leaders like Edwin Clarke.

He's an Ijaw man with an ethnic agenda. Now if Clarke supports Ijaw over Itsekiri, don't you see that its not about "majority" neighbors in particular but rather Ijaw interests first and foremost? That sort of perspective is antithetical to being a good citizen of a multi-ethnic republic but his ethnic bias does not seem to be particularly about Igbo but more about groups which are seen as interfering with maximizing achievement of Ijaw interests.

So, please stop this your lie that Igbo intellectuals merely created south south for NO JUST CAUSE EXCEPT TO DUMP minorities. That is a blatant lie.

I never said "for no cause except to dump." I acknowledged that it was for reasons of giving these same Eastern minorities greater political power and thus to make them more equal partners in the equation of Nigerian politics. I already acknowledged the idealistic, forward looking, altruistic part. If you want to argue that the altruistic part is the main goal and not the tactical/strategic gain, then fine, I could easily accept that.

But with regard to the tactical, strategic, part I still think you're taking to "dump" to mean something worse than what it really means in the context I was using it. If you have Ijaw nationalists or Rivers people pursuing their own goals over that of a unified East and these nationalists are even willing to pursue alignment with direct political rivals or enemies (North) of the Igbos and you find a way to tactically stop them from doing so by throwing them into bed with another group (Midwest) all out of the blue, isn't that kind of like "getting rid of" them ? i.e. "dumping." them? Isn't that kind of like saying, "  Instead of us (Igbo) trying to win you people over to support us in one unified common destiny for both us and you people, you people (Ijaws + others) align with these other guys who won't give you reason to have this irrational fear of domination because they cannot dominate you and have a common destiny with them as minorities from now on.?" If the representation of this action as "dumping" or the idea of "getting rid of" is particularly offensive to you for some reason I will stop using it but I don't really see how using this word would in anyway portray Igbos in a bad light.

The minorities -specifically Ijaw- have always agitated for POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE from Ndigbo

At some point, prior to 1939, they had actual independence from Ndigbo, no? I mean, wasn't it the case that there was merely a 30-year interlude were they were politically dependent on Ndigbo? Maybe I have my history wrong here, but I don't think the word "always" is appropriate to describe a span of a few decades.

with the delusion that they can survive national politics on their own or even thrive in it

They probably can't. But why bother doing so when politically thriving or surviving is completely dependent on accepting Igbo suzerainty? There's a kind of massive irony in a proud Igbo not wanting to submit to Hausa-Fulani political domination but not understanding an Ijaw nationalist not wanting to submit to. . . .well, you know, the dreaded "Igbo domination"

, thanks to Biafran fears still haunting Nigeria.

Okay.

That the VP came from their area was not because of MEND or militancy. It was merely because a civil war actor called Obasanjo played his last anti-Igbo civil war games.

Well if you could provide any sort of evidence that could support this I would readily accept it but what should be remembered is that Obasanjo and Odili are buddies and Odili is Igbo and Odili would likely have been the vice president if not for intervention from certain quarters. Odili is more of a somebody than Jonathan ever was prior to being picked so I don't see how Obasanjo would come into the idea of stopping Igbo from getting it (and it would make no sense to try to deny South East a political position because they are Igbo but then be fine with South South Igbo if you are actually anti-Igbo).

I don't see why people think Obasanjo could be a mega-tribalist, he loves associating with Northerners even though they don't like him, he is staunchly opposed and has showdowns (Tinubu) with many of his own Yoruba people, was good buddies with Nzeogwu, and he's showed a detribalized attitude in selection of cabinet ministers etc. etc. I never really seen the so-called anti-Igbo aspect of Obasanjo but since so many have alluded to it, I would like to see where  this is from apart from what happened in 1970.

Anyways, if Obasanjo told Yar'adua that he should pick a Niger Deltan/South-South person then that is not necessarily bad politics but I'm not sure he would ever say that they should pick an Ijaw man in particular so if this did happen it couldn't be spun as him going out of his way to deny Igbos the chance to be vice president.

If we had another leader who never harbored civil war grudges against Ndigbo, there is no amount of militancy that would have given Ijaw the VP ahead of Igbo. FACT.

Why is that a fact? It seems like a conjecture. I don't even know what these civil war grudges are supposed to be. Anyways an Igbo was already vice president so this act of choosing an Ijaw instead, if it actually did happen as alleged, could just have easily been a "federal character"-like idea. More blamable on adherence to bad ideas than outright prejudice. That's just a conjecture about a conjecture though.

So lets keep things honest.

I'm not into dishonesty.

Onlytruth:
Again your comment is full of contradictions. Also, if you have never heard of the term "fourth dimension" as opposed to the Nigerian tripod in Nigerian political discourse, then you have not read enough of Nigerian history.

Simply never heard of it. Please enlighten me.

Why do you think we have an Ijaw VP who succeeded a core northerner as president in the first place? 

Because Edwin Clarke and others convinced the North that Ijaws were more of a voice of the South South than South South Igbos (Odili). There was even a specific meeting between Clarke and Northern PDP leaders to that effect. The Northern PDP realized that, as Edwin Clarke alleged, Odili was seen as representing Igbo interest (And not what he really was- someone from the area of the country where militants were claiming that their land was being exploited. That doesn't in any way contradict his being Igbo, but to some people (e.g. Edwin Clarke) it made him not representative of their interests). Consequently, the plan to make the vice president a south-south person (because of all that militancy against exploitation and MEND) resulted in that particular South South person chosen being an Ijaw rather than Odili. Otherwise there would be absolutely no reason why they (Northern PDP) would pick an Ijaw in particular or feel that they need to pick an ethnic minority in particular when they were only interested in picking someone from the area of aggrieved militants claiming their resources and land were being exploited. Some  of the people in that area were Igbo, but it was only after that meeting with Clarke that they realized that they even "needed" to pick a minority for their vp selection to have the intended effect of somehow assuaging the Niger Delta.

Otherwise, the selection of vp from south south would have nothing to do with Ijaw. The only reason there is somebody from the South South position today, and the only reason there is even something like a Ministry of Niger Delta affairs is because of complaints/militancy over exploitation. Ijaw in particular do not have a national voice that is of some sort of political significance anymore than Urhobo or Ogoni, rather they only have a national political voice when put together into South South, which 1990s Igbos created. Otherwise nobody in the North would listen to Edwin Clarke over "mere" Ijaw anger and complaints. Just as nobody in the North was particularly interested in what only "mere' Ogonis had to say (they arrested Saro-Wiwa under both Babangida and Abacha and made no effort to reach out to Ogoni's politically and have not done so.) about their particular situation. A population of only 1 million (Ogoni)  or 4 million (Ijaw) is not enough to politically entice the North enough to where they would appoint a vp to canvass that specific ethnic group's support.

What do you think inspired people like Adaka Boro to launch his "Niger delta republic" (read Ijawland) in the first place? 

Actually, Boro only turned to militancy when the Niger Delta Congress absolutely failed to succeed in getting autonomy from the Eastern region and could not even beat NCNC in the Rivers part of the Eastern region. Had they succeeded, he wouldn't have launched anything. When he saw there was no political solution he turned to violence. So had they got that autonomy from the Eastern region, there would not even have been a "Niger Delta Republic" launched. That is just the reality. He was an Ijaw nationalist who wanted an Ijaw state created when he saw that his people's development was not in their hands.

His "Niger Delta Republic" was about genuine independence from the country and was certainly not about being the fourth voice in national politics and having an independent political voice in the nation. Maybe you took my use of "independent political power on the national scale" to mean in the sense of an independent nation, but that is not what we were even talking about (we were talking about political power in Nigeria and were also talking about all of the other minorities, not just ijaw, and these other minorities it should be noted, weren't seeking independent nations in the 1950s so I don't think what i said could be interpreted that way) and also, independent political power and actual independence or sovereignty are obviously different things. NPC was a national political power independent of AG, but neither of these two voices were sovereign. So what I was saying is that there is no evidence that they (Eastern minorities) were trying to form a fourth political power composed of minorities that was independent of the existing three in the 1950s.

Adaka Boro was actually naive enough to think that he could somehow form a whole independent country out of Nigeria with a few guns.  Now more to the point, in this new country he could use the mineral resources of the land to improve the economic standing of his people (Ijaws). [b]That [/b]was what inspired him. The chance to use the resources of his land for his people's gain- and not any ludicrous hope of Ijaw being the 4th voice or  being part of the 4th voice in politics of the current country. So you cannot say that what he clamored for- autonomy and resource control- was what was later given to the Eastern minorities in the 1990s (an independent (from the majority groups) political voice). Autonomy they might have, but resource control they still lack. For what motivated him to actually start that Niger Delta Republic, read the chapter "Considering the Niger Delta" in his autobiography The Twelve-Day Revolution where he lays out quite plainly what his motives were, lists specific complaints about the squalid state of his particular area and how the government (Federal, regional, both) was ignoring it, and even conducts a rudimentary analysis of which specific minerals in the region could be used to make its poor, undeveloped and not developing populace rich. His motivation was his economic and developmental concern about his ethnic group. This is stated so blatantly and clearly in his own writing.

Isaac Adaka Boro: Of all parts of the country, the Niger Delta is the richest in water and so the governments have not found it
necessary to give the inhabitants pipe bone water, be it in the salt water washed creeks or in muddy fresh water
rivers. People drink from the most squalid wells and so dysentery and worm diseases are rife. Given these
prevailing circumstances, an Ijaw nationalist finds
"that a state for his people is more of a necessity than a mere desire. A Niger Delta State is a clear case as the
people concerned have a distinct historical silhouette. Such a demand becomes all the more compelling when the
area is so viable, yet the people are blatantly denied development and the common necessities of life. If Nigerian
governments refuse to do something to drastically improve the lot of the people, inevitably a point of no return will
be reached; then evil is afoot."
The quest for a state dated back to the days of the Ijaw State Movement, an organisation which was nipped in the
bud by some apprehensive politicians from the neighbouring area.

Even as I write this, some south south people think they can simply form an alliance with minorities in the north and other northerners irrespective of what Ndigbo may think about it?

What does what "Ndigbo may think about it" mean? I don't get that.

As for allying with the minorities in the North that is a completely recent thing that has nothing to do with what they (Eastern minorities) were "clamoring for" in the 1950s. Left to themselves, did the Ijaw or other Eastern minorities reach out to the Middle Belt in the 1950s? No.

As for allying with the real North (not the Middle Belt) that seems to be exactly what happened. Ijaw+North. So yes, they have a political voice now. But it was given to them in the 1990s. Otherwise they would just be the Ijaw (4 or 5 million), or Ogoni, etc. and each individual group would be ignored. Without teaming up to form some Southern minority coalition (which is basically what the plan of those 1990s Igbo politicians created and which they did not clamor for in the 1950s) politically, how would any individual group obtain the independent national voice of which I was speaking? Instead they would just be used by the majority political powers (as they were). Without that coalition, there can only be three voices/political powers and we know what they are.

Bros, in Nigerian political parlance, "autonomy" is the same thing as "national voice".

I don't see how. Midwestern region had autonomy relative to the Yoruba-AG suzerainty they were previously under. But they did not have a national voice independent of the East. This seems kind of clear cut to me. How would the people in Rivers getting autonomy from the East (a Rivers state) suddenly propel them into having a national political voice independent of the AG just because they were the fourth state? Their national voice would not be independent of that of a majority group, just like that of 80% non-Igbo Midwest was not independent of a majority group, but they would have autonomy. Having political power and having control of development of your area seem to clearly be different things.

These seem like two completely different things. The first thing (getting their own state that they have most of the control over) seems to be what they were clamoring for in the 1950s. The latter thing (getting an independent national voice) seems like what was given to them for their own benefit and for the benefit of Igbos without their (Eastern minorities) even asking for it by Igbo politicians in the 1990s.

Onlytruth:
I think they gave the Ijaws and other minorities what they had clamoured for since 1950s. I don't know why you keep avoiding this CORE ISSUE. The carving out of south south was to stop people like Edwin Clarke who accuse Ndigbo of murder when none occurred. I won't call it dumping. I would call it setting your "wife" free.
Today, they are playing national politics independent of Ndigbo. That's fine.

Well if that's how you see it, fine. But the article even alluded to the idea that it was about both removing a liability ("dumping" in my frank terms) so that the "Ijaws and other minorities" would not be used against them. It seems here more like you are trying to portray the move as granting these groups what they were clamoring for but what they were clamoring for was actually more local autonomy, not a political voice equal to that of the North, East, or West. I don't remember them stating or thinking that they could have a unified political voice of minorities as against that of majorities, so this 1990s move seems to be about giving the minorities enough political power on their own so that they are not dependent on Igbos rivals for political power and in ensuring that they and even Northern minorities have a greater political voice on the national scale (which is the positive, idealistic aspect of the plan which I think you are referring to as "what they were clamoring for since the 1950s" .

But I don't see how that exactly translates to what those Eastern minority groups were clamoring for: local autonomy. To put this in perspective, the "Western minorities" were clamoring for autonomy out of the Western region and they got it with Midwest state creation in 1963, but they did NOT have a voice in national politics but were instead allied with, and had no problem being allied with, the majority-Igbo East (NCNC) and were thus beholden to NCNC interests without having a specific minority political voice independent of the three majorities. Just as the Midwesterners were never clamoring for political power or national political relevance at that time, I have never read anywhere were Eastern minorities were actually clamoring for independent political power on the national scale. Rather they were clamoring for political independence and autonomy from their former region. Had they got it, in some sense they might have been beholden to the interest of the AG. So I think this may be a case of conflating seeking autonomy with seeking national political relevance. I can't see where Ijaw, for example, said they or they together with other minorities wanted to be the 4th voice in politics during the 1950s. That's why I interpreted this as mostly about stopping the North from using the minorities in the Eastern region against Igbos (by giving Eastern minorities access to a  whole 1/6 of national political power) and weakening the North (giving the minorities their own zone). But, to each his own.

Onlytruth:
I did a course on communication skills and I know when someone is trying to be sensational. You allude to a "dumping" of Eastern minorities by Igbos, and since you are educated enough to know what you are doing, I would not take the intents of your arguments in good fate. So, please reframe, unless you don't want to.

Yes, the Igbo wanted to bring equal voice to everyone in Nigeria both north and south. By advocating a six geopolitical zone structure for Nigeria, Igbo leaders wanted to give the eastern minorities what they have agitated for since the 50s, as well as free up northern minorities. How is that a "dumping"?

Like I argued earlier, if not for the suspicions and unfounded minority fears of Igbo domination which led to their several alliances with western and northern political enemies of the East, we would still have Eastern region today. The fact is very simple, so stop trying to confuse it.

As for their ending up with midwest minorities, well, they felt safe with them, didn't they? Did anyone force them to follow midwest? NO. All that Igbo leaders tried to do was allow them to play national politics independent of the Igbo, even though they knew that the East would lose out in such arrangement, they did so anyway.

Today, if any of them play anti-Igbo politics, the fact will stand on its own, and not supported by some red herring "Igbo domination".

Frankly, that is why some Igbo opinion is still strongly against support for Jonthan because, we don't have to.
This is national politics, and south south is free to play it, just as Ndigbo are also free to play it. The problem is that both regions may end up losing at the end.

By "dumping" I was just being frank. Not trying to incite division, not trying to portray it as a move motivated by contempt, not trying to exaggerate or be "sensational". It seemed like dumping to me because the plan directly dissociated them from Igbos in terms of political interests when they might normally be argued to have more in common in most other areas with Igbo than with others (something which has been argued continuously on here and which I and most sensible people agree with). So dumping means removing a liability even when the group that you are dissociating from yourself might be the most similar to  you in terms of culture, history, etc. I used a negative word because it seemed like a negative action to me- removing something burdening you out of frustration. I think using dumping in that sense is not really sensational. If you have something which is some sense a burden or liability to you, you dump it. That doesn't necessarily mean you're insulting it or have contempt for it. I think my frankness was taken for something other than it was.

As for whether there would always be an Eastern region, that really isn't clear to me from available historical evidence. What does seem clear is that a Rivers state may have been created but that the movement was too weak politically even in their own region compared to the powerful and long established NCNC, which had adopted an anti-state creation stance within the East. As for a COR state, I don't know how likely that would be from what I've read so far because the movement didn't seem that strong either, but Rivers at least, was most strongly pushed by Ijaw, who were in a very low position, in terms of development, so they had to take matters into their own hands- something which people in far away Enugu might not have understood. So I think because of the Ijaw alone, the fracturing of the East would have been inevitable. It isn't like they would suddenly just stop pushing for the right for self-determination just because they didn't have the political power or connections to do so. These are just my personal thoughts so feel free to ignore them. I'm not trying to get into too much debate on this particular issue though because that might be for another thread.

I never said they were forced to group with Midwest. Rather I pointed out that it's unlikely that they would have done so. So no one can blame them for being in a weird and unstable grouping with people that are possibly less similar to them than Igbo and then claim they are doing it out of Igbo spite.

As for "anti-Igbo" politics, I simply think that that is an Edwin Clarke thing or an Ijaw-empowerment thing by a few people because I haven't seen any evidence that other groups of former Eastern minorities have voiced the kind of sentiments he had (as against Peter Odili, for example). Not trying to insult the Ijaw or make them anyone's enemy, I'm just calling it how I see it so correct me if I'm wrong on that. I really can't think of anyone else from the South South playing anti-Igbo politics or ever doing so, but once again I could be wrong.

Damn. Damn. Damn. Didn't even know or chat with the guy but he was clearly one of the more intelligent posters on this forum and one of the funniest. 21 years old in grad school for ME and gunned down just like that! This is sickening. Can't imagine what his close friends and relatives must be going through right now.

Nonsense.

Onlytruth:
Okay, now that you have finally abandoned the Middlebelt thread, we can discuss here.
You would be dishonest if you continue to say that Igbos don't know how south south came to be.
I will get you a quote that proves it, but the main point is that without continued suspicion or fear of Igbo dominance, Ndigbo (represented by Ekwueme and crew) would NOT have created south south.
That region was created to defeat that accusation and suspicion once and for all.

Maybe some do (you or Afam) , but Dede1, Ezeuche, and a host of others did not seem to know.

from a response of yours to Beaf in the "definition of Middle Belt" thread:

The South South is NOT the most politically sophisticated in Nigeria; it is just the most fortunate SO FAR.
Every student of Nigerian politics know that when it comes to political power-play, there is no South south. I say this because, the region is a product of invidious politics. It is like a man who quarreled with his wife, and she ran out of the house, only for the man's neighbor to "come to her rescue" by offering her his bedroom to spend as many nights as she wants! The woman (south south) is "enjoying her freedom"(being poked by Hausa/Fulani), while her husband (the Igbo) waits for her return.

If not for the stupidity of the January 1966 coup plotters, there will be no South south today. And even as it stands today, if there is no change of course, the inevitable fate of that region is further balkanization with the following groups eventually emerging separate -Edo, Urhobo/Isoko, Igbo, Ogoni, Ibibio/Annang and Efik.  The only real unifier of these groups is the Igbo, much like the Hausa/Fulani is the unifier of the North.  I don't know how long folks from this region will keep being unreasonable.  As I write this, majority tribes in Nigeria aren't really happy that minority tribes are riding on their backs to power. But, that is called compromise, not political sophistication by the minority. In fact far from it!

That Ndigbo are supporting Jonathan is because of that belief that we should control our region (give our wife a little freedom in order to keep her). Nothing more. You control your region by allowing minorities in it to taste power once in a while. Zik and his crew failed to do that.

The first  statement in bold above means that South South was created out of realignment of Eastern minorities with Northerners out of spite for Igbos. Or is there some much more complicated interpretation of that statement I should have made?

The second statement in bold states that they are being "unreasonable" to still want to be separate (politically, etc.) from Igbos. Yet, clearly the reason the Eastern minorities are separate politically from Igbos, and not still being viewed as "Easterners" together with Igbos is because a bunch of 1990s Igbo politicians decided to dump them because of their "unreasonableness." So how could one say that their unreasonableness is the reason for their continuing a bizarre union with Edo, Urhobo, etc. rather than the "only real unifier"- the Igbo, when they would never necessarily have unified with Edo, Urhobo if not for a tactical move by Igbo politicians?

Maybe I misinterpreted this statement, and correct me if I'm wrong but this statement seems to clearly indicate a perception of the South-South union as being created by the minorities of the former Eastern region as a realignment out of stubbornness or unreasonableness, when[b] in fact that grouping was made by the "husband" that was supposedly waiting for the return of these minorities.[/b] It would seem then that if there was any chance of reunification of the entire East, it was shelved by 1990s Igbo politicians in favor of 1) dumping groups that were becoming too great a liability and 2) creating a seemingly more equitable balance of power and interests (esp. weakening the mighty North).

So when you make statements that seem to attribute the existence of the South South to Eastern minority hate of Igbos, maybe you should instead just state that the existence of the Eastern minorities as a political unit separate from Igbos is a result of that hate/contempt, not the South-South idea itself, because that was created by Igbos and it seems that the Eastern minorities never tried to unite with Midwest to form an unstable political unit.