₦airaland Forum

ANSWER TO THE QUESTION "WHAT DOES THE IGBOS WANT"..........BUHARI's PRESIDENTIAL MEDIA CHAT

During the presidential media chat on Wednesday 30th
December 2015, Nigerian President Muhammed Buhari said
that Igbos were not maltreated, and should stop screaming
marginalization.

Speaking of the continue protests and struggle for the
realization on Biafra Republic in parts of the South East and
South South, the former miliary head of state said:
“Why does it have to worry me, when I have militants, Boko
Haram and other. They said they are being marginalsed but
they haven’t defined the extent of their marginalisation. Who marginalised them? How? Where? Do you know?,” he
queried.”Who is the minister of state for petroleum, is he
not Igbo? Who is the Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria? Is he not Igbo? Who is minister of labour, science
and technology? What do the Igbos want?”
And now, Obi Nwakanma, a Poet, journalist, biographer and
literary critic, has written an article in answer to the
question, “What do the Igbos want?”

Enjoy:.............these quite intelligent and interesting reply

In Biafra, under three years, they were making their own
rockets and calculating its distances; distilling their own oil
and making aviation fuel, creating in their Chemical and
Biological laboratories, new cures for diseases like Cholera,
shaping their own spare parts, and turning the entire East
into a vast workshop, as Ojukwu put it.

At the end of the war, the Ukpabi Asika regime brought
together these Biafran scientists and set up PRODA. The
initiative led, in the first five years between 1970-1975 under the late Prof. Gordian Ezekwe and Mang Ndukwe, to designs of industrial machinery models and prototypes for the East Central State Industrial Masterplan, which remain
undeveloped even today. The Murtala/Obasanjo regime
took over PRODA in 1975 by decree, starved it of funds, and
basically destroyed its aims.

2ndly, Federal government policies centralized all potentials
for innovation and entrepreneurship. Before 1983, states
had their Ministries of Trade and Industry. These were
charged with local business registration, trade, and
investment promotion, and so on. But today in Nigeria, if
you wish to do any business, you’d have to go to Abuja (it
used to be Lagos) to register under the Corporate Affairs
Commission. It used to be that local business registration
was state and municipal functions. The concentration of the
leverage for trade utterly limited Igbo entrepreneurs,
particularly in the era of import licensing, once your quota
was exhausted, you could not do business.

This affected the old Igbo money in Aba and Onitsha, who
were the arrow-heads of innovation and traditional partners
in the advance of Igbo industrial economy. It is remarkable
that as at 1985, a least by a book published by the Oxford
Economist Tom Forrest in 1980, The Advance of African
Capital, the Igbo had the highest investment in machine
tools industries in all of Africa, and the highest depth of
investment in rural, cottage industries. In his prediction in
1980, if that rate of investment continued, according to
Forrest in 1980, the Igbo part of Africa would accomplish an
industrial revolution by 1987. Now, by 1983/85, Federal
government policies helped to dismantle the growth of
indigenous Igbo Industry through its targeted national
economic policies. As I have said, there is a corollary
between industrial development and innovation.


3rdly, the severe, strategic staunching of huge capital in-flow
into the East starved Igbo businesses and institutions of the
capacity to utilize or even expand their capacities. There
were no strategic Federal Capital projects in the East. There
were no huge infrastructural investments in the East. The
last major Federal government investment in Igbo land was
the Niger Bridge which was commissioned in 1966. Any
region starved of government funds experiences catatony
and attrition. Private capital is often not enough to create
the kind of synergy necessary for innovation. Rather than
invest in the East, from 1970 to date, the Federal
government has strategically closed down every capacity for
technological advancement in the East and stripped that
region of its capacity.

By 1966, the Eastern Nigerian Gas masterplan had been
completed under Okpara. But in its review of a Nigeria gas
masterplan, the Federal government strategically
circumvented the East. Oil and Gas are under Federal
oversight. The Trans-Amadi to Aba Industrial Gas network/
linkage had been completed in 1966, to pipe gas from Port-
Harcourt to Aba. The Federal government let that go into
abeyance and uprooted the already reticulated pipes. The
East was denied access to energy with the destruction of the
Power stations during the war.

The Mbakwe government sought to remedy this by
embarking on two highly critical area of investment
necessary for industrial life: the 5 Zonal water projects,
which were 75 completed by 1983, and set for
commissioning in 1984, which was to supply clean water for
domestic and industrial use to all parts of the old Imo state,
and the Amaraku and Izombe Power stations, under the Imo Rural Electrification Project. These were the first ever
massive independent power projects ever carried out by any state government in Nigeria which would have made
significant part of Igbo land energy independent today. The
supply of daily electricity was possible in Imo as at 1984.

The Amaraku station had come on stream, and the Izombe Gas station was underway, when Buhari and his men struck.
The first order of business under the Buhari govt in January
1984, was to declare all that investment by Mbakwe “white
elephant projects.” They were abandoned, and left to decay.
Ground had already been acquired and cleared on the
Umuahia-Okigwe road to commence work by the South
Korean Auto firm, Hyundai, under a partnership with Imo
for the Hyundai Assembly plant in Umuahia, to cater to a
West African market. The first order of business under the
Buhari government in January 1984, was to declare all that
investment by Mbakwe “white elephant projects.” They were
abandoned, and left to decay. The equipment at the
Amaraku power station was later sold in parts by Joe Aneke
during Abacha’s government. Some of the industries like the
Paint and Resins company, and the Aluminium Extrusion
plant in Inyishi were privatized, and sold. Projects like the
massive Ezinachi Clay & Brick works at Okigwe are at various stages of decay, as memorial to all that effort.


4thly, you may not remember but Odumegwu Ojukwu
founded and opened the first Nigerian University of
Technology – the University of Technology Port-Harcourt in
1967, under the leadership of prof. Kenneth Dike. He had
also compelled Shell to establish the First Petroleum
Technology Training Institute in Port-Harcourt in 1966. All
these were dismantled. The PTI was take from Port-Harcourt
to Warri, while University of Tech, P/H was reduced to a
campus of UNN, until 1975, when it became Uniport. You
will recall that for years, up till 1981, the only institutions of
higher learning in Central Eastern Nigeria were the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, IMT Enugu and Alvan Ikoku
College of Ed, in Owerri. There is no innovation without
centers of strategic research.

Mbakwe and Jim Nwobodo changed all that in 1981, when
they pushed through their various states Assembly, the bills
establishing the old Anambra State Univ. of Tech
(ASUTHECH), under the presidency of Kenneth Dike, and the
IMOSU with its five campuses under the presidency of Prof
MJC Echeruo. The master plan for these universities as
epicenters of research and innovation in the East were
effectively grounded with the second coming of the military
in 1984, and the diminution of their mission through
underfunding, etc. As I have said, I have given you the very
short version. After a brief glimpse of light between 1979-83,
Igbo land witnessed the highest form of attrition from 1983-
date, and the destruction of the efforts of its public
leadership to restore it to its feet has been strategic.

Some have been intimidated, and the Igbo themselves have
grown very cynical from that experience of deep alienation
from Nigeria. I think you should be a little less cynical of
Igbo attempts to re-situate themselves in the Nigerian
federation: starved of funds, starved of investments,
subjected to regulatory strictures from a powerful central
government which sees the East in adversarial terms, and
often threatened, the Igbo themselves grew cynical of it all.
You may recall, the first move by the governors of the
former Eastern Region to meet under the aegis of the old
Eastern Region’s Governors Conference in 1999, was
basically checkmated by Obasanjo who threatened them
after they called for confederation in response to the Sharia
issue in the North.

Their attempts to establish liaison offices in Enugu and
create a regional partnership was considered very
threatening by the federal government under Obasanjo, that not too long after, they abandoned that move, and that was it. If people cannot be allowed to organize for the good of their constituents, then it only means one thing: it is not in the interest of certain vested interests in Nigeria for a return of a common ground in the Eastern part of Nigeria because establishing that kind of common ground threatens the balance of power. It is even immaterial if such a common ground leads to Nigeria’s ultimate benefit. There are people who just find the idea of a common, progressive partnership of the old Eastern Region threatening to their own long term interests. This is precisely what is going on – its undercurrent. This of course cannot be permitted to go on forever. A generation arises which often says, “No! in
Thunder.”

The Trans-Amadi to Aba Industrial Gas network/linkage
had been completed in 1966, to pipe gas from Port
Harcourt to Aba. The FG let that go into abeyance and
uprooted the already reticulated pipes.

Igbo population is quite huge, and people who truly know
understand that the Igbo constitute the single largest ethnic
nation in Nigeria. Much has been made about how this so-
called “small” Igbo land space could accommodate the vast
Igbo population. But People also forget that Igbo land
accommodated Igbo who fled from everywhere else in 1967.

So, the question of whether Igbo land is large enough to
contain the Igbo is a non-issue. In any case, Biafra is not
only the land of the Igbo. It goes far beyond Igbo land. But
even for the sake of building scenarios, we stick to Igbo land
alone – the great Igbo cities of Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Owerri,
Aba, Onitsha, Asaba, Abakaliki, Umuahia, Awka and Onitsha
are yet to be reach even 30% of their capacities.

New arteries can be built, facilities expanded; there are
innovative ways of moving populations through new
transportation platforms -underneath, above, on the
surface, and by waterways. The East of Nigeria has one of
the most complex and connected, and largely disused
system of natural river waterways in the world. New,
ecologically habitable towns can be expanded to form new
cities from the Grade A Townships – Agbor, Obiaruku, Aboh,
Oguta, Mgbidi, Orlu, Ihiala, Amawbia/Ekwuluobia, Elele/
Ahoada, Owerrinta, Bonny, Asa, Arochukwu, Afikpo, Okigwe,
and so on. The Igbo will be fine. The Japanese and the
Dutch, for example, have proved that there are innovative
ways of using constricted space.

As for the economy: it is supply and demand. New economic policies will integrated Igbo economy to the central West African and West African Markets. The Igbo will create a new vast export network, unhindered by idiotic economic and foreign policies. The re-activation of the PH port systems will for e.g. open the closed economic corridor once and for all to global trade. As anybody knows, it might take a fast train no more than 45 minutes to move goods from the Warri or Sapele ports to Aba and even in less time to Onitsha. As Diette Spiff once observed while playing golf at Oguta, all it would take to connect Warri and Oguta is just a long bridge, and the vast economic movement will commence between Warri and its traditional trading areas of Onitsha and the rest of the East.

The quantum of economic activity will see the growth of that
corridor between Aba-Oguta- Obiaruku down to Warri as the
crow flies. The impact of trade between the Calabar ports
and Aba will explode. In fact, the old trading stations along
the Qua-Iboe River (the Cross River) at Arochukwu, Afikpo,
down to Oron and Mamfe in the Cameroons will explode
and create new prosperity and new opportunities. I am
giving the short version. So, the Igbo will be alright. They
would simply be just able to define their own development
strategies, deploy their highly trained manpower currently
wasting unutilized, and the basis of its vast middle class will
create new consumers, and generate an internal energy that
will thrive on Igbo innovation, industry, and know-how,
which Nigeria currently suppresses. This is exactly one very
possible scenario.

So, Tanko Yakassi is wrong. May be if the Igbo leave Kano,
the Emir will no longer need to buy his bulb from an Igbo
trader in Kano. He will have to buy it either from an Hausa, a Fulani, a Lebanese, or some such person. But those will
have to come to Igbo land to buy it first before selling to the
Emir. There was a time when all of West Africa came to
Onitsha or Aba to buy and trade because it was safe, and
those cities were the largest market emporia in the
continent. People came from as far away as the Congo to
buy stuff in Aba and sell in the Congo. It could happen again, only this time on a vaster, more controlled scale. The
network of Igbo global trade will not stop if they left Nigeria.

In fact, they will have more access to an indigenous credit
system that would expand that trade, currently unobtainable and unavailable today to them, because Nigeria makes it impossible for Igbo business to grow through all kinds of restrictions strategically imposed on it, including port restrictions.

However, although I do think that the Igbo would do quite
well alone, they could do a lot better with Nigeria, if the
conditions are right. This agitation is for the conditions to be
made right; for Nigeria and its political and economic
policies to stop being a wedge on Igbo aspirations. And Igbo
aspiration is quite simple: to match the rest of the
developed world inch by every inch, and not to be held
down by the Nigerian millstone of corruption, inefficiency,
and inferiority. The Igbo think that control of their public
policies on education, research and innovation, economic
and monetary policies, and recruitment, control and
deployment of its own work force both in public and private
sectors will give them the leverage they need to build a
coherent and civilized society.

They point to the example of Biafra, where under three
years, they were making their own rockets and calculating its distances; distilling their own oil and making aviation fuel, creating in their Chemical and Biological laboratories, new cures for diseases like Cholera, shaping their own spare parts, and turning the entire East into a vast workshop, as Ojukwu put it, while Nigeria was busy doing owambe, importing even toothpick, and creating new wartime millionaires from corrupt contracting systems by a powerful oligopoly. It is a fallacy much driven by ignorance that Igbo will not thrive and that Igbo land will not accommodate Igbo population if they leave. That is not true.
There is no scientific basis for it.
The dynamics of human movement will take great care of all
that. It’s a lame excuse. What people who wish for Nigeria to
stay together should do is not to make such puerile
statements, because it is meaningless. What we should all
do is to find the strategic means of containing Igbo
discontent by LISTENING to the Igbo, and seeking peaceful
and productive ways of fully freeing their energy to instigate
growth both of themselves and of Nigeria within Nigeria for
everyone’s benefit. Threatening them will not work. It has
never worked, and it is important to understand a bit of Igbo cultural psychology: the more you threaten him, the more the Igbo person digs in very stubbornly. Igbo, with a long tradition of diplomacy, thrive on consensus not on threat of the use of force, or the like.

Frankly, those who continue to think that the Igbo have no
options are yet to understand the complexity of this
movement as we speak. They still look at the surface of
events while the train is revving and about to leave the
station. We need to work very carefully on this issue. I
myself, I prefer Nigeria. I like its color of many peoples and
cultures. That in itself is the very condition for growth and
regeneration. A single Igbo nation may be more prosperous, but will be less interesting, and that is the more valid argument.

By Obi Nwakanma

This is the the reply I have been waiting for. So many facts I never heard of, though I have come across some.

It is a wao reply.

Firstly, I support one Nigeria where equity and justice reigns, and no individual or group is being tactfully schemed out through policies of government.
I learnt that in the 80s during fuel scarcity, a veteran Igbo engineer suggested to Buhari, then as the head of State, to adopt the modular refinery models used in Biafra land during the war.
I stand to be corrected but it was reported that the reply of the Head of State then was that if Nigeria needs a modular refinery, Nigeria knows where to import the technology and not the ones used by Biafrans.

Someone should please give PMB this reply for review.

titoetal:
This is the the reply I have been waiting for. So many facts I never heard of, though I have come across some.

It is a wao reply.

Firstly, I support one Nigeria where equity and justice reigns, and no individual or group is being tactfully schemed out through policies of government.
I learnt that in the 80s during fuel scarcity, a veteran Igbo engineer suggested to Buhari, then as the head of State, to adopt the modular refinery models used in Biafra land during the war.
I stand to be corrected but it was reported that the reply of the Head of State then was that if Nigeria needs a modular refinery, Nigeria knows where to import the technology and not the ones used by Biafrans.

Someone should please give PMB this reply for review.

he doesn't need! Nobody needs this! All these things are meant for efulefu that still don't want want to reason! The author did well, but he didn't capture all of them! I tell the rate at which our finest brains leave for abroad is alarming!

patrick89:
he doesn't need! Nobody needs this! All these things are meant for efulefu that still don't want want to reason! The author did well, but he didn't capture all of them! I tell the rate at which our finest brains leave for abroad is alarming!

That's the simple truth...........mynd44, lalasticlala make una come do una work biko

patrick89:
he doesn't need! Nobody needs this! All these things are meant for efulefu that still don't want want to reason! The author did well, but he didn't capture all of them! I tell the rate at which our finest brains leave for abroad is alarming!

Many have been brainwashed and are told that there are no land to accommodate the Igbos if they form independent nation - white elephant lie.
Others were told that they will be landlocked, another lie from dark pit. We need more of this compilations for an independent observer.

Indeed, Nigeria is backward technologically because they have refused to tap from this region naturally blessed with it. I remember going to PRODA for an excursion during my secondary school days; the ceramics, machine and other research centers. Today, the 3 locations of PRODA at Enugu has overtaken by grasses.
This is just to kill the dream and technological advancements that will benefit the whole nation.

In everything, to God be the glory. True federalism is the only answer to one Nigeria. Anything less is only a delay that may lead to crumbling of this entity.