₦airaland Forum

Obi1kenobi:
That would still put Nigeria's GDP per capita in 1970 still at over £110. And this reflected the general poverty considering a freshly hired graduate in the Nigerian civil service was earning about £72 a month. How did the absurd claim from that previous poster come about that £20 then was the equivalent of N600,000 today?

aribisala0:
If you are interested in knowing the value of £20 in 1970 here is some homework

Check the exchange rate to USD$ 2.3-2.5 = $46 -50

We know that the Nigerian pound exchange at parity(1:1) with sterling


Check the pricee of gold per ounce in 1970about $39


Check the price of gold tooday $1280

Obi1kenobi:
That's illiterate economics and I'm not even an economist and know nothing about it beyond secondary school work.

Price inflation of minerals is not even close to an accurate measure of general commodity inflation or the comparative cost of living. Crude oil crashed from as high as $145 a barrel in 2008 to as low as $27 a barrel in early 2016. That doesn't in anyway reflect any trends in living costs, monetary value and general commodity price trends.

aribisala0:
With 20 pounds in 1970 you could buy a little over an ounce(1.2) of gold
Which today is £1000 an ounce

joeyfire:
The average price of a barrel of oil in 1970 was $3.39 in 1970. Not certain of the exchange rate as per dollar to Pound but let's just estimate....Igbos were settled after the war with 6-7 barrels of crude oil....

https://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp

Smh

aribisala0:
Igbos were not "settled" .No one owed them anything so your starting point is wrong.

Has anyone settledthe victims of Boko Haram?

Are Igbos better than they?

They are victims while Igbos were investors in Biafra

joeyfire:
I know Nigeria is a bitter, cold, inhumane place where life means little but YES Igbos deserved compensation. The ECOWAS court has today vindicated this fact.

Settled is even a nice statement. They were robbed. If I come to your house, burn all your property and take N1m from you. Turn around and give you 2k is that robbery or charity?

Wrong analogy. Boko Haram's origins are from Islamic extremism. A totally unprovoked home grown religious uprising that has murdered tens of thousands...Yet they have a whole frigging commission designated to funnel billions every year to them. Boko haram killers and child rapists are now on an allowance...Let that permeate

joeyfire:
So I should ignore authoritative price statements from the Guardian UK clearly stating prices in 1970 because Fela mentioned agege bread in a song?

Why did you not provide news clippings to prove that 20 pounds was enough to buy a house and start multimillion industries

SMH

aribisala0:
Well I have not said they do or do not deserve compensation.They are not MORE deserving of compensation than the people of the NE, See who is talking about cold and inhumane.

Are the victims of Boko Haram the same as Boko Haram. ?? Hypocrite

Compensation for what? We must be clear.Compensation for killings in the north cannot be linked to £20 they are different issues. The right payment muust be made to the right victims

The fact is the £20 was not compensation if it was it would be taken into the calculation. It was a purely goodwill payment that did not remove the right to seek compensation for those who are entitled .But we must not let emotionality becloud our ability to correctly compartmentalize issues.
The issue here is about whether peoples money was forcefully taken.It was not . Did they deserve to be allowed to exchange the old Nigerian notes for the new ones?.Thaat can be debated separately and I encourage such debate because we can examine all the pros and cons

The ECOWAS judgment is not about £20 .

Yes they were robbed. BY OJUKWU whom they gave their Nigerian Pounds to. What did he do with it??

joeyfire:
What is the ECOWAS judgment about then? So it is after I dismantled your primary school narrative you now cry that Boko haram are different from their victims you deserve pity honestly

While the world is signalling to this country that its past is ugly and wicked as the 88 billion award has shown the likes of you are opening futile threads to convince your type that the cost of 40 loaves of bread are good recompense for stealing and destroying the wealth of a nation valued in billions

aribisala0:
This is the judgment in full.

It should be clear to any literate and rational pundit that this £20 was about exchange for those depositing Old notes and not Bank accounts

joeyfire:
I know Nigeria is a bitter, cold, inhumane place where life means little but YES Igbos deserved compensation. The ECOWAS court has today vindicated this fact.

Settled is even a nice statement. They were robbed. If I come to your house, burn all your property and take N1m from you. Turn around and give you 2k is that robbery or charity?

Wrong analogy. Boko Haram's origins are from Islamic extremism. A totally unprovoked home grown religious uprising that has murdered tens of thousands...Yet they have a whole frigging commission designated to funnel billions every year to them. Boko haram killers and child rapists are now on an allowance...Let that permeate

obailala:
My grandfather is my source, he lost his entire wealth after the war.

honeychild:
My father in law's father also lost his entire wealth. But he lost it in the east. He withdrew everything he had from the banks in Lagos and returned to the east with it. Shortly before the war ended, he lost it while running away when Owerri fell. The poor man died soon afterwards. If he had survived he would have also collected 20 pounds. Even though he had taken everything he had when he left for Biafra.

aribisala0:
Is it posible for an Igbo man to leave his money behind? Yinmu!

He would rather leave his head

Biafra was a one way journey

aribisala0:
In 1970 after the war the Nigerian government generally gave £20 of Nigerian money to every eligible adult but no one has ever done the math.

Let us assume their were one million of them =£20million Nigerian

We know that the Nigerian pound exchanged for £2 pounds sterling in 1970 so
that would be £40 million . What would that be worth today

according to this inflation calculator

https://www.moneysorter.co.uk/calculator_inflation2.html
it would be
£432612859. Sterling
Not sure what sterling is doing these days but @ 475

that is

205491108025 Naira

200 billion

Assuming it was 1 million people that received the money. No one has ever told us how many did but I think it could be double that.

For a country to pay that out immediately after a war of such devastation is a huge feat considering that Nigeria was not even a major oil exporter in1970 and in 1970 oil prices were under $4 which when adjusted for inflation in today's money is $21.

It is a testament to the prudent financial management of Papa Awo who also kept the allocation of East Central state for 3 years and paid it all after the war


But they are not grateful and feel entitled to that payment. What have we done for the NE . Imagine finding 200 billion to give them today when oil prices in real terms are 3 X what they were in 1970

The standard of living was much lower. Let me put it in Perspective our standard of living then, There was no Lagos Ibadan Expressway. No East -West Road. PH to Aba was a single carriage way.The Air assault camp was the main airport in PH Omagwa airport did not exist. There was nothing like presidential jet. Where were the airports?
The country was broke with very little compared to today but still gave generously in the spirit or sacrifice and reconciliation

biz2get:
It's funny how you think every igbo person to you must behave alike.

Technically you do not seem very bright and I do not have to exchange words with you to prove that.

To each their own.

laudate:
Wait first, Igbo's deserved compensation for going to war against their country Nigeria?? What planet do you come from? Were they not the same people that were said to have given Ojukwu a mandate to go to war??

honeychild:
My father in law's father also lost his entire wealth. But he lost it in the east. He withdrew everything he had from the banks in Lagos and returned to the east with it. Shortly before the war ended, he lost it while running away when Owerri fell. The poor man died soon afterwards. If he had survived he would have also collected 20 pounds. Even though he had taken everything he had when he left for Biafra.

PHIPEX:
The OP is seriously fantasizing about busting a non existent myth . If I were him Ill be more concerned about how a people bounced back with just 20pounds in 50 years to overtake the who never went to war. You never provided any newspaper evidence to support your own claim but demands for an evidence from anyone that wants to counter your fantasy.

It's already established that there was a sharing of 20pounds, you are now running around on whether it was an exchange for cash of For bank Account.

Dear OP can you provide a newspaper report that shows that all those who had a bank Account in Nigeria as stated by Awolowo got their exact money back?

joeyfire:
Another super ignorant, bitter, bottom-feeder. Even your brother has used plenty grammar to backtrack from his shame.

The ECOWAS Court has authoritatively silenced the wicked little pipsqueaks like you and rendered your opinion a shitty backward waste of time . N88 Billion (a conservative figure in my opinion) is what they awarded gbagam! Now go hang

PoolBuilder:
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King, Jr.



http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/obafemi-awolowo-archives/exclusive-chief-obafemi-awolowo-on-biafra-in-his-own-words.html

TWENTY POUNDS POLICY

That’s what I did, and the case of the money they said was not given back to them, you know during the war all the pounds were looted, they printed Biafran currency notes, which they circulated, at the close of the war some people wanted their Biafran notes to be exchanged for them. Of course I couldn’t do that, if I did that the whole country would be bankrupt. We didn’t know about Biafran notes and we didn’t know on what basis they have printed them, so we refused the Biafran note, but I laid down the principle that all those who had savings in the banks on the eve of the declaration of the Biafran war or Biafra, will get their money back if they could satisfy us that they had the savings there, or the money there. Unfortunately, all the banks’s books had been burnt, and many of the people who had savings there didn’t have their saving books or their last statement of account, so a panel had to be set up.

!.On no occasion did awo state that people fleeing pogroms transferred or took their savings back home, a person fleeing killers has no time
for such matters and the policy was predicated on the looted pounds in central bank branches,do individuals save money in Central bank branches?

2.In the sceond Bolded part , its either Awo was a dimwit or reveled in stupidity,"all the banks’s books had been burnt", All which banks, the banks in Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Maiduguri, jos etc books were burnt, the savings of Igbo Soldiers, Policemen, railway workers,teachers etc
An impossible statement, if Bank books could get burnt , how do expect people who passed through years of hell to produce passbooks or statements of account,unless someone has passed a tumbler of stupidity to you.

It is quite unfortunate that a search on this issue has Nairaland as its top source, sowing the seeds of ignorance with the confidence of
donald Trump



https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/usaafricadialogue/nzQaJ3uhoOI

THE CASE OF ENWEZOR V. CBN REVISITED.

“I write with reference to your letter (Ref – FRAW/AO/CB/11/71 of 8th October, 1971 to inform you that your client’s entitlement as a depositor was £20 ex gratia award authorized by the Federal Government”

Signed by E. N. ISONG
Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria

As applied by the Supreme Court of Nigeria in the celebrated case of CHIEF J. J. ENWEOZOR V. CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (1976)1 ALL NLR PAGE 252 AT PAGE 256.

This letter, dated the 18th day of October, 1971, signed by E. N. ISONG, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, addressed to Chief F. R. A. Williams, an eminent Nigerian Lawyer, is a reply to Chief F. R. A. Williams enquiry from the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria why his Client, Chief J. J. Enweozor, described as a Nigeria citizen ordinarily resident in Onitsha, who in response to the CBN’s directive “on the 7th of April, 1970, paid to your bank the sum of £26,659 (Twenty Six Thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty Nine pounds) as per receipt no ESOO5055 dated 7/4/70 in old Nigerian currency notes” is yet to be paid his money in the new currency.

The shameful story is a stressed fact in Nigerian History. Yet it always compels repetition. The fact is that after Chief J. J. Enweozor and his Biafran folks, having been mercilessly massacred in all parts of Nigeria, particularly, the North, a savage and barbaric genocide unleashed on them, ‘shooting of everything that moves’, applied as a doctrine against them, starvation employed to annihilate the unborn and the children, Gowon, the Nigeria head of State, the architect of their woes, was so kind and so zealous in reconciling with, and rehabilitating them that he gratuitously offered them from the milk of his Gowon – Nigerian heart, a gratuitous £20 (Twenty) pounds in exchange of any amount whatsoever they had ever earned within the Nigeria context.

Of course, neither Chief Enweozor nor his coun

sel, Chief FRA Williams of blessed memory was impressed by this Nigerian-brand of benevolence. Consequently they sought remedy from the court, the supposed last hope for the common man.

The fact of this case is mutual between the parties. It behooves emphasis even at the risk of repetition. As told by Mr. Sule Okponubi, the sole witness of the Central Bank of Nigeria:

“The Federal Government requested the people from the East central State to exchange their currencies, both Biafran and Nigerian. We sent out teams to accept the deposits. This was in 1969/70. After all the deposits had been accepted, the Government directed that the Defendant should make an ex gratia payment of £20 each to all of them. As a result of this direction, the Defendant was not able to exchange the deposited amounts, whether Biafran or Nigerian”.

The case was dismissed by Savage J. of the Lagos High Court who, after considering the Decrees and subsidiary legislation governing exchange or conversion of old currency note to new ones, held that “the action was misconceived because the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria had not exercised certain discretionary powers vested in him under the law”.

Up to the Nigeria Supreme Court went Chief Enweozor in desperate quest for justice. On hearing the case, the Supreme Court was supremely confounded by the obnoxious provisions of Decree No 11 of 1968, a draconian legislation that surpass the worst in the annals of jurisprudence.

Consequently, the Nigeria Supreme Court in sync with its Nigerian gusto found that the law applicable in this case, the Currency Conversion (South-Eastern and other states) Decree No. 11 of 1968, at all times material to this case is not applicable to the East Central States of Nigeria – The Biafran enclave. The Supreme Court placed reliance on section2 of the Decree which provides inter alia that the Decrees:-

“shall apply to all States of the Federation, so however that nothing in this Decree shall extend its application to …….East Central State……..until a direction of the Head of the Federal Military Government given in such a manner as he may think fit, and in the discretion of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria published in the Gazette at any time any such discretion is given, or at any time thereafter.

In the characteristic Nigeria swagger, the Supreme Court held that:

“there was no evidence that a discretion had either been given under section 2 or that it had been given and published in the gazette. We must therefore conclude that it has not been established by evidence that Decree No. 11 of 1968 was applicable to the …….East Central State”.

Not yet done in curtailing the effrontery of Chief Enweozor in taking Nigeria to court, the Supreme Court, although it acknowledged that it was not necessary for the determination of the appeal before it, waved a sword of Damocles from the Decree in an obvious threat against any similar effrontery by the ilk of Chief Enweozor. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reminded all of the “mischief” aimed at by the stringent provisions of the Decree. The Supreme Court emphasized that the exchange of the Nigerian old currency for new ones can take place “only where so authorized by law” as provided by section 1B of the Decree which created offences in relation to the exchange of currency. Of much significance is sub-section D which made it an offence for any person.

“by any means to move or cause to be moved from a part of Nigeria where the time or extended time for conversion of former currency under this Decree has elapsed, into any part of Nigeria where former currency has not been converted, or as the case may be, action to convert has not commenced or if commenced, has not been completed under this Decree”.

The exchange of the old Nigeria currency for new one in the East Central State of Nigeria, as the Supreme Court found, was never “authorized by law”.

Accordingly Chief Enweozor and his counsel Chief FRA Williams of the blessed memory came to the rude awakening that in Nigeria, courts are anything but the last hope for the oppressed.

whatofyou:
You should feel proud he is obsessed with your tribe, or should he be obsessed with his. People become obsessed with you because they think you are better them, because they think you have a secret, and they want to learn from it.
They find it hard to accept that the ulterior motive of the 20 Pounds on Igbos backfired. Igbos can never accept servitude. You should actually praise God that this guy is obsessed with you.