₦airaland Forum

pazienza:
The COR movement was a movement for the creation of separate minority region from the then Igbo majority Eastern region by some members of the Eastern region minorities . Its an acronym for Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers, representing the minorities provinces in the now defunct Eastern region of Nigeria.


The Eastern region existed between 1939 to 1966. In its composition were Igbos, Ijaws, Ibibio, Annang, Ejagham, Oro, Agbo, Boki, Ugep, Ogoja, Ogoni, etc.
It was estimated that minorities on the whole constituted roughly 1/3 of the population of the region, while Igbos constituted 2/3 of the region total population.
The relationship between the Igbos and the minorities were relatively peaceful but not without intrigues. There were often innate fears and cries of Igbo domination by significant members of the minorities who usually called for creation of a minority region from the Eastern region. These demands led the colonial government to constitute the Willink commission of 1957 whose aim was to look into the grievances of the minorities and offer a recommendation.
The report of this commission can be found below this post.
The commission found no real marginalization of the minorities and maintained that Igbos have been fair in their dealings with the minorities, all the accusations brought to the commission by the minorities were found to have no substance and were dismissed. The commission noted that division of the Eastern region was not necessary.

Nevertheless, the yearnings of the minorities for a separate existence outside Igbo area of influence never died. It gathered pace once more when having lost out in Lagos, NCNC members found a way to replace Eyo Ita with Zik as the leader of the Eastern government. The aggrieved Eyo Ita left NCNC with both his Igbo and non Igbo supporters and founded a new party where he lost the elections to NCNC. However, rather than concede defeat, Eyo Ita embraced and vitalized the COR movement in retaliation. This rattled the Eastern region, but with NCNC party loyalists from COR areas like Mbu, Akpan, Ibanga Akpabio, Imoke against Eyo Ita, he soon ran out of steam and conceded defeat, while admitting that the people from COR didn't really want separation from the Eastern region.
Eyo Ita would later reconcile his differences with Zik and rejoined the NCNC.

To know more about Eyo ita saga :https://www.nairaland.com/2730983/see-no-wisdom-south-south/3

Appended to this post is a copy of Eyo Ita statement on his resignation from championing the COR movement.
This was sourced from Chibuzo Ihuoma collections via his blog:

horsepower102:
In nature, organisms that are unable to adapt to changing environment go extinct.

Enough said.

horsepower102:
This current generation must be the ones to change the course of our engagement with others is this one Nigeria.

We must sacrifice emotionalism and replace it with pragmatism and self interest.

We should stop treating our neighbors as brothers and simply see them for what they are; our neighbors.

Thank God for pazienza.

Armaggedon:
Yea, he can't translate it to solutions b'cos he is unsure of his ideas. The worst thing that can happen to anyone is to follow someone who doesn't know what he wants. I have learnt that Pazienza is just one of them. He supported Nnamdi kanu, supported Ipob, Supported Biafra and supported sit at home. Now he hates Ipob, hates Nnamdi kanu and hates Biafra.

It is very simple to write and dwell on a probem. Infact every breathing human can detail a problem but only those who are sure of their own ideas can boldly venture into the all important task of solving them. It is those who solve problems that are called heroes and not those who criticize them. Education and knowledge has never been our problem In igboland. Our problem has been the lack men who can dedicate their time, risk their lives and solve our problems.

Ask him the solution and watch him prevaricate.

gidgiddy:
The wilinks report has nothing to do with IPOB or or Kanu. This is a purely historical report that is over 60 years old and has nothing to do with current times. It is about the past, not the future.

What gains do you think Igbos have made? Whatever you see Igbos have today has been from sweat, ingenuity and hardwork, none which will change whether Nigeria exists or not nobody has gained anything from Nigeria, if anything, Igbos have lost a lot.

I believe in the independence of the Igbo nation as a seperate country, I believe Igbos will do much better when they are out of the failed country called Nigeria, and I have believed so, long before I ever heard anything called IPOB

Ank:
Onlytruth the former Ezendigbo on nairaland is your guy for this movement you are talking about. I really missed that guy....

UdechiHD:
I remember him as well as the metamorphosed Ezeagu, Chiwude, Afam, Abagworo etc, far back when enlightened Igbos made the forum a fun filled place.

There are still nairalanders maybe with different monikers or on observation mode.

Dreambeat:
It is surprising that this thread that was meant to educate the younger generation about the history of Igbos and their kiths and kin in the old Eastern region has now become an IPOB bashing thread. Some people just want to criticise without proffering a solution.IPOB may not be perfect just like any other freedom fighting organisation all over the world but one thing I know is that the leadership of Nnamdi Kanu has done a lot in bringing to the consciousness of the Igbo nation, Biafrans and world the plight of Biafrans in the present day Nigeria.Hence you should give him credit for that. Moreover, I doubt that there is any Igbo man alive right now who can command the kind of followership that he does. IPOB modus operandi may not be conventional but you don't throw away the baby with the bath water. Let's discuss the theme of the thread and leave IPOB alone.
For your information, I am not a member of IPOB, at least not yet.

Asgard13:
We all dey... no worries

Ardar:
This thread just reminded me of an incident that happened 10years ago in port harcourt

My mom was having a conversation with an ikwerre man, along the line the man asked her where she's from and she told him that she's Igbo from Anambra State.

You need to see the way this man's face changed and i taught he smelt something bad with the way he squeezed his face.

"I hate igbos" he said with disgust.

My mom asked him why and he said he hate igbos because of what we did to them during the old eastern region and that his father abi grand father told him that.

If there's any tribe that was brought up with hate, it's those ikwerre people.

Ipob should thread with caution.

UdechiHD:
Lol! Abi.

gidgiddy:
The wilinks report has nothing to do with IPOB or or Kanu. This is a purely historical report that is over 60 years old and has nothing to do with current times. It is about the past, not the future.

What gains do you think Igbos have made? Whatever you see Igbos have today has been from sweat, ingenuity and hardwork, none which will change whether Nigeria exists or not nobody has gained anything from Nigeria, if anything, Igbos have lost a lot.

I believe in the independence of the Igbo nation as a seperate country, I believe Igbos will do much better when they are out of the failed country called Nigeria, and I have believed so, long before I ever heard anything called IPOB

fhranchez:
i believe your story 100% but like you said 10 years ago. Ipob are waking a lot of those people to reality, i bet you'll agree with me a lot of youths are waking up to realities

Ardar:
Like it or not the vast majority are still deeply igbophobic even till now.

So it's better to have an Igbo only country than begging people who have been filled with lies against igbos in biafra.

fhranchez:
you're still playing to the gallery of divide and rule. How do you get biafra with less numbers??

Eastlink:
Truth be told Ndigbo have suffered in this country. Partly also caused by them.

Since the demise of Nnamdi Azikiwe we've lost our political expediency. Emotionalism introduced by recent Igbo leaders, MASSOB and IPOB has taken a toll on our pride.

First we must get it right political. The era of trying to please others must seize henceforth. We did the nonsense with the Yoruba's in Abiola and Obasanjo and repeated the same to GEJ, yet their tribesmen would never pays us back in like manner.

Igbo must get it right and all those who scorned her will come begging on their knees. We must start using our thinking caps and be pragmatic.

[s]The likes of MASSOB and IPOB offer nothing to Ndigbo. We must push them out for an hard core Pan Igbo group that looks after our interest first.
[/s]
We must begin to vote in leaders that think Igbo first just as the Fulani's voted in a Buhari. Any lily livered Igbo politician who thinks others first etc must be destroyed politically.

Eastlink:
The era of pleasing others brought us scorn and insults.

The language Nigeria understands is ethnic patriotism. Which sane country would vote in a Buhari tell me? The Yoruba's are unapologetically ethnic champions and have remained so but only the Igbo's are claiming holy.

Igbos lost the plot with her shameless macabre dance and many of us are guilty. 2023 is around the corner and yet we still don't have a political roadmap.

[s]A supreme leader is their destroying Igbo political future and our youths are their forming
IPOB touts online and offline. We must begin to get it right.[/s]


We must throw our individuality and work for our collective interest.

horsepower102:
IPOB will fail and eventually will loose support in Igboland. As some who used to support them, I have retraced my steps. Nnamdi Kanu is misguided. Sooner or later he will realize what a big mistake he is making including Tower of Babel in his biafran ambitions.

But I am glad for IPOB movement. It helped to expose a lot of things I would have never known about those surrounding us and their true intentions and feelings towards igbos.

UdechiHD:
Pazienza is an idealist and it ends there.
I once told Pazienza far back to convey his ideals on nairaland to reality but that never materialized. Charismatic and fearless people should begin to lead Ndigbo.

People who are intellectually sick as Kanu etc would continue to have the edge if we don't rise up.
Also weak and compromising leaders such as Peter Obi, Ekweremadu, Rochas, Kalu etc would continue to lead Igbo's if we don't put an end to it.

maestroferddi:
Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB certainly have nuisance value...

Nevertheless, their agitation for Igbo liberation lacks intellectual and strategic framework.

I have said it time and again that the Igbos, especially the intelligentsia, must rise up and fight their battles.

It was a deliberate state policy to unleash revisionism and demonisation on the Igbos immediately after the civil war... We know the authors and beneficiaries...

Now that the younger generation of Igbos have the privilege of access to the internet, it behoves them to study their history and retell it the way it should be retold.

UdechiHD:
And yet you appropriate yourself Nairaland spokesman? How many IPOB members have really taken time to study? You lots just jump up and down making noise everywhere and keep destroying the little gains Ndigbo made before the coming of Kanu.

I'm actually not taking a diss on you guys or even Kanu, but I feel you guys have done more harm than good and should take the back seat.

Ardar:
There's no such thing as divide and rule, leave these people, their Insults is too much.

We as a people need to start dealing with them without emotions.

Men are recently swallowing the red pill and turning to alpha males while dealing with women, the same principle should be applied here too.

PDJT:
-Sure IPOB is doing it’s part, just like the groups before it. Special thanks to MASSOB.

-Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB have always challenged those with this “better ideas” - intellectual and strategic framework” to start their own, that they will support them.

-Always remember any movement or idea today is only a top-up of what has been. Never denigrate what brought you to life, cos life is continuum but complex.

Armaggedon:
Many of these people you think you know too well have be paid to write against Biafra hoping to use the trust they gained over the years to gather the opinion of as many people as possible against Biafra, using the frivolous excuse of a homogeneous Igbo country.

Anybody that wants freedom wants freedom.Let's tell ourselves the truth, Anybody that opposes a non violent organization like IPOB has an ulterior motive. we are not all fools.

If Anybody tells you kanu is bad, Ipob is this, Igboland has this problem etc. Just ask him the solution? He will never tell you. If he ever does, ask him why he is not taking the charge, he will definitely run away.

maestroferddi:
It will be remiss of me to dismiss what Kanu and his group are doing...

The point I was trying to make is that Kanu needs to perfect his craft....He is making friends to become foes by his ill-advised utterances

Making impact goes beyond demagoguery and casting aspersion right, left and center...

The way he is making out makes one to wonder whether he listens to strategic counselling.

By now he ought to have refined his modus operandi by having a well-defined thrust.

If you compare Ojukwu with Kanu, you see a significant difference.

Ojukwu was urbane, pragmatic, persuasive and almost always won the cerebral/intellectual argument.

Kanu needs to raise his game.

fhranchez:
always answer them with REFERENDUM!!! There will be no Homogeneous Igbo nation until after REFERENDUM fullstop

Hotice085:
.


I will really appreciate if you can leave this spin Doctor tales of Eyo Ita, it is simply medicine after death!
AZIKIWE and his cronies schemed him out and left him later reunited with him after securing all what they wanted
Don't paint otherwise or you want to deny the atrocities the Biafrans committed on innocent civilians in the AkwaCross region?
I suggest instead of trying to cover up history you guys should be making efforts to a purely IBO agenda with no option of any other tribes.

mrvitalis:
I always asked this question ...if igbos were tribalistic how would eyo ita be elected in the first place ??

Zik was the party leader ...when he came back it's logical u step away

Biafra with a South south minority is a no no for me ....they would always have this inferiority complex and feeling we are talking advance of them ......we must avoid it by all means and if we must form a country with south south it must be a very very loose republic like UAE or lexemburg

Let them keep their oil ....that has made them very arrogant

fhranchez:
Umunnem, anyone that insults you to abandon Ipob or advice you to seek for a homogeneous nation, tell that person that would be after referendum.

DO NOT BE FOOLED AS THEY WILL NOT EVEN GIVE YOU THE HOMOGENEOUS COUNTRY INSTEAD THEY ARE TRYING TO REDUCE YOUR NUMBERS AND TELL YOU TO SEE IPOB AS THE ENEMY.

PEACE