₦airaland Forum

History555:
Mr ignorant, if you don't know the genesis of a problem state out of it. I did not say eze ndigbo does not exist. I said the one in calabar was a sole decision between one wealthy man to approach the obong to coronate him .At no point in time did lgbos gather to appoint one of their own as king. So don't drag lgbos into the matter, leave obong and his friend to settle

Obong opposes Eze Ndigbo in C’ River



By Bassey Inyang

Correspondent, Calabar



The Obong of Calabar and grand patriarch of Efik kingdom, Edidem Nta Elijah Henshaw, has decreed against the plan by a section of Igbo people to create the office of Eze Ndigbo in Calabar or any part of Cross River State.

The monarch said the plan is an attempt to deliberately instigate communal chaos between members of the host community and Igbo resident in the state.

Henshaw said the move is a subtle way of conveying a message of disloyalty or divided loyalty to his person and office as Obong and to other traditional rulers in the state.

He made the declaration on Tuesday while addressing leaders and members of the Igbo community in Calabar that paid him a courtesy call in his palace.

To emphasise his descent to the plan, Henshaw ordered Emmanuel Ezenwenyi, a Calabar based businessman, to stop parading himself as ‘Eze Ndigbo (elect) Cross River State’.

The Efik monarch also ordered Ezenwenyi to stop using the term palace of Ezeigbo (elect) in his correspondence.

Most of the Me-Etubon (kingmakers) that were at the palace also echoed the sentiment of the Obong and declared that the move which was an indication of divided loyalty by Ezenwenyi who is an Ada Idagha ke Efik Eburutu will not be tolerated.

Both the Obong and the kingmakers said they had to react because Ezenwenyi had already written a letter to Governor Donald Duke, seeking government recognition as the Eze Ndigbo the state.

Henshaw said such a practice would never be accepted and advised Duke to disregard the letter.

The monarch said the only office recognised by his palace is the President-General of Igbo Community in Calabar, being held by Fidelis O. Onyebueke.



He warned that the Efik people would not accept the creation of a monarchy in Calabar or any part of the state by the Igbo or any guest community.



He said a similar attempt to create an ‘Oba of Calabar’ by the Yoruba people failed because the Efik fiercely resisted it.

The Obong, however, urged law abiding and peace loving members of the Igbo community to go about their normal businessed, as they would always enjoy the hospitable culture of their hosts.



Onyebueke, who spoke on behalf of the Igbo community Calabar, pledged the continued loyalty of Igbos living in Calabar to the Obong.

The president general noted that the reign of Henshaw has engendered social-re-engineering and psychological rebirth in the people, just as the period has witnessed the creation of an enabling environment for commerce and tourism to thrive in Calabar.

Onyebueke used the forum to appeal to the monarch and Efiks to provide more lands for members of the Igbo community who intend to build houses and reside in Calabar.

Apparently in veiled reference to the Eze Ndigbo controversy, Onyebueke used the forum to dissociate the Igbo community from the move.

His words: “Let us here and now assure the Obong and indeed the people of Calabar that our administration under my leadership has no room for mundane activities that are capable of jeopardizing the security of Ndigbo in this state and breach the peace.

“This administration therefore dissociates itself from any move directly or indirectly by any person or group of persons trying to challenge the sacred traditional institution of Cross River State, because our primary pursuit in Calabar is commerce. We are responsible citizens who respect the diverse cultures of our host communities. We hereby pledge our unalloyed loyalty to the Obong and indeed the people of Calabar”.

History555:
How can eze ndigbo a title that don't come from state gov, staff of office but rather his coronated by the obong of calabar suddenly claim to be the obong.
At no point in time, did lgbos in calabar gather to appoint one of their own as king, rather one well connected man approach the obong to coronate him as eze ndigbo. Therefore the obong who coronated the man has the right to sack him, afterall the obong did not consult lgbo people to inquire if they want a king.
This iz a non issue and does not concern lgbos. Let obong and his friend who he coronated sort out their wahala

Gandollaar:
Sam.my07, if you want a better Nigeria, then Igbos should not be your problem.

Gandollaar:
I thought you had successfully weaned yourself off tribal bigotry. But y'know what they say about leopard.

fergie001:
Ahhh....who divorce each other?

fergie001:
You and this your wife don start again...

Nwanyiogwashi:
[
Are you back from IDP camp missed you sha

imhotep:
Check very well oh
Everybody has finally realized that Igbo amaka
Rotimi Amaechi can tell you more.

cc lzaa ngadaAwo

Kriss216:
Then tell the OP to move the thread to Yoruba section.

Kriss216:
One of Tinubu's victim. My prayers are with you.

Kriss216:



As this one no concern me, I just want y'all to know Lagos is overrated and 85% of Lagosians are hypnotized by Tinubu!

wwwihy:
Guess the names of these places in Lagos in Yoruba language

1 We're upto 30
2 Patience has benefits
3 Cock owner
4 Corn owner
5. Eye of d cane wielder
6. Top of d house
7. House filled with
crown
8. The 3 harbours
9. Two watch owner
10. Crowd Terminal
11. Walnut Owner
12. Bullet Spot
13. Nothing Free
14. A Loud Groundbreaking Noise
15. Root Owner
16. Have Something to do with Money
17. Wire Owner
18. Village of Mystical Knowledge
19. Basket Owner
20. Gun Shooter
21. Chalk Terminal
22. Owner of two poles
23. Club contribute
24. Owner of tail
25. Owner of corn pudding

#copied

https://mobile.twitter.com/Gidi_Traffic/status/1376277065708802052

Nigeriabiafra82:
This is a recent quote

Nigeriabiafra82:
Should I open link for you
Recent links
You wan see

Nigeriabiafra82:
Let’s assume you are yoruba
But you don’t have to question your husband

Emergingnation:
From Benin IDP camp Abi

colorsofrainbow:
if it happened in the southwest,miyeti Allah would have bragged about the massacre and shown no sign of remorse...
Na where una dey dem get mouth because wetin IBB talk no be lie

imhotep:
But....but....but....but.... South South is filled with Igbo people

Cc lzaa ngadaawo

StaffofOrayan:
You and your children's future

StaffofOrayan:
If you can see the future, you won't be taking this lightly

imhotep:
Igbo amaka

At the beginning of the Second Republic when he was about to take up the office of vice-president of the country, he took the significant sacrifice of closing down his architectural practice, Ekwueme Associates, Architects, and Town Planners. It was the first Nigerian owned architectural practice in the country which at its peak in the seventies had offices in 16 cities across the country.


The sacrifice of setting aside progress in his lifelong profession was one sacrifice.

After the collapse of the Second Republic, Dr. Ekwueme who had added a law degree to his degrees in architecture was to combine the rudiments of the two professions into postulating a new constitutional architecture for the country.

At the 2005 Constitutional Conference, he was the leading campaigner for the restructuring of the country into six geopolitical zones.


Before then, political transactions in the country had been conducted on the basis of North, South, East, and West in which the North prevailed over the polity on account of its numerical supremacy.

Ekwueme’s move for restructuring led to the adoption of the six geopolitical zones, a development that for the first time divided the One North philosophy that had been espoused by feudal Northern champions to hold sway over the polity.

With the creation of the six geopolitical zones came the Middle Belt which dominated by Northern minorities and the Northeast, a development that inevitably broke the structure upon which the Hausa-Fulani had ridden on to hold sway.


Ekwueme’s reconstruction of Nigeria’s political architecture has till date not received the approval of law, but there is no doubt that Nigeria’s political transactions have been framed upon the six geopolitical zones he espoused.

It is alleged in some quarters that the Hausa-Fulani never forgave him for his action and hence the vociferous opposition they gave to his political aspirations during the Fourth Republic.

Dr. Ekwueme in what could be one of the last major interviews he granted to Saturday Vanguard crew of Onochie Anibeze, Emmanuel Aziken and Emeka Mamah in 2016 on the occasion of Nigeria’s Independence anniversay just before his 84th birthday gave an insight into the processes that led to his clamour for restructuring and how it came about.


He said:

The idea of the six geopolitical zones looks brilliant. Was it your idea alone?

The only other person who contributed to it was my friend, Bisi Onabanjo. Two of us discussed this in prison.

It was from there you now took it to the Constitutional Conference where it was adopted?

Well, it wasn’t. But Abacha adopted it. The conference itself didn’t adopt it; they wanted the status quo to remain because it was in the interest of some people to maintain the status quo.


Some have suggested the abolition of the states and for the six geopolitical zones to become the federating bodies. Do you concur?

The states don’t have to be abolished. It is a matter of nomenclature. When we had Eastern Region, we had 12 provinces which Michael Okpara created. Ogoja province, Calabar Province, Uyo Province, Annang Province, Enugu Province, Onitsha Province, Owerri Province, Umuahia Province and Port-Harcourt Province, Degema Province. There were six provinces in the minority areas and six in the Igbo areas, and all these provinces had their provincial commissioners, had their assemblies and had their provincial scholarship boards.


So, it is a matter of nomenclature. The states should be provinces of the regions. I am putting together a book called Nigeria: Thoughts on the provision of a stable polity, and in that book, there is an article by Shehu Shagari that states should become provinces of the regions.

Eventually, when I met with him when I was putting together these ideas, he said that he found that his suggestion was not very well accepted, so he wasn’t pursuing it anymore.


What kind of political structure do you think will make Nigeria politically and economically viable?

Going back to history we negotiated over a decade starting from Ibadan Conference in 1951 up to the conferences in Nigeria in London and so on until independence in 1960 – a ten year period of negotiation and in the end what Nigerians agreed with the colonial masters on what would be the form of government on the basis of which they would be given independence was a federal form of government made up of three regions – North, East and West.


That was the form of government agreed with each region autonomous in many respects and with each region having its own Constitution and the Constitutions of the three regions annexed to the Federal Constitution in one document and with each region being able to develop at its own pace.

You will see for instance, Eastern Region that started as the poorest region, by 1966 the leadership had established agricultural plantations, rubber, cocoa plantations in Cross River State, palm in Anambra, Imo, Rivers and so on and they had industries, like Trans Amadi Industrial Estate in Port Harcourt, they were able to negotiate with foreign countries and were able to build the brewery in Umuahia, ceramic factory in Umuahia, the Calabar Cement Factory and there was development. They were able to build the University of Nigeria before the Federal Government took it over ten years after.


So, each region was given the freedom to exercise its initiative. It was Eastern Region that first started the Pay As You Earn tax in Nigeria. That was the creation of -21- Bon Ejike— the first minister of finance of Eastern Region in 1952 – Pay As You Earn, automatic deduction from salary. It was first started in Eastern Nigeria because when the region was founded they had to find means of raising money. It was in the East that they first started Entertainment Tax, if you went to cinema if it was One and Six, you paid three pence tax to the government.


People used their initiative. If you went to the North you would find groundnut pyramids in Kano everywhere. In the West, cocoa was booming and they used it to invest property in Lagos, Western House, WEMABOD, Cocoa House in Ibadan all that was based on the initiative. Even free education in the West and so on.

I did my analysis while I was in Kirikiri Prison, the only problem with the form of government that we had with that structure was that it was lopsided. The structure of the regions at independence was such that one region, the North was said to have been bigger than the two other regions, East and West and when even Mid-West was created the North was still bigger than East, West and Midwest and in a parliamentary system based on population, the membership of the parliament allocated more seats to Northern Region than to all other regions put together.


If as they did in the North, they all decided to go into one party, a Northern party, and they elected all their legislators on that party, then they would continue to have the leadership of the country for ever which would not be palatable to the rest of the country. That was one fault in the disparity in the size of the regions.

The second problem I discovered was that within each region, you had majority group and a group of minorities. In the West, the Yoruba were the majority group, and the minority group was what grouped together in what became the Midwest. In the East, the Igbo were the majority and the minority group called themselves the COR State – Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers. In the North, Hausa Fulani were the majority group and the minority were mostly the Middle Belt and to some extent, the Kanuri.


So, you had a struggle within each region between the majority and the minority. So, I decided to cure these two problems that we must have parity of regions between the Old North and the Old South and that was why I decided to have parity of geopolitical zones between the North and the South.

The North was divided into Northwest, Northeast and North-Central and the South was divided into Southeast, Southwest, and South-South.

And it also helped to have parity between the majority regions and the minority regions; the majority regions being in the Northwest, mostly Hausa-Fulani, Southwest, mostly Yoruba and the Southeast , mostly Igbo; and the minority regions being Northeast where you have the Kanuri with a number of ethnic groups in Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba; and in the North Central you have Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara, Niger; and in the South you have the minorities in the former Midwestern Region and the minority of the Southeast region who together formed the South-South.


So instead of three regions, you now have six regions; three majority, three minority; three in the North, three in the South – parity between North and South, parity between majority and minority and the apportionment of representation would be as we negotiated with our colonial masters on the basis of which we got our independence.

What of representation at the National Assembly?

That will have to recognise the type of assembly we should have. Before we had a House of Representatives which was a House of the people based on population and we had a Senate which was based on equality of the regions.


So, in a real federation, the lower House represents the equality of all human beings within the country. Like in America, a state like Rhode Island will have two senators, New York will have two senators, California will have two senators, all the states will have two senators showing equality of the states in the upper chamber and equality of human beings means that New York may have 50 men in the House of Representatives whereas Nevada or North Dakota may have just two or three.


So would you go along with those who say that we should adopt a unicameral legislature to reduce cost?

In a federation, it won’t be wise to have one legislative body as you will have nothing to show that all the federating units are equal. It is the upper chamber that signifies the equality of the federating units.

The only problem is that we copied and abused it whereby we have full-time lawmakers. In the First Republic they had only one Long Session which lasted about six weeks for the consideration of the Appropriation Act and then another one for the Supplementary Appropriation Act, so they had two major sessions, and any other session was an emergency session lasting a few days, and they were all part-time members.


When they came, they were quartered in flats LEGCO Flats and they got sitting allowances on top of their salaries and salary wasn’t very much. Many of them were teachers, some local government officials and so on. But now, everybody who goes to the House of Representatives is a full-time person; he needs a fully furnished house, he needs legislative aides, he needs a constituency office.

Yes, all these are supposed to enhance the legislative process, but they cost a lot of money and how far this competence is enhanced is a matter of concern to some well-meaning people, because you find that some of these constituency offices, and there are some around here, you go there, and you just find a table and a chair, and you ask whether this is where a member of the House of Representatives is going to sit down and draft laws to be presented to the National Assembly? So, it is not a matter of having a single chamber just to save cost.


It is a matter of not adopting the American system hook, line, and sinker. But even in America, the congressmen have just modest accommodation in Washington; they take every opportunity to go back to their constituencies to stay with the people who elected them and to brief them on what is happening.

Will you then suggest that we go back to the parliamentary system with part-time legislators?

I am not advocating for a parliamentary system. I am ok with the presidential system, but it doesn’t have to have two chambers with full-time legislators assigned with a lot of staff, having staff at home and staff in Abuja.

Juliusmalema:
I think you got is wrong.
Alex Ekwueme grouped all ethnic minorities into one region and called them South south Irrespective of geographical location.
So you shouldn't blame their Ignorance when they term it Niger delta or wasn't fully informed why Government adopted such grouping.

Nigercity:
Mr man don't act like you don't know
They are major problem

I just hope this country can divide so there
Brown teeth tinbu can rule there brown roof republic.
The are major back stabbers,a coward tribe that always run to Benin republic to avoid be killed by Fulani,
In IMO state where I come from
There are alot of them especially around orji and egbu Axis the Oozes cowardice