Igbo bashing as a Nigerian hobby

The recent series of rants by a former aviation minister against the Igbos is a very clear case in point; though he was not the first of his race to do that (Akintola in ’64, Abati in ’97 and Adelaja in 2006 are few examples) and I am sure he won’t be the last to do so until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane!


When a northern politician visited Lagos in the late 1940s and was pelted by the Yoruba supporters of the Action Congress, he went back home and orchestrated a bizarre mass murder of the Igbos living in the north.

A coup was carried out just before the war, by a few Igbo soldiers and a Yoruba man, where a few top politicians were killed, (the fact that this same coup was crushed by an Igbo man – General Aguiyi Ironsi is always conveniently forgotten) the resultant counter coup did not target Igbo politicians, it did not target top Igbo military officers and men alone, it was simply an opportunity to massacre Igbo civilian men, women and little children in all parts of the north and in all corners of Lagos. By the time the tempo of the pogrom had died down, close to 100,000 Igbos had died and all the Yorubas in Lagos were concerned about was for the Igbos to leave so they would have enough space. Their son General Adekunle exemplified this hatred when he masterminded the worst case of mass killing of Igbo children and rape of women during the war; it was so gruesome that the docile head of state had to remove him from active duty.

The questions about the civil war are so many but there are few salient points worthy of note.

The declaration of an Independent state by the Igbos in the face of the horrendous hate-driven murders against them clearly minimized the number of casualties that would have been recorded otherwise. In other words, if Biafra had not been declared, many more innocent Igbo lives would have been lost long before the war.

Another issue is that the policy of starvation by Awolowo and Gowon that resulted in over 2 million children perishing of malnutrition was not an act of war, it was Genocide and until that singular issue is called by its name, true reconciliation will still be far. Gowon (and his Nigeria prays) has apologized, but that is not enough.

The issue of giving Igbos 20 naira after the war (even if you had 20 million in the bank) and at the same instance executing the indigenization policy where majority shares of all multinationals were bought over by Nigerians (while the Igbos all had 20 naira in our pockets!) and the abandoned property saga are also sore areas that need to be re-visited.

To buttress the fact that these are issues that must be properly addressed, refer to Chief Edwin Clark’s recent interview where he claimed that his fear for not supporting an Igbo presidency is that the issue of abandoned property will be re-opened in Port-Harcourt and the Igbos will dominate PH again. It is unfortunate.

Igbo domination in Nigeria is a myth, a deliberate and calculated falsehood designed to deceive those Igbos who do not know.

Take a careful look around you and you find out that the country had been divided loosely among the victors in the war, the one taking over the economy and the other taking over power. I say loosely divided because there are few overlaps between the two victors (Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani) as time went on.
The oil blocks in Nigeria as an example, are not owned even by the Niger delta people but mainly by the Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani.

As a matter of fact, the calculated and sustained domination of the Yoruba in Nigeria’s social and economic space is at an all-time high. Look at the telecom, financial, manufacturing and oil industries and you begin to understand what I’m saying.

You also need to carefully observe the subtle language colonization of the rest of Nigeria by the Yorubas, no avenue is left unutilized to achieve this agenda, through hip-hop and even the churches at their disposal. Check yourself properly to see if you are now comfortable in saying “abi”, “jare”, “joor”, “shebi”, “ni” , etc. and you begin to understand their strategy.

Yet it is this same people that will say Igbos are dominating, when they are indeed the most tribalistic people on earth (enter the big corporate offices and Pentecostal churches and you will understand).

It is on record that Ndigbo are the only group in this nation that has the spirit of “ONE NIGERIA” indeed.
It is only an Igbo man that can set up a company which can be sustained by his people alone yet will employ other tribes to come and join, no other group in Nigeria can try that, certainly not a Yoruba person.

An Igbo can constitute an interview panel in a corporate body here in Nigeria and pick the entire members as Yoruba; no other group will do that. It is only prominent Igbos that will name their sons “Balogun” and “Mustapha” in the spirit of nationhood, no other tribe will do that, in fact, that is the last thing a Yoruba man will do. Professor Chike Obi and Nnamdi Azikiwe did it. Yet all these liberal mindedness only earns the Igbos disdain and contempt from others. We need to wake up to these realities.

The attacks against the Igbos, both verbally and with guns and bombs, mostly in the west and north and indeed all around, will not stop nor will it abate until Ndigbo begin to look inwards. We need to realize that like the Israelites, we are surrounded not by friends but by enemies therefore we cannot afford to be our own worst enemies too.

We need to start building and developing Igboland and not pouring all our resources into Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt.

Ako and Igwebuike should be our watchword.

Above all we should all eat, drink and imbibe the spirit of OFUOBI in all areas of our lives.


By Jideofor Onyebuchi
jydaymus@yahoo.co.uk

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