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

Shaolin0147:
You be mumu aswear, they weren't given any 20 pounds by the Nigerian gorvernment, rather they reduced the bank account of every Igboman that had money in the bank

Shaolin0147:
You be mumu aswear, they weren't given any 20 pounds by the Nigerian gorvernment, rather they reduced the bank account of every Igboman that had money in the bank

bakynes:
I think I agree with the OP here, first of all those banks then we're British owned, the indigenization policy by Gowon came to be after the Civil War which made those British banks now Nigerian banks like Union Bank(which was Barclay's bank my Grandmother worked there)and First Bank, so even if Igbos had money in the bank, those bank were not Nigerian bank so there is no way the govt would have seized their monies.

Second, like the OP said the minority tribes in the defunct Biafra of old Eastern region,none of them have come out to say they lost money in the banks except the Igbos why is that?

Third, how is it possible to go back to Biafra (after Ojukwu asked everyone to come back home) without going back home with money to feed and survive? Biafrans must have withdrew their money in the bank.

Fourth, we heard ojukwu looted the bank branches in the East and collected donations from people, asked people to exchange their Nigerian pounds for the Biafran pounds so how did the Biafrans who came from Nigeria have money to exchange, I thought they had all their money in the Nigerian(British controlled) banks and came home with nothing?

Infact, the story of Igbos lost money in the banks before they left for Biafra was a big sham.

aribisala0:
Let me ask all of you this.

Why did Chinua Achebe not tell the whole world his own personal experience of the £20 saga in his many books?

aribisala0:

Factually do you have aa shred of evidence to back this claim?

It simply is not true. Many people may have CLAIMED they opened accounts. Have you got evidence of those who had papers and were denied

More importantly what you fail to tell us is assuming your claim is true what happened to the money.

Was their ever any legislation empowering government to take such money or did the banks benefit

Were Ikwerres affected ? Why not how not?

What about so called DElta Igbos?

Surely such a decree or law must have been gazetted
Surely it must have made it into ONE NEWSPAPER article somewhere ?

What was the size of Bank deposits in Nigeria in total. Surely there must be some evidence of something.



Did the Nigerian government confiscate the money? By decree or what mechanism?

Our laws are not secret!!
The banks were not government owned in fact one was British and the other partly British. They could not hand over money without a decree or gazette

aribisala0:
So Imagine Shekau or whatever he is called goes ahead to print his own currency in the heat of the Boko Haram crisis.Called it BokoNaira or BokoDollar

A few years later his guys turn up with their Ghana must go bags of BokoNaira asking for a 1 to 1exchange. Whadya say to that?to

PS many people quoting me on this thread. I cannot respond y'all. Idiots have to go to the back of the queue.So if you don't get a response you probably are not very bright.

aribisala0:
When Ojukwu created the Biafran pound. Did he share money to the public?

NO


People gave up something in Exchange. What was it ?

Fact is people exchanged their money for Biafran pounds and were effectively scammed by Ojukwu

aribisala0:
FEM !!!!!

bakynes:
I think I agree with the OP here, first of all those banks then we're British owned, the indigenization policy by Gowon came to be after the Civil War which made those British banks now Nigerian banks like Union Bank(which was Barclay's bank my Grandmother worked there)and First Bank, so even if Igbos had money in the bank, those bank were not Nigerian bank so there is no way the govt would have seized their monies.

Second, like the OP said the minority tribes in the defunct Biafra of old Eastern region,none of them have come out to say they lost money in the banks except the Igbos why is that?

Third, how is it possible to go back to Biafra (after Ojukwu asked everyone to come back home) without going back home with money to feed and survive? Biafrans must have withdrew their money in the bank.

Fourth, we heard ojukwu looted the bank branches in the East and collected donations from people, asked people to exchange their Nigerian pounds for the Biafran pounds so how did the Biafrans who came from Nigeria have money to exchange, I thought they had all their money in the Nigerian(British controlled) banks and came home with nothing?

Infact, the story of Igbos lost money in the banks before they left for Biafra was a big sham.

aribisala0:
Show us one newspaper article or any book written anywhere to back up all these silly stories

Was there a decree enacted.How did they identify Igbo accounts?
What about Ijaws and Ibibios?

Are we to believe that Igbos from IKa and Delta were spared as were Ikwerres who have similar names? or they did not have bank accounts?
The truth is most folk who had money fled with it and gave it to Ojukwu in exchange for Biafra pounds it was BAD MARKET
One of the most difficult thing to do is to admit personal foolishness especially to your children so what do you do blame others.
Blame Awo. Blame Yoruba.

The truth is you INVESTED your wealth in the Biafran pound and A superior mind defeated that strartegy

aribisala0:


It is possible that some may have lost money.Let us own that.

What I am keen to establish is that such loss was to the banks and not government. At no time did government intervene to take over anyone's money. Government could not have done so without passing enabling legislation. Even if that happened how would it be operationalized and would it not be in one single newspaper report?

The next point then is that the £20 came from somewhere and it was not oil money.Where?

aribisala0:

I have many photos. Too

JUSTICE4Nigeria:
when it comes to biafra issue u can denie your parents, Nigeria that killed, massacred unarmed civilians, committed genocide, and u think converting biafrans wealth to theirs is an issue? u need more cerebral than I thought,
read this from the horses mouth


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 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, would get their money back if they could satisfy us that they had 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.



I didn’t take part in setting up the panel, it was done by the Central Bank and the pertinent officials of the Ministry of Finance, to look into the matter, and they went carefully into the matter, they took some months to do so, and then made some recommendation which I approved. Go to the archives, all I did was approve, I didn’t write anything more than that, I don’t even remember the name of any of them who took part. So I did everything in this world to assist our Igbo brothers and sisters during and after the war.

And anyone who goes back to look at my broadcast in August 1967, which dealt with post-war reconstruction would see what I said there.
MEANING, If they had change the money the country will bankrupt, hahahahahah, so igbos hold the economy of Nigeria since 1808,lol, AWOLOWO SAID IT NOT ME OOO ,

aribisala0:
As big as the internet is NOT ONE Igbo person has come out to say here is my father's bank book
With a balance of £2000 which he was denied NOT ONE

Even Ojukwu never said that.

Yes there may be people who lost their bank books and suffered but it is impossible to believe that there is NOT ONE surviving bank book

Crucially

The question arises was a law or decree enacted to confiscate the contents of Igbo Bank accounts?
Did this affect Igbos only? What about Ikwerres with Igbo like names were they affected?
DId it affect Igbos from the MidWest

How were Igbo bank accounts identified?
Was there a SpotIboaccount App?

AchalugoNwa:

Not one single newspaper article to corrborate the seizure of bank accounts .Not one!





Ajanaku koja mo ri nkan firi

JoannaSedley:
Chai some people are just so mischievous.
So, let's get thus straight, the originator of this thread is telling me and other readers that this did not happen?

aribisala0:
Show us one newspaper article or any book written anywhere to back up all these silly stories

Was there a decree enacted.How did they identify Igbo accounts?
What about Ijaws and Ibibios?

Are we to believe that Igbos from IKa and Delta were spared as were Ikwerres who have similar names? or they did not have bank accounts?
The truth is most folk who had money fled with it and gave it to Ojukwu in exchange for Biafra pounds it was BAD MARKET
One of the most difficult thing to do is to admit personal foolishness especially to your children so what do you do blame others.
Blame Awo. Blame Yoruba.

The truth is you INVESTED your wealth in the Biafran pound and A superior mind defeated that strartegy

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

Chigator:




Mr. Busted.
Let's agree you are right and our 20 pounds lie is a fallacy.

Now, in your attempt to undermine or diminish our economic efforts did you ever rationalize that whatever the case might be, irrespective of the size of the Nigerian welcome back gift (according to you) that the South-East and the old Eastern Region were at a huge disadvantage compared to their counterparts regions.

Coming out Losers in a long stretched out war, infrastructure battered, decimated work force, ethnic mistrust, tensions and a collapsed morale, we where light years behind the rest of Nigeria.
Shortly after that, the Indigenization Policy was initiated, Nigerians could now take part in the ownership of a lot of successful foreign companies and thus creating Generational wealth. In this context, you still can't deny our financial incapacity to maximize such opportunity.

Nevertheless, honorable Mr. Buster would you now deny that our economic recovery and bounce back to a certain degree of parity is not astounding ? Didn't it outperform the expectations of your entire Nigeria ?
I don't expect your affirmation because this economic miracle still retains a popular repute and admiration in Nigeria and beyond today, Coming from a tribe that is considerably politically and otherwise sidelined I will say we have done well at our own pace.

God Willing, In BIAFRA, the dream will be actualized and finalized.
Till then we won't give up the struggle and relent for people like you to scorn us without end.
Try to heal and stop being bitter, certain things in this life demands Pedigree.

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

aribisala0:
[s][/s]

JUSTICE4Nigeria:
propaganda at it best, igbo been business men have so much money in the bank before the war, after the war, whether u have equivalent or more than the aforementioned u will be given 20pounds just like given every igbo 20naira after all they have save in Nigeria bank, awolOwo took THE balance to buy shares in different company, due to they didn't laboured for it yorubas squandered the fund,