Igbo in fading shadows
By Ikenna Emewu
Saturday, March 17, 2012

I run the risk of somebody accusing me of tilting towards ethnic interest. But I am ready to carry the cross, but with a different name. I choose to call it personal interest. What one might call championing ethnic interest I rightly call championing my interest. I don’t know any law or rule or tradition that frowns at self-preservation. Even at the height of altruism, even in suicide, the personal interest is paramount. The one that takes to this does so in the interest of the self-gaining recognition or purging self of prevailing pains.
It gives me concern that the Igbo nation of Nigeria is fading away in so many respects and we don’t seem to care about this extermination. The most astonishing truism is that the end that stares Igbo in the face is self-destruction. It is not a case of anyone throwing blames across at other people on why he is not recognised.
It looks to me like the Igbo has hit a kind of strange psychosis where the self does not matter any longer. I think it is a good case in sado/masochism where the individual inflicts pains on self and makes no attempt to do otherwise because he enjoys it.

You might have noticed this commerce triangle that exists in Nigeria? I think it was unintentionally created by certain factors over time. From today, take your observation to the fact that when there is any business or outstanding event in Nigeria and places are mentioned, what you hear is Lagos/Port Harcourt/Abuja. I think it is only when there is all these funny drink-cough-shout-and win promo and concerts that someone mentions anywhere in the South East as a location of an event of national appeal. If it is about some corporate business – electronic warehouse, automobile sales outlets, aviation, trainings, services, telephone stuff, etc, you can’t hear a place mentioned in the South East.
The self-immolation comes in when you think of factories owned by people from the region in other places in Nigeria and none in the region they come from. Think of a situation where Zinox Computers, Coscharis Motors, Globe and First Motors and so many others have their outlets in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt and none in Igboland. But ironically, a good percentage of the people that patronise these businesses in the chosen fertile lands are people from Igboland. Does it convey the message of one hating and working against himself?

Now the cloud is gathering in the nation. Soon and very soon, the debate about true federalism will gather momentum in one form or the other. Already, the situation in the North has forced people who love others more than the self back into their hated region. They had all their life earnings and sweat in other places, and they head homeward to grapple with empty space. Does that development send any signal?

But for instance, there is no threat to Nigeria’s corporate existence, would that be justification for the abandonment of this region that is not lacking in factors of development? Why didn’t a people learn from their history even after fighting a bitter war for existence? I am baffled indeed.
Recently, I have been hearing and reading of the South West agenda. The focus comes in economic, cultural and political forms. Awareness is growing among the people because the signs in the horizon don’t seem to encourage anyone that the overcast sky might hold its moisture for a longer time. Last week and indeed as in the weeks and months past, the North, through all sorts of platforms, has been articulating its agenda. They come in form of new revenue sharing formula agitation by governors and other self-preservation antics by other bodies. And it seems in Igboland, everything is at ease, and there is no need for any action to set agenda and agitate the people into action like others do.

Between 1999 and today, I have seen three Aviation ministers from the Igbo enclave. Maybe by design or whatever, they have all been women. Prudent and calculative as women pride themselves to be, the South East remains the only geo-political zone without an international airport. The last time pilgrims left the zone, they were airlifted from the new Akwa Ibom airport. So, where is the place of Enugu airport and the promise of upgrade? I was a child growing up in Onitsha when I saw work commence on what they said was to be a seaport in that city. But where is it now?

I keep asking many questions and none gets an answer even when more questions nag my mind. If we had direction, there should have been a platform within the states in the region to organize the returning Igbo natives from the North into something cohesive and tap into their potentials so they can replicate effectively in Igboland those exploits they made in the places that pushed them out.

So, even within the context of a stable nation, is there any need for a regional plan of action to develop and empower the Igbo nation? In a situation where the nation you live in gets shakier with every passing day, won’t there be more compelling need to get one’s act right and think of survival? I am really scared my people are fading into oblivion. I might be wrong, but I need superior argument to be persuaded otherwise.
When others – South South, South West, North, etc are busy expressing their love for the nation by preserving themselves, the Igbo profess and express their love for the same nation by destroying self.

The last time I heard of any ruler from the region canvass self-preservation was what Dr. Emeka Ezeife articulated as think-home-philosophy in his days as Anambra State governor.

In about 2006, I attended the World Igbo Congress in Owerri as a reporter. At the press briefing, a reporter from the Igbinedion TV in Benin, and of course a non-Igbo woman asked the chairman of Ohanaeze then, Prof. Joe Irukwu what the body was doing about their kinsmen and wealth scattered all over Nigeria even in the face of threats to their existence.

And Irukwu started: “We are happy about it. In fact, I don’t see anything wrong with that because we are strong believers in the oneness of the nation.” Before he could go further, the governor of Ebonyi State then who was sitting next to him, Dr. Sam Egwu literally snatched the microphone from the elder and answered the question in the opposite direction. His position was that Nd’Igbo should come home and develop their land like others do. But I have some confusion here while balancing action with words. I read that actors, actresses and producers in the Nollywood sector once visited Egwu as governor in Abakaliki and demanded a place to build a films village. Egwu made them promises from the moon and it ended there. Nothing is there, not even [b]words, in Abakaliki to give life to those promises. Yet the city needs development badly. If by tomorrow, the largesse in Abuja to states and LGAs stops flowing, I bet you that Igbo will be the first to die of hunger because our governments never think of self-survival. Otherwise, a Theodore Orji as governor of Abia State would [/b]not have seen firing workers from other Igbo states as means of generating revenue when he has a goldmine in Aba, which he won’t tap into.

Onitsha, with all the money there, is a mad house. No person that loves order will take any organized business to Onitsha. Yet the potentials are there. The money is a sea that never dries. What do we have today in Onitsha? Asaba, the neighbouring city that has some order reaps the dividends. People come to Onitsha for serious business and live in Asaba to visit Onitsha for the business. It is also that way for workers in corporate organisations in the city. The bankers, media men, telecoms workers and others posted to Onitsha live in Asaba and we care not. Governor Peter Obi has not shown any difference in bringing order to the chaos called Onitsha. Nnewi that is just developing is worse with factories haphazardly located all over the place. No road design, no city mapping, nothing to attract good and elevated business and that way the existing businesses suffer and we never rise beyond the pedestrian status. So, where is the Igbo think tank to articulate something to recreate this part of the nation because the night is fast coming on the Igbo nation.


http://www..com/news/187116/thoughts-igbo-in-fading-shadows.html

^^^

You need to go re-learn your subject-verb agreement. I expect nothing but the very best from you. You don dey fall my hand . . . or is it the NL effect?

Idowuogbo:

I don't disrespect Dudes like dat,[b]my eyes does [/b]d talking.

Which kain Oyinbo be this oooooo ID?

77 Billion cedis.

An Ibo man just has to be involved . . . like they ve not done enough with their international, transcontinental anal drug stuffing.


Igbo kwenu!

Igbo kwezuone!!!

419 Kwenu Kwezuonu!!!

^^^


What audacity to question Seun! . . .Like you actually pay to post. He needs not consult anyone as long as you are not paying to use HIS forum. It is a privilege not your right to come here. Dont like it, GTFOH. Hmmmm, Nigerians and their sense of entitlement, no wonder most of them are lazy intellectually

naijaking1: @Op
Please move this to rumor section. Even the ooni has human needs, too.

What needs? S3x or money?

Obviously most of the disaporan here really have no clue who the OOni really is.

Aigbofa: Refined cooking oil is a prohibited item you cannot import to Nigeria. All you have to do it forward whatever information you have to the Nigerians customs and if they don't act on it, contact a few media houses.

COme on, you are smarter than that, Olubuse is in his 80s and you want to believe he has a GF who is in her 20s controlling some under G cooking oil market in Dugbe?

BTW, Alex101 is Ibo. . . nuff said.

Seun: What about those with poor eyesight who are not albinos?

Let them complain to JAMB, WITH evidence from their doctor or ophtho, WRT their disability. Dibu cant act in a vacuum. They need to bring his attention to it.

What about albinos with good eyesight or glasses?

Thats their luck. It is better to free a guilty man than to imprison an innocent person.

JAMB is headed in the right direction with this policy. Lets commend Dibu and his people.

Buzugee is a cardio?

Sup bro?

gulfer: Every Sunday till now, irrespective of the web edition cuz wifey loves the fashion pages.

Wake up dude, wifey is having an affair.

I will get ma condom and join in the Children making. The more the merrier . . . isnt that whar they say?

naijasexy: 2008.

With stolen money from Shagamite? Or from money you made from your private escort business? liar!!!

You can vote from now till God himself shows up in Nigeria, nothing will ever come out of your vote!

Very interesting

Thank you Alhaji AbdulHArem!

^^^

Tell that to yourself!

^^^

How much is that?
I live in NJ BTW

googles:

hehehe the question is do I know you stranger ?

so you are from ife . . .hmm

Which secondary school did you attend?

I am from Ife and I went to SOS


HAHAHAHA!
Do I know you?

googles:

Legal studies of Ganja planting and piping under the almighty faculty of Law

ever been to OAU ?

I was born at OAUTHC
Was gonna go there for my studies, but had to jet out of the goddamn country

What year?

googles:



you are so predictable . . .I so knew you were going to ask dat

So are you, I knew you would play hard to get!

Anyway, what are you studying?

OH men

I am craving that shyyt

Looked online, but could not find it!

What about yapon yarin?

^^^

How much do you charge?

White or Indian puzzie

Anyone know where/how I can get this old sitcom online?