igbo

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Your Language Will Not Die If You Learn Another One.

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To have another language is to possess a second soul.~Charlemagne Some may not like what I’m about to write but I’m going to write it nevertheless because it is somewhat underrated and underappreciated. But above all, it is factual and objective. I know we are concerned about culture and heritage. How to preserve our traditions, languages, and all that. For Igbos like me, this concern possibly grew more worrisome when UNESCO predicted that our language will become extinct by 2025 if nothing is done to check its fast-declining use. So when a friend recently queried why my kids spoke little Igbo, our discussion raced back to that doomsday prediction. I started researching ways to teach my teenagers Igbo and realized that contrary to my fears our dear language has actually flourished in recent times. I discovered that in our usually enterprising manner, many Igbos rose to the challenge and elevated the language to disciplinary status in global institutes of repute like Oxford and Harvard. However, what gave me the greatest joy was that as 2025 approaches, numerous websites like igbotic.net where anyone can learn Igbo have emerged. My exuberant exclamation was that “Igbo language liveth!” Buoyed by this knowledge I rang my friend and reignited the topic hoping to convince him that UNESCO’s augury will come to naught after all. He still insisted that I should ‘force’ my kids to learn our mother tongue. That was when I asked a simple question that left him bewildered. “When and how often will this Igbo language skill help my children?” After a brief back and forth which was leading to more confusion, I had to explain my position. Most Igbo kids living outside the South East started out speaking Hausa, Yoruba, etc along with their peers. This makes it easier to live in those areas. I know a lady who fantasized about her kids speaking “asupri supri” because she longed to migrate to the western world. For years she pursued her dream of moving to Canada. Last year when she finally landed there I called and asked if her kids have started speaking “asupri supri”, her euphoric response was all you needed to feel her satisfaction. I also have a friend in the UK whose daughter spoke better Igbo than some children in Amawbia when she was just 3 years old. At 6 she could read and write in Igbo language. This was only possible because her mum considered it a duty and passionately taught her. There are many like her in the diaspora and together with concerted efforts by other stakeholders, will ensure that our language endures. You see, being a diasporan has many peculiarities and one is that your kids are often raised in an environment (school) where they are not only taught in a different language — English in most cases — but also have mates communicating in that language. In addition, whereas I studied Igbo as a 2nd language in primary school, Irish was the mandatory 2nd language here at that level. Now as a father, it was one of my intentions to teach my kids Igbo when I relocated and I did try. Perhaps I didn’t try enough but of course, you cannot force them as that may have unintended consequences in these climes. The truth is that the chances of my kids going back to live in Nigeria and particularly the South East is almost zero. This is even more so given the current trajectory of insecurity and economic hardship in the country. And as I embraced this reality it soon became clear that French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, and indeed programming languages like HTML, Python, and Java offer better opportunities for kids in our global and tech-driven world. Now consider this. For some time now I’ve been applying for research and academic positions across diverse EU institutions that will hopefully launch me into a doctorate study. For one, they are usually funded programmes. And in addition, they offer the opportunity to learn in a multicultural environment. Unfortunately, my chances have been reduced by one factor; lack of second language proficiency. It is often an eligibility requirement for most EU Institutions that you possess certain levels of certification in at least 2 official languages. That was how my French-speaking friend who lives in New York got a job at the Hague some years ago. So here I am stuck with only English and Igbo languages when a member of the cmonionline community of writers in Nigeria is a French teacher. This writer may actually be more qualified than I am for many positions in the EU. And guess what? There are more like her. Of course, with the internet era, the opportunities available to those who know computing languages like Java, and Python are limitless. But when we say that young Nigerians are ill-equipped to seek jobs abroad, it isn’t limited to tech skills because language skills equally give you a competitive edge. If you possess B-level competency in French, Spanish, Dutch, or any European language for that matter you can apply for many jobs over here that are open to non-EU citizens. Furthermore, some Universities in EU countries have free/affordable tuition but many Nigerian students don’t know this. Norwegian, Swedish & Dutch are among the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. You can learn any of these languages online and with a recent ruling by the EU Court of Justice that the European Commission cannot restrict the choice of a second language to English, German, or French in its recruitment process, your chances of landing a job are even greater if you are proficient in any other European language. I have not in any way suggested that you cannot or shouldn’t go the extra length to teach kids your indigenous language. It is a thing of pride to watch kids speak their native language. So if you can speak, read or/and write in Igbo that’s fine. If you can teach your wards thats even better. In addition, if

Blog, Essays, Monishots

Is The Housewife Alien To Igbo Culture?

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Never ever accept ‘Because You Are A Woman’ as a reason for doing or not doing anything ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The above tweet which forms part of a thread on inheritance highlights some of the deficiencies in our culture. We have laws that are being regularly updated but these things still happen because of pervasive ignorance. How I wish the federal government will declare an emergency on education and revive MAMSER to ramp up the dissemination of information via local means outside the dominant electronic channels. Anyway, the tweet reminded me of the related but disturbing experience I’m about to narrate. In 1992, I was admitted to Nnewi teaching hospital for pneumonia. With the normal practice in Nigerian public hospitals being that the patient usually buys the drugs, I noticed that my cousin who attended to me always bought twice the recommended dosage of drugs each day. When I asked why he explained that his classmate’s husband, an elderly man, possibly in his 70s or 80s also had pneumonia and struggled to buy drugs. I was discharged after 9 days and asked to return for a check-up at a later date. On my return for the checkup, my cousin who drove me inquired about his classmate’s husband and was informed that he passed away. There were no mobile phones then so we drove to go and condole with the bereaved woman. The widow in her 30s I guess, started sobbing as we entered the living room. She told us that when I left the hospital she could no longer get the needed drugs for her husband because his relatives refused to fund his treatment. They asked her to deposit the man’s property documents as collateral before they can provide a loan. The problem was that she was a housewife with 4 kids none of whom had reached post-primary level. She was married many years after her husband’s first wife died without having children. So she was caught between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea. Surrender the property to raise funds that could possibly save her husband or hold on to it as a backup to fund the training of her kids supposing her husband passes on. She sought counsel from friends after efforts to raise funds failed. Apparently, she was advised to settle for the latter option as her husband died the week after I left the hospital. The fierce debate we had on our way back remains vivid. I opined that the woman should have taken the loan to save her husband and the man can sort things out with his relatives thereafter. While my cousin claimed he saw the man’s condition and that survival was not certain so the woman was right not to have gambled. I found this thought process quite bizarre even in my sympathy for a young widow faced with the challenge of raising 4 children. Women, especially wives must seek economic empowerment and men must encourage this in our society. I have peers who would not let their wives work or engage in any form of enterprise. What the hell is that? In this age and time? Sometimes I wish I can just teleport these men to the Western world where the system is such that the financial burden of households is better managed with combined income. Yet it would seem that for Africans, particularly Igbos, the economic subjugation of women was a colonial import. I will even argue that as patriarchal as the pre-colonial Igbo society may have been, the housewife is alien to our culture and was magnified by the colonialists. This position is supported by the fact that feminism is equally a foreign concept as well as the prominence attached to economic empowerment in our marriage customs. Of course, our ancestors expected their wives to be submissive, do domestic work, and bear children. But it is also a fact that farmland and livestock are usually made available for a prospective bride to manage before the union is consummated. Unlike what we have now with urbanization meaning that a bride who is a banker obviously won’t need a chicken pen to earn a living, that provision constituted the base of economic freedom for the Igbo wife back then. My late grandmother was a serial entrepreneur who engaged in different economic endeavours. Before the Biafran war, she used to trek to Oye Agu Abagana or Afor Igwe Umudioka with her colleagues on the respective market days to trade. I’m talking about a distance of 15–20 km. She equally cultivated innumerable farmlands and had a rich barn. Back then Akpu (cassava) was the more popular staple and she always had them fermenting in 2 big drums because she never ate Garri. She always had goats and chicken such that ije gbota nni eghu (getting feed for the goats) was a daily chore I enjoyed with the numerous houseboys that passed through her tutelage. Anu mkpo and azu kojim (dry meat and fish) never lacked in her ngiga as onugbu soup was her favourite and you dare not cook it without protein. The wealth from her enterprise earned her the alias Ogodu nwelu afha or Oke ogodu. This literally translates to a wrapper with a name or a great wrapper because she preferred Ntorika George, Hollandis Wax, or Lace to the average textile wrapper. Stacked in metal chests popularly called Oriental, I remember that for many years after her demise, we still picked wrappers from there for condolence visits. She was an umbrella for widows and less privileged women that usually gather each morning to process either egusi, ojawara or abacha mmili. They will then go down to Eke Amawbia for igba mgbele (trading) and return in the evening for accounting duties. As a kid, I was inspired by her industry and enterprise. For me, she epitomized the Igbo woman of her time. Back to the first part of my story. I couldn’t process my cousin’s line of argument because I

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The Igbo — Yoruba Mistrust by Chukwuemeka Oluka

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There is no way one can write on the Igbo — Yoruba mistrust without opening some healed wounds. Sadly, this is what the essay will do. In the end, however, the writer provides enough collagen to help the wounds heal and then help to avoid the sustenance of more wounds. Highlighted in this essay is the role of principal actors (between the Igbo and Yoruba) in the civil war, and how previous working agreements and the attempts to have a ‘handshake’ between the two tribes collapsed. The essay also explores how ethnicity was used in the 2023 general elections in Lagos to widen the growing mistrust between the Igbo and Yoruba. There is always a complicated blame game between the Igbo and Yoruba, and one that is as old as pre-independence. History witnessed the intrigues and drama. This blame game has inadvertently led to a level of mistrust that has continued to alienate the Igbo and Yoruba, making the prospect of any beautiful political marriage a mirage. The fallout of Biafra — Nigeria civil war meant that the Igbos are always in a hurry to describe their southern brothers, the Yoruba as betrayers. There is the allegation that the Yoruba failed to secede from Nigeria as purportedly agreed during a meeting between Obafemi Awolowo and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. These two arguably were the symbolism of the Yoruba tribe and the Igbo tribe. That allegation held that instead, Awolowo joined forces with General Yakubu Gowon the then Head of state to fight Biafra, as he (Awolowo) was the brain behind the use of starvation as a weapon to destroy Ndigbo during the war that occurred from 1967 to 1970. This is one side of the coin. Another side of the coin maintained that during the meeting between Awolowo and Ojukwu, what the premier of the Western region said was that “if the Igbo were ‘driven’ out of Nigeria, the Yoruba would take it seriously and reassess their own position.” With this, the Yoruba would absolve themselves of any accusation of betrayal. Yet, what is certain was that Awolowo came to Enugu, after which Ojukwu declared Biafra, which later led to the civil war. The Yoruba would also turn around and accuse the Igbo of first betraying them, laying pointers to the 1965 elections of the first republic. In that election, the Yoruba alleged that the West and the East had agreed to boycott the election. While the Yoruba kept to their side of the bargain, the Igbo went ahead to vote. However, some political observers say that the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) which were in power at the time in the East faced a dilemma, which was either to boycott the election — (that saw the Federal Government-powered Nigerian National Democratic Party NNDP of Akintola which was opposed to the then mainstream Action Group AG) — and lose power or to play along and stay in power. The observers said the Igbo looked at political reality and then chose to hold on to power. This, according to the observers should cut the Igbo some form of slack in the blame game. In another twist of blame, the Yoruba have accused the Igbo of never trusting them. They say the South-East always preferred to form an alliance with the North, even when the Yoruba extended their hands. The Yoruba would site an instance where a joint government between Zik’s NCNC and Awolowo’s AG, offered by Awolowo was jettisoned by Zik. In that arrangement, Awolowo conceded for Zik to be the Prime Minister while he would become the finance minister. Recall also that the Sardauna (Sir Ahmadu Bello) had also offered an alliance to Zik. This deal eventually saw (Tafawa) Balewa become the Prime Minister while Zik became the President. In the defence of Zik’s decision, it is opined that he had more of a Nationalist inclination and disposition in his decision, in that he felt that an alliance with Awolowo would be judged as a Southern alliance. Another defence was that Zik sensed some form of double play by the Yoruba because at the time Awolowo, who was the Premier of the Western Region offered the alliance to Zik, a principal actor in the West (AG) Ayo Rosiji, was also patronizing sir Ahmadu Bello in the North (NPC). Some would wonder, why would an alliance even work when in the 1951 Western House of Assembly election, Zik aspired to be the premier but some Yoruba allies in the NCNC dramatically cross-carpeted and teamed up with Awolowo’s AG leading to him becoming the Premier. These interplays of accusations and allegations meant that the two tribes would continue to demonize each other and the consequences of the hate-filled exchanges continue to haunt the two tribes. Just in the recently concluded 2023 general elections witnessed in Lagos, we all saw how ethnicity was deployed as a weapon to execute the elections. Hurtful and hateful words became catchphrases used by miscreants on the streets of Lagos and the ‘vawulence’ streets of Twitter. The zenith of it all was during the 2023 governorship election. Lagos became the centre of attention for its attempts at vilifying Ndigbo for holding contrary political positions. Social miscreants known as ‘Area Boys’ allegedly instigated by certain political heavyweights, attacked Igbo-dominated areas of Lagos. It was alleged that their grouse against the Igbo was their inability to vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Recall that Tinubu, the godfather of Lagos politics lost at ‘home’ to Mr Peter Obi the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) during the February 25th, 2023 Presidential elections. It was unheard of because many didn’t imagine that such a feat could be reached by Obi. After Tinubu lost to Obi in Lagos, barely five days before the gubernatorial election, nine governorship candidates stepped down and declared support for the incumbent Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC. Political analysts say the Labour Party may have instilled some level of fear into the ruling APC. Somehow, Mr

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Deep admiration, False Hatred, Strong affection!!! by Okeke Godwin Iyke

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Nigeria is a country where different tribes and religion discreetly and deeply love and admire each other but publicly castigate and hate each other. Let me give you a practical example: I traveled to my village last month and was discussing with a group of people at the market square. Behold one top retired civil servant drove pass and discussion changes. … 1st man: “This man has retired and he didn’t help any of our people to get a job”. 2nd man: “Our people can never help each other. If it Hausa and Yoruba people they will fix themselves. This is why I love Hausa people, they help themselves but our people hate themselves” Me: if Hausa and Yoruba are so good, why then do we say that they are our problem? 3rd Man: They are not our problem. We are our problem. My daughter was giving an insurance job by a Yoruba man. OK Kontinu. I accompanied a friend to buy a cow he is using for burial at the market. This man is an IPOB die hard. On arrival at the market, the first Igbo man we met told us that the last price for the cow size we pointed was 250k. My friend was provoked with that price and told me that we should proceed to Hausa man’s stand. When we met the Hausa man, he communicated by speaking Hausa language. Both of them were excited and he gave him the bigger size of the cow for 200k. My friend was excited. He told me never to buy a cow from Igbo man because they will cheat you with price. He told me to look for Hausa man whenever I want to buy meat or fruits. OK Kontinu. I recalled one of my visit to Katsina to buy a goat with a friend. We needed 100 goats but managed to get only 55. They asked us to give them money so that they will help us and complete it the next day. We gave them and started to discuss. 1st man: I love Igbo because they love themselves. They teach each other business and help their brother. 2nd man: They build big houses and accommodate all their brothers. They show us love more than our people. 3rd Man: I was in Lagos as maigaurd for one Igbo man for 20yrs. Kai walahi, the man is good to me and my children. OK. Kontinu! As a Yorubanised Igbo man in Lagos, an average Yoruba friend will tell me how lovely the Igboss are. How industrious Igbos are. How they join in development of where they live and how they easily feel at home with Igbos. This discreet admiration of each other across tribe is what make this country indivisible! !! Nigeria will be worst than Syria if the hate and bitterness you read online everyday is a true reflection of what you witness in reality. Many people are not even aware that the Shettima of Arewa youth that gave igbos quit notice in Kaduna is married to an Igbo woman ??. The minority that are suffering from ethnocentrism are negligible. Their noise cannot exceed their dry page. The field reality contrast the online vile and hatred. My duty is to harvest good people in every part of the world. Feel free to conjugate with the evil ones if that will give you mental orgasm. Okokobioko is your anchor man Stay tuned Okeke Godwin Iyke tweets @comradop

Blog, Essays, Monishots

The politics of insecurity and possible solutions.

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Every government must consider the security of the country. That is just part of the responsibilities of any government. But true security can only come out of unity within a country where there are so many ethnic nationalities. ~Aung San Suu Kyi I had purposely refrained from writing on the RUGA madness that recently engulfed the polity for two reasons. Firstly, nobody has ever apprehended the cattle left behind by the killer Fulani herdsmen because it’s hard to believe that they disappear into the thin air with the herd. Two, I suspected the whole idea to be a ruse, a smokescreen to distract Nigerians from the impending petroleum subsidy removal by the government — and yes political distraction is a strategy in governance — Allow me to quickly digress with a brief background before we proceed. As a student at the University of Maiduguri, I observed that the Igbo building material traders in collaboration with their host community had a security outfit. My own hometown has a Hausa community with a polling unit. They have a security outfit which cooperates with our local vigilante and the police. I have employed more than ten guards from them over the years. And after the infamous 2016 Nimbo attacks, a friend from Nimbo whom I called to get a better picture of what actually transpired revealed that the Fulani community in there owned a large settlement and had been engaged in economic activities in the area dating back to the colonial era. The above examples of teamwork were ostensibly for crime prevention and peaceful coexistence. Fast forward to 2019 and the Fulani tribe has been so stereotyped that almost everything wrong with Nigeria now is associated with the Hausa-Fulani hegemony. It got so bad that the 2017 massacre inside a Catholic church in Anambra state was initially reported on social media as an attack by Fulani terrorists. So one can rightly say that Nigeria has completely lost any semblance of innocence that existed. With our common fault lines amplified, mistrust, suspicion and resentment have become malignant. and the government is aware of this. It is, therefore, conceivable that it deliberately introduced RUGA into the national space to elicit wearying outrage before a planned subsidy removal. Now let’s discuss the present issue. With the election behind us, the insecurity is mounting as predicted. Across the nation, we have escalating cases of banditry, kidnapping, violent Shiite protests and of course the most popular ‘Fulani herdsmen’ attacks, which have resulted in an incalculable loss of lives. And this assessment is only going by the reports that make it to the news. Nigerians are slaughtered on an hourly basis by criminals including those in uniform who are supposed to protect them. Vice President Osinbajo recently came under severe criticism for suggesting that the reports of kidnapping across the land were often exaggerated especially on social media. Of course, he spoke the truth. The proliferation of cheap communication tools has aided this magnification. Ignorant Nigerians who cannot perform a simple google search are hired to broadcast fallacies concocted by politicians and their agents. Afterall there was no WhatsApp when kidnappers were paid tithes in Aba and luxury buses travelled with police escorts. But was that the right thing for the nation’s number two man to say at a period we are daily bombarded with live videos of kidnapping and other forms of violence? The answer is an emphatic NO! Perception is crucial in governance. You may not be doing the right things, but saying the right things will often get you by. Our soldiers are constantly on the receiving end of deadly attacks. In early February the town of Rann in the Borno state lost 60 lives to Boko Haram terrorists and in the same month, a band of yet to be identified gunmen invaded a community in Kaduna state killing 130 people. Nobody is safe anymore except perhaps the politicians themselves surrounded by a retinue of security operatives. But their relatives are not spared, they feel the torment like other Nigerians. In the past week, gunmen murdered Fasoranti’s daughter as she travelled to Lagos from Akure, gunned down an uncle of the infamous Senator Abbo and abducted his stepmother. Not even President Buhari’s family has been spared as his inlaw was only rescued last week after two months in captivity. These are perilous times and must not be allowed to fester. So Osinbajo and indeed the government as a whole are expected to proffer solutions, solutions and solutions only. Will the recent killing of Mrs Funke Olakunrin prove to be the tipping point? Time will tell as events unfold. However, the poignant issue in this orgy of violence and also a stimulus for the strong opposition against this government is that the perpetrators literally get away with it — even when it may not be so — except when a prominent person is involved. Again, this has to do with my earlier point on perception. Already, the tempo of the rhetoric is increasing. Obasanjo who personally directed and defended the decimation of Odi and Zakibiam has already inked another letter calling for an end to the killing by ‘herdsmen’. Odumakin the disgruntled Buhari gofer is screaming Islamisation while Femi Fani Kayode who could be Yoruba, Biafran or Fulani depending on who is oiling his flute at the time is shouting ‘Fulanisation’ and calling on the Aare Ona Kakanfo to start beating the war drums. It is only the amnesiac that will take this trio seriously in their macabre but banal dance. But since Nigerians are often impressionable it would be proper for the authorities to check these outbursts before we are plunged into a spiral of reprisal attacks, because as Nyerere once noted: “the people who are politically and intellectually bankrupt normally seek refuge in ethnicity and religion as a major factor of mobilisation”. The government must be wary not to treat this potent factor with levity. The pertinent questions our security agents should tackle after apprehending the culprits are; How Yinka Odumakin who

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The Conflict Is Already In Igbo Land.

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Expectedly, IPoB and their horde of online disciples are now screaming that the DSS is behind these attacks by unknown gunmen which have become a daily occurrence across Igbo land. Ironically the same IPoB and the same followers have been tweeting in support of the faceless hoodlums to justify their bid for secession.

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How the South-East should respond to Amotekun.

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“It is the opinion of many great authorities that every nation or people build its future on its past, that is, a past that has been properly studied and understood, and whose seminal experience has been extracted and redeployed for further use”. ~ Prof. Adiele Afigbo Ever since Mohammed Yusuf was extra-judicially murdered by the police in 2007- a costly insurgency that has so far claimed over fifty thousand lives and displaced about three million continues to ravage the nation. The hydra-headed problem turned into a conflagration which continues to oxygenate the activities of bandits in the North-West and killer herdsmen across the nation. The inability of the national defence and security apparatus to contain the insurgents has seen an otherwise localised conflict permeate the other regions in different guises. In the South West kidnapping became so rampant that even the high and mighty were not spared. Chief Olu Falae is lucky to be alive while Pa Fasoranti’s daughter -may her soul rest in peace- wasn’t so lucky. What’s more, President Buhari’s lopsided appointments in the security architecture and his reluctance to replace the service chiefs in the face of perennial insecurity culminated in the birth of Operation Amotekun. Well, so the Yoruba leaders say. I am not sold on that narrative. I believe that Operation Amotekun is actually more about politics than security. Why do I think so? Well, part of the reason should be obvious to the discerning observer. With the exception of some Nordic countries and a few others, even the most liberal democracies have its security framework usually designed with the principal consideration of protecting the ruling elite let alone Nigeria where ours was largely shaped by long years of military dictatorship. Precisely, the established operational paradigm in the country can rightly be described as regime security rather than national security. This is better exemplified in the fact that it is normal to have the number of security operatives attached to the office of a local government chairman supersede what is left to guard the local government area itself. Tinubu himself is very much aware of this. As the political godfather of the South West, his measured statement calling for dialogue with the federal government couldn’t have been better crafted given his rumoured ambition to succeed Buhari. Who wants to stir the applecart? And did his caution prevail? Certainly, the northern dominated federal government is aware of existing security outfits like Hisbah, JTF and the rest. So it makes little sense to boisterously oppose a similar initiative by the politically aligned South West. Moreover, any other amorphous security organisation out there that exceeds set boundaries as the so-called legal framework will definitely outline can always be tamed. Cut to size and reduced to omonile like Obasanjo did to the Oodua Peoples Congress OPC. So, as the Federal Government led pally with South-West Governors on the contentious issues concluded with a mutual agreement public attention will understandably switch to other regions particularly the South-East. Leaders of the region will be inundated with more calls to reproduce something identical. Already we ‘ve had some chest-thumping from usual vocal quarters. While Ohaneze Youth Council called on the conspicuously silent South-East Governors to resuscitate the defunct Bakassi boys, IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu promised to relaunch the disbanded Biafran Security Service with the aim of supporting Amotekun with one million men. However, our leaders need not succumb to these chaotic and discordant demands. There are factors to be taken into account before any coordinated response if at all there will be one as different geopolitical regions in the Nigerian enclave has its peculiarities. This is even more so with the South East. For one, baring Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state, the remaining South West Governors will face reelection sooner or later with Akerodolu of Ondo state looking to renew his mandate later this year. The region’s electorate often described as the most politically sophisticated couldn’t care less about the fact that bulk of the governors are members of the ruling APC. Given the opportunity, the Oyo state experience may be replicated in states where the governor’s report card is subpar. Now given that the security of lives and property is always a paramount factor in electioneering campaign and if your people have been lamenting the poor security situation, what better promise than an indigenous outfit to secure the region? Moreso, when it will likely be opposed -as we have seen- by perceived traducers or invaders like Miyetti Allah as Odumakin and Femi Fani Kayode, would have them believe. We can now see the reason behind the collective insistence and perhaps desperation of the governors to fly the spotted cat. Perception is key. In reality, the converse is the case in the South-East. Only Hope Uzodimma will seek re-election. The rest are doing a second term. Moreover, the region has fared best in terms of security over the last two years. According to the statistics released by Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), it had the least percentage (1%) of reported cases of kidnapping between Jan-Sept 2019. Compare that to (43%) in the North West and you can see who really needs to emulate Amotekun. The truth is that silently the South-East governors though often perceived as inept by a majority of her people have performed creditably in the area of security. Gone are the days when the region was notorious for kidnapping. In Anambra state, for instance, Governor Obiano encouraged community policing from day one. Each town union is well funded to maintain a vigilante group who collaborate with the police. The governor also regularly equips the state police command with vehicles, communication and security gadgets including drones. This laudable initiative has earned the state several accolades as the safest in the country and is currently being xeroxed in Abia and Ebonyi states. So Igbo leaders need to be circumspect and proactive here. Ours is a region blessed with abundant natural resources like oil, coal, zinc, limestone, salt and much more which remain largely

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Igbos should examine Atiku’s restructuring song.

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  “I won’t get my panties in a wedge because of what I am hearing from the political candidates, What they say in the campaign and what they do once they are in the White House are not the same thing. I don’t care who wins, whoever gets to the White House. Presidents can do a lot but they can only do so much through the system of checks and balances.” ~ James Baker  With the above words, the former US secretary of state reiterated the point that Presidents are not unilateral rulers and that campaign rhetoric is often overwhelmed by the reality once they are elected into office. The issue of restructuring Nigeria which has been an intermittent fixture in the news agenda is once again being championed by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who made it the focal point of his renewed quest for the top job even before he emerged as the PDP flag bearer. He posited that Nigeria’s underperformance is closely related to its defective structure and promised to restructure the country in 6 months if elected. Expectedly, this position received knocks from the Buhari administration which dismissed it as mere political rhetoric meant to cajole the unsuspecting. Vice President Osinbajo in a letter published by many media houses described Atiku’s proposal as vague while insisting that fiscal federalism, stronger State Governments, and good governance which he claims the government is propagating are policies that will move the country forward. Federalism comes in varying forms, that much I am sure most of us will agree with. The common denominator, however, is that all forms have a relationship of shared authority between the component levels of government as agreed by the federating units. No system of government is perfect, therefore nation-states keep evolving to adjust whatever system is practised to present day realities. But we are in that season when politicians talk from both sides of the mouth promising to deliver El Dorado if elected, so both men are living up to expectation and that is why it is proper to gauge their antecedents and assess each statement based on its merits. But before we do that let us take a long stroll down history lane to examine the pattern of the calls for restructuring. After Aguiyi Ironsi’s declaration of a unitary system via decree 34 on the 24th of May 1966, it is on record that the old Northern and Western regions were critical of the decree while the Eastern region remained silent. The North particularly was outspoken in their attacks and accused Ironsi of planning to foist Igbo domination on the entire nation. While Aguiyi dithered the North took their umbrage to the peak and assassinated him in Ibadan on the 29th of July 1966. It is important to note that Ironsi’s decree 34 which was subsequently repealed by Gowon did not strip the regions of resource control, yet the North kicked perceivably because he was not ‘their own’ and most were still livid that the perpetrators of what they believed was an ‘Igbo coup’ were yet to be executed. What followed was an extensive era of successive military governments mostly headed by northerners that established revenue review committees. These committees more or less acted as morticians for the final cremation of regionalism and the derivation principle of revenue sharing that formed the nucleus of our federal system of government. Indeed the lopsided centralisation of resources actually started when Awolowo, acting as Gowon’s Federal Commissioner of Finance reduced derivation on the recommendation of the 1968 Dina Commission. Despite the blanket rejection of this by the Council of Commissioners of Finance from all the regions, the Gowon administration enacted decrees 13, 9 of 1970 and 1971 respectively which appropriated a large portion of exploration and consolidated revenue to the centre. The old Eastern region was disgruntled but coming from the defeat of a protracted civil war the region was too ravaged to utter a whimper. The Murtala and Obasanjo regimes even went further to allocate more to the centre. Murtala’s decree 6 allotted only 20% of oil royalties to the producing states the Federal Government got 80%. Obasanjo’s Aboyade Technical Commission vanquished the allocation to the Niger Delta as the centre retained 100% of mining rents and royalties. This was the end of the road for derivation and what many perceive as the end of our fiscal federalism. Crude oil which then contributed over 70% to the national purse was taken from the states and federalized to be shared according to the whims of the man in Abuja. Through all these years there were repeated muted disapprovals from especially the South East and South South but the notorious high-handedness of military rulers was enough deterrence to make potential agitators have a rethink. Our second stint at democracy did not solve the problem as Shagari retained the 100% derivation at the centre bequeathed by Obasanjo. It wasn’t until the 1995 Constitutional Conference during the Abacha regime approved a 13% derivation for littoral states that we began to see some semblance of a return to fiscal federalism. However, it is also noteworthy that cries of marginalisation by MOSOP rented the air from 1992 till the state execution of Ken Saro Wiwa in late 1995. Obasanjo’s second coming as a civilian president saw him abolishing the offshore/onshore dichotomy ruling of the Supreme Court in 2004 via an act of parliament. This ‘magnanimity’ elicited applause from the political elite of the Niger Delta and Akwa Ibom whose oil resources are virtually 100% offshore found itself in stupendous wealth. Once again the South relaxed on calls for restructuring. The Yar’adua era saw the South screaming again for federalism and when Jonathan took over the shouts automatically stopped in the South-South and South East. The South West then took the baton and continued screaming as the region was excluded from the top 6 elected positions after Jonatha was re-elected in 2011. With Buhari’s victory coming from the alliance of the South

Blog, Essays, Monishots

Obiano: What legacy for APGA?

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  The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers ~ Arthur Koestler in Darkness at Noon The votes have been cast, yet the recent APGA primary election can rightly be described as the most controversial in the party’s history. Despite the repeated assurance of a level playing ground by the party leadership, we have been inundated with reports of widespread electoral malpractices ranging from intimidation, sabotage, blackmail, nepotism to imposition. Last June I was in Anambra for about three weeks. While working out with a high ranking official of the state government his phone rang and he excused himself to take the call outside the noisy gym. He returned a few minutes later and as we chatted he informed me that a politician who recently decamped to APGA was already inquiring about the delegate list for the party primaries scheduled for September. I replied that the politician must be a veteran. I was proven right in due course as the politician subsequently left APGA after futile attempts to access the delegates. That was an indication of things to come. I reckoned that if such a heavyweight politician couldn’t access the delegates, it is axiomatic that the coming primaries was likely to have been predetermined and would be anything but free and fair. Senator Stella Odua opened the door of strife when she decamped to the PDP citing ‘lack of internal democracy’ as her reason for leaving the party she joined less than four months ago. In Anambra South Senatorial district which is arguably the wealthiest in the continent, the battle for the Senate ticket kicked off with stories of the party’s plan to impose Bianca Ojukwu on the people. Ifeanyi Uba who moved his support to APGA after a botched attempt to obtain the gubernatorial ticket of the PDP alleged a breach of an agreement to grant him an automatic ticket. In Imo state despite claims in some quarters that no election was held Senator Ifeanyi Ararume’s camp has been in wild jubilation as reports of his victory filled the media. A friend had questioned the propriety of granting the former Okigwe Senator who only joined the party a waiver while denying Ifeanyi Uba same after he worked assiduously towards Obiano’s second term. As it were, Bianca Ojukwu was upstaged by the seasoned Nicholas Ukachukwu who eventually clinched the ticket after Ifeanyi Uba was disqualified. However, as I write the rumour currently making the rounds is that the party leadership has concluded plans to annul the election and substitute his name with that of the APGA matriarch who came second. It appears that we may not have heard the last about that exercise. These are a few prime examples of many disputed cases of irregularities arising from the exercise. In fairness to Obiano, he has done well in terms of governance. That much was confirmed by a resounding victory last November. However, unlike his predecessor who was known for his frugality and prudence in resources management to achieve maximum results, Obiano is renowned for his flamboyance and love for aesthetics which by the way has produced good results too. So it is a matter of style which each leader is well entitled to. But while Obi may have performed well in governance, being a businessman somewhat limited his perception of politics to mercantilism. Peter rarely trusted others’ ability to deliver. During his time he sat atop a pyramid where he determined everything including those that could have been successfully executed via delegation. Consequently, he failed woefully in building what Nigerians refer to as ‘a structure’. (A group of influential loyalists capable of mobilising the electorate to deliver needed votes). This left him with little political followership as he left APGA and was equally responsible for his candidate’s poor showing in the gubernatorial election. Obiano seems to have learned from this. Firstly, he has maintained a close relationship with former APGA Chairman and serving Senator Victor Umeh who is regarded as a sagacious politician that understands Igbo politics. Secondly, since his re-election, the governor has redeployed many officials of the state. He has also delegated political affairs to Umeh and his trusted SSA Chinedu Obidigwe while governance is substantially handled by Primus Odili his Chief Of Staff. And finally, a retinue of youthful special assistants has given the semblance of an even spread to his empowerment project. With his desk decluttered the governor was able to look at the bigger picture and quickly went to work. Having previously stated his regrets about the PDP’s rape of his party even after campaigning for former President Jonathan in 2015, Obiano smartly reckoned that his people’s aversion for the APC will harm APGA’s chances in the general election should the rumoured pact to endorse President Buhari come to fruition. This insinuation was quashed as the governor smartly resisted further pressure from the centre with an announcement of the party’s intention to field a presidential candidate. Sources claim that he may have opted to work clandestinely for the president with whom he enjoys a warm relationship. In so doing he will assist the president without incurring the ire of his people and in the same breath leverage on federal might to deliver APGA candidates. Killing two birds with one stone. With the primaries done and dusted work has to commence if the party is to succeed during and beyond the coming polls. Some aspirants have threatened litigation while many party members are disappointed, enraged and frustrated at perceived injustice on the part of the leadership. On the sidelines, there are talks of an imminent implosion if aggrieved party stalwarts are not placated. Of course, all these are lucid however they are also not strange. There is no political party in the country that is not faced with similar problems. In every election, there must be winners and losers. Governor Obiano stands on

Blog, Resources

IGBO EKUNIE: Lessons from Post-War Recovery in South East Nigeria

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IGBO EKUNIE: Lessons from Post-War Recovery in South East Nigeria The Centre for Memories, with support from Enugu Sports Club, is excited to invite you to the inaugural edition of its monthly “Nkata Umu Ibe”. This initiative (as the name implies) is an opportunity for Ndigbo to explore the big issues we face as a people. We are excited to have the very erudite Prof. Chidi Odinkalu kick off this series with a very topical paper: “IGBO EKUNIE: Lessons from Post-War Recovery in South East Nigeria” Date: Friday, May 04, 2018 Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm Place: Enugu Sports Club, 1, Club Avenue, Enugu We look forward to seeing you there. Please spread the word. Nkata Umu Ibe (Maka nnyaa, taa, na echi) Signed:Nnanna Ude (Coordinator)  

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The Igbos in the Politics of Nigeria by Rotimi Amaechi

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THE FULL TEXT OF THE 12TH UNIZIK CONVOCATION LECTURE: “THE IGBOS IN THE POLITICS OF NIGERIA”, DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY, RT. HON. CHIBUIKE ROTIMI AMAECHI, HON. MINISTER OF TRANSPORTATION Let me acknowledge without any reservation whatsoever, that I am honored by the invitation to deliver this year’s convocation lecture from an outstanding institution named after the great Zik of Africa. In the course of this lecture, with the topic in mind, we shall hear a lot more about The Right Honorable Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe but not about this university and I hope you will all forgive me. I will trace the history of the Igbo people from the middle years to the era of the Trans Atlantic slave trade, the colonial and post-colonial era, relying chiefly on the works of renowned historians, Professor Kenneth Dike, first Nigerian Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan and Professor Elizabeth Isichei. I will also deal with the issue of Igbo identity and Igbo emotionalism, the two main issues that may have impeded Igbo political advancement in Nigeria. Professor Elizabeth Isichei in her book, The History of The Igbo People, is of the view that in the pre-colonial times, The Igbo people had no real sense of ‘pan-Igbo identity’. “The villagers’ view of external reality was a sharp dichotomy, ‘them and us’, with the sense of attachment to ‘us’ growing weaker as the unit grew larger – the family, the lineage, the village, the village group. Invariably, he [the Igbo] felt a strong local patriotism”. She makes the point that a sense of pan-Igbo identity came only when the Igbo finds himself outside Igboland as was the case during the slave trade and “when colonial conquest and rule violently extended the categories through which the Igbo perceived the world.” Prof Isichei also referenced the work of Dr. William Balfour Baikie, a British Naval doctor and explorer who visited the Niger and the Delta in the 1850’s and made enquiries about the Igbo whenever he could. Baikie described the Igbo conceptualization of themselves in words that are still true today. “In Igbo, each person hails from the particular district where he was born, but when away from home all are Igbos”. A question of change and continuity is an interesting subtitle in chapter two of Isichei’s work. Please permit me to quote extensively from it.“The question of whether the Igbo saw themselves as a people in pre-colonial times is, of course, quite distinct from the question as to whether they could be existentially described as such. But the process of describing the distinctive characteristics of Igbo society – what made them a people – involves us in two difficulties. The first is that of generalization. The many local differences in Igbo culture make it difficult to describe them accurately in a book of this length. Each statement should be qualified, and one is in danger of describing the average of all Igbo societies, which does not correspond with any actual Igbo society. This is a difficulty that is implicit, however, in all historical writing. The second difficulty is more serious. It is necessary to describe the society, in order to understand the nature of the changes it was to undergo. But nothing is more repugnant to a historian than to describe a society in, as it were, a temporal vacuum. Societies undergo constant change; the historian, inevitably, focuses on changes rather than on continuities. One’s description of Igboland should be rooted in a particular moment in time, because the society was constantly changing. A description of Igboland, once upon a time, in the mgbendichie, is bound to do violence to a constantly mutable reality”. That is a crucial point because what is true of the Igbo in the past may not be true today. How people respond to issues today may be different from how they responded in the past. But the one that has remained true is the issue of Igbo emotionalism. The Igbo historical past is very important and at certain times it has been quite tragic. But we cannot remain trapped in our past and as someone once said, we cannot wish away the war that took place but we cannot continue to move forward with our heads slightly inclined backward. You will either trip or not move fast enough. Don’t forget that you are in a race with other groups. Nigeria of the sixties is markedly different from Nigeria of today and the Igbo nation would have to adjust to that reality and strategize accordingly. The Portuguese were the first European visitors to South East Nigeria at about 1472 in their search for a sea route to India. They were soon followed by other Europeans who were in desperate need of labour to work on their vast farmlands and to help exploit new discoveries of mineral deposits in the new world. In 1518, Isichei recounted, “the first load of African prisoners was taken directly from West Africa to the West Indies, ushering in over three centuries of the infamous triangular trade. The triangular trade contributed vastly to the wealth of Europe.” Triangular trade is a multilateral system of trading in which a country pays for its import from one country with exports to another country. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Britain shipped goods to West Africa in exchange for slaves that will now be shipped to the West Indies in exchange for sugar, rum and other items which will then be shipped back to Britain. Not all the slaves were taken to West Indies, some were taken to Gabon and Sao Tome and most of them were Igbo. In the 18th century, the slave trade then dominated by the British rose to its climax in Igboland. In 1882, Captain John Adams, who made ten voyages to the area between 1786 and 1800 wrote: “This place [Bonny] is the wholesale market for slaves, as no fewer than 20,000 are annually sold; 16,000 of whom are members of one nation, called Heebo

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The importance of indigenous languages by Thisday

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An incisive editorial from Thisday newspaper on the importance of indigenous languages as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launched its Igbo and Yoruba language services…Read on ————————————————————————————————————————— Government must take concrete steps to protect indigenous languages by enforcing the national policy on education As the world marks the 2018 International Mother Tongue Day, it is important for all stakeholders to pay attention to the growing extinction of many of our indigenous languages and the implication to the future of our country. It is all the more remarkable that this year, the day is being marked in the same week that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launches Igbo and Yoruba language services in Nigeria as part of an expansion in local languages aimed at more in-depth reporting of countries around the world. “It’s time for people to try to tell their own stories,” said Peter Okwoche of the BBC. To the extent that languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing both tangible and intangible heritage, according to the United Nations, “all moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue”. Incidentally, long before the intervention by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on the promotion of indigenous languages, the federal government had shown concerns for the plight of Nigerian languages when it sought to encourage their teaching and learning in our schools under the national policy on education. Section 1 (8) of the policy emphasises that “the Federal Government shall take official interest in, and make policy pronouncements on the teaching of the indigenous languages, instead of concerning itself solely with English Language’’. Accordingly, the policy stipulates that every pupil must in the course of primary school education study two languages, namely, his/her mother tongue, if available for study, or any other indigenous language of wider communication in his/her area of domicile alongside English Language. The policy also requires that students in Junior Secondary School (JSS), (which is of three-year duration) must study three languages, namely, mother tongue, if available for study, or an indigenous language of wider communication in his/her area of domicile, alongside one of the three major indigenous languages in the country, namely, Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, provided the language chosen is distinct from the child’s mother tongue. In Senior Secondary School (SSS), which also lasts three years, a Nigerian child, according to the policy, must study two languages: an indigenous language and English Language. As we have consistently reiterated, several studies have shown a relationship between level of development and language with the attendant result that those countries that use their indigenous languages, called mother tongue, as their lingual franca have a faster rate of development than those that use a second (foreign) language. However, many schools are unable to offer these indigenous languages because of lack of teachers, a cumulative effect of several years of indifference. Obviously, the policymakers were aware of this acute shortfall when they used the phrase “if available for study” in the policy. This optional nature of the policy undermines its implementation. Since embedded in our indigenous languages is our rich culture, history, traditions, and values, government must take deliberate and concrete steps to protect them by enforcing the national policy on education with regard to learning and teaching of mother tongue. That must be the starting point because education is the base of the future of every society. One of the ominous signs of danger today is the incremental loss of our rich arts forms, particular in music, dance and fashion as our youths have taken to the Western genre, threatening our cultural identity as African people. What critical stakeholders must therefore never forget is that as our indigenous languages face extinction, so are other aspects of our culture, including history, traditions and values.

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