Re: Bridging the Economic Divide: The Imperative for Southeast Human Capital Investment.
Professor Bernard Odoh’s seminal directed to the Southeast Development Commission is apt only in so far as it relates to the caption which rightly connotes the need for the Igbo economy to do a fast catch-up with its Yoruba counterpart. The subterranean comparison buried beneath the caption by the erudite Proff between the Yoruba economy and the Igbo economy which makes the Igbos a weeping boy of the contest is distasteful, uncalled for and shows the Professor as a poor student of history. Professor Bernard Odoh was expected to submit a luminary prognosis of why the Igbos are behind and proffer his human capital investment templates as one of the solutions than to use his writeup to make a show of Yoruba irridentism falsetto which thrives in pulling Igbo down in order to rise. The professor’s epistle is therefore hollow in its texture and context as it seeks to drive a wrong message in the face of manipulated facts full of fundamental errors. His analytics is therefore unacceptable for reasons of the following subtext and substrate inferences.
A comparison between the Yoruba and Igbo economy can be likened to starting a race between two toddlers and tieing one toddler in the legs while the other toddler is left free to run. The result of such race will be as apt as the submission of eminent Professor Benard Odoh. Its of a no-contest whatsoever. We shall examine the fundamentals In order to debunk the wrong passion packed in the professor’s pieces.
The covert manipulations to rig the Nigeria political economy against the Igbos became a national movement choreographed by the British soon after the 1966 coup that toppled Aguiyi Ironsi. The Igbos became the political fall guy of the Nigeria estate being divided on the table from London to Lagos between the Yoruba and the Hausa Fulani revisionists. Prior to that sharing of the Nigeria booty between these two ethnicities, the Yoruba and the rest of other ethnic groups were losing the economic competition on all forths to the Igbo industrious mindset of very hardworking people much to the anger of the British conquistador. This post independence outcome wasn’t what the British desired of their business estate since the Igbos cannot be easily controlled.
The Igbos lost everything to the Biafran war in political, economic and social assets. It was said that the Igbo economy was having the greatest growth rate on global scale. The war ended with the declaration of the 3R of reconstruction, rehabilitation and recovery for the Igbos of Eastern Nigeria. Those famous declarations were a subterfuge to start the real war of resources control and economic deprivation under the headship of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba man. The same man who blockaded food and essential supplies to Biafrans was now head of the economic team of post Biafran war Nigeria.
He used the opportunity to strip the Igbo man bare naked while taking everything to his Yoruba people. From his policy of handing Igbo families a pittance of £20 to his indigenization and nationalization of the public sector economy to his Yoruba race and their Hausa Fulani partners. Igboland was left in ruins of civil war without any reconstruction as was promised. While the Igbo toddler was still struggling to free from the tether, the Yoruba toddler was midway finishing her race.
But while the Igbo managed to finally find its feet ten years after the Civil war by joining in the Nigeria march of nation building, A faction of the fulani revisionists led by Muhammadu Buhari struck down the democratic government of Shehu Shagari in 1980 who’s only sin was having an Igboman, Dr. Alex Ekwueme as his Vice President. It later turned out to be a conspiracy hatched between the fulani General, Muhammadu Buhari and Yoruba General, Tunde Idiagbon to reverse what seemed then as another Igbo economic resurgence. They looked for another stronger tether to tie the Igbo toddler to prevent any other form of loosening of the tie to continue the race.
To the fulanis from the North, it was okay for the Yoruba economy to rise but an abomination for the Igbo economy to be allowed to breathe. The Igbos continued to struggle under military rule till Obasanjo came into the picture in 1999. OBj introduced reforms to buoy the economy which was then under massive sanctions due to military rule. Obasanjo was particularly encouraged by then President Bill Clinton to find Igbo experts who were scattered all over the world driving economic miracles around the world to help him revive the Nigeria economy.
Bill Clinton it was who first mentioned about Professor Bart Nnaji, an eminent professor of robotics and among the best in the world then to OBJ. Others like Professor Philip Emeagwali, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili were all called out and drafted to the Nigeria economic and technical team to help the economic revival of their country of origin. Obasanjo had open mind to using Igbos as the main driving force in his economic team but again, Buhari and his band of haters mostly hibernating in the military were not done yet with the Igbo people.
Buhari came out of retirement to challenge OBJ whose only sin was having the Igbos to be driving his economic mission. Obasanjo defeated him in the election of 2003 and subsequently later anointed Umaru Musa Yaradua in 2007 as his successor. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan took over after the demise of Yaradua to continue OBJ policies of growing the Nigeria economy through some Igbo intelligentcia. Buhari was then forced to join forces with Tinubu in 2015 to reenact the war pacts of Gowon and Awolowo in 1966 to finally put himself in power. Tinubu and Buhari share the same ideology of Igbo pushback and economic strangulation. Tinubu had promised to continue where Buhari stopped in this economic strangulation policies against the Igbos. Everything the Igbos had struggled to achieve by dint of hardwork has gone down since 2015.
The official conspiracy of pull Igbo down was leaked from the conversation between then governor of Ogun state, Ibikunle Amosun and now, VP Kashim Shettima. Every economic strangulation thematic being adopted today to blindfold the Igbo economy was discussed in that leaked audio which has not been debunked till today. From refusal of the FG to invest in the Southeast region and militarising the zone through flagged and unflagged operations military operations, national railways projects cleverly avoided the zone, Federal roads are in the worst form of disrepair, gas pipelines projects are run outside the zone despite hosting 90 percent of the natural gas reserves in Ohaji Egbema area of Imo State in the zone, Southeast zone is denied electricity supply from the national grid being controlled from Oshogbo at the center of Yoruba land.
No single hydro dam was thought feasible in the zone, no ports complex in the Southeast zone while the southwest has at least 6 working seaport complexes.
While President Tinubu is busy cornering all the economic driving programs, projects and plum appointments by fiat to the southwest zone that has hitherto taking more than its fair share of the national cake through executive fiat, some scholars among us will be busy downplaying these economic impediment realities on our faces and expect the Igbos to invent economic miracles under state blockages to overtake the southwest economy. I want to remind these scholars looking down on Igbo achievements amidst struggles that without rigging and manipulations by state policy using these skewed templates, the Yoruba cannot compete. It doesn’t matter if we bundle all our scholars scattered all over the world home. The yoke placed around our necks are institutional and deliberate, the tethers restricting our movement must first be removed through negotiations or by forceful separation.
I challenge these scholars to work on level playing ground for all in this country. That’s the only thing the Igbo want from the haters superintending the Nigeria project to drive political and economic chokehold around our necks. The SEDC may not achieve much unless institutional anchors used to pushback the growth of the Igbo economy are removed by regional restructuring strategies. Demilutarization must be at the top of the agenda of the SEDC. Then security must be institutionalized commonly in the region to attract investment. The Yoruba are already ahead in these two. Once the two twin evils are resolved, we’ll catch-up and overtake them in less than five years. Its not about building or creating wealth economic buffers through residual investment in education, its about deconstructing unfair competition and creating level playing platforms for all multiethnic groups in the country to thrive and survive.
Dr. Engr Odo Ijere
