A WAKE UP CALL FOR THE IGBO

The recent uproar generated by the purported plan of the Imo State government to register Northerners resident in the state and the counter threats from the North are only the latest in a process that have me concerned about the dynamics of the intercourse between the Igbo and this entity called Nigeria. Last year, it was the expulsion of purported Igbo destitutes from Lagos in the middle of the night. Given their foot loose nature which has taken them to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria, it can be argued that the Igbo have borne the brunt of the Boko Haram terrorist menace.

Before going further some clarifications are necessary. The Imo State government has stridently denied embarking on any mass registration exercise of Northerners in their domain. They regard the calls for the state government's sanction in the country's legislative chambers which, ironically, is vigorously supported by a legislator of Imo State origin who was a former ally of Governor Rochas Okorocha as politically motivated. In all honesty, while I cannot put anything past the Imo State government or any other state government for that matter, would it not be appropriate to independently verify the registration claims? Please, constitutional experts should enlighten me: is there any part of the Nigerian constitution that negates the registration? What of the one in Lagos State? I do not subscribe to any state in Nigeria adopting security-building measures that negate the principles and rights of Nigerians anywhere in this country. Northerners in Imo State have lived there for so long that any official or unofficial effort to witch hunt them for something a large number of them know nothing about is wrong, to say the least.

The primary concern of this essay is the implication of the threats by sections of the Northern elite to the Igbo in the North to their lives and supposed N45 trillion investments there should the registration go ahead.

The deaf man does not need to be told that a war has started, goes an Igbo saying. If Igbo leaders and citizens do not learn to start thinking home in the current dispensation, we have ourselves to blame when and if the conflagration comes. I pray for unity and peace in Nigeria; I wish all Nigerians can call any part of Nigeria home; I am proudly Igbo but my first thirteen years on earth were spent in non-Igbo parts of Nigeria. I have Igbo friends who have been good to me. But the reality is that the Igbo, as a matter of survival, must start conceptualizing, envisioning and working on how they can develop Igboland. How do we re-channel at least one-tenth of that N45trillion investment to the South-East?

Let nobody tell me it cannot be done. No excuses are acceptable. Igboland, territorially speaking, is small. Thanks to the political abracadabra by successive Nigerian governments since the civil war, Igbo territory has been whittled down. But that is not an impediment. Geographers and cartographers can correct me if I am wrong: post-1970 Igboland is not much smaller than the state of Israel founded in 1948; post-colonial Igboland is far larger than the Vatican and the city-state of Monaco. Size is no excuse for not embarking on a Marshal Plan.

It has been asserted that the soil of Igboland has been exhausted by centuries of tilling; that land hunger drives her immense population into the wider world; that we lack the terrestrial wherewithal to sustain ourselves. While facts cannot be contested the historical truth is that man is in charge of his environment, not the other way. Man subdues nature to his advantage. This is not making light of the challenges involved. However some pointers are pertinent. Between Igboland and Egypt (both ancient and modern), which is more prone to famine without human efforts to harness resources for agricultural sustainability? Egypt's portion of the great River Nile dries up at intervals; its flow ceases yet the Egyptians, to the best of my knowledge, are not in the world news because of hunger, unlike some other apparently more blessed African countries. What of Israel which started life as a patch in the desert? Are their secrets beyond us?

At the risk of being given unwholesome label, for which I have no regrets, my assessment is that if Nigeria breaks up today, the West will have a head-start in the race for development. Oduduwa's Republic will eat up the tracks because of these factors:

they have a solid commercial and infrastructural base. Lagos will stimulate industrial growth. Note; the Igbo competition, if not dominance, will no longer be there;

in spite of historical, sub-ethnic and political differences, the Yoruba will rally round Oduduwa's banner;

think of the mega-millionaires and whiz kids who will bankroll the Republic. e.g. the Adenugas;

most vital; the average Yoruba, no matter how sophisticated, no matter how enlightened, thinks home in almost all aspects of the human condition. We should learn.

This is time for sober reflection for all strata of Igbo society because (Lord, let me be proven wrong), if we go home following persecution elsewhere in Nigeria, we shall be confronted with home-grown butchers who have been nurtured on a diet of skewered values, lack of opportunities and base primordial sentiments and visionless leadership.

I end this article with a few suggestions for Igbo strategic revival:

we must secure a political rallying point. True, all Igbo cannot be in one political party or have the same ideology. But we need our own political structure. One would have suggested the non-Okorocha branch of APGA, but the party has been a source of concern to all true Igbo even before Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu joined the worthy ancestors;

an educational state of emergency should be declared in all Igbo states;

Ebonyi, Abia and Anambra states should be the arrowheads of the Igbo Marshal Plan. Ebonyi is Igboland's food basket; Abia and Anambra are the commercial and industrial hub;

Igboland needs her own financial institutions. In this age of jet-speed commerce and ruthless capitalism, we cannot afford to live on anyone's largesse, whether individual, even if Igbo, or non-Igbo institutions. We need banks and other financial systems the Igbo farmer, baker, shoemaker, mechanic, etc. can access loans, credits, etc. to drive the Eastern economy;

while we should strive for a handshake across the Niger, we must work for an embrace with our brethren on the banks of River Brass and all the way to River Ethiope. We need the South-South and they need us;

Igboland's death will come sooner than we expect if we continue to throw our history, language, culture, positive beliefs and values, into the toilet. We have to save them because they are the only things that will declare that we are part of God's green earth.

Subsequent articles will expatiate on how these seemingly herculean tasks can be accomplished

Henry Onyema is a Lagos-based writer. Email: [email protected]