I don't know why this guy thinks it's okay to say Igbo leaders
are a disgrace...shuo! But I think he's Igbo (his name is
Pascal Ejikeme) so let's read what he's got to say and tell us
what you think.
I was told that every Igboman who heard Ojukwu’s
speech after the Biafran war was filled with a renewed
sense of pride and hope. A hope that one day the Igbo
nation will rise and become a force of reckoning not
just in Nigeria but in the entire black world. I have read
that speech over and over and each time I read
through, I am filled with pride and imagination of how
those who heard the words pouring out of the mouth
of the warlord himself must have felt. Before going any
further, let me recount a little part of what the late
sage said while addressing the press:
“In the three years of the war, necessity gave birth to
invention. During those three years of heroic bound, we leapt
across the great chasm that separates knowledge from know-
how. We built rockets, and we designed and built our own
delivery systems. We guided our rockets. We guided them far,
we guided them accurately. For three years, blockaded
without hope of import, we maintained all our vehicles. The
state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in
their back gardens. We built and maintained our airports,
maintained them under heavy bombardment. Despite the
heavy bombardment, we recovered so quickly after each raid
that we were able to maintain the record for the busiest
airport in the continent of Africa. We spoke to the world
through telecommunication system engineered by local
ingenuity; the world heard us and spoke back to us! We built
armoured car tanks. We modified aircraft from trainer to
fighters, from passenger aircraft to bombers. In the three
years of freedom we had broken the technological barrier. In
three years we became the most civilised, the most
technologically advanced black people on earth.”
Ojukwu, with those few lines, defined the ingenuity and never-
say-die spirit God has embedded in the marrows of the
Igboman. But my question for Ndigbo is, where has this
ingenuity for which the entire world has given them a standing
ovation, gone? Why can’t it be used today to enhance the
cause of Ndigbo? Can’t we re-enact the same war time feat
to launch ourselves back to reckoning again in Nigeria and in
the entire black world?
Since Ojukwu died, Ndigbo have been like sheep without a
shepherd. Those who we thought could take up the mantle of
leadership are nothing but selfish entities who care for nothing
but their personal interest. As I am writing this article, I just
got words that a senator in Imo State has been discovered as
a saboteur working against the interest of his people because
he has been promised to be made Senate president in the
new political dispensation which begins on May 29. What is it
with Ndigbo and greed? How long are we going to kill
ourselves? Isn’t it a gargantuan shame that a tribe as
populous as Ndigbo can’t provide a single individual that is
seen to be credible enough to be elected president of Nigeria?
A casual observation of the performances of the governors of
the south eastern states will reveal their level of under-
performance since 1999. Case point, take Aba which has
failed to enjoy any meaningful development since the 1929
Aba women riot. The place is a total mess. What have the
governors done with what has been accruing to the state in
the last 16 years of democratic rule? The fact that these
individuals who have mismanaged fortunes of the state
consider themselves fit to even contest election is a slap on
the faces of Ndigbo. Ndigbo, are we cursed? The red-cap
goons known as Ohaneze do nothing but crawl from one place
to another offering themselves for sale and for use. This has
been their money-making scheme for too long and it can no
longer hold water. Can’t we take a cue from the style Dangote
adopted and made a kill? The Yoruba have already adopted it
and it is working. We have to restrategise to become that
economic power house we crave. The idea that every Igboman
who makes money whether through his ingenuity or by
accident becomes misguided and begins to push for political
office even though they are clearly not professional politicians
should be discarded.
We hear of Dangote, the Dantatas, Otedola, Mike Adenuga, the
Okoyas, where are the Igbo equivalent in terms of their
organisational set-up? Most of our businesses are largely
one-man businesses and whenever the founder dies, the
whole thing dies. Ndigbo must do away with their selfishness
and personal greed, otherwise we will continue to languish as
a people. We must redirect our thoughts away from the deeply
engrossed notion of “to make it in life,” “we must make money
at all cost.” What Ndigbo should learn from the just concluded
elections is that without a harmony of opinion, all our efforts
will yield nothing. Igbo kwezuenu.
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