A Nation On The Brink

publishers.

DEDICATION

To Kelechim, My beloved wife for her love and unflinching faith in the Homeland Ala-lgbo: and to Chimbueze, Ugochukwu and Chimdiebere my wonderful children for believing in Papah.This is to you

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank especially ChiUkwu Okike Abiama for guiding me through this work; to YOU LORD be all the Glory. To my family for all the encouragement through the course ofthis work; I thank you so much. To my friends Aikay Ozumba and Chijioke Nwaiwu, I thank you for believing in this project and helping me through it all, as well as Prince Ellis, Chidi Anyanwu, and Mike Akah for their support. And to Mr Obinna Nwafor (St Obi), thank you for that phone call; it made all the difference; and thank you Prof. B C Nwanguma for your valuable advice on the way forward. And finally I must give special thanks to Dr Law Okwu Mefor for showing such great interest in this work the moment we met and deciding to take it on; you did it; and to the editors who worked tirelessly to finish the work and everyone who contributed in anyway to make this a reality; I say a big thanks to you all.

FOREWORD

God created human beings free and equal according to divine justice into tribes, groups and nations who share a common ethnic origin, culture, historical tradition and language, whether or not they live together in one territory under one government. The essence is that humanoid processes including but not limited to interaction, dialogue, discourse and debate should take place smoothly within a homogenous and homologous sitting. If God wanted it otherwise, He could have created people originally into countries, affiliations of groups or nations with diverse socio-political, cultural and historical traditions. The historical formation of countries or large political conglomerates driven by colonial or post-colonial forces is a violation of divine principle which had always bred nothing but divisions, conflicts, clashes and shocks as component parts never really agree with one another but collide while in the pursuit of tribal or sectional interests.

A deafening cry of domination, oppression or marginalization echo in different countries in the world today, sometimes leading to the emergence of new 'Flag Independent' nations and other times needless wars are being fought in places which have been unable to manage such complaints discreetly and properly. In countries like United States of America or Great Britain agitations for the creation of politically independent statehood has since been laid to rest owing to the mainstreaming of a just, equitable and egalitarian society as the final point of state formation and social stability after a long search for workable political solutions peaked at the evolution and adoption of a true democratic culture. In countries where this kind of success is yet to be recorded, the search for nationhood is continuing along the natural demarcations of ethnographies and ethnologies, and no mobilization of concentric parameters of force or centrifugal apparatus of coercion had been able to prevent such indefinitely. Hence the former European country Yugoslavia was unbundled into new, small flag independent states such as Bosnia and Herzegovina after a protracted civil war, just as Eritrea, formerly under British and Italian control before being taken over by Ethiopia in 1952, emerged an independent nation-state in 1993 after a long war of liberation. However, not all nations attained statehood through armed struggle; sometimes a war is fought and won or lost and yet status remained unchanged until the dynamics of social engagement and political engineering such as dialogue, negotiation and consensus are deftly and exhaustively employed to secure a passage as in Kazakhstan. But in most cases there is a moment, an opportunity, a watershed!

The lbos (tribal name lgbo or Ndi-igbo) have been agitating for the creation of an independent nation from Nigerian since the Civil War of 1967- 1970, under the championship of MOSSOB, etc, but their peaceful clamor for political freedom have been denied by the Nigerian successive authorities who had continued to theorize pompously that the 'unity of the Nigeria is non-negotiable' without considering the needful imperative to address the issues that have been bothering the lbos as a major component group in the country's dia-Tribe Wazobian geo-political formation, such as denial of infrastructure, denial of strategic or juicy appointed at the centre with justifiable explanation, and the conspiratorial North-west league excluding them from having a much yearned-for shot at Nigerian Presidency, as ifto say that the lgbos have no stake in Nigeria having lost a Civil War and are thus, nsibiri-speaking, free to go back to the abandoned armed option if they so wish.

A strategic development in the lgbo agenda of the political independence is the emergence of IPOB headed by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu with a self-imposed mandate to champion the struggle for the restoration of Biafra, presumably because MOSSOB, etc, have been too tardy, shrunken, conservative or compromised. IPOB has since been declared a terrorist organization by the Muhammadu Buhari-led Nigerian government and banned, outlawed, with pseudo-terminal/wipe-off military operations swung against them despite their non-violent posture; amid a pluralistic national context and history of a combative, broad-day killing by more menacing armed militias such as Boko Haram, Fulani Herdsmen, etc. With this proscription of IPOB and the arrest of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, Biafran Restoration project appears to have been shut for good. But as is well known Liberation struggle is a two-dimensional thing: the militant and the intellectual dimensions. The former takes the form of violence or non-violence but the later zeroes down to ONLY one strategy: the literary process of book writing, with the mental processes of abstract thinking and reasoning involved.

It is the second dimension, tradition if you like, that we are here to talk about and read the book A Nation on the Brink, written by Chukwunenye Ukaegbu, a UK-based lbo, arguably one of the very few writers of the post-colonial and liberal irredentist ethos yet to emerge from the lgbo nation. A Nation on the Brink re-echoes the works of a forensic and social psychologist of a PhD standing, Law Mefor, who has written many breath-taking books that seek to establish, document, historicize and preserve the political and humanistic legacies through the fact-based and codification mode of critical idealism. One of such books, which Dr. Law Mefor co-authored with Dr. Godwin Udibe, Russian trained PhD in economics, The Audacity of Power, much like the present one by Chukwunenye Ukaegbu, takes a hard look on the political exclusion of the South East from Nigeria power politics and gives graphic and statistical detail of how this occurred overtime.

A Nation on the Brink signposts the rigorous redirection from the tradition of liberation or irredentist writings, which often sought to use the awareness creation and enlightenment consciousness present in literature to galvanize a  people's  public  or  muted  outcry  against  oppression,  marginalization, exclusivity,  alienation  and  injustice  towards  a  quest  and  demand  for independent nationhood. By so doing, the writer has booked his place in the Guinness books of freedom  literature, alongside  world's great, Archillean writers such as the Cuban Nicolas Guillen, the American Henry Garret, and the South African Oswald Mtshali to mention but a few, who used the art of the  pen  to  enforce  the  yearnings  of  their  peoples  to  be  politically independent and socio-economic  freedom. Let's pause here to look inside the book itself.

The book, A Nation on the Brink consists of twenty (20) chapters all of which focus on the lbos with a view to directing their mind, body and soul to think right, say right and act right as they aspire for and pursue their sole wish for a true lgbo nation that is independent of Nigeria. These admonitions became very necessary and mythically instructive because at the moment the Ndi lgbo house is not in order and needs reconstruction to stem the tide of pressure coming from outside which could otherwise work against the realization of the lgbo dream either for statehood or development of homeland.

Finished in two (2) parts of twenty (20) chapters, the 318 page book traces the journey of the lbos from a mythical past to Elysian future, including the pathways that must be avoided if the much anticipated lgbo Nation is to become a reality. There are strong undercurrents and echoes that the lgbo Nation will someday come on stream hence the author suggests various ways to lay a solid foundation for a secure future and establish a strong economic, political and cultural base for the future success of the lgbo Nation and its people.

The edge to which Ndi-lgbo are being pushed by others within Nigerian state which justifies their yearning for a separate, independent state echo again and again in the book, along with sacrificial revelations of the weaknesses which set the lbos in sharp  contrast with Jews with whom they share a common ancestry as descendants of Abraham and this includes living life as exiles in comfort zones away from their traditional homeland, using their hard earned quantum of wealth to develop their host settler communities at the expense of their home communities, excessive Europeanization of their lifestyles among other things.

A Nation on the Brink can thus be recommended and accepted as an authentic document for the reconstruction of the lgbo race from the region of ontological disorientation, anxiety and drift in a country where anti-lgbo emotions and sentiments now and again run loose leaves the lgbos at the mercy of fates. The vanishing twilight of the lgbo nation occasioned on the one hand by the aggregate impact of the disappearing lgbo culture; monster of moral degeneration, decay, devaluation and degeneration of lgbo traditional institutions; misapplication of materialist values, etc, and on the other hand the jealousy coming from outside against the lbos triggered by the lgbo man industrious, myrmidon attributes, receives passionate exploration.

But all these can be recovered, hence underneath the apprehensive, scary symbolism of A Nation on the Brink, there is a logical positivism: above the ashes of these doldrums the lgbo shall be raises again as a great prosperous nation through the spiritual matrix of an own sacred destiny; lgbo and non lgbo alike must hear and note that which Chukwunenye Ukaegbu has spoken!

Sunday Agollo, September, 2018.

Email:  sundayagolo@gmail.com

MY TAKE

I have come to understand that to build a nation doesn't require money and natural resources alone, as we can see all over the continent of Africa; neither does it require the political will of the elite alone; rather to build a nation its citizens will be proud of needs the will of the people, both big and small; it is the determination of the people to build their own nation and create an economy that will work for them which makes it to work. As we can all see, the western idea of globalisation to create a neutral world, in order to perpetuate the domination of the countries they created and imposed on us for their own benefits, while pretending that it would bring peace and economic development to the doorsteps of everyone has failed us in every way, it has only fuelled the greed of many; and today different nations and people are fighting to break out of their countries to build their own nations the way it will work for them as a people, while others are demanding a different kind of arrangement in their countries that will give them more freedom to do their own things; to sustain their values and remain original to themselves; which shows that the world has come a full circle, and the only way forward is to start all over again from the inside to rebuild our nations.

As an lgbo man I have looked at the agitation of my people to restore our own nation like it was before the coming ofthe European slave masters; but I am worried about the success of this great ambition, because of the attitude of many lgbos towards our homeland; how most of us dislike the idea of self determination; particularly when llookattheworld today like Isaid above, all I see is chaos, but I don't know if ndi lgbo see it too; the world is falling apart and every group and people are looking inwards to rebuild their own nations in contrast to what we have today as countries; yet ndi lgbo seem to live in another planet; unable to accept the realities other nations and people have accepted as the future of humanity and are working hard to make the best of it. So I want to ask, can ndi lgbo survive the inevitable changes the world is experiencing right now; if we continue to focus outside while others are looking inwards to solve their problems from within; how can we survive the imminent dangers the changes will bring, if we continue to dislike the idea of our sovereignty or to create our own economic system in the homeland like the other groups are doing.

We may be the loudest voice fighting for self determination, but we could be the last to achieve that if we continue the way we are; so the time to come together to streamline what we want as a people has come. No lgbo man or woman is bigger than our homeland and our common interest must come first and above every personal interest if we want to succeed. Therefore, whether you believe in the Nigerian projectasthewayforward or you believe in our sovereignty as the only option for us, we must all come together to build our domestic economy and make it work for all of us. I have looked at Nigeria critically, as well as the world, and I can say that there is nothing wrong in building one's own domestic economy and still play active roles in the country they are part of; so ndi lgbo must not think that breaking out of Nigeria or building our own nation inside Nigeria means we will no longer be part of Nigeria or become enemies of our neighbours; rather building our own economy at home will give us better standing in the Nigerian project, and this is how the other groups in the world and even Nigeria have done it to be successful; ours will not be different.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The word "Brink" literally means the edge or border of a steep slope or a river; or the extreme edge of land, like top of cliff or by a river, where the possibility of a calamitous fall is great, and as a result extreme care is needed for whatever is placed there not to tumble down below or whoever is standing there not to come crashing down. Figuratively, the term connotes a difficult situation with a probability of success or failure as well as anxiety mingled with apprehension and fear and, above all, hope. In this connection, the word brink mirrors the human condition, especially the situation where people not contented or satisfied with their state of being because the happenstances that befall them are contrary to their aspirations normally yearn for a change -a peaceful, legitimate change - and when the change takes too long in coming, and their difficult circumstances in form of oppression, exploitation, discrimination or balkanization continues, use unconventional, illegitimate or violent mode to effect it.

Such a people usually express their yearning for freedom, independence or sovereignty by joining or supporting liberation or irredentist organizations like South Africa’s ANC or Biafran IPOB whose ideology or cause is often the actualization of the programmatic agenda of the struggle. The iconography of leaders of irredentist movements is usually ethnocentric in root and origin; but because the ideas rhetoric in their causes do not steer far away from self-determinism, liberty and freedom, which are considered globally and historically as the fundamentals of ideology, they assume the name ‘freedom fighters’.

Often the ideological goals of freedom fighters is the attainment of equity and justice for all, especially in a multi-racial society where one race has proven to be superior and to hold other races in a subservience, as happened in South Africa under Apartheid; or the creation of a new state or nation through secession or separatism as IPOD, under the leadership of Nnamdi Kanu is trying to do. The leaders of a new, free nation then assume the task of building their Nation using coherent, enduring political, social, economic and cultural development platforms.

However, when a nation is on the brink, one of these two things happens: if the affairs of the nation are well-managed, their change will be good, because it will make the peoples’ dreams turn real; their wishes tangible. But if the affairs of the nation are mismanaged, the change people yearn for will be a mirage, dreams a nightmare, and wishes an albatross. So when a nation is on the brink, it’s time for its people and leaders particularly, to think right, say right and act right; because every word and act that is not appropriate to the circumstance has the potential of making the intended ‘change’ a glorious success or a colossal failure. That is what this book is about.

The condition of Ndi Igbo in the Nigerian state since after the Civil War of 1966-1970 has been a cause for concern over the years particularly among Ndi Igbo themselves. The socio-political imperatives antedating the War, the post-war costs on the Igbos in terms of human depletion through gruesome carnage and material and economic waste through savage destruction is outside the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that the gross maltreatment and injustice committed against Ndi Igbo in the Nigerian state, such as killings and destruction of the lives and businesses of their kinsmen and kinswomen, particularly in the Northern states of Nigeria during religion or politics-based upheavals;

Denial of critical infrastructure by successive Nigerian government; as a strategy to force them to leave their homeland to other places where such infrastructure are in abundance (courtesy of the federal governments) so as to use their resources to develop those areas at the detriment of their traditional homeland as well as deliberate exclusion from Nigerian Presidency through anti-Igbo political schism and manipulation, marginalisation in times for key federal appointment, etc., are just but a few indices of the sad condition and inexistent fate of Ndi Igbo within the country Nigeria. Now, the Civil War is won and lost, and the 3Rs declared as a mode of healing the wounds of the past,

But the situation of Ndi Igbo remains the same in neo-tripartite socio-political geometry that continue to harangue them by all means, like the-leave-our-North homeland threat ORDER (fatwa) by the AYC ... Under this circumstances, are Ndi Igbo in current Nigeria not analogous to Hebrews and Jews of old, both in Egypt and Germany? Is it not natural and normal, if they are, for them to begin to think to nostalgically and dispassionately of their homeland? Or don’t they have a homeland similar to the Yoruba’ West or Hausa/Fulani’ North: their Canaan land: where they could return? If they have: is it not imperative that there be a Moses or Joshua to lead them back there? Do I have to ask more and more?

Now, blacks under Apartheid had ANC; Negroes in 19th century racial America had NAACP; etc., etc. The colonialist came, did as they did and Africans were not happy; so there was cause to fight and no freedom in all the countries is here. Where there is no fight there is no cause; there is a cause in Igbo land today, which is why liberation movements, such as Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB spring up. But then Ndi Igbo have so much to think about, so much reflection to do.

This book is meant to put Igbo nation towards the path of thinking and reflection: to make us Ndi Igbo stop and reflect on the cause we have to fight, and the risks undertakings involved. Whenever I observe the ardent manner those, who think they gain now or perceive, will gain in future from Nigerian project, oppose and discredit leaders of the Divine Restoration Movements now springing up from every corner of Igbo land, I feel the urge to reel out this poetic mythos of truth. We don't have to agree on every word uttered by the leaderships of the various Igbo Restoration Groups like IPOB, etc; that speaks up at the moment about the problems of Ndi Igbo in Nigeria today, or to endorse their strategies willy-nilly; the ultimate objective and result is what matters most: for example, how do we Ndi Igbo feel about the idea of regaining our traditional nation as ordained by our Creator when He created us, or about the other opposing idea of building our homeland economically while still remaining a region within Nigeria. That's what should concern each and every of us; yes, that should concern us most!

If we can understand and accept that FREEDOM for Ndi Igbo will lead the way to economic development of Africa and the black race in general, then, we will no longer care about the words that form the rhetorical patterns spoken by the our leadership. Instead, we explore ways to add value to what they say and do, and correct whatsoever mistake that may be made by them so that other co-nationalities in the political contraption Nigeria will understand us. It is an outright misnomer to fuel emotions or to magnify perceived mistakes, or to join hands with those who oppose every plan to save us from the present post-colonial imprisonment, or worst still, want us to continue under our present pseudo-slavery condition. Any of these amounts to condemning our leadership themselves and making us Ndi Igbo look like tomboys. Sometimes one wonder if these our PERFECT-bred brothers enjoy the situation Ndi Igbo find themselves in Nigeria, or never even thought that we were once sovereign nations before European slave-masters came and clamped us together; and we can reverse this sinister tailoring if we so wish!

There is no place in the world where all peoples or all citizens have the same opinion, and in fact, the bible disagrees with such a notion of congruity, hence on the day of Pentecost the Apostles received powers according to each person’s ability. They didn't receive the same level of gifts, revelation or power, as seen clearly from their different, synchronized accounts of the scriptures; the object was to preach the gospel, and that object is not compromised. And even though they didn't receive the same degree of anointing, they never opposed one another; instead each added value to the gospel, and so today we still talk about the gospel and the acts each of the apostles did. Now, imagine if the apostles had opposed each other’s account of their experience with The Saviour: what do you think the gospel would have been? It would have been a complete joke; today the gospel would be forgotten and no one will remember the apostles either. This didn’t happen, that’s why we still talk about the Acts of the Apostles.

In the same manner every Igbo must add value to the on-going discourse on the fate of Ndi Igbo in Nigeria and the way forward, according to each person's ability or knowledge, and must neither oppose it nor be on the fence. Much like marathoners heave forward with eyes on the meaty prize, our final prize should be freedom from the slavery we have been in for over a hundred years. Thus, we must create the right attitude towards the new nation we desire; and even if we don’t achieve this sovereignty right now; at least we would have created a new attitude towards our homeland.

If we can use the momentum and the tempo now being felt everywhere at the moment to turn our attention to questions concerning Igbo land which we have abandoned decades ago, and begin to establish the infrastructures, institutions and economic platforms essential for growth in an Igbo nation, it will be something great. From there, we can restore our values, culture and way of life, and create a thriving economy at home so that Ndi Igbo will no longer run away from their home to face challenge, harassment and destruction of their properties in other parts of Nigeria. That would be a great achievement, wouldn’t it?

This book is to make us understand our individual parts in this project; we must understand the root of our problem, including the basic fact that the way we live as a people contributes to the shabby manner others treat us. But more importantly, it’s my pleasure to make us realize that building a nation requires a collective effort and not the work leaders alone do. If we don't come together, it can’t work and we won’t make progress; so it is a collective responsibility. This is how the nations we presently admire became what they are. For instance, it took the Jews togetherness to build Israel in such a short pace of time, they didn't leave things for their home Jews alone, or to their leaders only; everyone played a role without asking for what they stood to gain personally in return. They knew it was for their own good and that of their future generations, and today, we admire them!

Therefore, most of the things that need to be done to rebuild alaIgbo as a sovereign nation and to create an economy that will work for all of us can only be possible if we give our time and resources because most of the work would be done voluntarily by us citizens, like the Jews did. Some people will bring their money to invest in our homeland to create infrastructure which our economic development needs, and others who have no money to give their time and skills to ensure that the work to be done is done properly. Let it be like somebody working for himself or herself, and no one would expect quick returns. This means we will give our very best to build a nation that will work for us, and we will be proud of calling our own nation once again, and demonstrate a true sense of ownership unlike now when we live in a country we can’t claim as ours because it belongs, in truth, to the slave masters who created it.

This country wasn’t naturally created on to us; it was created through slavery as an imposition. That is why we want to come out of it, so that we can live as our Creator originally made us to live: one people under One God- Chi Ukwu okike abiama - our Creator. Thus, we must exhibit the right attitudes in building a nation; and so people who engage in wrong pursuits or lifestyle that tend to destroy a nation like criminal activities must desist forthwith. Those who engage in corruption practices to betray our common interest for their immediate personal gains must also stop, because there are sacrifices each person needs to make if we must succeed. Furthermore, our attitude to our brothers, particularly those who don't have profuse resources or are not yet as wealthy as some of us are, must change. Everyone should be taken as equally important; even people who do honest menial work should be respected; no one should be looked down upon or held in contempt for any unfair reason. If we want to create a resourceful nation, that is how to reach the goal.

This book doesn’t aspire to say everything you may wish to hear or offer all the solutions you may wish were given; rather this few printed words is going to tell us that what is going on in Nigeria at present is not about who is right or wrong among the Igbos, or a time to play politics. Instead, it is a time to rebuild our homeland; it is about the restoration of the Igbo economy. Anyone who has paid attention in recent times knows that Ndi Igbo have left their homeland to fallow for quite a long time as they go searching for proverbial greener pastures; and we have been mobilizing our resources to develop other places while our own homeland continues to suffer. So, now it is time to start the rebuilding of our abandoned homeland whether we are to remain in Nigeria or outside of it; it is time to rebuild Igbo economy and restore it to the enviable position it used to be when we had power to create our own things. This call we all must wake up to whether we believe in the idea of rebuilding the Igbo nation or we don’t; we must not fail to accept this fact: South East deserves all our attention right now.

The other groups in Nigeria still do as their founding fathers taught them to do from the start by focusing on their internal problems and doing things to make their homeland better. Ndi Igbo need to do such now! Even if our founding father didn’t teach us as did their colleagues from the North and the west we must be bold and confident to tell the other groups in Nigeria that the time has come for us to also focus on our homeland, rebuild our own economy. Every Igbo person must understand that this is not a time to play a better Nigerian than other Nigerians; that we are in Lagos or Abuja shouldn’t mean we should forget our homeland. Other groups migrate too and yet pay attention to their homelands, by making sure their local economies are looked after. Ndi Igbo must do the same with no fear of how the other groups in Nigeria will react.

Remember, the Israelites built a thriving economy when they were in Egypt but when life became too difficult for them they left for their homeland. The Jews also developed buoyant economies across Europe which they abandoned and left for their home on the same reason. Europeans felt the Jews were becoming too rich and could easily dominate them, so they hated them, destroyed and pillaged their resources, and killed very many of them. So the Jews decided that the best way to secure their future was to build an economy at home which no one would take away from them. And they did! Today they have economic hubs across the western world and control the economy of the entire world, but their focal point is the nation of Israel; they cherish it and do everything to protect and sustain its domestic economy.

Ndi Igbo can do the same. Irrespective of how much we have built outside, our homeland must come first because we can easily lose whatever is built outside of our home. Our experience in Nigeria shows that we easily come under attack and our businesses come to destruction each time anti-Igbo upheaval happens. If we don’t protect our homeland and create an economy that will work for us, we will have nothing to fall back on when such things happen to us. Some of us say what happened before when Ndi Igbo lost all their resources during the civil war won’t be possible again. But I say to those people, nothing is impossible under the sun! Even if they are right in saying that there won’t be another time Ndi Igbo will lose their resources across the length and breadth of Nigeria, we must ask: what is wrong in building our economy at home, like the Yoruba are doing now and as the Israel did? Shouldn’t we be concerned about what needs to happen in our homeland?

Our youths run away from home to other part of the world, engage in all manner of things to make money, and they get killed like rats. This is mainly due to lack of opportunities at home with which to fulfil their dreams, excessive quest for wealth and our poor attitudinal manner towards wealth. Maybe, love of self, which we have copied from others, has taken over our hearts, and made us individualistic and independent at the expense of our homeland. But we can stop here for a moment and rethink. Whether we are to be an independent nation or remain in Nigeria, we need to fix our homeland, create an economic system that works, and the time is now; it can no longer be put forward for the future generations to do it for us!

The cover page of this book and its title convey the entire message: a nation on the brink, as the title suggests, is a nation on a cliff, a precipice, an edge, where it is likely to slip any moment because given the precarious position on which it hangs, falling is a must for it at the least mistake! For such a nation, it is up for the citizens to stop in their track, look back, and reconsider their acts and their lives. This is time to make right changes to give ourselves the needed stability to avoid the possibility of a collapse. The image on the front cover says it all: if we continue as we did in the recent past by adopting habits and attitudes that destroy our culture, traditions, values and way of life; if we continue on this selfish lifestyles that have led to all manner of evil and criminality in Igbo land, our national aspiration would asphyxiate. But if we bend backwards to restore our foundations, as the image depicts, then Ndi Igbo can be certain of a nation that will make progress and lead the black race to economic freedom.

To make this book easy to read, I have divided it into two parts and twenty chapters. Chapter one dwells on the general idea or concept called introduction. Here I introduced the book and clarified my intentions. In chapter two, I laid the whole issues bare, as I see them. Here I articulated my expansive arguments on the problems of the Igbo Nation. Our struggles and challenges which I titled The Journey are on to chapter six, to make us understand that we are on a journey and we are at the point we need to change direction if we want to succeed as a nation, but sadly though we carry on as we have always done in the last forty years! And if we don’t try to regain balance, there may never be that future in an Igbo Nation which we eagerly anticipate and our culture, language, etc., will disappear and everything we held Sacred would become history.

In part 2, entitled, The Way Forward; which begins with chapter seven I gave in small detail what I consider the steps we need to take in order to move forward, and highlight the basic things we need to lay a solid foundation for a secure future whether we secede from the Nigerian project or remain part of it. It doesn’t matter what we decide to do in the future, establishing a strong economic, political and cultural base is key to our future success as a people.

Chapter Twenty is the Conclusion. Here, I summarised my arguments. I wish you a good and pleasant reading. Please, feel free to disagree with me and even to contradict and interrogate me; but make it constructively. We can learn from your argument too. Publish articles and organise public speeches on any area you disagree with, or wish to add to the issues I have raised. Every idea or knowledge is essential particularly for history. I wish you a good, pleasant, informed read.

Chapter 2

The Journey

Ndi Igbo, as we love to be called, is one of the major ethnic groups that make up the political geographical entity called Nigeria. We are mostly located in the South Eastern part of Nigeria, even though we are found in other parts of Nigeria, Africa and the world. But South Eastern Nigeria is the traditional homeland of Ndi Igbo. It is a common believe that anywhere in the world human beings are found or can survive, an Igbo person is there. This is because they are a very adventurous and enterprising people; traverse the world. They survive even the most difficult conditions as a result of their resilience, adaptability, dare and creativity; which make them able to break boundaries and to easily integrate into any society and build a successful life.

While these qualities enable the Igbos to face the challenges in the world of today, they are also the factors established as working against Ndi Igbo and their interest, particularly at home. For example, under the command and influence of these attributes, we hastily forget our roots, homeland or local communities and make our places of residence our eternal settler communities. It is a known fact that only the Igbos establish huge business empires and build personal mansions in other parts of Nigeria, even more than they build at home, which is not the case with members of the other tribes that make up Nigeria.

Indeed the concept of ‘one Nigeria’ is actually built around the adaptive, settler instinct of Ndi Igbo alone, without a measure of contribution from other components of Nigeria. As Igbos build and settle in their host communities, they seek recognition using their contributions to the development of the areas as the yardstick or indicator. Somebody may wonder why this is a problem for me. My grudge is that, this state of affairs drives the Igbos to continue neglecting their ancestral homeland.

The notion of building permanent structures in other places creates an illusory stakeholder feeling and a false ownership of land. These Igbos-build mansions in other parts of Nigeria were calculated to make them relax in such places as in their homes but paradoxically these structures that resemble those in the homeland constantly pitch Ndi Igbo against their host communities or tribes who persecute them due to the unjust fears that they will be dominated in the future and compelled to recognize the Igbo settlers as locals or equal owners of the land.

This is why when there is crisis in any part of Nigeria, the Igbos are often affected the most. As the saying goes, it is only the person whose house is close to the road is usually affected during the road’s construction; not that the contractor loves to destroy the person’s house. In other words, as Ndi Igbo take their businesses outside Igbo land in a country where tribal sentiments and emotions always run very