Igbo Leaders A Disgrace- Etcetera Writes Open Letter

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: Continue…

“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.