BIAFRA : IGBOS AND THE POST-CIVIL WAR TRAUMA OF 1970

By Ena Ofugara

How Much Respect Do You Show Igbos?

I am not Igbo, I am proud of my Urhobo

However, as a student of history, I wish to show just what these great people came/come against and yet thrive.

Okay, the incessant killings in the North will be glossed over so as to make this article not overly long.

The civil war will also not be discussed.

However, post civil war, as I explained in my post MINORITY REPORT: THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED AGAINST YOU, the rich in Nigeria have major roots in the Indigenisation decree of 1972 and 1977.

I reminded people how the banks gave people of other tribes, predominantly Hausas and Yorubas loans to buy up companies owned by foreigners.

Now imagine the Federal government forced Chevron to sell 51 percent of its shares and that Access Bank will give you loans to buy the shares.

How rich will you be in a year? 5 Years?

That is how many Yorubas and Hausas got to own UAC, all those Dunlop, Leventis, Cadbury etc.

Now while this was ongoing, Awolowo/Gowon told the Nigerian banks to give TOPS twenty pounds to any Igbo man that had money in the bank before the war.

That is, if you had 5 pounds before the war, you will be given the 5 pounds

But if you had one million naira, you get just twenty pounds in full fulfillment of the bank's duty to give you your money.

Ask yourselves, why would the banks give Igbos only twenty pounds?

Did the banks collapse? So why pay less than you were given?

So while the banks were giving loans to Hausa and Yorubas to buy Oyibo companies they did not build, Igbos were being cheated out of their rightful money.

Now note also that these people lost Houses and business across the land.

It is safe to say that as at 1970/71, the richest Igbo had just 20 pounds that may be the equivalent of how much? one million ? ten million?

Let us look at how Dangote made his money. Dangote (a great man and pride to Nigeria) had an uncle called Dantata who owned huge chunks of the groundnut pyramids of the 50's and 60's.

He gave Dangote a loan and Dangote paid it back in a record time.

CLAP, CLAP. Then add that Dangote has had his "brothers" in government, from Shagari, Buhari, IBB, Abacha, Abdulsalami to Yar'Adua. When they now agreed to democracy, he was rich enough to have funded Obasanjo and so government policies, due to monopoly he was able to monopolize importation and sale of  rice, sugar, flour and of course a large share of subsidy etc ensures he is the wealthiest Nigerian of African to be correct.

Note that many had the same opportunity but did not use it.

We now know how Dangote's investment capabilities came up

However, for the Igbo man, where will he see an uncle that will loan him money?

The richest man in their family has how much as at then?

So while Fani-Kayode can inherit the property of his father and grandfather and great-grandfather, a Chidi Kalu cannot inherit anything from his grandfather who had business in Kano or even Port Harcourt.

Neighbours have made his dad's storey building theirs, and even someone as educated as Ken Saro-Wiwa lived in an Igbo war emigrant house as his. (A sore point of the Niger Delta and Igbo Unity).

WAEC building was Ojukwu's dad's building and like that building, thousands and the lands with it....lands worth billions today were taken from Igbos and each and every Igbo had only 20 pounds to start over,  destroyed homeland, stolen wealth away from the East.

Also, his brother was never a president that will give him oil block or fuel lifting of 33, only one Igbo man and because he was in Obasanjo's good graces.

YET LOOK HOW PROUD THEY STAND TODAY!!!

Look what they have achieved for themselves....

FIRST GENERATION WEALTH...top second generation.

From being unable to send their first sons to school so he could help look after the shop, to producing first class brains in all departments of modern learning.

So today, as you accuse Igbos of wanting their Biafra or of Baby Factory, or liking money and ready to do anything for money, remember that just forty years ago, while the banks were dashing your uncle's loans to buy all the companies of Nigeria, it stole from the Igbos.

Know it that  those appointments have never favored them.

Note that they remain persecuted and many speak such ill and hate towards a people forced by the need to survive to be extra-aggressive towards their sustenance.

Maybe if you took their history into consideration, you will not be so critical of them, but instead, say "what a resilient people" and give God the glory.

Edited & Published by

Uchechi Collins

For IPOB writers