From 1970- 1979, the generation of the Igbo who had fought and funded the war (Biafran/Nigerian War) were not talking of marginalization. They took on the task of *Restoration* . I remember the story the late Mbazulike Amaechi told me when I once visited him in Ukpor. At the end of the war, the Igbo business elite who had been in PortHarcourt, and whose properties had been forcefully acquired by the new government in Rivers State went to Ukpabi Asika to intervene. Asika sat with them and urged them to seek the intervention of the Courts and make this a seminal case on the defense of Igbo property rights in Nigeria. He did not want to be seen to put undue pressure in a very sensitive time on the Government of Rivers State. The Igbo were being harassed and stopped from work and resuming their life in PortHarcourt. Asika encouraged them to seek the legal benefits of Chief Obafemi Awolowo who was the most powerful politician in Government at the time. These Igbo businessmen met Awo in Lagos, and after he heard them, Awo demanded that they go and pay one million pounds into his Chambers account, before he could take on their plea. The Igbo business men asked Awo where he thought they could get one million pounds, having just come out of a devastating war. He said it was their business and dismissed them. The men later met in ZC Obi’s home, and after rounds and rounds of discussions, they agreed at ZC Obi’s house urging, that they would no longer pursue the matter. ZC Obi said, “ let us get back to work. Let us send our young men back to work. We shall build Aba until it gets into PortHarcourt, and no one will know the difference.” And that was precisely what they set out to do, and were about accomplishing that feat up till 1987. By 1979, the Igbo were powerful enough to get a serious factor in Nigerian politics. Between 1979-83, the Igbo were not talking about marginalization. They were engaged in *Restoration* . Mbakwe had asked Dr. Ihechukwu Madubuike as Minister for education, to place as priority the establishment of another Federal University in Igbo land. Thus FUTO in 1980. Between him and Jim Nwobodo, they launched an Industrial Policy that quickly turned the East once more into an active economic belt. They did not wait for the Federal Government. Imo State University and Anambra state University of Technology were the first State Universities to be established under the State Laws. I was reading the Imo State University Act that established the charter of the old Imo State University the other day, and I am still utterly impressed by the quality and precision of thought that went into organizing that University under the inimitable Professor MJC Echeruo, one of Igbo lands sharpest minds of the 20th century. The same goes for ASUTECH. Chief Jim Nwobodo went specifically to Harvard to make Prof Kenneth Dike to return to Enugu and establish ASUTECH. Now, compare that Igbo, to this generation of the Akalogoli. Mbakwe took Shagari specifically to Ndiegoro, in Aba, wept publicly with dramatic impact, and forced Shagari to promise to establish the ecological fund to deal with places like Ndiegoro in Igbo land. He compelled Shagari to understand that Gas and Petroleum were abundant natural resources from Imo State, and that Imo deserved and must be given new shares/consideration, if the Federal Government did not want Imo to sue, and even begin to raise questions about the Federal Government’s seizure of Eastern Nigerian oil and gas investments, like the PortHarcourt refinery for which no compensation has even been paid to this day. Chief Sam Mbakwe pushed the oil issue and said to Shagari that the proposed Petrochemical Plant must be located in Imo, otherwise he would begin to build the Imo Petrochemical Industries himself. The grounds had been cleared by October 1983, and work started at the Imo Petrochemical Plant at Izombe by the time the military struck on Dec. 31, 1983. It was Major General Muhammadu Buhari Rtd who later relocated that plant to Eleme. Mbakwe began the first Independent Power Company with the Amaraku Power Station under Alex Emeziem at the Ministry of Utilities. The father of my high school buddy at the Government College Umuahia was the project manager who designed and installed the Power Station at Amaraku and had begun work at the Izombe Gas Power Station; all with Engineers and Technicians from the Imo State Ministries of Works and Public Utilities. They did not go to China to sign a contract. They just went to South Korea to procure the parts they designed and which they installed themselves! By 1981/2 most towns in Imo state had electricity under the Imo State Rural Electrification Project. Same with the Five Zonal Water Projects under the Mbakwe Program. The Project Manager was Engineer Ebiringa. They did not go to China or America or wait for the Federal Government. 85% of the Imo Water Project had been completed by the time the Soldiers struck. There are still giant iron pipes buried underground in almost all the towns in the old Imo State under that project which was designed to give Imo the first constant, clean water of any State in Nigeria. Only a phase of the Owerri Water Project was completed by the time Mbakwe was kicked out of office, but even so, Owerri had the cleanest, most regular water of any city in Nigeria. Imo State organized her public schools. Imo State organized a first class public health system. My own father was commissioned under the Health Management board as the Government’s Chief Health Statician, to conduct the first broad epidemiological survey of Imo state in 1982. I saw him at work. They were serious and professional men, who took their duties very seriously because they were highly trained. The Imo State Civil Service was possibly the finest Civil Service in West Africa; finer than the Federal Service, because they had a
highly selected and well trained pool of Civil Servants who delivered value to the people. They were not talking about marginalization. You may say what you like today about Jim Nwobodo, but he started the independent Satellite Newspaper In Enugu, which balanced the story coming out of Lagos. No one was talking about marginalization until Chuba Okadigbo, rightly used that word to describe the way the Federal Military Government of Nigeria was treating the Igbo, in terms of access to real power. There were not enough Igbo Military Officers represented in the organograms of the Nigerian Military Government, and yes, that word was apt, in that period . But we have taken it too far, and turned it into an excuse for our intellectual and political indolence. The Igbo have waited for their comeuppance on Nigeria, but shit ain’t happening. Nigeria is moving on without us, for better or worse. We must now recalibrate and engage. Let us use the final gas in our tanks, all of us now, between 55-75 years, to complete the work of *Restoration* which the last generation began but which we have abandoned because we dropped the ball. We may weep all we want and complain that Nigeria is unfair, but the universe is indifferent. I dare say, Nigeria actually has no capacity to marginalize the Igbo. We better stop marginalizing ourselves or risk our children and their children inheriting the slave’s mentality!! That’s the danger we court with this story of Igbo marginality, which is actually self imposed, and self indulgent!
*Onye ajulu anaghi aju onwe ya!*