Nigeria Cannot Survive Without The Igbo

 By Femi Aribisala
Out of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Igbo have by far the worst politicians. Among the different ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Igbo are without a doubt, one of the most remarkable. So remarkable, indeed, that some have even traced their ancestry to biblical Israel, as the far-flung descendants of Jacob, the Jewish patriarch.

Gad, Jacob’s seventh son, is said to have had three sons who settled in South-eastern Nigeria. These sons; Eri, Arodi and Areli, are believed to have fathered clans in Igbo-land and to have founded such Igbo towns as Aguleri, Arochukwu, Owerri and Umuleri.

Igbo genius Even the bitterest adversaries of the Igbo cannot but admit that, as a people, they are very resourceful and ingenious. Indeed, this has often been the cause of their envy and dislike by others. However, more enlightened non-Igbo Nigerians see this as a cause for celebration.

While today, the centre-point of Nigeria’s manufacturing is situated in the Lagos/Ogun axis, there is no doubt that the real locomotive of Nigeria’s indigenous industrialization lies farther afield in Aba and in the mushrooming cottage-industries of the Igbo heartland. In one of the paradoxes of Nigerian history, the terrible civil war provoked homespun industrialization in the South-East.

Atiku Should Define ‘Restructuring’

By Ochereome Nnanna

After one year of silence, Vice President Atiku Abubakar seized the opportunity of a book launch in Abuja last week to break his silence. He reviewed the state of the nation under President Muhammadu Buhari, which is what pretty much everyone else has done in the past one week. Of all that he said, I was intrigued by his call for a “restructuring” of the federation and the shade he threw at the leadership of Buhari, when he observed: “we also have a leadership that is not prepared to learn from the past and the leadership that is not prepared to lead”. Of this snide on Buhari, observers have already determined that it was Atiku’s first step towards a 2019 challenge for the presidency.

 

*Atiku

This may well be so because we all know about Atiku’s insatiable appetite for presidential contests, of which he has made five record bids in 1993, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. Atiku’s former boss, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, was the first to caper a similar political double shuffle some weeks ago when he described Buhari as a leader who is good in military matters (such as the fight against Boko Haram) but incompetent in economic and diplomatic areas. He gave the impression that after Buhari defeats Boko Haram another leader would be found (obviously the self-installed tin god of Nigerian politics, Obasanjo himself) to solve our economic problems. It is obvious that the mesmerism of Buhari is beginning to thaw as we steam towards the starting blocks of the next political transition, and it is going to be hot inside the All Progressives Congress, APC where, I am firmly convinced, Buhari will make a bid for a second term.

Atiku will definitely feature prominently in it, barring any earth-shaking circumstances. I am surprised that Atiku described himself as a “long term campaigner” for restructuring. Honestly, I have never come across that notion before. What is known to most Nigerians is that Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been a long term campaigner for true federalism and restructuring. For some quaint reasons, he has gone mute on this since the APC seized the reins of the Federal Government a year ago. It is on record that the APC had it as one of its long-winded litany of campaign promises. The party and the Federal Government it produced have backed out of many of these promises, but it’s not yet on record that the promise to establish true federalism is one of those.

Yet not a single word has been breathed of it either by Buhari, the APC or even its chief protagonist, Tinubu. If Buhari meant to implement this policy, I am sure he would have said so in his maiden broadcast on May 29th 2015. He would have seized the opportunity of his May 29th 2016 to spell out the pillars of the programme, with timetable attached. But of course, we have seen that Buhari’s fabled body language is not pointing towards any bloody restructuring of the federation.