By Tony Iwuoma
The greatest misunderstanding about Ndigbo in Nigeria is not the resentment they face. It is the ignorance surrounding why that resentment exists. And that ignorance is dangerous. People insult what they envy, but systems fear what they cannot control.
Beyond marginalisation, exclusion, and endless arguments about fairness, there is a deeper and more unsettling truth: Ndigbo represent an uncontrollable force in a country engineered around control, patronage, and dependency. That reality makes power deeply uncomfortable.
Conformity is rewarded in Nigeria but independence is punished. A system tolerates groups it can predict but fears those it cannot cage.
Historically, Ndigbo refuse to wait for permission. They build without federal blessing. They thrive without state crumbs. They organise without godfathers. They compete without inherited advantage. That is not rebellion; it is disruption. And systems hate disruptors.
Here is the truth many Nigerians sense but few admit aloud: Ndigbo are feared because they are structurally uncontrollable. They dominate trade without monopolies, education without quotas, migration without sponsorship, and innovation without state protection.
From spare-parts markets in Nnewi and Aba to tech hubs in Lagos and across the Diaspora; from transport and logistics to pharmaceuticals and manufacturing clusters; from informal trade to formal boardrooms, no single office commands this ecosystem. No godfather controls it. No governor directs it. And that breaks the logic of Nigerian power.
Because in Nigeria, power expects loyalty before opportunity.
Ndigbo pursue opportunity without loyalty. Power expects dependence. Ndigbo engineer self-sufficiency. Power expects silence. Ndigbo speak, argue, dissent, innovate, and organise. That is the real crime.
A people who succeed outside the state threaten a state built on dependency. And this fear has consequences, visible in how Ndigbo are treated within the Nigerian system.
Consider the deliberate exclusion of Ndigbo from core decision-making and infrastructure since the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war. And yet, Ndigbo keep building. They develop their land with private capital. They construct markets where governments fail. They create industrial clusters without federal incentives. They educate their children without state subsidies.
Despite its disadvantages, the South-east remains one of the most densely commercialised regions in Africa. Every inch of land is contested because enterprise has made space valuable. Town unions fund roads. Diaspora remittances build schools and hospitals. Cooperative societies replace banks. Apprenticeship systems outperform state employment schemes.
Remove oil; they trade. Remove patronage; they innovate.
Remove access; they create alternatives. This is not sentiment. It is structure. And history explains why this resilience unsettles Nigeria.
What was mislabeled as the “Igbo coup” and followed by pogroms was, in truth, an existential project aimed at destroying an economic, intellectual, and commercial force that refused subjugation. The intent was annihilation. The outcome was not.
Yes, Ndigbo were starved, bombed, dispossessed and told to “reintegrate.” But something unexpected happened: they recovered too early, rebuilt too fast, and returned to dominance without permission. From ashes, they reorganised markets. From ruins, they re-entered commerce. From exclusion, they multiplied influence.
That was not part of the script.
Post-war policies were not reconciliation; they were containment. The 20 pounds policy wiped out savings. Quota systems restricted access. Federal character institutionalised ceilings. Security distrust became doctrine. Political isolation became routine. Not because Ndigbo were weak, but because they were strong. And the data still refuses to cooperate with prejudice.
Despite officially orchestrated minimal presence in federal power, Ndigbo consistently punch above their weight in business and the professions. This pattern extends globally. The Igbo Diaspora is among the most dynamic African Diasporas in the world. Igbo professionals dominate key sectors, lead research teams, and occupy executive positions. They arrive without state backing. Without political favours.
But with grit, networks, and work ethic.
Exclusion from power does not produce paralysis; it produces overcompensation through excellence. That is why the fear never fades. Nigeria understands how to manage groups that depend on government. It does not know how to manage a people who outgrow it. So, the response becomes narrative warfare. And when fear intensifies, propaganda descends into parody.
Which brings us to the latest absurdity making the rounds: the manipulated report claiming that an Igbo screw-driver trader got Donald Trump, the President of the United States to bomb Sokoto.
This story is revealing not just because it is stupid, but because of its purpose. It was not created for humour. It was engineered for incitement, to paint the innocent Igbo man as a hidden threat, a shadowy operator whose existence justifies suspicion and hostility. This is the same psychological formula used before the pogroms.
The message is simple: “Even when he looks harmless, the Igbo man is dangerous and must be stopped.”
But here is the irony that exposes the lie.
In trying to incite violence, the story accidentally validates what it seeks to demonise. It suggests that a man with no office, no uniform, no title, no army, and no state backing has the imagined capacity to influence global military power. That is not weakness being projected; it is power being subconsciously admitted.
Propaganda always reveals the fear of its authors. You do not accuse ants of controlling lions. You do not imagine peasants summoning empires.
And here is where the narrative mutates further.
The same mythical “Igbo screw-driver trader,” supposedly glued to his shop in Onitsha like every other Igbo man, has instructed some governor up North to release some terrorists into the society. He also metamorphosed in the national imagination into Middle Belt activists, who internationalised the awareness of Christian massacres, took protests to American streets, and engaged U.S. media. He also brought US congressmen for first hand assessment of the carnage in the area.
Not done yet, he also engineered the recent raid on some churches in Kaduna during which terrorists abducted over 170 worshippers in broad daylight. The smart man could be oiling his machine to instruct Trump to strike again, and that informed the initial official pedestrian efforts to hide a fully advanced pregnancy from the world.
In one breath, the Igbo are mocked as insignificant dot in the circle; in the next, they are feared as globally networked. This contradiction is not accidental. It is confession of a deep anxiety. That the Igbo man, even when physically rooted at home, is imagined as mentally mobile, digitally connected, and internationally consequential. That he could be in Onitsha, selling screws while still shaping narratives abroad. That he does not need proximity to power to project influence. That is what unsettles the Nigerian psyche.
However, the screw-driver seller narrative fails because it overreaches. In attempting to justify hatred, it elevates its target into a mythical operator, networked, omnipresent, connected everywhere. It seeks to reduce the Igbo man, but enlarges him in the imagination. This is not Igbo aggression; it is national insecurity.
The lie was meant to provoke violence. It ended up exposing anxiety. Because Nigeria has never resolved its discomfort with a people who can be excluded from power, denied infrastructure, locked out of decision-making, and still rise, rebuild, and reach beyond expectation.
So, the screw-driver seller becomes a symbol, not of threat, but of an inconvenient truth: the Igbo man does not need permission to matter. Even stripped to the bare minimum, he is imagined as consequential. Even targeted for erasure, he is feared for influence.
Ask the deeper question: Why is it always the Igbo man in these fantasies? Why is it never an oil baron, a political godfather, or a cattle merchant summoning global power?
Because the subconscious confession is this: “These Igbo people may look ordinary, but we believe they can reach anywhere.”
That is not hatred; it is engineered fear. Once they were accused of controlling trade. Then banks. Then education. Then commerce. Now, global power. This is how paranoia is sustained when a people refuses to disappear as expected.
When you cannot explain resilience, you invent conspiracy.
When you cannot dominate productivity, you demonise it.
When you cannot cage independence, you caricature it.
So, a screw-driver trader must be upgraded into a global saboteur. Because admitting the truth is harder: Nigeria is still unsettled by a people it once tried, but failed, to erase, and never can.
Until Nigeria learns to live with a people it can neither dominate nor erase, fear of Ndigbo will keep wearing the costume of “national concern.”
And propaganda will remain the language power uses when truth becomes too dangerous to speak.
*Iwuoma is a commentator on public issues
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