Who Is Fueling The Igbo-Yoruba Feud?

By Chuks Iloegbunam

The feud between the Igbo and the Yoruba ethnic groups is con­trived, just like the feud between the Igbo and the Ikwere. Whenever these feuds take centrestage, the impetus is invariably traceable to the divide-and-rule imperative, which inevitably profits the oligarchy of northern Nigeria. Every other explanation ad­duced in the explanation of the phenomenon can only be pe­ripheral. It is important to make this point from the outset, be­fore going about the business of explanations – for the benefit of those who may genuinely be ig­norant of a crucial factor in the continued inability to resolve some of the more critical of Ni­geria’s contradictions.

Femi Aribisala, one of the more perceptive of the motley coterie of columnists currently on the national stage, discussed the origins and manifestations of this feud in an incisive article entitled Time To End The Bad Blood Between The Yorubas And Ndigbo (Vanguard January 12, 2016). “What is the basis of all this hate?” Mr. Aribisala asks. “In the sixties, the Igbo were slaughtered in pogroms in the North. However, the principal exchange of hateful words today is not between Northerners and Easterners, but between East­erners and Westerners. Why are these two ethnic groups so much at loggerheads?”

The straightforward answer is that it serves the interest of the “core” North to keep the South permanently in mutually assured destructive contention on largely immaterial issues. It happened between the Igbo and the old Rivers State in the wake of the Nigerian civil war. It was suddenly and conveni­ently “discovered” that the Ik­werre were not and had never been Igbo. The people went into a flourish of re-spelling: Umuomasi became Rumuo­masi; Umukrushi became Ru­mukrushi; Umuola became Rumuola; Umueme became Rumueme. In truth, all these represent no more than dis­tinct dialectal spellings of Igbo root names typical to the areas around Port Harcourt. But the re-spelling exercise was used to manufacture an entirely new ethnic group.

The acclaimed writer, Pro­fessor (Captain) Elechi Amadi, who led the group that lent intellectual weight to this fad, went further to celebrate in fictional terms the political marriage between Rivers peo­ple and Northern Nigeria. Yet, he did not see fit to change his name to Relechi Ramadi. Of course, the contrived ethnic dissonance achieved its pur­pose. While the fight raged re­lentlessly on “Abandoned Prop­erties”, mostly mud houses over three decades old, the “core” North moved in and harvested the oil rewards. Their members became instant millionaires by being allocated shiploads of crude, which they sold off at the Rotterdam Spot Market. Fur­ther, they appropriated 99 per­cent of the oil blocs. Then they seized Professor Tam David- West, a Rivers man, “tried” him for causing the country “eco­nomic adversity” and handed him a tidy prison term.

But the picture is becoming clearer. Had the black gold been found in the “core” North, would the Rivers man have been allocated even one per­cent of the oil blocs? It was not the Igbo that killed Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro. It was not the Igbo that killed Ken Saro- Wiwa. It was not the Igbo that banished Delta nights with the interminable flare of gas. The Igbo was accused of desiring nothing but the expropriation of Delta oil and gas. But science since proved that the entire Igbo country sits on oil, and holds in its bowels the largest concentra­tion of gas on the Africa conti­nent. That is the way everything goes and turns round.