NIGERIA: 2015 Presidency: 'I Weep For The Southeast People'

GUARDIAN NIGERIA INTERVIEW BY SAMSON EZEA & NKECHI ONYEDI

PROF. A.B.C Nwosu, former Minister of Health and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), speaks on the state of insecurity in the country, Igbo Presidency in 2015, corruption and other issues.

The Igbo are clamouring for the Presidency in 2015, do you think it would be possible?

People get the leadership that they deserve, but the Bible also says that where there is no vision, the people perish, I weep for the Southeast and beyond, I won’t say more. There are people who promised the Ohanaeze leadership that power will go to Southeast in unbroken succession in 2015 from the Southsouth, that was their solemn word and that was what the Ohanaeze leadership told Ndigbo last year. So, we must hold them to their words if not, and the people should disgrace them thoroughly, because if we don’t disgrace them, another set will come up again. When a leadership says this is what they will deliver and they don’t deliver it, the followership should sanction them.

What were the factors that hindered previous moves by the Southeast to clinch power in the country?

The Igbo got the first Presidency of Nigeria, but it was a ceremonial president during the time of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. It has not always been like this with the Igbo. After independence, it was Azikiwe until 1966. The situation changed when we had the executive president in 1979, after the civil war had intervened. There is a school of thought that believes that the Igbo, having fought the civil war, should never be allowed to be President again until centuries have passed. There is also another school of thought that says ‘no, the Igbo have paid their dues and are entitled to the exercise of their full citizenship rights, including the Presidency’. The Igbo believed they must produce the President and in 1979, they came near it with Chief Alex Ekwueme as Vice President. Perhaps, if the military hadn’t intervened in 1983, Ekwueme might have become the President at the end of Shagari’s second term, but the military intervened and later there was June 12 presidential election, which was won by the late Chief MKO Abiola. Because of that, in 1999, it had to be exclusively Southwest issue.

Now, the Igbo are saying that they also need to become part of the equation and they reached an agreement with the Southwest, South-south in 2007 that the we didn’t mind if a Southsouth was, that was why some of us gave Dr. Peter Odili our best support in his presidential quest in 2007. Now that the Southsouth has produced the President, the only people who have not produced president is Southeast and we are saying we should produce. We are not anti-anybody, we are just pro-Igbo.

I respect the Yoruba the way they canvassed, pushed and held on to June 12. They are a people, they didn’t have to agree, but they made June 12 an issue and Nigeria recognised that June 12 was an issue. They presented a credible threat and were recognized.

I salute people like Chief Edwin Clark, though I will not go with him, but I salute him for his spirited defence of his people. He is a soldier of his people and a defender of Ijaw rights and I respect his tenacity. Because of that and the resource control issue, they also presented a credible threat and have become a force in Nigeria and Nigeria has recognised them.

But my heart bleeds when it comes to the Igbo, and then I weep again for the late Ikemba Odimegwu Ojukwu. And I ask, when will some leaders emerge from Igbo and say, ‘this is us, we mean no harm, but we are citizens of Nigeria and are entitled to full citizenship as a right’.

Not for people to be looking for where they are sharing porridge and running into the place, collect plates of porridge and vanish. It has always been an issue and each Igbo man must choose what he wants.

What is your view on the proposals submitted by Ohanaeze leadership on the amendment of the country’s constitution?

I needed a tranquilizer when I saw the president general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo presenting a proposal to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.

I have four issues with that; if you are presenting a proposal on my behalf, at least, I ought to know what it is, it was in the pages of the newspapers that I heard that it was a six-year single term and I know it flies in the face of what Ndigbo has been asking for. My first quarrel was: why don’t they let our people see what they are submitting their behalf? How did they arrive at the decision? They can’t just wake up and begin to act as if nothing else occurred before now? I saw the one submitted by Delta State which was published in the newspaper. It was specific that Federal powers must be devolved to the states and it quoted specific sections of the constitution that they want to be amended.

I am not saying that they shouldn’t do it, but it will be easier if they carry everybody along and publish the proposal on the pages of the newspaper. Nothing will be lost because this thing is not a secret document. The Igbo people are not seeking something that is anti-Nigeria.

Many believe that corruption has worsened in the country since 1999 and the government is not doing enough to curb, do you agree?

I was shocked on May 29, 1999 when President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed me as Political Adviser and brought me into his government without knowing me.

We had never met as at that time, he had never seen me and I remembered that we went into the small room in the Villa after we congratulated him. I told him that I am Prof A.B.C Nwosu, he held me and took me into the small room and said, he wanted me to work with him and he had two bills with him that day he was sworn in. The Bill on Niger Delta Development (NDDC Bill). I will always say the truth, if anybody says it is an afterthought from Obasanjo, it is not true. He came to the Presidency determined to set up the NDDC to redress the injustice meted to the Niger Delta. How he ended up, he will be in the best position to tell us, but I know he showed me the Bill.

The second bill he showed me was the Anti-Corruption Bill, and he wanted me to do a research on how countries of the world had dealt with corruption and set up their anti-corruption agencies and the kind of powers they have.

The most charitable thing I can say is that corruption is still with us, and it illustrated what the Igbo man wrote on his motor that ‘to be a man is not a day’s job’. To fight corruption in Nigeria is not a day job, because corruption will fight back. So we have to fight it, if we don’t fight it, it will undo us as a nation. It diminishes our sovereignty and ability to fulfill our destiny in the world, so we must fight it.

Let’s forget yesterday, let’s start from today. This current Senate has identified wrongdoings in the privatization; we can fight it by doing something about that. We can look at the report, it is a report from our Senate, we can deal with it, we can deal with the corruption witnessed in the pension probe, it is mind-boggling. That brings us to the subsidy scam. What can stop corruption is that anybody who is caught in corruption is arraigned and jailed in accordance with the law. That is why you see people looking for General Muhammed Buhari; he sentenced people to unbelievable jail terms which they served some. If you catch a person, you send him to jail and make him forfeit some of those property and people see it.

What is your reaction to the state of insecurity across the country today with the killings in Jos and Boko Haram?

Everybody is worried, including the security agencies. My problem is that worrying about this cannot give us security. It is doing something about it that will give us security and I want to suggest that we can do something about it by engaging traditional rulers. Not just in places where we have security problems, but also all over the country.

I am convinced that we all have a firm resolve that the security problem cannot go on anymore, because I don’t think there is anybody who is benefitting from it. The problem is diminishing Nigeria’s sovereignty.

For somebody who witnessed the civil war, it is frightening. The thing has gotten out of hand and out of control and the only way to control it is to engage the traditional rulers and the various stakeholders. It is not of religion, and it is a matter of sovereignty, nationhood and citizenship.

We need to be firm about how the coercive agencies of the state are handling this matter. Murder and arson are criminal offences of the worst order. We have a proverb that says, “ If a small child craws and bites an old man without respecting the grey hair, the old man should craw back and bite the child on the buttock without respecting whatever he sees there.”

So if these people kill and maim people, the coercive agencies should use maximum force to establish the sovereignty of Nigeria. This insecurity issue has gone so far that it has to be dealt with decisively now.

Is the high rate of unemployment in the country a contributory factor to the problem?

Unemployment is a major factor because an idle mind is the devils workshop. The level of unemployment is intolerable and nobody is happy with it, but there are people who are paid by government to think out programmes that will keep people employed in a sustainable manner.

We cannot import tricycles popularly Keke NAPEP from India and tell a graduate of Chemistry to be driving and say it’s employment. What we are facing in the world is not new, America and Britain have gone through depression and a major way of creating employment in a sustainable manner is through massive investment in public works.

If government decides now to build one million housing units in Nigeria today, do you know the number of people who will be employed? Not Keke NAPEP for God’s sake. Or this thing they are doing, call young boys and give them lectures, after the lectures, they give them N5 million and ask them to go and be entrepreneurs and employers of labour. That again to me is again laughable. We should have a way of encouraging small and medium scale industries in a measurable way.

The Nigerian market is huge, we don’t have to export, we have over 160 million people. If we make enough quality goods and people buy into it, it is enough to create employment. The one that my heart bleeds as I drive to Enugu is the Ajaokuta steel. There are so many buildings that have passed lintel level, they have been wasting away for over 20 years. Ajaokuta is not only a steel factory, it is steel city. That is why you have hospitals, residential quarters and others there.

Ajaokuta Steel can conveniently absorb thousands of unemployed youths. Why should we leave the fate of people like that to some nonsensical privatization which every probe has found wanting.

I was one of the authors of the PDP manifesto, we believed in private sector-led economy, but we did not say that we would auction off the entire economy to whatever private sector. We have no national carrier, how many countries do you know that don’t have national carriers? Because of private sector, they go and bring 30-year-old aircrafts into Nigeria airspace. That is a shame.
This is 13 years of Democracy in Nigeria, do you think we have done well?
I laugh whenever I hear that US spent 200 years before they got to where they are today. The issue is that people learn from people’s experiences, so that you don’t have to go through the same thing. We have more than enough time. What are we learning that nobody should rule another person without the persons’ consent? When you rig the election, you are ruling without the consent of the people, is that what you need 500 years to learn? Do we need 500 years to draw up people’s constitution?

Eme: The Road To Biafra

By Kelechi Eme, The Guardian


The title of this piece is an adaptation of an article I read over fifteen years ago. The article was written by the erudite Adebayo Williams in one of the national news magazines. It was captioned “The Road to Kigali” and illustrated succinctly, the consequence of inactions on the part of policy makers and individuals. He aptly drew a parallel on the activities of two distinguished Nigerians on the political terrain after exiting public service at an unusual young age. This was during the turbulent military regime of the 90s that emboldened all manner of pro-democracy agitators (including nation wreckers and ethnic bigots who masqueraded as liberators of the masses). The country was at a dangerous curve and the possibility of full blown ethnic war loomed larger since the end of the Biafran war.

The objects of the writer were the late Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Gen. T. Y. Danjuma that retired with the first coming of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo on October 1st, 1979. He praised the former for abandoning his comfort zone in pursuit of better governance for Nigerians and castigated the later for his aloofness on good governance and human right matters. His conclusion was that silence in the face of injustice and atrocities breeds radicalism, extremism, ethnic cleansing and call to arms (emphasis mine). The reluctance to speak up was what led to the genocide in Rwanda. This he aptly captured as “The Road to Kigali” in his piece. In the past one year we have witnessed the elevation of terrorism as a means of fighting social and economic injustice by MEND and Boko Haram. These are horrible crimes that every well-meaning Nigerian must condemn. Our collective failures as citizens of Nigeria bred the terrorist groups we appear unable to confront today. Did we tackle the residual issues that threw these monsters at us? This is the question our leaders and policy makers must answer.

It is on this premise that I have decided to bring the ticking time bomb in the South East before Nigerians. The present state of the region is a clear manifestation of man’s inhumanity to man. You will wonder if you were in a different republic. Yes, it is part of Nigeria. Yes, the people are Nigerians. However, the bitter truth is that of a zone systematically neglected and wickedly destroyed for reasons that are ingloriously archaic, incurable hatred and misplaced fears by the ruling class. I have in earlier notes expressed my disgust on the actions of a section of Igbo leaders, but the problem is purely beyond them. Some Nigerians might live under the illusion that the South East problem is not theirs, yet history has shown that ambivalence over the agony of your neighbour might consume you. Two recent developments in our national psyche thoroughly brought this assertion into perspective. The first was the activities of MEND and other Niger Delta groups that were active within their geographical location. Bombs exploded in Warri, Yenogoa, etc without any iota of concern by non-Niger Deltans. The failure to immediately seek for a holistic solution to the decadence in oil producing areas brought the bombs to Lagos (NNPC facility) and Abuja(Independence day bombings). Boko Haram then took the center stage. Their religious agenda which tilted towards social issues were well known and nothing was done to nip it in the bud. I do not really understand what they are demanding in a multi ethnic and religious society. It was a case of misguided elements that were misrepresenting Islam by indoctrinating young and vulnerable youths to batter modernization for medieval existence. They recorded significant success because the youths were disgruntled and unemployed. They killed hundreds in Maiduguri and we pretended nothing was happening. Now we have a national emergency on our hands because they arrived Abuja and targeted the flagship of our civilian protection.

I raised the issue of systematic “decapitation” of the Igbos because there are facts to support that. I am concerned because I have seen the frustration on the faces of young Igbos who have almost lost hope on the Nigerian enterprise. The leaders and policy makers should remember the saying that “he that is down need fear no fall.” The first aberration was committed by the policy of 20pounds handed out to Igbos irrespective of the amount previously deposited in the bank. Even this paltry amount was handed out under the condition that the account was not operated during the war. The economic team of the federal government went a step further to indigenize foreign corporations like UAC, Lever Brothers, Cadbury, PZ, SCOA, the banks, etc. The Igbos had no money to buy shares in these companies and this led to a section of the country having absolute control over the nation’s corporate world. Yet, some Nigerians flaunt hard work before the Igbos. I must commend Gen. Ibrahim Babangida for introducing NERFUND which at least ameliorated the pains of the Igbos. It was through this agency that a company like Emzor Pharmaceutical was established. The harsh post war economic policy immediately converted Igbo businessmen into street hustlers. Those in the corporate world lost their positions and had to begin new professional careers. Importation of stock fish was banned to deny Igbos their only means of protein after the war (Remember that most livestock were lost during the war). This was followed by the problem of abandoned property implemented mainly by the old Rivers state. Nigerians must be reminded that The Distinguished President of the Senate, David Bonaventure Mark actually chaired and rationalized the properties of Igbos in the old Rivers state. A “statesman” like Chief Edwin Clarke was a major beneficiary of the abandoned property.

While the two issues above could be set aside as a watershed in our national evolution, how can one describe the neglect of educational institutions since the end of the civil war? The scare of the war is written all over the institutions. The example of Okigwe Grammar school is a typical example. To make matters worse, The South East was not considered for a new university during the boom of the 70s that led to the proliferation of conventional universities in Nigeria. The situation remained the same until the establishment of Federal universities of technology by the Shagari administration. This resulted in South East students “forcefully” seeking university education outside their homeland. This syndrome contributed to the increased migration of young Igbo intellectuals outside their home states. Prior to the creation of Abia state, the old Imo state accounted for 25% of JAMB applicants. How many of them were admitted considering the presence of only two federal universities in the zone (FUTO had very low admission capacity at the time) and the catchment area policy of JAMB and National Universities Commission)?

The greatest problem is the zero economic activity in the southeast. This is occasioned by the preponderance of zero businesses infrastructure in the zone. All the federal roads are in bad shape and there is not a single strategic national asset located in the region. How many Nigerians still remember that the garden city of Port Harcourt use to be under Owerri province? The city of Port Harcourt deserves more than its present stage of development, why is Owerri stagnant? The systematic neglect has even been extended to harm the economic interest of our dear country Nigeria. Why is the huge Hydro carbon in the South East designated as strategic reserve while oil in other zones is being exploited? The exploitation of this huge resource will create jobs for the teeming youths who might be used by the lunatic fringe elements in the society to ferment trouble. One of the largest Natural Gas reserve in the world is under the belly of Atani-Osamala-Ozubulu corridor and extends to Oguta. There is also the huge oil reserve along the Ohi-Ubomiri-Mbieri-Iho corridor. This oil reserve is under “locks and keys” for reasons known only to the federal government. What about the Aguleri-Umuleri deposit? A situation in which Akwa Ibom received N204.5billion in 2008 from the federation account (largely due to derivation) and the entire south eastern states got N176.2billion justifies the urgent need to commence the Hydro Carbon exploitation of the zone. The need for development of the region is so overwhelming that delay will not be in Nigeria’s interest. The migration of young Igbo men and women can only be curtailed through economic development of the zone.

I want to conclude with the quote by Dr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria: “Having said that, this nation must realise that Igbos have more than paid for their foolishness. They have been defeated in war, rendered paupers by monetary policy fiat, their properties declared abandoned and confiscated, kept out of strategic public sector appointments and deprived of public services. The rest of the country forced them to remain in Nigeria and has continued to deny them equity.

The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have conspired to keep the Igbo out of the scheme of things. In the recent transition when the Igbo solidly supported the PDP in the hope of an Ekwueme presidency, the North and South-West treated this as a Biafra agenda. Every rule set for the primaries, every gentleman´s agreement was set aside to ensure that Obasanjo, not Ekwueme emerged as the candidate. Things went as far as getting the Federal Government to hurriedly gazette a pardon. Now, with this government, the marginalistion of the Igbo is more complete than ever before. The Igbos have taken all these quietly because, they reason, they brought it upon themselves. But the nation is sitting on a time-bomb.

After the First World War, the victors treated Germany with the same contempt Nigeria is treating Igbos. Two decades later, there was a Second World War, far costlier than the first. Germany was again defeated, but this time, they won a more honourable peace. Our present political leaders have no sense of History. There is a new Igbo man, who was not born in 1966 and neither knows nor cares about Nzeogwu and Ojukwu. There are Igbo men on the street who were never Biafrans. They were born Nigerians, are Nigerians, but suffer because of actions of earlier generations. They will soon decide that it is better to fight their own war, and may be find an honourable peace, than to remain in this contemptible state in perpetuity.”

We have uprising in Niger Delta and the Boko Haram challenge to deal with. These challenges are all pointing to “THE ROAD TO BIAFRA”. A proactive approach to the problem of the South East will make this road a closed alley. A replication of the activities of the two aforementioned groups in any part of the country might unwittingly take us to that road to Biafra. “The Road to Biafra” is a metaphor for agitation for self-determination by any section of the country. This is the time for nationalist to rise and put all hands on deck in steering our country out of this dangerous slide.

Jonathan Should not run for President, says Falae

GUARDIAN INTERVIEW


Former Finance Minister and joint presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All Peoples Party (APP) in 1998 Chief Olu Falae, 72, says he is no longer interested in elective office. Going round the country to consult widely on a mega platform that could raise the flag of strong opposition to the dominance of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) spoke with ALIFA DANIEL in Abuja on the Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP) recently formed by some opposition political parties. Excerpts:

WHAT is your reaction to the announcement by the recent removal of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof Maurice Iwu?

My immediate reaction was to say "Thank God.' The ordeal is over as far as Iwu is concerned. I am not personally against him but his tenure in INEC has caused a lot of political crises. He should be happy because he has been relieved of that job. He made a mess of his assignment and brought embarrassment to the entire nation. We thank God that he is no longer there and we pray that his successor would do a better job in the interest of the nation.

Many people have expressed the sentiment that Iwu is not the problem and that there are structural problems, which must be confronted and until they are dealt with, it will be difficult getting anyone to do a proper job in INEC.

That is partially correct. Iwu alone was not the problem. But in an organisation, the buck stops with the head. There are other problems. There is attitudinal problem. In this society in particular, which is leadership driven, you needed performance and character to shape the performance of the institution. I have a hypothesis for job performance, which states that regardless of the objective valuation of a job, the level at which it is performed is the level of the incumbent. If the incumbent is higher than the job, he pulls it up to his level and does the job, if he is lower than the job, he drags it down to his level. So, we can apply that to INEC. The total performance at INEC is determined by the structural status of the nation and also by the quality and character of the leader. So, Iwu was an important part of the problem but not the whole of it.

What do you think the electoral body can do about a situation where the President of the country wants to contest an election in a do-or- die atmosphere?

The INEC head should stand his ground or resign the job. That is what I will do; I will stand my ground, let the heavens fall. I will do what is right but if you physically enforce me to do it, I will tell the nation and I will resign. We have faced challenges in the past. I was brought down in detention for a year and a half for saying that the vote of the peoples should count. When I was in detention, there were emissaries sent to me that I should denounce my membership of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and I would go back free. My categorical answer was an irrevocable No! So, people should learn to stand firm. By that time, they took me to court and charged me with treason. Treason is an offence punishable only by death. So in other words, potentially, I was a candidate for the gallows. That was done often and I was offered an easy way out, which was for me to denounce membership of what I believe in and then go home free. The choice was not difficult to make. The answer was clear that I could not betray the idea I believe in. I could not repudiate myself. I stood firm; I told them that I would stay in detention until the Good Lord released me. So, if the head of INEC is being pressurised by an over ambitious President, he has the option to either defy him or resign the job if impossible.

What would you therefore say to the Acting President with all the talk about his interest in the 2011 presidential race?

We are urging him to carry out genuine electoral reforms and ensure that a credible election is conducted. If he is aspiring to be a candidate for that election his moral authority and ability to enforce genuine electoral reform will be diminished, it will be compromised. In his interest, if he wants to achieve success in that area, he should consider not to be a candidate, as it will compromise his ability to perform. It will be difficult for people to believe that he will not take advantage of his position. In public life, substance is important but accepting it quite often is equally important. If I were in his shoes, I will not contest under any circumstance.

Comment on the rumbles within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)?

We thank God that finally it is happening. We expected it to happen long ago because I have never accepted the PDP as a political party. A party is made up of its philosophy and quality of its leadership. What is the philosophy of the PDP? I was talking to a top PDP member recently and he said most of them have not seen any policy document owned by the PDP. Now, the electoral reform is the major debate going on in the country, I don't know of anyone who has heard of the PDP presenting any paper or making any contribution. The PDP has no philosophy that is identifiable in the interest of the people. When we talk of the leadership we cannot see it. We have leaders that will abuse their office; some of them have been tried as governors, even the National Chairman. Therefore, there is zero leadership, zero philosophy in the PDP. That is not a political party. People say, how can you say that the PDP is not a political party when it controls the central government, 28 states out of 36? Of course, we know how they got to that position. But even if they won those elections, rulership of states alone does not make the PDP a party. When the military cease power, they control all the levels of government and does that make the military a party? You can use brigandage and money and rigging and mayhem to get power without being a party. That is what the PDP is doing. I am not surprised that the PDP is imploding today. They are bound to implode because there is nothing that endures that holds them together. It is philosophy and common commitment to values that keep people together in times of crises. If money is the only nexus, they are bound to break. My view is, even if the PDP were doing well, after 12 years in the power, they have to go and take a rest, rejuvenate and refurbish their philosophy, and let the next group take over and serve the nation better. It is competitiveness and it is done in the interest of the nation. In the United Kingdom today, the Labour Party (LP) has been in power for 13 years but in the opinion poll, the Conservative party is leading. The British people want a change. Why don't we have a change here especially when the ruling party messes up this country and brings disgrace and poverty to the country? There is massive unemployment of graduates and yet the ruling party has no answer to that or other failures of the system. Nigerians are embarrassed and disgraced abroad, yet no response. Now is the time for change and that is why we presented the Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP), which came out of the Mega Summit Movement (MSM), a movement set up to get as many groups and parties and persons in Nigeria to come together and offer a credible alternative. People tell me that things are failing, and that past efforts have failed. My answer is that maybe one, two, three of past efforts failed. In terms of probability, we should expect that the fourth effort would succeed. But more importantly, we have the PDP to thank for the monumental mess it has created in the country and that mess is now concentrating in our minds. Many people who are not politicians are asking how they can get involved. The failure of the PDP is galvanising political groups. There are about 22 political parties sponsoring the SDMP and there are thousands of individuals from the parties - PDP, Action Congress (AC) - and there were two or three leading members of the AC in our last meeting. The moment this party is registered, I am convinced that there will be a major political movement. People are waiting for a credible alternative, but they are afraid if it will work or if they will be let down again. By the grace of God we are gradually convincing the people that we will succeed, for the sake of Nigeria. At my age, I should not be running around to contest any election. I am not going to accept any appointment as a minister. I am running around because I want the few people who have credibility, who have compassion for this country to come together create a credible political group that can save this country. If a political party cannot make the wealth of the people its main business, that party can only run the country to the ground, you cannot be stealing the money of the people for whom you are working because any naira stolen is a naira denied to development. You take peoples money to buy properties while the people are dying. There is no potable water; there are no roads to travel on etc. We have to give Nigerians a new lease of life. We challenge the youth to get involved in what we are doing because we are talking about their future, more their future than my future. At 72, I don't know how many more years I have to live. If I am lucky, I will live to 85, 90, more 13 years, 15 years but the youths can look forward to another 60 years. So, it is more of their future than mine that is involved here. It is for their future that we are running around to create a political party everyone can believe in so that the future can be better. We have the potential only that the leadership has been found wanting to covert the potential into wealth, opportunities and jobs.

What is the difference between you and the PDP, because some people will argue that your party is starting out with strange bedfellows just as the PDP? There was the case of Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who with many people left as a result of personal ambition.

We are different from the PDP. First, we have a philosophy document. That is what we believe in. We are social democrats. Social democrats the world over are focused on the welfare of the people. A look at that document will show our plan for Nigeria. We have a philosophy, we have a programme, and we are focused on the nation. The PDP is not focused. If you want to form a party, an all-inclusive party, all kinds of party will move in, but in the due course, those people who are not comfortable with the ideology will move out. There will be inflow and outflow. That is infiltration process. At the end of the process, only the credible ones will remain. Atiku was in the PDP. He had problems with his boss and he moved out, now he is back. Buhari is still in this movement. Yes, he formed his own party, the CPC but there are 22 parties or more in this process. Another party joining them is not a problem. For years, Buhari had no party; he operated under the Buhari Campaign Organisation (BCO). When you find yourself in the midst of 22 parties, you will feel the need to convert your organisation into a party, to be at the same level and at par with others. There is a provision in our constitution that all parties that converged to form the mega party will have their members on the Board of Trustee (BoT). If yours is not a political party, you will not have a member in the BoT. So, there are reasons Buhari found it necessary to have his own party. These parties are not the ones joining the mega party, it is individuals who are joining the party. When the SDMP is registered, we decided, that we would resign from our parties and join the new party as individuals, leaving the parties in existence as legal entities while the human beings in the parties have moved to the mega party. That will solve two problems. One, the reluctance of the Nigerian to dissolve his party or to deregister his party and hand over the certificate to INEC will be avoided. Secondly, we know that the ruling party does not want us to succeed because if we succeed, they are out. They will be looking for what they can do to stop us and if we want to dissolve and merge, we will have to go the process. The process is a national convention of the party, we notify and invite INEC to observe the convention and after the convention, the changes will go to the INEC to get a new certificate. If we try to go through that process, the PDP will lay ambush for us somewhere. They will give money to some renegades in the parties to get an injunction that a party cannot merge with another party. They will tie us down with injunctions so that we will not be able to get ready for the next election. That is why we say that the parties will be there but the human beings in that party will move to another party. In my party, there may be some people who might not want to join me in this arrangement. They are free to continue with the party. It is an innovative thing. We are all in this movement, he has his own party and I have my own party. We are all in our parties but we are in this movement. Without this movement, we will not be able to confront and beat the PDP in the next election.

With nine months to the 2011 election there are no talks of any presidential candidate for the SDMP...

I am sure that people know that we are rich in presidential candidates, richer than any other political party.

Divisive Issues Threatening Nigeria

By Luke Onyekakeyah/Guardian

When recently the Libyan strongman, Mu'ammar al-Gadaffi prescribed that Nigeria should divide into pieces along ethnic lines like former Yugoslavia, as panacea to frequent ethnic bloodletting in Jos and other parts of the country, he was certainly convinced that there are fundamental issues that are threatening the unity of the country, which could provide the springboard for a possible demise of Nigeria. There is no smoke without a fire. Something is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria that it has become the target for such uncomplimentary attacks by external forces. Rather than dismissing the fingers pointing at Nigeria with a wave of the hand, they should be given a closer look by the authorities.

It is about four years now since the American intelligence community also predicted that Nigeria would possibly break up by 2015. Those bad predictions were based on the woeful state of affairs in the country. Since then, rather than things getting better, and rather than the leadership re-examining itself to face up with what actually is a grave situation in the country on all fronts, the whole issue is being wished away. At the same time, there are ethnic groups across the country agitating for justice, equity and fair play. Some are threatening secession. But the truth is that these groups wouldn't have germinated in the first place if the Nigerian system has been fair to all. That the ground is fertile for political discontent to blossom is not in doubt.

Unfortunately, the issues at the centre of ethnic discontent are systemic. The issues have become deeply ingrained into the Nigerian into the Nigerian social and political structure. That makes it an uphill task for them to be tackled with executive fiat. How, for instance, do you start to deal with a problem that has its roots in the Constitution without first amending it and then allowing the matter to die naturally once the root has been severed? Knowing the intrigues associated with Constitutional amendment under the present faulty political structure, can the leadership muster enough muscle to deal with issues that threaten the very survival of Nigeria?

But there is no other choice on this very important matter. If the continued existence of Nigeria as one united country is something that must be achieved; if the authorities are not just paying lip service to a one Nigeria; if those dismissing the dooms prediction for Nigeria are not themselves helping to bring it to pass, then what needs to be done must be done now to save Nigeria from possible disintegration as already predicted. That is what patriotism is all about. I have said it once in this column that there are two most important persons in the life of a nation. One is the person who turned a forest into a nation and the other is the person who turns a nation into a forest. History would certainly be harsh on the latter. That is why the burden to save Nigeria is squarely on today's leadership. The continued existence of Nigeria as one entity is in their hands.

Among the divisive forces threatening the continued existence of Nigeria as one corporate entity are: First, the balkanization of Nigeria into 36 antagonistic states and 744 local government councils. This is the greatest factor that has upturned the political landscape of the country in post-independence Nigeria. I have said it before that the creation of states in Nigeria wasn't necessarily a strategic framework to develop Nigeria but a wartime strategy to prosecute the civil war against Biafra. The splitting of Nigeria into 12 states in 1967 by Gen. Yakubu Gowon, the then head of state, led to further balkanization of the country after the war. Ever since then, the country has never remained the same. The splitting of the country into quasi-ethnic states has even changed the ethnic homogeneity of parts of the country.

For instance, at independence in 1960, we had major ethnic groups that spoke with one voice on national issues. We had the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw and others. Today, with the creation of states, these ethnic groups no longer speak with one voice as they have been Balkanized. Each state now fights for its survival. The division is so deep that it has created a vicious hatred among people of the same ethnic group. For instance, an Igbo person from Imo State can't get employment in any of the Igbo speaking states of Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi or Abia. Similarly, a person from Ondo State can't get employment in Ekiti, Oyo. Oshun or any of the Yoruba speaking states. The same hatred and antagonism applies to the states in other regions.

Consequently, the best a Nigerian could get from a state outside his or hers is a contract employment. The states in the north employ people from the south on contract basis. Strategic positions are never filled with non-indigenes. State creation has made Nigerians foreigners in their own country. Unfortunately, the state structure is presently a fraud without true federalism that would enable each state to use the resources within its domain to develop itself. Without a viable framework, Nigeria can never make headway and we run the risk of falling victim to the bad predictions on the country. That would be a self-inflicted injury.

The second factor, indigene/settler issue has its roots in state creation. It is, perhaps, only in Nigeria that people are classified as indigenes and the others as settlers or by extension "foreigners" in their own country. This issue has raised major controversy and it is the cause of most of the ethnic bloodletting that is ravaging parts of the country. In Nigeria, going by this discriminatory classification, there are no Nigerian citizens! Whereas the Constitution clearly provided that every Nigerian is a citizen of the country wherever he or she may resides, that provision is openly discountenanced with impunity. The norm, instead, is that what you get where you are depends on your ethnic roots.

Consequently, it doesn't matter how long you have resided in any part of Nigeria; it doesn't matter if you can't trace you roots after being born and bred in a place and established in that place. Once you're known to have your roots from a different ethnic group, you're a foreigner in that place. You have no rights and privileges. But this is unlike what obtains in the United States of America where anybody born in America is a bona fide citizen of the United States irrespective of where the parents came from. It is that progressive system that produced the Barack Obamas of this world. If it were in Nigeria, Barack Obama would have been classified as settler because his father came from Kenya and he wouldn't have had the privilege of aspiring to be American president.

Third in the list of divisive factors in Nigeria is federal character, which unfortunately is enshrined in the Constitution. The federal character principle demands that positions to be filled at the federal level must reflect the federal character of the country. That simply put is saying that there must be representatives from all the zones of the country, all the states of the country, and all the local governments of the country as the case may be. This retrogressive Constitutional provision is responsible for the over bloated federal cabinet with all the paraphernalia that go with the catalogue of offices and the huge cost of maintaining the offices.

Related to federal character is the quota system that throws expertise to the winds and instead promotes mediocrity in the main. The quota system determines who gets what employment in the federal civil service. It determines who gets admission into any federal school from secondary to tertiary level. For example, under the quota system, if a position has been reserved for a particular zone or state of the country, rather than take a capable hand from another state or zone to fill the position, it serves that country better to leave it vacant or fill the post with a mediocre from that very zone or state. The quota system and federal character have contributed to the high unemployment rate in the country. It is a known fact that unemployment is worst in the southern states than in the northern states.

Besides, the two monsters of federal character and quota system keep reminding Nigerians that they're not one people. They are responsible for much of the looting at the federal level as each state or zone of the country is out to corner more juicy positions to themselves. Furthermore, the PDP has used the quota system to determine which zone produces the president at any time. What that means is that somebody must have to be imposed on the country from the designated zone whether or not he is qualified.

How could the country get liberated from the shackles of poverty, ignorance, disease and underdevelopment when the system has put wedge against itself? The only way out is for the system to dismantle these strictures that are drawing the country backward. Failure to do that would not only stall development but could help the forces that are out to tear the country apart. That is not what right thinking and patriotic Nigerians want. The country must rejuvenate itself to remain afloat.

Line-up of heavyweights for Nigeria: The Series

By Chuks Nwanne, Guardian

GOOD product sells itself. This could be the best way to describe what transpired at the special presentation of the Nigeria: The Series, where two Nigeria's former leaders; General Yakubu Gowon and Chief Alex Ekwueme, publicly threw their weights behind the TV drama series aimed at telling the true Nigerian story to the rest of the world.

After listening to a detailed presentation by the production team at the Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos, the two former leaders, alongside the Information and Communications Minister, Prof. Dora Akunyili, who was represented by a top officer from the ministry, were convinced that Nigeria: The Series, will play a vital role in the re-brading Nigeria project, which the federal government is presently pursuing.

Co-produced by The Serengeti Network headed by America's Lloyd Weaver and Storm 360 led by Obi Asika, the project will take as its subject, the 150 years of unrelenting struggle against European forces, who appeared on the shore of Nigeria first as traders and missionaries, but later, with superior arms, destroyed the centuries old civilisations established by the ancestors. The 13 episodes drama, which is being put together to mark the 5oth Anniversary of Nigeria, will also re-enact in details, the continual wars of resistance waged by our forefathers and mothers, first with guns and cannons, bows and arrows and later with pen and words.

The series will bring to life the events and the personalities that brought about victorious declaration of the free and independent nation called Nigeria. The intention is to debunk the notion, especially from the western world, which posited that Nigeria as a nation was not fought for, and reveal for all Nigerians the common heritage represented by the inspiring deed of the forefathers of the country.

Speaking at the official presentation, former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon commended the initiators of the programme, which he believed, would make young Nigerians take interest in the country again.

"This is a welcomed series that will tell the history of Nigeria by Nigerians. It will show the true history and quality of Nigeria as a country. It's time for us as Nigerians to begin to sell the country properly and correctly to the entire world. "

Gowon, who was the chairman of the occasion, called on all well meaning Nigerians to support the initiative.

"I believe in this project and I call on my colleagues, the older generation to support it. We need to start re-making this country and the only way we can re-brand is by removing bad things from ourselves. We need to correct our own ways and move towards the part of good. But producers of this programme should try as much as possible to get in touch with the older generation and get interviews about this country from them, it's very important. We need to get their stories for this series. This programme is worth supporting," the elder statesman charged.

Observing that most members of the production team are from the Eastern part of the country, the former leader used the opportunity to clear the air on why Nigeria went to war against Biafra.

"The war was not a fight against the Igbo race, but a fight against the then leadership of the Igbos, who wanted to breakaway from the country. As the leader of the nation then, we wanted to find other means of resolving the problem, but by the time the declaration (of the sovereign state of Biafra) was made, we had no option than to fight. We fought not to kill the Igbos, but to keep Nigeria together; I had an Igbo girlfriend then, so, I couldn't have declared a war that will kill the Igbos. Nigeria would have been a failure, if we had let the Igbos go then. We know their contributions to the growth and development of this nation," Gowon declared.

In his own remark, former Vice President, Chief Alex Ekwueme observed that the project will play a vital role in keeping intact, the true history of Nigeria as against the ones usually told by the western world in history book.

"I remember those days, the only thing you hear about history in Nigeria is how Mungo Park and Landers Brothers discovered River Niger. I really congratulate the initiators of this project for thinking it wise to come out with a project that would define the true history of the country. I will join in asking all Nigerians to give this project their full support."

Earlier in his opening speech, the CEO of Storm 360, Obi Asika informed that the project is very important to the crew than anything else.

"We've been involved in so many TV productions in Nigeria, but nothing is important to us than this project; it's the story of our lives. If you are truly a Nigerian, you need to see this project; I cannot imagine any media that will be more engaging than Nigeria: The Series."

Asika is of the opinion that the project would go a long way in shaping Nigeria as a nation, calling on corporate organisations to support the initiative.

"We are going to bring to live people that helped shape this country. It's about us as a people and we believe that we deserve the best. This is a global story and we will run it in America, UK and other international platforms. Nigeria is 50 years this year and we are ripped to unlock other projects."

In his presentation, the co-producer and scriptwriter of the series, Lloyd Weaver, recalled how the idea of putting down the history of Nigeria on paper came to him years ago.

"As an American, I've lived in this country for 29 years now. I remember those days, my children used to bring their homework to me to help them out, but I've never seen anything about history in their whole work; that got me thinking. From my secondary school days, we knew how America became America through history. So, I decided to put down a script on the history of Nigeria, which we later developed into Nigeria: The Series."

According to the filmmaker, who took the audience through the production schedule for the project, every nation needs history to get to wherever it's heading to.

"We need the past to get to our target. History is about who we are and this show will clarify misconceptions, teach important lessons and celebrate the country.

The objective of the series, according to Weaver, is "to enlighten Nigerians, uplift their spirit of patriotism, inform and educate them about this nation. How many times have you seen the lives of the founding fathers of this nation in a story? You see such things in other countries, but here, you don't get to hear about them. This is a story of a nation molded from different tribes with distinct language and custom."

The 13 dramatic episodes will begin with the glorious and advanced kingdoms and nation states that prevailed from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Nigeria: The Series will tell of the thousands of brave men and women, who resisted the canons and maxim guns of the Europeans whose intention was to claim our lands as their own. The story will then move to the twentieth century to depict those valiant, brilliant and determined men and women, who ultimately outwitted the British and boldly declared Nigeria an independent and free nation among nations.

In presenting the 150 years for freedom, Nigeria: The Series will create for all Nigerians an acute understanding of the true heritage of the country, by depicting the forefathers from early childhood through their moments of confrontation with the British colonists.

Meanwhile, The project will be film on location throughout Nigeria with key scenes filmed in London, The United States and Ghana, using absolute state of the art high definition technology and will gather together the most experienced Nigerian technical crew from home and the Diaspora. The crew will meticulously recreate five different historical eras with attention to historical detail in costumes, building, music, and settings.

The production will also involve Nigerian actors, who will portray characters ranging from Al Kanemi, Caliph Attahiru1, Nanna of Itsekiri and Oba Overanwen N'Ogbaisi, to Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Margaret Ekpo, Herbert MaCaulay and others.

To achieve this target, the crew has involved the services of an Advisory Committee headed by historians, Prof. J.F Ade-Ajayi, who will guide the crew in the production, as well as make contributions in the scripting of the storyline. Other members of the committee include Prof. Obaro Ikime, Mahdi Abdullahi, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Mrs. HID Awolowo and other key witnesses and participants.

It would be recalled that the project had already received the endorsement of the Information and Communications Minister, Prof. Dora Akunyili, who had pledged the support of her ministry. The programme is also open to corporate organization, government agencies and individuals, who would want to use the platform to showcase their goods and services to the world.

Chinua Achebe: What Nigeria means to me

"Being a Nigerian is absymally and unbelievably exciting," Chinua Achebe in 1967. Photo: Michael Neal

Chinua Achebe The Guardian Books


Nigerian nationality was for me and my generation an acquired taste – like cheese. Or better still, like ballroom dancing. Not dancing per se, for that came naturally; but this titillating version of slow-slow-quick-quick-slow performed in close body contact with a female against a strange, elusive beat. I found, however, that once I had overcome my initial awkwardness I could do it pretty well.

Perhaps these irreverent analogies would only occur to someone like me, born into a strongly multiethnic, multi­lingual, multireligious, somewhat chaotic colonial situation. The first passport I ever carried described me as a "British Protected Person", an unexciting identity embodied in a phrase that no one was likely to die for. I don't mean it was entirely devoid of emotive meaning. After all, "British" meant you were located somewhere in the flaming red portion of the world map, a quarter of the entire globe in those days and called "the British Empire, where the sun never sets". It had a good ring to it in my childhood ears – a magical fraternity, vague but vicariously glorious.

My earliest awareness in the town of Ogidi did not include any of that British stuff, nor indeed the Nigerian stuff. That came with progress in school. Ogidi is one of a thousand or more "towns" that make up the Igbo nation, one of Nigeria's (indeed Africa's) largest ethnic groups. But the Igbo, numbering more than 10 million, are a curious "nation". They have been called names such as "stateless" or "acephalous" by anthropologists; "argumentative" by those sent to administer them. But what the Igbo are is not the negative suggested by such descriptions but strongly, positively, in favour of small-scale political organisation so that (as they would say) every man's eye would reach where things are happening. So every one of the thousand towns was a mini-state with complete jurisdiction over its affairs. A sense of civic attachment to their numerous towns was more real for precolonial Igbo people than any unitary pan-Igbo feeling. This made them notoriously difficult to govern centrally, as the British discovered but never appreciated nor quite forgave. Their dislike was demonstrated during the Biafran tragedy, when they accused the Igbo of threatening to break up a nation-state they had carefully and laboriously put together.

The paradox of Biafra was that the Igbo themselves had originally championed the Nigerian nation more spiritedly than other Nigerians. One proof of this: the British had thrown more of them into jail for sedition than any others during the two decades or so of pre-independence agitation and troublemaking. So the Igbo were second to none on the nationalist front when Britain finally conceded independence to Nigeria in 1960, a move that, in retrospect, seems like a masterstroke of tactical withdrawal to achieve a ­supreme strategic advantage.

At the time we were proud of what we had just achieved. True, Ghana had beaten us to it by three years, but then Ghana was a tiny affair, easy to manage, compared to the huge lumbering giant called Nigeria. We did not have to be vociferous like Ghana; just our presence was enough. Indeed, the elephant was our national emblem; our airline's was the flying elephant! Nigerian troops soon distinguished themselves in a big way in the United Nations peacekeeping efforts in the Congo. Our elephant, defying aerodynamics, was flying.

Travelling as a Nigerian was exciting. People listened to us. Our money was worth more than the dollar. In 1961 when the driver of a bus in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia asked me what I was doing sitting in the front of the bus, I told him nonchalantly that I was going to Victoria Falls. In amazement he stooped lower and asked where I came from. I replied, even more casually: "Nigeria, if you must know; and, by the way, in Nigeria we sit where we like in the bus."

Back home I took up the rather important position of director of external broadcasting, an entirely new radio service aimed primarily at our African neighbours. I could do it in those days, because our politicians had yet to learn the uses of information control and did not immediately attempt to regiment our output. They were learning fast, though. But before I could get enmeshed in that, something much nastier had seized hold of all of us.

The six-year-old Nigerian federation was falling apart from the severe strain of regional animosity and ineffectual central authority. The transparent failure of the electoral process to translate the will of the electorate into recognisable results at the polls led to mass frustration and violence. While western Nigeria, one of the four regions, was going up literally in flames, the quiet and dignified Nigerian prime minister was hosting a Commonwealth conference to extricate Harold Wilson from a mess he had got himself into in faraway Rhodesia. But so tense was the local situation that the visiting heads of government had to be airlifted by helicopter from the Lagos airport into a secluded suburb to avoid the rampaging crowds.

Nigeria's first military coup took place even as those dignitaries were flying out of Lagos again at the end of their conference. One of them, Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus, was in fact still in the country.

The prime minister and two regional premiers were killed by the coup-makers. In the bitter, suspicious atmosphere of the time, a naively idealistic coup proved a terrible disaster. It was interpreted with plausibility as a plot by the ambitious Igbo of the east to take control of Nigeria. Six months later, northern officers carried out a revenge coup in which they killed Igbo officers and men in large numbers. If it had ended there, the matter might have been seen as a tragic interlude in nation building, a horrendous tit for tat. But the northerners turned on Igbo civilians living in the north and unleashed waves of brutal massacres, which Colin Legum of the Observer was the first to describe as a pogrom. It was estimated that 30,000 civilian men, women and children died in these massacres. Igbos were fleeing in hundreds of thousands from all parts of Nigeria to their homeland in the east.

I was one of the last to flee from Lagos. I simply could not bring myself quickly enough to accept that I could no longer live in my nation's capital, although the facts clearly said so. One Sunday morning I was telephoned from Broadcasting House and informed that armed soldiers who appeared drunk had come looking for me to test which was stronger, my pen or their gun.

The offence of my pen was that it had written a novel called A Man of the People, a bitter satire on political corruption in an African country that resembled Nigeria. I wanted the novel to be a denunciation of the kind of independence that people were experiencing in postcolonial ­Nigeria and many other countries in the 1960s, and I intended it to scare my countrymen into good behaviour with a frightening cautionary tale. The best monster I could come up with was a military coup d'état, which every sane Nigerian at the time knew was rather far-fetched. But life and art had got so entangled that season that the publication of the novel and Nigeria's first military coup happened within two days of each other.

Critics abroad called me a prophet, but some of my countrymen saw it differently: my novel was proof of my complicity in the first coup.


I was very lucky that Sunday morning. The drunken soldiers, after leaving Broadcasting House, went to a residence I had recently vacated. Meanwhile I was able to take my wife and two small children into hiding, from where I finally sent them to my ancestral home in eastern Nigeria. A week or two later, unknown callers asked for me on the telephone at my hideout. My host denied my presence. It was time then to leave Lagos.

My feeling was one of profound disappointment. Not ­because mobs were hunting down and killing in the most savage manner innocent civilians in many parts of northern Nigeria, but because the federal government sat by and let it happen. The final consequence of this failure of the state to fulfil its primary obligation to its citizens was the secession of eastern Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra. The demise of Nigeria at that point was averted only by Britain's spirited diplomatic and military support of its model colony. It was Britain and the Soviet Union that together crushed the upstart ­Biafran state. At the end of the 30-month war, Biafra was a vast smouldering rubble. The cost in human lives was a staggering two million souls, making it one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history.

I found it difficult to forgive Nigeria and my countrymen and women for the political nonchalance and cruelty that unleashed upon us these terrible events, which set us back a whole generation and robbed us of the chance, clearly within our grasp, to become a medium-rank developed nation in the 20th century.

My immediate response was to leave Nigeria at the end of the war, having honourably, I hoped, stayed around long enough to receive whatever retribution might be due to me for renouncing Nigeria for 30 months. Fortunately the federal government proclaimed a general amnesty, and the only punishment I received was the general financial and emotional indemnity that war losers pay, and some relatively minor personal harassment. I went abroad to New England, to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and stayed four years and then another year at the University of Connecticut. It was by far my longest exile from Nigeria and it gave me time to reflect and to heal somewhat. Without setting out consciously to do so, I was redefining my relationship to Nigeria. I realised that I could not reject her, but neither could it be business as usual. What was Nigeria to me?

Our 1960 national anthem, given to us as a parting gift by a British housewife in England, had called Nigeria "our sovereign motherland". The current anthem, put together by a committee of Nigerian intellectuals and actually worse than the first one, invokes the father image. But it has occurred to me that Nigeria is neither my mother nor my father. Nigeria is a child. Gifted, enormously talented, prodigiously endowed and incredibly wayward.

Being a Nigerian is abysmally frustrating and unbelievably exciting. I have said somewhere that in my next reincarnation I want to be a Nigerian again; but I have also, in a rather angry book called The Trouble with Nigeria, dismissed Nigerian travel advertisements with the suggestion that only a tourist with a kinky addiction to self-flagellation would pick Nigeria for a holiday. And I mean both.

Nigeria needs help. Nigerians have their work cut out for them – to coax this unruly child along the path of useful creative development. We are the parents of Nigeria, not vice versa. A generation will come, if we do our work patiently and well – and given luck – a generation that will call Nigeria father or mother. But not yet.

Meanwhile our present work is not entirely without its blessing and reward. This wayward child can show now and again great intimations of ­affection. I have seen this flow towards me at certain critical moments.

When I was in America after the Biafran war, an army officer who sat on the council of my university in Nigeria as representative of the federal military government pressured the university to call me back home. This officer had fought in the field against my fellow Biafrans during the war and had been seriously wounded. He had every right to be bitter against people like me. I had never met him, but he knew my work and was himself a poet.

More recently, after a motor accident in 2001 that left me with serious injuries, I have witnessed an outflow of affection from Nigerians at every level. I am still dumbfounded by it. The hard words Nigeria and I have said to each other begin to look like words of anxious love, not hate. Nigeria is a country where nobody can wake up in the morning and ask: what can I do now? There is work for all.

Imo: Story of decay despite Ohakim's promises of a New Face

By Kodilinye Obiagwu, Guardian

NEAR a major roundabout leading to the Imo State Government House, Owerri, a billboard displays in very bold and unmistakeable features, the picture of the state governor, Ikedi Ohakim: A pair of cupped palms cradles the governor's smiling bust. Inscribed on the billboard are these words: "Imo is in the hands of God." Those words were taken from an address, "A Blueprint For The New Face Of Imo," delivered by Ohakim as governor-elect on May 16, 2007 to the 2007 Transition Committee of the new face of Imo. In that speech, Ohakim said, "I shall do a new thing in Imo State."

Two years after, the people of Imo State have experienced those "new things" in radio jingles, newspaper advertorials, glossy state-sponsored publications and colourful billboards. Very little are on the ground.

At inception, the State Government harped on sanitation of the state. Two years later, a billboard at the gate of Dan Anyiam Stadium proclaims that sense of cleanliness amid empty water sachets littering the gutters. This is despite the ban on sachet water (pure water). The story is told of how shortly after the ban, the producers of sachet water reached an agreement with the enforcers of the ban, the Environmental Transformation Commission (ENTRACO). Part of the deal was that the producers would manage the disposal of the sachets and for that, a packet of sachet water, N5 elsewhere, costs N10 in Owerri metropolis. As it is, the deal is not working.

Mr. Edwin Akubuiro an engineer and Director of Research and Publicity for the New Face Organisation, said that Ohakim's new face agenda goes beyond cleaning Imo. He claims that it is visible in the roads construction "as all the entry points into Owerri city are dualised."

However, of the five entry points to Owerri, only the Onitsha-Owerri Road, a federal road, is dualised.

The Owerri-Okigwe exit road, which presently terminates at Orji, has been under construction in the last two years. The story is that the contract was awarded to Zerok, a construction firm said to be owned by the former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, who is also chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA) on which ticket Ohakim was elected. And when Ohakim fell out with Kalu, he (governor) eased up on the road after the contractor had started work. The Orji Road (a nightmare for motorists), is the shortest route to the governor's village in Okohia, Isiala Mbano. But the story is that with work dragging and in virtual abeyance, the governor opts for a longer route through the Mbaise Road.

the dualised Owerri-Umuahia Road is one point of controversy. In reality, there is nothing like a dualised Owerri-Umuahia Road. The part of the dualised road ends at Egbu, only three kilometres from the Owerri city. And derisively, it is called the dualised Owerri-Egbu Road. President Musa Yar'Adua commissioned the road as Owerri-Umuahia Road in July 2009, when Ohakim decamped to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). A bill of N6 billion is tagged on the road.

the Owerri-Orlu road is demarcated by concrete boulders and the 'dualisation' terminates within Owerri city.

Owerri-Port Harcourt Road, another federal road, is not dualised.
Another new thing according to Akubuiro is "the establishment of the Royal Orks Refining and Petrochemical Company, which is sited in Egbema, Oguta council." This is still a plan, yet to take off.

The refinery located in Umuokanne in Ohaji Egbema close to the village of the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Goodluck Opiah, is there only in name. Recently, some members of the community protested and wanted to reclaim their lands since government was not ready to commence work beyond laying the foundation. It is said that over N93 million has been committed to the project.

Another example of the new face of Imo "is seen in the Oguta Wonder Lake made up of a resort and conference centre designed as a tourist haven." This also is yet to take off. The project is linked to a N40 billion Imo State Development Bond from which the state has received N18.5 billion. It is said that the Oguta Wonder Lake has gulped the money. When the State House of Assembly approved the now controversial bond, the House ad hoc committee stated that the bond would be used to finance specific projects. The projects are: "Imo State equity investment in the Imo Wonder Lake resort and conference centre; Critical Road projects; various water schemes and all other capital projects as encapsulated in the 2008 project." Some stakeholders have dragged the governor and the House of Assembly to court over the loan.

Another "big" project going on in Imo is the dredging of the Nworie River. The dredging, has attracted a lot of controversy essentially because, few people see the economic necessity of the project. "Dredging is a wrong term for the work we see on the river or stream," said Ikenna Opara, an architect in Owerri.

In addition to the vague purpose of the project, the cost of the project is another subject of controversy. Akubuiro had said that Ohakim "used his sagacity and got the intervention of the Federal Government and N8.5 billion of Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC) funds." He explains that, "Imo is not a counterpart funder," but got the NDDC support "since Imo is a littoral state." But a lot of confusion surrounds this. For example, in his first briefing on the project at the Assumpta Pastoral Centre, Owerri, the then Project Co-ordinator and the Commissioner for Petroleum and Environment, Dr. Aloysius Agunwa put the cost at N8 billion of the state government's fund.

The Commissioner for Information and Strategy Dr. Amanze Obi restated this to journalists in Owerri.

The former Special Adviser to the governor on project, monitoring, Ben Ekwueme, also an engineer, told reporters in Owerri that the cost was N9 billion.

With the conflicting positions of the government officials over the funding and cost of the project, sources in the project monitoring of the NDDC however said that, "the project is not on NDDC list. But the project could be listed in the 2010 budget." The sources clarified further that it is unlikely that the NDDC will commit more that N1 billion in the project and that the funding will be implemented in phases and not once and for all remittance.

A billboard at the dredging site, which displays a picture of President Umaru Yar'Adua and Ohakim hints at the idea behind the project, something to the effect that, "Ohakim wants to create a waterfront along the banks of the river," explained Opara. A taxi driver said: "The money being spent here could have been used to revive some of the dead industries like the Standard Shoe Industry so that unemployed graduates will have jobs. The governor cannot point to any project that has had an impact on the lives of the people."

Of serious concern is the state's debt profile. The revenue allocation to the state by the federation account allocation committee for the month of September alone shows that the contractual obligation, the Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) for Imo amounted to N358, 424, 768.53k, a staggering debt, a substantial part of which was traced to the era of the late Dr. Sam Mbakwe. Those who spoke about it, sounded quite worried particularly when put beside the N40 billion Imo State Development Bond. A fallout of this is that at maturity, the loan will be deducted from the state's federal allocation at source and 27 councils show that on the average, the councils of the state are directly suffering from this. The details of revenue allocation to the 27 councils show that on average they realise about N75 million monthly. But they get between N20 million and N25 million monthly. The National Chairman of the African Liberation Party (ALP), Chief Emmanuel Osita Okereke, believes bankruptcy is staring Imo in the face.

Ohakim's agenda on rural roads seems pegged on what is called IRROMA (Imo Rural Roads Maintenance Agency). Despite the investment in this agency, not much is seen in rural roads. The Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Kezie Ogaziechi had told an interviewer that the money deducted at source from the joint account with councils was used "to fund seminars, workshops and IRROMA." Actually, caterpillars, heavy-duty trucks and some equipment were purchased and distributed to the councils. But a council chairman who preferred anonymity said, "they came and carried away all the trucks. And we hear they used them to set up a very visible construction company in the state."

Although road construction and maintenance got N16, 066,422,000 in the 2008 budget, in Owerri, most layout roads are not tarred or constructed; and most of the major roads are in disrepair. The Assumpta Cathedral Roundabout popularly called 'Control' is chaotic as vehicles coming from or going to Port Harcourt (Rivers State) or Onitsha, (Anambra State) or to the New Owerri pass through it. The ring road network in Owerri, which is designed to divert traffic from the city centre, is not functional because the roads are bad. The access road into the park of the Imo Transport Corporation (ITC) in Owerri and the entire park is as if the place is recovering from the physical devastation of a war.

The kerbs or walkways in New Owerri, are overtaken by weeds and in various stages of abandonment; the gutters are filled with sand. Most parts of the median on the dualised carriageway into New Owerri are overgrown with bush. The joke is - "there is so much green and no clean in New Owerri." The Kim Kim tricycle and the Keke Keke New Face, which replaced the commercial motor bikes (okada) find it difficult to manoeuvre through the bad spots while the flood ravaged urban roads in Orlu urban beg for maintenance.

Early this year, the Federal Government released N12 million to Imo for control of erosion. When the money was released, members of the New Face Organisation in Ideato South in a newspaper advert praised the governor. Despite their praises, work is yet to commence on the Dikenafai Ideato South, erosion site, one of the worst erosion spots in the state.

Other points of concern are the epileptic solar powered streetlights in New Owerri and the abandoned residential houses for parliamentarians, which was built by the late Mbakwe. The buildings are overgrown with bushes.

The Ohakim administration touts the maintenance culture. But little of that is seen at the Imo State University Teaching Hospital (IMSUTH), which was commissioned by former president, Olusegun Obasanjo on May 23, 2007. Although the lawns are well kept and the flowers are green, but the road leading to the hospital is in a state of disrepair. Equipment like the Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine (MRI), CT scan etc procured by the former administration have been abandoned for sometime now.

However, the health sector boasts the accreditation of the Imo State University College of Medicine and the graduation of the first batch of medical doctors this year.

On his first visit to Imo on January 21, 2008, President Musa Yar'Adua commissioned the Okigwe water scheme. The scheme, built since 1980, had laid waste since 2006. The government claimed to have spent over N1 billion to rehabilitate the project, but the scheme is not so functional. Public water supply is poor despite the other water schemes the government said it has put in place.

President Yar'Adua laid the foundation stone of the New Imo Government House in the New Nekede Area. Weeds have taken over the place, no access road, and the only sign of work is the foundation of a multipurpose hall. On July 25, 2009 Yar'Adua commissioned the ultra modern complex of the Court of Appeal, the digitalised studios and transmitters of the over N2 billion Imo Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) in New Owerri and the new secretariat of the PDP. But the radio did not even transmit on the day of its commissioning. The Appeal Court complex is a refurbished building that used to house a trade union secretariat.

In Imo, there is lamentation in many quarters that the governor has mobilised for a relentless media campaign whose refrain, "a new thing is happening in Imo" is rated as fictitious.

An Imo resident, Noberth Ekendu stated: "It is time Ohakim and his men started documenting the number and length of roads they have either built or rehabilitated in each of the 27 councils, the number of schools and hospitals they have built or rehabilitated, the number of water works they have initiated, completed or rehabilitated, the number of social amenities they have built or rehabilitated, the actual contribution they have made to the security of the state, the structures and institutional facilities they have erected for the past two years, the number of employment they have generated and where and what they have contributed to the growth of agriculture, science and technology, sports; what they have done to the industrial development of Imo. These are the measures they would be judged with and not the number of pages of newspapers they buy to celebrate their fictitious achievements or the number of giant bill boards they erect to advertise themselves."

Is The Igbo Language Becoming Extinct?

The Guardian [Letters]

SIR: The language of a people is their identity. We are gradually watching the Igbo language decline. In the West, the scenario is a different ball game altogether because the Yorubas are doing a lot to preserve their heritage and it is quite commendable. Children of Yoruba descent born and bred beyond these shores speak the language with so much gusto whereas their Ibo counterparts residing in Nigeria cannot speak passable Igbo language.

Parents are culpable because they are not concerned whether their children speak it or not. If this trend continues, the language will definitely become extinct with the passage of this generation. According to Michael Omolewa, 'no greater injustice can be committed against a people than to deprive them of their own language'.

Everybody comes from somewhere and the ability to identify with your people should be a mark of honour and source of pride. The English language is neither our mother tongue nor our first language. It is a borrowed language, a legacy of our colonial masters. It is the language of commerce, governance, education, etc. English undoubtedly today is Nigeria's Lingua Franca. The neglect of the Igbo language has become so bad that even moviemakers nowadays hardly produce Igbo films.

The number of Igbo films in the market has drastically reduced. As a matter of fact you hardly find them. Time was when I tried getting some for a friend abroad only to meet with disappointment at the film market. Even blockbusters such as Living in bondage, Ikuku, Taboo and Circle of Doom are no longer available. This calls for a reawakening and positive action.

Professor S. O. Unoh of blessed memory in his book 'Topical Issues in Communication Arts' posited that "Language is part of the cultural heritage that is handed down from generation to generation and it is one of the major vehicles of cultural expression. He went further to say that, 'a culture is a totality of a people's experience and language is part of culture'. The responsibility of jealously guarding and preserving our heritage is a collective venture and a task worth achieving.

The customs and traditions of a people distinguish them from others. Gone are the days when children were instructed or reprimanded before strangers in the local language. Everybody, even those with minimal education who otherwise would be more comfortable and better off speaking Igbo often make caricature of the English language in order to impress their peers. This is not necessary if we understand who we really are. We should be proud of our various dialects and languages.

Government should make it compulsory for local languages to be taught not only in government-owned schools but also in the private schools. This way, a child would have a basic knowledge of their language which will eventually evoke interest as time goes on. If those abroad who haven't set their feet on our soil could so well speak their native language, no excuse is tenable enough not to achieve the same feat here.

Ozioma Ebirim (Mrs.),

Near-isolation by bad roads

By Inem Akpanso, Guardian

OVER the years, Madam Ekaete Idongesit had made a reputable name and prosperous
living dealing in two agricultural products-bitter kola and the popular local vegetable called Afang, which thrives in her native Akwa Ibom State.

She usually goes into the hinterland to buy the goods from her residence in Uyo and then transports them to Aba, the vibrant commercial centre in Abia State to a ready and lucrative market.

But things have taken a negative turn lately as Madam Idongesit has been unable to get her vegetables and bitter kola to the market because as she puts it: "The road to Aba is very bad. "

If Madam Idongesit and other traders and businessmen are having difficulty getting their goods to markets outside Akwa Ibom, those from outside are also lamenting over their dwindling fortunes following their inability to reach the markets in Uyo, Ikot Ekpene, Abak and elsewhere.

A yam merchant from Makurdi, Benue State, Aku Joseph, recently complained that he had lost many of his customers in Uyo and Ikot Ekpene following his inability to deliver consignments of yam, as had been their arrangement.

He has not been able to do so, as according to him: "Three lorries fully loaded with yams sank in the muddy, pot-hole filled stretch of Ini- Itu- Mbonuso-Arochukwu and Ikot-Ekpene-Aba Roads a little more than a month ago.

"Before I could arrange to evacuate the lorries and pull them out of the mud, hoodlums came the second night, ransacked them, stole the yams and even injured one of the drivers.

"I do not think it is worth the risk anymore trying to do business through those roads because the loss I incurred the last time was quite heavy."

Recently, the National Executive Council of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) met in Uyo.

Many of those who went by road regretted ever making such mistake.

Some of them missed or were late for some of the most of the programmes because of delay caused by bad roads.

What the foregoing clearly indicates is that the pain caused to Nigerians by the deteriorated state of Federal roads cut across the country and that it is possible Akwa Ibom State may lay claim to being one of the states most adversely affected.

All over the country, in practically all the geo-political zones, but particularly in the South-East, South-West and South-South, the sorry state of Federal roads has attracted national and international attention.

The reason for the outcry is obvious.

The roads have become death traps; economic development has stagnated, as the Federal Government seemed oblivious to the situation.

In the South, the impetus good road network provides for economic development has suffered. Because of the poor state of federal roads linking the South West and South East, the South South and South East, farmers and traders have found it impossible to do business.

When they manage to overcome the obstacle of poor road network, the extra costs are passed on to the beleaguered consumer.

At present, all the Federal roads into Akwa Ibom are in a sorry state.

The road from Aba to Uyo has failed.

So have Ikot Ekpene-Umuahia Road, Abak- Azumini Road, Aba -Ekparakwa- Etinan as well as Ini - Itu Mbonuso - Arochukwu Roads.

The road to Arochukwu in Abia has completely collapsed.

Road users terminate their journey at a point; walk across the lengthy failed portion and then board another vehicle to continue their journey.

Same is the situation along Uyo-Aba Road where traders have taken to bush tracks to avoid bad spots and are often robbed and raped by hoodlums.


As a result users of these roads pay higher fares, or spend four hours and more on a journey that used to take between 45 minutes and one hour.

Most of the farmers in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Nassarawa, Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa and other food-producing states in the north with huge markets in Akwa Ibom and other states of the South-South and South-East are unable to come because of these bad roads.

Even the Calabar-Itu Road, the major link between Akwa Ibom and Cross River State and traders from the North to Akwa Ibom State, has also collapsed.

Little wonder then that the National Assembly Caucus members from Akwa Ibom State led by the Chairman and Chairman Senate Service Committee, Senator Effiong Bob, recently embarked on an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.

Displeased with what they saw, they called for a quick remedy to the situation, which they blamed on the neglect of the area by the federal authorities.

To the Akwa Ibom representatives, the condition of the roads was unacceptable because there was no justifiable reason for the state, which produces oil, the major lifeline of the nation, not to benefit from the wealth it helps to create.

They attributed the situation to neglect by appropriate authorities in terms of repairs and maintenance and reasoned that if such steps had been taken, the roads would not have turned to the death traps they have become.

The poor condition of the roads has also exposed the lives of road users to considerable danger. There have been stories of traders being waylaid on the bush-paths and track-roads they divert into as alternative routes by robbers and hoodlums.

"In the past, traders, including women travelled in the early hours to Aba, Umuahia or Arochukwu to sell vegetables, fruits and smoked fish. But that is risky these days," Madam Idongesit, said.

She continued: "There had been instances where they were attacked by robbers and their goods and money stolen. Some were even raped. That is not good at all.

"Such bad things now happen because the roads are in a terrible shape. Unfortunately, it did just not happen. The roads deteriorated gradually and nobody did anything to arrest the situation."

When the Federal lawmakers asked for explanations from the Chief Engineer, Federal Highways, Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Ihenacho Umeh, he said the roads were the responsibility of Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to maintain.

He also tried to sooth the frayed nerves of the caucus members by explaining that, the Aba - Ikot Ekpene -Itu - Calabar Road have been pre-quantified and contract would be awarded in lots to cover the whole area before the year runs out.

This, however, did not satisfy the representatives who wondered why the roads would have been left to deteriorate to death traps before contracts for their repairs were awarded.

According to them, year after year, huge sums of money given to FERMA as allocations, yet nothing had been done on the roads.

Corroborating the stance of Akwa Ibom representatives, their Abia State counterpart, Senator Abaribe, condemned the poor state of roads in the two zones, attributing the situation to neglect

In fact, the story of roads would have been worse if the Akwa Ibom State government had not decided to rehabilitate some Federal roads in the state.

Roads so repaired include Ekim Itam-Ekom Iman Road, once a death trap before the state government dualised it,; Uyo- Oron Road, Abak-Ika-Etim-Ekpo-Iwukkem Road and Itak-Oko-Ita-Use Ikot Amama Roads, among others.

Residents of these areas who spoke with The Guardian commended the state government for the relief the repairs brought them, particularly for reconstructing Cardinal Ekanem Road, Ikot Ekpene, which is now used as diversion for vehicles going to Aba from Uyo.

The Senate Caucus Leader, Bob said: "We appeal to the Federal Government to come and help us. People can no longer travel to do business in Calabar, Aba or even Port Harcourt because of the deplorable state of the roads leading to theses states. This development has affected the economy of the state.

" Agricultural produce from Ini Local Council, one of the food baskets of the state, cannot be brought to market for sale. There are no roads for students to go back to school, no roads for traders from other states of the federation to come into the state.

"We are appealing specifically to President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and the Minister of Works to, as a matter of urgent national importance, initiate action towards the rebuilding of these roads during he next dry season."

Challenges Facing Nd'Igbo In Today's Nigeria

From The Guardian

An address by Chief Emeka Anyaoku to the world Igbo Youth Summit in Enugu, October 9, 2009.

THE aim of the Nigerian Project is to develop and sustain a nation in which all the constituent parts and citizens are able to pursue their self-fulfilment and to enjoy as high a quality of life as possible; a nation that would be a source of pride to its citizens, to Africa and to peoples of African descent all over the world. This was the hope of our founding fathers, including especially Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo. It has also remained the declared objective of all Nigerian Governments since our independence in 1960.

Ndigbo means Nigerians of the Igbo ethnic group.

Every country has its own history of emergence into nationhood. Some countries emerged to nationhood by going through internal wars between their constituent parts; some through evolution of homogenous societies; and others through externally driven fiats by conquering or colonising powers. In every case, especially in pluralistic countries, sustained development and political stability are made easier where the constituent parts recognise the advantages of their belonging together to the individual nations concerned. Nigeria belongs to this third group of nations.

In today's global community, there are obvious inherent advantages that flow from the size of Nigeria's geographic area and population. The advantages include giving Nigerians the psychological fillip of belonging to a "big country" providing them with wider scope for inter-human relations and pursuit of self-fulfilment, as well as giving the country a greater chance for internally generated economic development by constituting a sizeable market and an attractive destination for foreign investment. Hence, the dominant challenge faced by Nigeria's Federal and State governments is to govern the country in a way that promotes the realisation of these inherent advantages. The cry of marginalisation, which is often heard from several parts of the country, indicates that this challenge is yet to be successfully tackled.

As a relatively large constituent part of Nigeria, Ndigbo have played and are expected to continue to play an integral role in the pursuit of the benefits of the inherent national advantages. Ndigbo were among the founding fathers and early leaders of Nigeria. And there are many Igbo names in the pantheon of our country's pioneer educationists, professionals in medicine, law and engineering and journalism and in private business. The challenge faced by Ndigbo in today's Nigeria is how, without being driven by chauvinism, to make sure for themselves and their children that they remain an integral dynamic contributors to the political and socio-economic progress of Nigeria; a Nigeria where our cultural diversity should thrive and be celebrated as a source of strength rather than of fractious weakness. I shall now offer some thoughts on how this challenge can be effectively met by Ndigbo.

First there must be a return to the values, which were commonly held by Ndigbo in the years before our national independence and up to the end of the civil war. Among the values was the importance attached to hard work as the basis of success in every sphere of human endeavour. Whether it was on the farms, or in artisanship, or in the professions, or in the marketing of goods, it was commonly accepted by Ndigbo that to be successful, one must be hardworking. Indeed laziness or any apparent avoidance of hard work would usually earn a rebuke or public chastisement of the individuals concerned from family elders or community leaders.

Ndigbo especially from the beginnings of their contacts with the European religious missionaries attached great value to the acquisition of education. Several Igbo towns and communities were known to levy themselves for contributions in order to collectively send their sons to secondary colleges in Nigeria as well as to tertiary institutions abroad who on the completion of their studies would pay their debt back to the societies by sponsoring others for equivalent educational trainings.

Ndigbo have also been known for their readiness to travel to, and reside in every part of Nigeria for work and for pursuing their trades. Indeed, if being a Nigerian is to be judged by readiness to go and live in every part of the country, Ndigbo must be the truest Nigerians and this is notwithstanding their tragic experience of the killings that led to the declaration of Biafra, which in turn precipitated the civil war.

It is true that Igbo traders and businessmen have traditionally measured their success by their financial earnings, while those who opted for the professions, the church and the civil service sought self-fulfilment by aiming at reaching the zenith of their chosen careers. Sadly, this situation has changed for worse. There is now both among Ndigbo and among most of the rest of the country, a prevalent attitude to success being mostly measured by how much money people have acquired. I believe that such elevation of money to the highest level of ambition is at the root of the pervasive corruption and most of the other evils ranging from examination malpractices to kidnapping and armed robbery, currently afflicting the Nigerian society.

Ndigbo and the country as a whole must return to the fundamental value of judging success by the level of excellence achieved by an individual in his/her chosen occupation. All the ethnic groups that constitute Nigeria's pluralism, - they number between 200 and 300 depending on how detailed the description is - have obligation to contribute to the building of the country as a strong united nation. As one of the largest such groups, Ndigbo have a proportionately large contribution to make.

Accordingly, Ndigbo should seek to contribute to the overall aim of building a Nigeria in which all the citizens and their respective ethnic groups should feel that their country offers then the chance to achieve a fair deal. And here I must stress my view that Nigeria's ultimate goal in its national evolution should be to arrive at a situation where ethnicity and the current policy of "federal character" should become unnecessary, and be confined only on the preservation of the cultural tapestry of the country. Our ultimate aim must be to enable the nation to have the full benefits of its human and material resources by insisting on meritocracy in the conduct of its public affairs.

However, pending the arrival of the country at the stage where it can enthrone meritocracy, Ndigbo, taking into account the occupants of the position since Nigeria's return to democratic governance in 1999, are now wholly justified in aiming to produce the next President of the country when, in keeping with the existing national consensus, Presidential power "shifts to the South." But it is an objective requiring a careful strategy rather than mere protestations.

In this, the first step should be to accept that when the time for nominating Presidential candidates is reached, Ohanaeze, which is, and must remain an umbrella for all Ndigbo irrespective of the political parties to which they belong, should play a seminal role in advising who among the Igbo presidential nominees of all the political parties, would stand the best chance of being elected. Fortunately, we have in the current leadership of Ohanaeze, Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, a President-General with tested career in diplomacy and politics. I am confident that when the time comes, provided the rank and file of the organisation give him the chance, he will steer Ohanaeze to play the role I have suggested with integrity and equity to all the aspiring Igbo candidates.

I should however perhaps add that I am not recommending Ohanaeze's involvement in the politics of the States including especially the states of the South East zone. As the custodian of the Pan-Igbo cultural legacies and interests, Ohanaeze should, in my view be a non-partisan player at the level of our federal politics where its strategy should include seeking to promote the effective and cohesive contribution of Ndigbo to the overall national interests of Nigeria.

Question of the politics of Ndigbo at the state level

I must say that the ongoing scramble for the gubernatorial nomination of one political party in Anambra State is far from being edifying. The question must be asked how can as many as 47 individuals within one political party decide to want to be the one nominee of their party? Judging from this example, one must ask: is there no sense of modesty? No willingness on the part of some of the 47 aspirants to recognise that others may be more qualified than them to run for the post? Is this a reflection of the proverbial inability to recognise that while each finger has its own important task to perform, the reality is that all the five human fingers are not equal?

Some of us had hoped that the political process in Igboland would be less fractious and more orderly than what was generally reported of the first gubernatorial primaries in Anambra State. I must urge Ndigbo in all the political parties in all the States to show greater restraint and less inclination to a "do or die" approach to the quest for political office. Involvement in politics should be motivated by a desire to serve the community and nation, and not by a desire for self-aggrandisement.

In a few months, Ndigbo and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Anambra State will have the historical responsibility of demonstrating that the next round of our national elections will be better than the 2007 elections which was roundly criticised by local and international observers. I urge all concerned to show that Nigerians are capable of changing for the better. This platform of the World Igbo Youth Summit, provides a most suitable opportunity for affirming the importance of restoring, especially among our youth, the traditional Igbo values of hard work, enterprise, pursuit of education and inherent respect for genuine achievement. Our young people must be encouraged not only to imbibe, but also to practise these values as they plan or embark on their future careers. They must eschew involvement in the growing tide of armed robbery and kidnapping which is now scandalising many parts of Igboland and the country.

I have sought in my remarks to touch on the values and conduct which would enable Ndigbo to reposition themselves for contributing more effectively to the governance and development of our country. In repositioning themselves, Ndigbo would do well to always remember the importance of establishing mutual trust and mutual comfortableness among the other component parts of our pluralistic country, which is still striving to become a strong and united nation.

Ndigbo have always had huge respect for their ancestors; indeed many still invoke the spirits of ancestors in the ceremony of breaking cola nuts. I must therefore finally urge Ndigbo, in their private and public life, to always endeavour to be faithful to the memories of such our illustrious ancestors as Alvan Ikokwu, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Michael Okpara, Akanu Ibiam, Mbonu Ojike, Denis Osadebey, Nwafor Orizu and many others of blessed memory.

Quote

The first step should be to accept that when the time for nominating Presidential candidates is reached, Ohanaeze, which is, and must remain an umbrella for all Ndigbo irrespective of the political parties to which they belong, should play a seminal role in advising who among the Igbo Presidential nominees of all the political parties, would stand the best chance of being elected.