IN NIGERIA IGBOS OWN AND OPEN MARKETS OUTSIDE IGBOLAND IN THE NORTH, WEST, SOUTH, EAST IN KANO, KADUNA, JOS, MARKUDI, MAIDUGERI, IBADAN, LAGOS, GHANA, UYO, CALABAR, ZARIA, SOKOTO, BENIN, TOGO ETC.
IN NIGERIA HAUSA/FULANI OWN AND OPEN MARKETS OUTSIDE HAUSALAND IN THE NORTH, WEST, SOUTH, EAST IN ONITSHA, ENUGU, ABA, JOS, MARKUDI, PORTHARCOURTI, IBADAN, LAGOS, GHANA, UYO, CALABAR, ASABA, BENIN, TOGO, GHANA ETC.
EVERY WHERE OUTSIDE THEIR TRIBAL AREAS, YOU WILL SEE HAUSA DOMINATED MARKET SELLING THEIR PRODUCTS LIKE MEAT, HIDES AND SKINS, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, FOOD, TEA AND MANY OTHER ITEMS.
OUTSIDE THEIR TRIBAL AREAS, YOU WILL ALSO SEE IGBOS DOMINATED MARKETS SELLING THEIR PRODUCTS LIKE FOOD, ELECTRONICS, CAR PARTS, SHOES, LEADERS, COMPUTERS, SOFTWARES, BAGS, BUILDING MATERIALS, TIMBER, SCHOOL SUPPLIES AND MANY ITEMS IN OTHER PARTS OF NIGERIA.
BUT YOU CANNOT SEE ANY MARKET IN OTHER PARTS OF NIGERIA OWN BY YORUBA OR DOMINATED BY YORUBA. THEY ONLY STAY IN THEIR LAND, BUT YET THEY DONT PRODUCE NOTHING OR ANY RESOURCES FOR NIGERIA - NO COCOA, NO AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, NO OIL, NO GAS. THEY ARE JUST CONSUMERS AND BECAUSE OF THE BIAFRAN WAR THEY LOVE TO POACH INTO NIGER DELTA AND EAST TO STEAL THEIR OIL, GAS AND OTHER RESOURCES OR POACH INTO NORTH TO GET AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, FOOD, RAW MATERIALS ETC. BUT YET MAKE THE MOST NOISE NIGERIA. THE TRUTH HAS TO BE TOLD AND WE KNOW IT HURTS. BUT REALLY WHAT DOES YORUBA PRODUCE FOR NIGERIA AS WE SPEAK EXCEPT HIGH TAXES AND LEVIES ON IN LAGOS, OGUN, OYO AND ALL YORUBA STATES.
--- On Sat, 24/11/12, Ayo Ojutalayo <ayoojutalayo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| Re: QUOTABLES......WORDS WE HAD TOLD IGBOS BEFORE NOW....... Lies Achebe told about the civil war, by Gen. Alabi Isama
Dear Inyanminrins:
Read again what General Isama stated below.
Hear the Gen Isama: "It is so easy to kill the Igbo because they own the sales of attractive items like cars, electronic items, building materials and others. The Yoruba man in the North or East is a low-lifer. The man drives a taxi, while the wife sells amala. As soon as there is unrest, the wife puts the cooking pot in the taxi and home they go. “I am sure that we all know the number of Igbo in western states and Lagos compared to the number of Yoruba in eastern states. Let’s get real. If the union of Igbo and Hausa is not working since 1960 till date, then change your direction. You cannot repeat the same thing and get a different result.â€
By General Isama.
What the General Isama is pointing out is the fact that Yoruba in foreign land are mobile. Mostly the Yoruba will not build houses in foreign places, and are ready to leave if the host becomes crazy.
I saw in some news, a rich medicine man called Filani in Ondo, built some world class hotel in Ondo, not Abuja, but Ondo. The Yoruba man don't care if birds never visited the hotel. His pride and satisfaction comes from realization of his dreams of "Tiwa Ntiwa".......Mine is mine, ours is ours, and Yours remains yours. Iya egbe moye omo ti oun bi.
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WHY IS IT THAT YORUBAS IN NIGERIA DO NOT OPEN OR OPERATE THEIR OWN MARKETS IN OTHER PARTS OF NIGERIA
YORUBA MAN IDEA OF BUILDING ONE NIGERIA IS LOOTING OR LOWLIFER - ACCORDING TO YORUBA MAN
On Nov 24, 2012, at 3:54 PM, Afis <odidere2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
“So, who is Achebe writing about?†he queried. He said in the Balewa cabinet of 1960, there were 12 Hausa-led NPC ministers and 11 Igbo-led NCNC ministers. The army, the police, the navy, the air force were all from the East. He wondered why the Igbo ran back to the North after the civil war if they were so marginalised. “It is so easy to kill the Igbo because they own the sales of attractive items like cars, electronic items, building materials and others. The Yoruba man in the North or East is a low-lifer. The man drives a taxi, while the wife sells amala. As soon as there is unrest, the wife puts the cooking pot in the taxi and home they go. “I am sure that we all know the number of Igbo in western states and Lagos compared to the number of Yoruba in eastern states. Let’s get real. If the union of Igbo and Hausa is not working since 1960 till date, then change your direction. You cannot repeat the same thing and get a different result.â€
By General Isama.
Afis
Sent from my iPad
Johnnie eze ezejohnnie@yahoo.com | 2:21 PM (43 minutes ago)
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from ezejohnnie@yahoo.com
Folks, It is clear that envy has been the driving force behind the hounding of the Igbos in the Nigerian enterprise from the 1950's to date. The Igbos do not claim what they do not build. The Igbo man believes that he can conquer any environment he finds himself. He can make something out of nothing. From the deserts of Sabon Garri ,Kano to the waste swamps of Lagos lagoon, he has been able to bring life to bear to these areas. For the uninformed tribal jingoist, if the Igbos pull out their business from any part of Nigeria today, I guarantee you that the economy of that part of the country will collapse within 6 hours. The Igbos in Nigeria are the only ethnic group in Nigeria that truly believe in the unity of this country, the unfortunate civil war not withstanding. They are the only one that easily integrate in any society where they find themselves. Today, it is on record that investment of the Igbos in Lagos and Abuja, for instance, drives 75% of the economy of these cities both in terms of commerce and real estate. Why would you deny them claims to these cities. I have seen the wickedness of some communities in Lagos who wilfully sell parcels of vast swamps to the Igbos and as soon as the swamps have been reclaimed and developed, another family group will go to court to get judgement over the same parcel of land as the rightful owners of the land. The Igbos and whoever have purchased the land are again made to repurchase the same land from this new group under what they term recertification. Shortly after, the Lagos state government will come long after an agency of the same government have collected fees to approve building plans for development, to equally lay claim to the same parcel of land. Thus the hapless Igbo man who have invested heavily in the development of these swamps ends making multiple payment to secure his right of ownership to the plot of land. Tomorrow you will turn around to accuse the Igbo man of laying claims to Lagos. When you busy yourself selling your land and swamp to the Igbo man what do you think you are doing chasing him back to the east? Certainly not. The earlier all other ethnic groups embrace the Igbo man and accommodate their natural spirit of enterprise the better for the Nigerian nation. We are where we are today as a nation because of the negative politics we have chosen to play in this part of the world. I do not celebrate an injustice done to anyone, the Igbos have continued to endure injustice and make sacrifices for the continued existence of this nation, but other ethnic groups have taken it for granted and there lies the bane of the problem of Nigeria. Great nations are built by the ideas of people, not by colour or tribal affiliation. |
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Situating the context of the civil war, Henry A. Kissinger, wrote in his memo of January 28, 1969 to then US President.
"There is an urge for unity among the elite of all factions, though the strongest cement at this point is probably common tribal hatred of the Ibos. The Feds have cultivated a little elan in discovering they could run the country without the Ibos, who were the backbone of commerce and civil service in the north as well as the south".- Henry A. Kissinger, Tuesday, January 28, 1969
(YORUBAS DID NOT BUILD ANY THING) YORUBAS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BUILD ECONOMY. THEY LOOTED BRITISH, IGBO BIAFRAN, EASTERN NIGERIA, NIGERDELTA ASSETS, EUROPEAN,AND ALL FOREIGN COMPANIES AND ASSETS IN NIGERIA FRAUDULENTLY AND CONVERTED ALL OF THEM INTO ODUA INVESTMENT COMPANY . IT WAS MORE THAN 500 ASSETS AND INVESTMENTS OWNED BY THE BRITISH, EUOPEANS, FRENCH, BIAFRANS IGBOS AND FOREIGN INVESTMENTS. TODAY ALL AND MOST ALL OF THOSE INVESTMENTS HAVE BEEN LOOTED AND HAVE ALL BEEN DESTROYED AND BANKRUPT. THERE ARE SHADOWS OF THEMSELVES BECAUSE OF YORUBA CORRUPTION AND LOOTING. WHAT YORUBA ARE LOOTING TODAY AND STEALING TODAY ARE FROM NIGER DELTA RESOURCES, YORUBA AGRICULTURE IS DEAD, COCOA IS DEAD
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FREDRICK ONWUMBIKO ✆
"There is one very important fact in my analysis that I want everyone to get, and that is that before the civil war, Nigeria as a nation did not have an economic of its own. Let me say it again, that Nigeria as a nation before the British/Biafran civil war did not have an economy of its own. I emphasized that point in other to say that whatever seemed like Nigerian economy were British owned. Put differently, if you excluded few of the regional cooperatives and some joint ventures businesses which were mostly British engineered to make buying raw materials easy for the British, ever y other aspect of the economy were owned majorly by the British, even the military, given the fact that almost every military supply came from Britain. It is then save to say that British investment in Nigeria amounted to a great totality of Nigerian economy or that Nigerian economy was at that time synonymous to the total investment of the British. FREDRICK ONWUMBIKO ✆
"One relevant question that I always managed to ask my interlocutors is whether they were aware of the indigenization decree of 1972, master minded by Awolowo and the Yoruba and the ramifications of that policy, as will be expected, the answer ranged from, I have heard of it but does not understand what it actually meant to I have not heard of the policy. Listening to this ignorance induced perspective from my friends made my heart to skip a beat, realizing that the task of bridging this information gap is not going to be a child’s play."
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ODUA INVESTMENT COMPANY WAS USED TO LOOT NIGERIA AND CONVERTED BRITISH, BIAFRAN, EASTERN NIGERIA ASSETS AND NIGERIA ASSETS FRAUDELUENTLY BY AWOLOWO. AFTER THE DEATH OF THESE INVESTMENTS WHY HAS YORUBAS NOT BUILT NEW ONES. THEY CANNOT BECAUSE THEY NEVER BUILT ANY.
Odu'a Investment Company Limited was incorporated in July, 1976 to take over the business interest of the former Western State of Nigeria, now Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Ekiti States of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The company commenced business on the 1st of October, 1976. ODU'A INVESTMENT COMPANY LIMITED since inception, has been operating as a conglomerate with over 70% of her business as investment/joint ventures with reputable multinationals.
As early as February 26, 1976, just about three weeks after the creation of the three states out of the old Western State, the State Implementation Committee had given a thought to the establishment of a holding company which was to take over the supervision and monitoring of sundry investments of the former Western State which were hitherto under the control of the Western State Industrial Investment and Credit Corporation. Such investments were over sixty (60) in number. The Economic Project Performance Unit, in collaboration with the Western State Industrial Investment and Credit Corporation, was given the duty of making necessary recommendation for the establishemnt of a holding company.
Investments within the Group at its inception covered a wide spectrum of economic activities, viz; integrated textile mills, breweries, commercial banking, insurance business, real estates, livestock rearing, fisheries services, carbonated drinks, food and beverages industries, manufacturing in chemical and mechanical industries, hotel and catering, vehicle distribution, bottling and marketing of liquefied petroleum gases, printing and publication.
Apart from investments in limited liability companies, Odu'a Investment Company Limited also owns substantial properties in choice locations in the Ikeja residential/Industrial Estates and Apapa in Lagos State as well as a number of residential and commercial properties in Ibadan including the Aje House. It also has investments in properties in various parts of the Country.
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QUOTE "Nigeria- Biafra war was supposed to have been officially over, it was not enough to murder Igbo and their babies in millions, Awolowo who was now on Gowon's payroll, who Ojukwu should have let stay in prison again started marginalizing Igbo Biafrans by confiscating Biafran accounts and looting their hard earn money, giving the Igbo persons 20 pounds each regardless of balance (and interest). The "Indigenisation Decree", another bastard policy which followed soon after the arbitrary award of 20 Pounds completed the routing of Biafrans from the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy. Only two years after the war supposed to have ended, when Igbo (Biafrans) were still in their economic doldrums, Chief Obafemi Awolowo [the Finance Commisioner under Gowon ] then auctioned the Nigerian economy to the Nigerian "indigenes" with the Enterprises Promotion Decree 1974(so-called). He started selling off government and foreign owned properties to "Nigerians" knowing very well that he had just made the Biafrans/Igbo virtually bankrupt. This was of course deliberate, and done to reverse the Hausa/Fulani Yoruba fear of "Igbo domination" also to spite the Igbo/Biafrans futher. The timing of this policy was to ensure that there was effective exclusion of the Biafrans/Igbo from ownership in Nigeria's industrial sector, since after confiscation of the money and bank accounts they would no longer have the financial muscle to participate. As "the vanquished"[Biafrans/Igbo] were dispossessed of what they had, "the victors"[Hausa-Fulani-Yoruba] were deliberately empowered through the banks to purchase the Nigerian "national"(illusionary that is) patrimony.This Awolowo was indeed a treacherous beast with ambition, indeed a wicked bastard. Despite this particular anti-Igbo policy, the Igbo are still thriving such that they could easily produce the most educated people in Nigeria and even in Africa. Despite after all this he did for the Caliphate and Nigeria, he still never became president of Nigeria even for 1 second. Yes he was be "The best president Nigeria never had". UNQUOTE
" the Nigerian government policy of "starvation as weapons of war" as crafted by Awolowo to which he was never forgiven by Igbo. We can also detail the facts that even after the war, Awo and Nigerian government kept all Igbo money, given them only 20 pounds to every igbo who had money in the banks as punishment for defending themselves and his continued starvation as weapons of war and annihilation. In a nuthshell Igbo were left to die, I remember my uncle coming home with 20 pounds and wondering what anyone could possibly do with twenty pounds as opposed to thousands of pounds he had in the bank from oil and Petroleum business before and during the war."Cornelius Thursday, April 29, 2010
QUOTING CHIEF EDWIN CLARK ON THE WAR AFFECT ON IGBO" "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." CHIEF EDWIN CLARK . IGBO PROPERTIES WERE SEIZED ALL OVER NIGERIA AND MANY WERE UNDERVALUED AND SOLD AS AUCTION AND AT AUCTION ALL OVER NIGERIA FROM 1967 TO 1980.
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NIGERIA
FREDRICK ONWUMBIKO ✆
"There is one very important fact in my analysis that I want everyone to get, and that is that before the civil war, Nigeria as a nation did not have an economic of its own. Let me say it again, that Nigeria as a nation before the British/Biafran civil war did not have an economy of its own. I emphasized that point in other to say that whatever seemed like Nigerian economy were British owned. Put differently, if you excluded few of the regional cooperatives and some joint ventures businesses which were mostly British engineered to make buying raw materials easy for the British, ever y other aspect of the economy were owned majorly by the British, even the military, given the fact that almost every military supply came from Britain. It is then save to say that British investment in Nigeria amounted to a great totality of Nigerian economy or that Nigerian economy was at that time synonymous to the total investment of the British. FREDRICK ONWUMBIKO ✆
WHAT ENGENDERED THE INDIGENIZATION POLICY?
It is no more news worthy to point out that before the civil war that Ibo out of their capacity for honesty, to work hard, to produce, to innovate, to manage, create and persevere were able to penetrate all facets of Nigerian endeavor, when the British used merit as a yard stick. It is an irrefragable fact that even Yoruba would not dare challenge that fact, if not, what started the Yoruba hate, envy and jealousy against the Ibo in the first place, Yoruba and Hausa claimed that Ibo was dominating everything in the country but what they will not acknowledge publicly was the fact that the British were making the decisions about who to hire by their own standard and not by Ibo standard and that Ibo was good at what they did and better than them. The Yoruba and Hausa wanted not only equal opportunity they also wanted equal outcome regardless of effort and everyone knows that that is impossible.igerian economy or that Nigerian economy was at that time synonymous to the total investment of the British." FREDRICK ONWUMBIKO ✆
"THE GREATEST HEIST IN MODERN HISTORY BY AWOLOWO AND THE YORUBAS,
KNOWN AS INDIGENIZATION OF FOREIGN COMPANIES IN NIGERIA
"This piece was prompted by what I saw as benign ignorance amongst some of our Ibo folks and because such ignorance is music to the ears of some other people and Yoruba in particular. In more than one occasion my friends and other Ibo have advanced the argument that if Ibo was that smart, how come Yorubas dominated the commerce industry in Nigeria? What they meant were the domination of Yoruba in the banking, insurance industries, Coco Cola and some other surviving industries. In one particular occasion a friend revealed to me that he recently discovered that the reason why some Yoruba are so wealthy is because they were smart enough to invest their money in corporate stocks and bonds (not realizing that Yoruba actually stolen those corporations) while Ibo is busy engaging in buying and selling. The Yoruba will like people to continue to believe that story, that it was because they were smart that they were able to do all these great investments in the commerce industry. One relevant question that I always managed to ask my interlocutors is whether they were aware of the indigenization decree of 1972, master minded by Awolowo and the Yoruba and the ramifications of that policy, as will be expected, the answer ranged from, I have heard of it but does not understand what it actually meant to I have not heard of the policy. Listening to this ignorance induced perspective from my friends made my heart to skip a beat, realizing that the task of bridging this information gap is not going to be a child’s play. What is disconcerting is that some in their benign induced ignorance believe that the effect of indigenization is inconsequential at this time because it happened about forty years ago. This piece is therefore for those that are educable and for those that have the capacity to appreciate the magnitude and most importantly for those that can relate that gigantic economic event that reshaped the economic foundation on which Nigerian economy settled on after the British/Biafran war and as well as relate our present economic malaise to that economic foundation engendered by indigenization.
There is no doubt that most people, particularly those that do not have either basic or international economics background are overwhelmed by the subject of INDIGENIZATION OF FOREIGN COMPANIES IN NIGERIA because of their inability to understand the economics of it and the efficacies to make the necessary connections and relate it to the present economic doldrums" FREDRICK ONWUMBIKO ✆
FREDRICK ONWUMBIKO ✆
This is an excerpt from an article, please read on ……..
YORUBA INCOMPTENCE DESTROYED NIGERIA
COMPETENT CORRUPTION VS INCOMPETENT CORRUPTION
Nigerian’s problem is not bribery, not corruption not evengreed rather our fundamental problem is “incompetenceâ€
Definition
Competent corrupt societies are societies that have theinbuilt mechanisms to self-correct and self-adjust because the fundamentalfoundation of those societies are situated on “COMPETENCEâ€
Incompetent corrupt societies are societies that do not havethe inbuilt mechanisms to self-correct and self-adjust because the fundamentalfoundation of those societies are situated on “INCOMPETENCEâ€
Enter Yoruba Incompetence:
The presence of the Yoruba in this whole cesspool will once and for all prove my point that incompetence of the crippling order is responsible for Nigerian malaise rather than Bribery,corruption or greed. It is easy to make the argument that the reason why thenorth was incompetent was because they were not well educated, that majority ofthem had only high school education, that they were naive young men andill-informed. Only when you discover that the northern leaders understood theirshortcoming and literally handed over the running of the government to theYoruba to handle the day to day operation of the government and the Yorubacould not do any better than the Hausa. I will like to state without fear ofcontradiction that Yoruba has well educated people in every field ofendeavor-engineering, law, economics, name it, they have people there but thatis where the credit ends. The understanding was that the educated Yoruba wasgoing to help the ill-prepared north to administer the affairs of the countryby complementing the north that was mainly in the military. In order words, theYoruba supposed to take care of the administration, economy, the technologicalinnovation and development of the country into the 21st century. What Yorubaproved unequivocally, at least we have more than forty years of history tosupport it, is that acquiring education to PH.D level does not automaticallymake you a competent person. One cannot question the educational achievement ofthe Yoruba because they are one of the most educated groups in Nigeria.The question that Yoruba has to answer is what went wrong? What did they dowith their education when it came to managing Nigeria?The Yoruba had the education, the engineers, the architects, the lawyer,economists, technologists, the numerical numbers, the ministers, directors, themedical doctors, the high positions, the unrestricted authority, the power, youknow what? the Yoruba had cart Blanche. They even had total control of thecommunication media. As established above the Hausa needed the Yorubagiven the fact that they got into power ill-prepared, they hoped that theYoruba will use their education and intelligence to help navigate the ship ofthe country. As history has shown, the Yoruba dropped the ball big time and arestill dropping it as we speak. Most Hausa that are in the know will tell youthat it is true that Yoruba are well educated but that they are as incompetentas the north is. What called the competence of the Yoruba into question wasthat from the day Yoruba occupied the center stage in piloting the affairs ofthe country, the country did not progress an inch from where Yoruba mate itrather the country regressed and lost everything that Yoruba touched ormanaged. Yoruba simply ravaged, pillaged and looted every government ministry,department, agency, business, cooperation, you name it. Gowon’s administrationwas considered corrupt because of the wanton, unmitigated, unrestrained lootingand corruption of the Yoruba that was recruited to help run the country. It isa known fact that Yoruba thought the north how to be corrupt. Monkey see andmonkey do. After watching the Yoruba pillage and loot, the north figured thatthat is normal and that that is how educated people behave and they joined thebandwagon. So you have now two tribes with the biggest population that see thelooting and destruction of everything they touch as business as usual andNigerians are wondering what is wrong with the country, why is the country socorrupt. The country is corrupt because Hausa and Yoruba are incompetent tomanage the affairs of the country.
The consequences of the North’sincompetence was critical because if the north were competent, they could havetaken care of the country by themselves or alternatively checkmated the Yorubaonce they starting looting, but because the north did not know any better theysimply joined. The way it happened was that as the north was siphoning andlooting directly from the federal treasury to themselves, the Yoruba were busysucking the life out of all the MDAs and the businesses and cooperations fromthe fallout of indigenization. Interestingly enough Hausa did not bother Yorubaand Yoruba did not bother Hausa, each party was busy minding their business tothe detriment of the whole country. Exactly the symptom of incompetence, yousee, incompetence does not ask questions or get inquisitive because it does notknow what to be inquisitive about and even when it asks a question and gets ananswer; it does not know what to do with. This explains the widespread of briberyand corruption when you have Yoruba and Hausa neck deep into it.
Another caseof incompetence displayed by north was when the Yoruba proposed for theindigenization of foreign companies. It is my belief that none of the northernmilitary leaders had ever heard that word “INDIGENIZATION†before or understoodwhat it meant. In the first instance, the presence of the northerners incooperate Nigeriawas minimal to none, so the north had no comprehension of the ramification ofsuch policies, another evidence of incompetence rather than corruption from theonset. If the north was competent and understood the implications of suchpolicies, they could have objected on many grounds, unfortunately they did notknow any better to checkmate the looting Yoruba rascals. Having demonstratedthat the Yoruba failed to lead notwithstanding their education, the question iswhat is the difference between the leaders of countries like South Korea, Braziland India thatsucceeded in the face of challenges and the Yoruba leaders that failed? Thefact that Yoruba cannot claim lack of education, they cannot claim lack ofopportunity and they cannot claim that they lacked the unrestrained authorityto act, the only thing that the other leaders have that the Yoruba lacked iscompetence. The way it works is that the absence of competent creates a vacuumthat is quickly filled by the ills of societies like bribery, corruption,greed, crime, murder and so on and so on. To further drive the point home, cananyone recall one single Yoruba official that has done something so noble andhonorable to improve the lot of the whole nation rather pursuing self-interestthat Nigerians could look back and sing his praise? The answer is no, but Iwill like someone to proof me wrong. That is a proof of incompetence firstbefore corruption. As a matter of fact you can trace the origin of all themillionaires from Yoruba and Hausa to one corruption or the other or governmentcontract. Fighting corruption in Nigeriais like fighting Hausa and Yoruba and I think that that is a daunting task. Thesimple fact that after Yoruba took total control of Nigerian economy and theycould not improve the socio-economics and technological development is a signof nothing but incompetence.
The injectionof competence in Nigerian system will see a gradual improvement inaccountability and progress. Typical example is that Hausa and Yoruba have gonein and out of ministerial positions for decades without anything to show for itand that is why no one can remember their names or what they did but when youmention the name of people that have demonstrated competence, people rememberthem and what they accomplished, people like Charles Soludo, ObiageliEzekwesili, Ogozi Okonjo-Iweala, Dora Akunyili and Dr. Bert Nnaji to mention afew. Notice that these folks did not have unrestrained authority, they did nothave cart blanche but were able to make a different despite the challenges justlike the leaders in South Korea,Brazil and India.What do they have in common? Competence.
I could go onand on but I believe that the point has been made that the problem ailing thecountry is not bribery, corruption or greed rather that our fundamental problemis incompetence and that only competent people can tame the pillaging andlooting going on now and most importantly that Yoruba and Hausa must join thebuilders rather than looters of the system
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Enter the Hausa Incompetence:
Contrast the success of competentcorrupt societies with the failure of incompetent corrupt societies like Nigeria.I defined earlier an incompetent corrupt society as a society that lacks theinert mechanism to self-correct and self-adjust for the betterment of itssociety or a house without a grown up. Since after the war Nigeriahas been living the life of an incompetent corrupt society that lacks thenecessary capacity, ability and skills to self-correct in order to carry out atask of improving the lot of Nigerian. It is important to note that after thewar the north held sway, they had total and absolute control, they had totalfreedom, they had no opposition because the opposition had been decimated. Igbowas leaking its wounds. The north had the freedom to take the country in anydirection they chose without opposition, to make Nigeria in its own image, ifyou think about it, they sure made Nigeria in their image, squalor, illiteracy,ignorance, crime, death, murder, hopelessness, stagnation, disillusionment,indiscipline, disaster, unfulfilled dreams, indifference, neglect, overnightmillionaires and billionaires, disappointments, bribery, corruption and greedbecame the new normal, the question is what happened? What happened was thatthe British helped to institutionalized Kakistocracy and incompetence prevailedover competence and became the order of the day if you ask me? As we will see,the north exhibited incompetence of the highest order with its attendantcorruption and blight without the necessary mechanism to self-correct andself-adjust. Even before the north got power, they knew that they were illprepared for the responsibilities, when they got the power, they had no clue whatto do with, they did not know what military and political power were used for,they became confused, they became a sitting duck, they became rudderless, evenwhen they were advised, they could not use the advise because they did not havethe requisite ability and skills to judge the advise right or wrong. When theydelegated responsibility they lacked the ability to evaluate what the resultshould be, for that reason it was difficult for them to request for anyfeedback when they had no clue what the feedback is supposed to look like. Ifthey cannot tell difference between what they are looking for, how can theycheck mate bad behaviors from good? This is incompetence not corruption. Beforethe northern military took power, literally, everything in the system wasworking, education, health, water supply, electricity, road infrastructure,Nigerian railway, ports authority, national shipping line, the business andcommerce industry were all thriving. It is pertinent to note that the north didnot meet the systems in their primitive stage, they had systems that wereworking, as a matter of fact Nigeria experienced incredible economic expansionimmediately after the war in part because the Igbo land was militarized andunbeknownst to the leadership the army spent majority of their salaries in Igboland which managed to keep the Igbo economy afloat and plus other foreigninvestment into the country. When the demands of leadership came knocking onthe door of the northern leadership, what answered and opened the door wasabject incompetence, absolute intellectual vacuity, visionlessness andhopelessness. The leadership was found to be inadequate, unsuited, devoid ofthose qualities requisite for effective conduct or action and not possessingthe necessary ability and skills to carry out the tasks of leadership. What wasmost disturbing was that the northern leadership knew it, the British mastersknew it, the Igbo knew it, the Yoruba knew it, the world knew it and theBritish went ahead anyway to convince the north that they can lead the countryeven over the objection of the northern leadership that they cannot. Themanifest absence of vision, objectives, direction, hope and the cluelessness ofthe northern leadership created a vacuum that laid the foundation and fertileground for unbridled bribery and corruption to breed, fester andmultiply. This is incompetence not corruption. The absence of competenceis our problem. When the northern leadership was found vacuous, opportunist andschemers filled the vacuum they found with their whims and caprice and thenorth could not self-correct or correct others because they did not possess therequisite elements of competence. This is incompetence not corruption, thoughcorruption later filled that vacuum that was created but it did not come first,it came second after it discovered that competence was not home. In orderwords the north being in charge is like having no grown up in the house and therascals came in and ransacked the house. What is most heart breaking is thefact that the northern incompetence knew no bounds, the least that could havebeen expected from the northern leadership was taking care of northerncitizens, favoring them and raising their standard of living relative to therest of the country but that did not happen. The fact that they could not do itis incompetence not corruption. The northern leadership could not improve theeducation and literacy, health -infant mortality, water, road infrastructure,economics and the overall wellbeing of the northern citizens. The question iswhether the failure of the northern leadership to improve the lot of thenortherners was deliberate? The answer is no but more of the manifestation ofincompetence and not corruption. They were clueless which is equal toincompetence. The north today has the highest illiteracy rate in the wholeworld, infant mortality, blindness and myriad of other problems. The north isworse off amongst the whole groups in Nigeriain all indices used to adjudge standard of living. The welfare of the northcould have been more worse if it were not for the work of non-governmentalorganizations from the southern part of the country that provide preventive andpalliative services in place of the total absence of government services. Folkshave always wondered why Nigeriais in this state of anomie, all I ask is for folks to look to the north andthey will find the answer. Folks should ask the question, how can the north dofor the whole nation what they could not do for their northern people, thesaying that you cannot give what you do not have, the north could not give thatwhich they did not possess and that is competent service.
Ladies andGentlemen, what I am contending here is that what the northern leadershipdemonstrated was not bribery, was not corruption or greed, what theydemonstrated was peter’s principal at work which was basic incompetence becauseit is evident that as much as one will agree that the north had a reason tohold malice against the east, there was no evidence that they extended thatmalice to their northern brethren, nor was there evidence that the leadershiphated their citizens, so their failure to take care of the welfare of thenorthern people and to make them better than the rest of the nation could onlybe seen as innocent and inert ignorance and not corruption. They failure tounderstand what leadership is all about and failed to make the connectionbetween leadership and the people. In case some of you have forgotten, let meremind you of what incompetence is all about: being Inadequate for or unsuitedto a particular purpose or application, Devoid of those qualities requisite foreffective conduct or action, and not possessing the necessary ability, skill,etc. to do or carry out a task". I want the reader to pay attention to thewords "unsuited, devoid, and not possessing and that will capture the cruxof my argument. You have to be devoid of something serious to fail ineverything. That north is simple and short not suited for the purposes ofleadership and that is why they can not stop all the bad things that arehappening. There were plenty of evidence that the north in most part wereinnocent and not corrupt nor were they inclined to bribery until years laterwhen the leadership vacuums they created were filled by others who were equallyas incompetent as they were. The north did not start out not to bring thedividend of their leadership to the people, ironically they did not even trybecause they did not know how to try or what to try or do, they weresuper-morosed, and they simply vegetated throughout their leadershipreign. The lack of performance on the part of northern leadership was notintentional because they just did not know how to perform anything. They had noexpectations either from themselves or from others, they were satisfied withwere they found themselves, complacency became the order of the day as theyknew no better, as they could not see beyond where they were standing, evidenceof incompetence not corruption. As far as they were concerned everything wasnormal, they did not know the difference between performance and noneperformance, when they allowed some ideas and projects to be executed, theywere unsuited and were devoid of the abilities and skills to grasp what exactlythe ideas and projects were supposed to accomplish in the scheme of things andwhat the final result and output supposed to look like. They heard the wordsbut did not comprehend them, so whether a project was done half way, well doneor not at all did not matter because the skill to do the evaluate did notexist, particularly when the highest level of education attained by almost allthe northern military boys at that time was secondary school obtained frommostly moslem school. The moslem education still does not explain theincompetence of the north because some other moslem countries like Indiaand Pakistaneven Indonesiaare doing better than Nigeria.The north had no understanding of administration, no understanding ofeconomics, no understanding of employment, no understanding of social welfare,no understanding of technology and most importantly no understanding of theirsynergy. The northern leadership had no dreams for themselves, for their peopleor for the nation. They couldn’t dream dreams, when they dreamt something, itmade no sense to them and they could not do anything with it, this is notcorruption, this is not bribery or greed, this is incompetence. The only reasonthat can explain the unbridled and ubiquitous nature of corruption, bribery andgreed that are ravaging the country is because the competence requisite tocheck them is absent.
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Nigerian’s problem is not bribery, not corruption not evengreed rather our fundamental problem is “incompetenceâ€
Definition
Competent corrupt societies are societies that have theinbuilt mechanisms to self-correct and self-adjust because the fundamentalfoundation of those societies are situated on “COMPETENCEâ€
Incompetent corrupt societies are societies that do not havethe inbuilt mechanisms to self-correct and self-adjust because the fundamentalfoundation of those societies are situated on “INCOMPETENCEâ€
Something thatcontinues to confound me is how smart, informed, bright and even ourintelligentsia, the la crème de la crème of our society are sometimes sweptaway by clichés and simplistic analysis. The instinct of the uninformed,ill-informed, the ignorant and the lazy intellectual is to gravitate towardssimplicity but the serious and the informed must incline towards seriousprobing beyond the façade. It is still true that if you repeated anything, alie, statistics or even rumor many times enough people will start thinking andbelieving that it is true. That is the case in Nigeria particularly to theextent that a particular group (Yoruba) controlled the communication mediasince after the civil war to the present and made it practically impossible topresent a counter fact to the most inane and serious distortions. Becauseof the strangle hold the Yoruba had on the mass media and the absence of anyserious countervailing arguments and facts, propaganda, deliberatemisinformation and distortions became facts and historical references and weare all worse off for that. Most of us have bought into what I consider adiversionary assertion that bribery, corruption and greed are responsible forour problems in Nigeriawithout caring to question that assertion and to probe beyond it.
What I willtry to do is to attempt to answer the poser from one of the forumites “whatis ailing Nigeria?The simple answer to what is ailing Nigeriais foundational incompetence and I will explain later. My hope is that my styleof approach will be disencumbering rather than discommoding. Let me right awayaddress head on the most fundamental misconceptions that have now taken hold ofevery analysis on the forum, and that is the mantra that corruption, briberyand greed are actually the main problems facing the nation. The reality is thatneither corruption nor bribery or greed that every Dick and Harry is humping onall the time are the fundamental problem facing the country particularly asregards Nigeriaand other moribund societies. Not that we do not have corruption, bribery andgreed as problems but that they are like visitors that can be chased out ormanaged when the owner of the house returns. Corruption, bribery and greed aremore or less symptoms of a more deadly disease called incompetence. It is thepresence of near to absolute incompetence that breeds unbridled corruption,bribery and greed and not the other way around. For clarity sake, I decided tovisit the dictionary for the definition of incompetence and it says thus "Inadequatefor or unsuited to a particular purpose or application, Devoid of thosequalities requisite for effective conduct or action, and not possessing thenecessary ability, skill, etc. to do or carry out a task", and theopposite is the case for competency. The point is not that corruption and otherills do not exist in societies where competence is abound, no, but that anysociety that is rich with competent people has the capacity to self- correctwithout littering its surrounding with disastrous collaterals damages. Typicalexample is the United Stateswhich is a competent corrupt society that has its share of corruption, briberyand greed but at the same time has mechanisms to check and correct corruptionwhenever it is discovered. That mechanism is called competence. You see,competence is like a grown up in the house who manages a family with childrenand keeps everybody in check and slaps out of control kids into order.Incompetence is like a house without a grown up and the family spines out ofcontrol just like Nigeria.For the sake of not being misunderstood, it is important that I stay with thatelement called incompetence. When I use the word incompetence, I am reallysaying the following - lack of vision, foresight, productivity,perseverance, imagination, industry, commitment, diligence, transparency;determination, sacrifice, idealism, professionalism, dreams, honor, respect,integrity, role model, probity and other relevant virtues. I am reallytrying to cover all the angles because the situation in Nigeriahas been compounded and muddled up that the faint hearted and the lily mindedare having great difficulty navigating through the maze.
To give you aninstance of how bewildered folks are, I had a conversation with a friend, so Ispent some time espousing the necessity for competent leadership and after Iwas done with what I thought was excellent presentation, my friend came back inhis effort to contribute to the conversation and injected that the other thingthe country is lacking are role models. I wondered amusingly if there is anydifference between competence and role model. What is interesting about myfriend’s response was that that is typical of the kind of conversation that isgoing on in the forum and other places. As far as he was concerned, role modelas a virtue is separate and different from competence. The question becomes howdo you create role models and what produces a role model. The simple fact isthat it is the collective efficacies and consequences of some ones competentexploits that are coined as rule model. In other words, the attributes of arule model flow from his/her manifest competent behaviors. I dare say that rolemodel’s attributes hardly flow out from incompetence exploits. The point is howsimple and complex it is to explain and analyze the 40yrs plus of Nigeriannightmare. The problem we face is typical of my folks who failed to make thesimple connection between role model and competence and not understanding thatthey are actually the same, although one flows from the other. If you are acompetent person you are considered a role model, if you are incompetent youare not considered a role model simple.
Beside thefact that competent corrupt societies like U.S.,U.K., Japan,Germany andother developed countries that have their share of bribery, corruption andgreed and are surviving, I will like to use South Korea to illustrate what I considered ascompetent corrupt society. As I indicated earlier competent corrupt societies havein built mechanism to self-correct and South Korea quintessentially fits the model. South Korea as a country had tumultuous beginningwith the military ruling the country for most part of the country’s existence,mirroring in a way Nigerian history with the military. Corruption, nepotism,bribery and many unholy alliances were prevalent in South Korea, and that notwithstanding thegovernment of the day still undertook aggressive economic development thatrevised their import based industrialization to export based industrializationthat benefited the local textile industry to make South Korea self-sufficient. South Korea even under military detectorshipscontinued to invest in their heavy industry thereby making South Korea more competitive in the world market.This does not mean that South Koreadid not have its share of economic down turns, but the government continued toexpand the heavy and chemical industry and the capacity to for steel productionand oil refining. Nepotism and favoritism plagued the government as theyextended government largess to supporters and friends that created largeconglomerates called chaebols that came to dominate the domestic market.From1980 the country embraced representative democracy and stands as one of theworld’s top economies in high-tech manufacturing. The success of South Korea as one of the major Asian power isexemplar. The South Korean reference is apropos for this discussion. My effortis to disabuse folks that keep blaming corruption for the nightmare called Nigeria.The fact is that every industrialized country is struggling with some degree ofcorruption and bribery. Braziland India Pakistan are also grappling with these ills but that has not stoppedthem from industrializing their countries. The question is why is it that thesecountries notwithstanding the corruption, violent crime, functional illiteracyand bribery in their societies were still able to adopt policies that pushedthrough economic development. If we all agree that Nigeriahas the same challenges that these aforementioned countries have, it is onlyreasonable to infer that the leadership of these other countries possess thatsomething called je ne sais quoi that Nigerian leaders do not have and thatsomething is competency. Competency has a way of making its mark even in theworst of circumstances that after the dust clears its manifestations will notbe in doubt. Every solution to Nigerian problem is pointing to one thing onlyand that one thing is competence, the only thing that can check bribery, corruptionand greed and keep them under manageable level. Isn’t it interesting that theIgbo against all odds are thriving in Nigeriaeven in the mist of corruption, bribery and greed, so why are Hausa and Yorubadepending on the loot from the treasury and co operations. The answer iscompetence.
Enter the Hausa Incompetence:
Contrast the success of competentcorrupt societies with the failure of incompetent corrupt societies like Nigeria.I defined earlier an incompetent corrupt society as a society that lacks theinert mechanism to self-correct and self-adjust for the betterment of itssociety or a house without a grown up. Since after the war Nigeriahas been living the life of an incompetent corrupt society that lacks thenecessary capacity, ability and skills to self-correct in order to carry out atask of improving the lot of Nigerian. It is important to note that after thewar the north held sway, they had total and absolute control, they had totalfreedom, they had no opposition because the opposition had been decimated. Igbowas leaking its wounds. The north had the freedom to take the country in anydirection they chose without opposition, to make Nigeria in its own image, ifyou think about it, they sure made Nigeria in their image, squalor, illiteracy,ignorance, crime, death, murder, hopelessness, stagnation, disillusionment,indiscipline, disaster, unfulfilled dreams, indifference, neglect, overnightmillionaires and billionaires, disappointments, bribery, corruption and greedbecame the new normal, the question is what happened? What happened was thatthe British helped to institutionalized Kakistocracy and incompetence prevailedover competence and became the order of the day if you ask me? As we will see,the north exhibited incompetence of the highest order with its attendantcorruption and blight without the necessary mechanism to self-correct andself-adjust. Even before the north got power, they knew that they were illprepared for the responsibilities, when they got the power, they had no clue whatto do with, they did not know what military and political power were used for,they became confused, they became a sitting duck, they became rudderless, evenwhen they were advised, they could not use the advise because they did not havethe requisite ability and skills to judge the advise right or wrong. When theydelegated responsibility they lacked the ability to evaluate what the resultshould be, for that reason it was difficult for them to request for anyfeedback when they had no clue what the feedback is supposed to look like. Ifthey cannot tell difference between what they are looking for, how can theycheck mate bad behaviors from good? This is incompetence not corruption. Beforethe northern military took power, literally, everything in the system wasworking, education, health, water supply, electricity, road infrastructure,Nigerian railway, ports authority, national shipping line, the business andcommerce industry were all thriving. It is pertinent to note that the north didnot meet the systems in their primitive stage, they had systems that wereworking, as a matter of fact Nigeria experienced incredible economic expansionimmediately after the war in part because the Igbo land was militarized andunbeknownst to the leadership the army spent majority of their salaries in Igboland which managed to keep the Igbo economy afloat and plus other foreigninvestment into the country. When the demands of leadership came knocking onthe door of the northern leadership, what answered and opened the door wasabject incompetence, absolute intellectual vacuity, visionlessness andhopelessness. The leadership was found to be inadequate, unsuited, devoid ofthose qualities requisite for effective conduct or action and not possessingthe necessary ability and skills to carry out the tasks of leadership. What wasmost disturbing was that the northern leadership knew it, the British mastersknew it, the Igbo knew it, the Yoruba knew it, the world knew it and theBritish went ahead anyway to convince the north that they can lead the countryeven over the objection of the northern leadership that they cannot. Themanifest absence of vision, objectives, direction, hope and the cluelessness ofthe northern leadership created a vacuum that laid the foundation and fertileground for unbridled bribery and corruption to breed, fester andmultiply. This is incompetence not corruption. The absence of competenceis our problem. When the northern leadership was found vacuous, opportunist andschemers filled the vacuum they found with their whims and caprice and thenorth could not self-correct or correct others because they did not possess therequisite elements of competence. This is incompetence not corruption, thoughcorruption later filled that vacuum that was created but it did not come first,it came second after it discovered that competence was not home. In orderwords the north being in charge is like having no grown up in the house and therascals came in and ransacked the house. What is most heart breaking is thefact that the northern incompetence knew no bounds, the least that could havebeen expected from the northern leadership was taking care of northerncitizens, favoring them and raising their standard of living relative to therest of the country but that did not happen. The fact that they could not do itis incompetence not corruption. The northern leadership could not improve theeducation and literacy, health -infant mortality, water, road infrastructure,economics and the overall wellbeing of the northern citizens. The question iswhether the failure of the northern leadership to improve the lot of thenortherners was deliberate? The answer is no but more of the manifestation ofincompetence and not corruption. They were clueless which is equal toincompetence. The north today has the highest illiteracy rate in the wholeworld, infant mortality, blindness and myriad of other problems. The north isworse off amongst the whole groups in Nigeriain all indices used to adjudge standard of living. The welfare of the northcould have been more worse if it were not for the work of non-governmentalorganizations from the southern part of the country that provide preventive andpalliative services in place of the total absence of government services. Folkshave always wondered why Nigeriais in this state of anomie, all I ask is for folks to look to the north andthey will find the answer. Folks should ask the question, how can the north dofor the whole nation what they could not do for their northern people, thesaying that you cannot give what you do not have, the north could not give thatwhich they did not possess and that is competent service.
Ladies andGentlemen, what I am contending here is that what the northern leadershipdemonstrated was not bribery, was not corruption or greed, what theydemonstrated was peter’s principal at work which was basic incompetence becauseit is evident that as much as one will agree that the north had a reason tohold malice against the east, there was no evidence that they extended thatmalice to their northern brethren, nor was there evidence that the leadershiphated their citizens, so their failure to take care of the welfare of thenorthern people and to make them better than the rest of the nation could onlybe seen as innocent and inert ignorance and not corruption. They failure tounderstand what leadership is all about and failed to make the connectionbetween leadership and the people. In case some of you have forgotten, let meremind you of what incompetence is all about: being Inadequate for or unsuitedto a particular purpose or application, Devoid of those qualities requisite foreffective conduct or action, and not possessing the necessary ability, skill,etc. to do or carry out a task". I want the reader to pay attention to thewords "unsuited, devoid, and not possessing and that will capture the cruxof my argument. You have to be devoid of something serious to fail ineverything. That north is simple and short not suited for the purposes ofleadership and that is why they can not stop all the bad things that arehappening. There were plenty of evidence that the north in most part wereinnocent and not corrupt nor were they inclined to bribery until years laterwhen the leadership vacuums they created were filled by others who were equallyas incompetent as they were. The north did not start out not to bring thedividend of their leadership to the people, ironically they did not even trybecause they did not know how to try or what to try or do, they weresuper-morosed, and they simply vegetated throughout their leadershipreign. The lack of performance on the part of northern leadership was notintentional because they just did not know how to perform anything. They had noexpectations either from themselves or from others, they were satisfied withwere they found themselves, complacency became the order of the day as theyknew no better, as they could not see beyond where they were standing, evidenceof incompetence not corruption. As far as they were concerned everything wasnormal, they did not know the difference between performance and noneperformance, when they allowed some ideas and projects to be executed, theywere unsuited and were devoid of the abilities and skills to grasp what exactlythe ideas and projects were supposed to accomplish in the scheme of things andwhat the final result and output supposed to look like. They heard the wordsbut did not comprehend them, so whether a project was done half way, well doneor not at all did not matter because the skill to do the evaluate did notexist, particularly when the highest level of education attained by almost allthe northern military boys at that time was secondary school obtained frommostly moslem school. The moslem education still does not explain theincompetence of the north because some other moslem countries like Indiaand Pakistaneven Indonesiaare doing better than Nigeria.The north had no understanding of administration, no understanding ofeconomics, no understanding of employment, no understanding of social welfare,no understanding of technology and most importantly no understanding of theirsynergy. The northern leadership had no dreams for themselves, for their peopleor for the nation. They couldn’t dream dreams, when they dreamt something, itmade no sense to them and they could not do anything with it, this is notcorruption, this is not bribery or greed, this is incompetence. The only reasonthat can explain the unbridled and ubiquitous nature of corruption, bribery andgreed that are ravaging the country is because the competence requisite tocheck them is absent.
Enter Yoruba Incompetence:
The presence of the Yoruba inthis whole cesspool will once and for all prove my point that incompetence ofthe crippling order is responsible for Nigerian malaise rather than Bribery,corruption or greed. It is easy to make the argument that the reason why thenorth was incompetent was because they were not well educated, that majority ofthem had only high school education, that they were naive young men andill-informed. Only when you discover that the northern leaders understood theirshortcoming and literally handed over the running of the government to theYoruba to handle the day to day operation of the government and the Yorubacould not do any better than the Hausa. I will like to state without fear ofcontradiction that Yoruba has well educated people in every field ofendeavor-engineering, law, economics, name it, they have people there but thatis where the credit ends. The understanding was that the educated Yoruba wasgoing to help the ill-prepared north to administer the affairs of the countryby complementing the north that was mainly in the military. In order words, theYoruba supposed to take care of the administration, economy, the technologicalinnovation and development of the country into the 21st century. What Yorubaproved unequivocally, at least we have more than forty years of history tosupport it, is that acquiring education to PH.D level does not automaticallymake you a competent person. One cannot question the educational achievement ofthe Yoruba because they are one of the most educated groups in Nigeria.The question that Yoruba has to answer is what went wrong? What did they dowith their education when it came to managing Nigeria?The Yoruba had the education, the engineers, the architects, the lawyer,economists, technologists, the numerical numbers, the ministers, directors, themedical doctors, the high positions, the unrestricted authority, the power, youknow what? the Yoruba had cart Blanche. They even had total control of thecommunication media. As established above the Hausa needed the Yorubagiven the fact that they got into power ill-prepared, they hoped that theYoruba will use their education and intelligence to help navigate the ship ofthe country. As history has shown, the Yoruba dropped the ball big time and arestill dropping it as we speak. Most Hausa that are in the know will tell youthat it is true that Yoruba are well educated but that they are as incompetentas the north is. What called the competence of the Yoruba into question wasthat from the day Yoruba occupied the center stage in piloting the affairs ofthe country, the country did not progress an inch from where Yoruba mate itrather the country regressed and lost everything that Yoruba touched ormanaged. Yoruba simply ravaged, pillaged and looted every government ministry,department, agency, business, cooperation, you name it. Gowon’s administrationwas considered corrupt because of the wanton, unmitigated, unrestrained lootingand corruption of the Yoruba that was recruited to help run the country. It isa known fact that Yoruba thought the north how to be corrupt. Monkey see andmonkey do. After watching the Yoruba pillage and loot, the north figured thatthat is normal and that that is how educated people behave and they joined thebandwagon. So you have now two tribes with the biggest population that see thelooting and destruction of everything they touch as business as usual andNigerians are wondering what is wrong with the country, why is the country socorrupt. The country is corrupt because Hausa and Yoruba are incompetent tomanage the affairs of the country.
The consequences of the North’sincompetence was critical because if the north were competent, they could havetaken care of the country by themselves or alternatively checkmated the Yorubaonce they starting looting, but because the north did not know any better theysimply joined. The way it happened was that as the north was siphoning andlooting directly from the federal treasury to themselves, the Yoruba were busysucking the life out of all the MDAs and the businesses and cooperations fromthe fallout of indigenization. Interestingly enough Hausa did not bother Yorubaand Yoruba did not bother Hausa, each party was busy minding their business tothe detriment of the whole country. Exactly the symptom of incompetence, yousee, incompetence does not ask questions or get inquisitive because it does notknow what to be inquisitive about and even when it asks a question and gets ananswer; it does not know what to do with. This explains the widespread of briberyand corruption when you have Yoruba and Hausa neck deep into it.
Another caseof incompetence displayed by north was when the Yoruba proposed for theindigenization of foreign companies. It is my belief that none of the northernmilitary leaders had ever heard that word “INDIGENIZATION†before or understoodwhat it meant. In the first instance, the presence of the northerners incooperate Nigeriawas minimal to none, so the north had no comprehension of the ramification ofsuch policies, another evidence of incompetence rather than corruption from theonset. If the north was competent and understood the implications of suchpolicies, they could have objected on many grounds, unfortunately they did notknow any better to checkmate the looting Yoruba rascals. Having demonstratedthat the Yoruba failed to lead notwithstanding their education, the question iswhat is the difference between the leaders of countries like South Korea, Braziland India thatsucceeded in the face of challenges and the Yoruba leaders that failed? Thefact that Yoruba cannot claim lack of education, they cannot claim lack ofopportunity and they cannot claim that they lacked the unrestrained authorityto act, the only thing that the other leaders have that the Yoruba lacked iscompetence. The way it works is that the absence of competent creates a vacuumthat is quickly filled by the ills of societies like bribery, corruption,greed, crime, murder and so on and so on. To further drive the point home, cananyone recall one single Yoruba official that has done something so noble andhonorable to improve the lot of the whole nation rather pursuing self-interestthat Nigerians could look back and sing his praise? The answer is no, but Iwill like someone to proof me wrong. That is a proof of incompetence firstbefore corruption. As a matter of fact you can trace the origin of all themillionaires from Yoruba and Hausa to one corruption or the other or governmentcontract. Fighting corruption in Nigeriais like fighting Hausa and Yoruba and I think that that is a daunting task. Thesimple fact that after Yoruba took total control of Nigerian economy and theycould not improve the socio-economics and technological development is a signof nothing but incompetence.
The injectionof competence in Nigerian system will see a gradual improvement inaccountability and progress. Typical example is that Hausa and Yoruba have gonein and out of ministerial positions for decades without anything to show for itand that is why no one can remember their names or what they did but when youmention the name of people that have demonstrated competence, people rememberthem and what they accomplished, people like Charles Soludo, ObiageliEzekwesili, Ogozi Okonjo-Iweala, Dora Akunyili and Dr. Bert Nnaji to mention afew. Notice that these folks did not have unrestrained authority, they did nothave cart blanche but were able to make a different despite the challenges justlike the leaders in South Korea,Brazil and India.What do they have in common? Competence.
I could go onand on but I believe that the point has been made that the problem ailing thecountry is not bribery, corruption or greed rather that our fundamental problemis incompetence and that only competent people can tame the pillaging andlooting going on now and most importantly that Yoruba and Hausa must join thebuilders rather than looters of the system.
Fredrick.
Having Hausa and Yoruba is charge of any thing is synonymousto not having grown ups in the house.
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011 PUNCH NEWSPAPERS
ICPC quizzes Odu'a boss, others
Written by Akinwale Aboluwade
The Group Managing Director of the Odu’a Investment Company Limited, Mr. Adebayo Jimoh, and four other management staff of the company were on Tuesday quizzed by officials of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other-related Offences Commission over alleged misappropriation of N10.3m belonging to the company.
GMD, Odu'a Investment Company Limited, Mr. Adebayo Jimoh
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The anti-graft agency had on Monday invited them to Abuja for interrogation following a petition by the former Estate Manager of the conglomerate, Mr. Ademola Ridwan.
Ridwan called on the ICPC to investigate the alleged fraud involving the lease of the company’s property situated in Apapa, Lagos State while he was an official of the company.
He alleged that rather than being commended for uncovering the fraud, he was sacked while those allegedly involved in the deal were promoted by the management.
It was gathered that those quizzed were the Head of the Human Resources Department, Abimbola Ilori; a former Head of Estate Department, Dare Aseweje; the current Head of Estate Department, Mrs. A. Odutola; and one Adedapo.
The petitioner, who claimed that he was sacked because he exposed the alleged fraud, explained that he became suspicious when he noticed that his signature was forged on two documents that were presented concerning the property.
He said, "I became suspicious because the letter bore my name as a signatory knowing that I did not authorise such a letter and that the company did not mandate any middleman to act on my behalf
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Sophisticated Looting And Stealing Inc.- Massive Corporate Fraud Inc. :- From 1967, 1000 Nigerian Assets, Institutions And Companies Were Looted And Destroyed.The Yorubas Took Over Economic Engine Of Nigeria From 1967. Please Take A Look At All The Nigerian Assets, Institutions And Companies fellow Nigerians Have Looted And Destroyed Since 1967 And Which Has Resulted In Debasing Nigeria And Setting Nigeria 100 Years Backward.
After The Defeat Of Igbos And Economic Blockage Of Igbo From Nigeria Economic Activities Because Igbo Who Were Also Economically Very Viable Then. From 1952 To 1967 The World Was Looking Up To Nigeria To Rival Brazil And The Asian Tigers In Terms Of Economic Activities Because Of The Vibbrancy Of Eastern Region Igbo And Western Region Yoruba.
Nigeria Would Have Been Competing With Asian Tigers (Singapore, Malysia, Japan, China, Taiwan,Etc), Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, America, Europe Etc. In Terms Of Economic Vibrancy, Healthy Economy And Nigeria Being One Of The Richest Country In The World With Zero Poverty And A Heaven For The World, And Africa Would Have Been Lifted Out Of Its Present Misery By Nigeria Which Is What God Planned Nigeria For. But The Yoruba Race And Their Treachery and Lies Destroyed Nigeria, Africa And Black Race Hope For Ever.
Even By 1967 The Northern Nigeria Hausa/Fulani Were Doing Very Well And Fine Managing Their Groundnut Production, Solid Mineral Abundance, And Excellent Management Of Their Northern Nigerian Property Management Company When The North Was In Alliance With The Eastern Nigerian Igbos Before The War.
But As Soon As Yoruba Colluded With The Northern Nigeria All Things Started Going Down Hill.
Today 90% Percent Of These Assets, Institutions, And Companies Have Vanished, Closed Or Liguidated, And The Few Remaining Ones Are In Decline, Unproductive, Below Capacity And Managed By Corrupt Directors, Managers And On The Verge Of Closure Or Being Pursued By Efcc, Police, Icpc, Creditors, Endless Law Suites, Endless Labour Conflicts And Government And Attorney Generals Inquiries Etc. For Massive Corruption And Stealing.
Please Take A Look At All The Nigerian Assets, Institutions And Companies that have been Looted And Destroyed Since 1967 And Which Has Resulted In Debasing Nigeria And Setting Nigeria 100 Years Backward.
University Of Ibadan, University Of Ife, University Of Lagos, Nigeria Ministry Of Education, New Nigerian Bank, Ajaokuta Steel Industry, Nigeria Ports Authority, Chanrai Stores, British American Merchant Bank, Industrial Bank,Nnpc, Nepa, Mapo Hall, Cocoa House, Iita, Nigerian Airways, Nigerian Railways, Nigeria Ferry, Volkswagen, British Tobacco, Plateau Tin Production, Cappa, Gold Mining, Cocoa Farms, Nigerian Lives Stocks, Federal Research Institute Oshodi, Nigerian Fisheries, National Bank, Siemens, Harliburton, Nigerian Police, Nigerian Customs, Nigerian Prisons, Nicon, Nigerian Reinsurance,
“Pharmaceutical Nigeria Plc ,May and Baker Nigeria Plc,Vitafoam Nigeria Plc,Wahum Nigeria Limited ,CAP Nigeria Plc , International Paints of West Africa [IPWA], Berger Paints Nigeria Plc, Berec Nigeria Limited, Kabelmetal, Nigeria Bottling Company Plc, Leventis Nigeria Plc ,West African Portland Cement Company,[Lafarge ],Wema Bank Nigeria Plc, Scoa Nigeria Plc ,CFAO Nigeria Plc, Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Wemaboard Estates, Odua Group, Livestock Feeds Nigeria Plc , Nigerian Breweries Plc, new nigerian Bank, Batta, Kingsway Stores,
Crittal Hope (Nigeria) Limited, Mushin, Lagos State.
• Dunlop (Nig.) Industries Plc, Ikeja, Lagos State.
• Galvanising Industries Limited, Ikeja, Lagos State
• Nigeria Construction & Water Resources Development Company Limited, Ibadan, Oyo State
• Nigerian Wire & Cable Plc, Ibadan, Oyo State
• Nigerite PLC, Ikeja, Lagos State
• Nipol Limited, Ibadan, Oyo State
• Odu'a Textile Industries Limited, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State
• Soleh Boneh Overseas (Nigeria) Limited, Ibadan, Oyo State
• Vono Products Plc, Mushin, Lagos State
• Wema Bank Plc, Marina, Lagos
• West African Portland Cement Plc, Ikeja, Lagos State
• Great Nigeria Insurance PLC, Ikoyi, Lagos State
• Glanvill Enthoven & Company Limited
o Guinness (Nig.) Plc, Ikeja, Lagos State.
o International Breweries Plc, Ilesa, Osun State.
o Macmillian Publishers (Nig) Limited, Ilupeju, Lagos
o Nestle Food (Nig) Plc, Ikeja, Lagos State
o Nidogas Company Limited, Lagos State
o Niger Mills Company Limited, Calabar, Cross River State
o Nigerian Aluminium Extrusions Limited, Lagos
o SKG-Pharma (Nig.) Limited, Lagos
o Tower Aluminium (Nig.) Plc, Lagos
o U. A. C. of Nigeria Plc., Lagos
o Niger Delta Explorations & Production Plc,
o Bitumen exploration & exploitation Co. Nig. Ltd.
o African Petroleum Plc
o AIICO Insurance Plc
o First Bank Nigeria Plc
o Flour Mills Nigeria Plc
o Intercontinental Bank Plc
o Nigerian Breweries Pl
...
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