USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: ||NaijaObserver|| Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Ofeimun speaks on Great Achebe and the Ndi Igbo [RETHINKING NIGERIAN HISTORY]

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From: Dododawa <dododawa@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:25 AM
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Ofeimun speaks on Great Achebe and the Ndi Igbo

 

"...There is a story I like telling everybody. Achebe says that the Igbo people are individualistic and that was what helped them to acquire western education, catch up with the Yoruba and then took over all the jobs. It is a very wrong description of what actually happened. What happened is that before independence, the NPC and the NCNC reached an agreement to run Nigeria together. Nnamdi Azikiwe refused to form a coalition with the AG because the Yoruba were educated and would be competing with the Igbo people for jobs. Therefore, they wanted a coalition. Because that coalition was a very conservative one, they wanted to go with the Hausa-Fulani, who did not have enough people to take over the jobs that the Europeans were exiting from nor did they have any to deal with the new jobs that would be created by independence. So, the Yoruba leader was jailed and the Yoruba, who could have looked for jobs, were shunted aside. So, the NCNC, though they had a strong following in the Western Region, arranged for the jobs to be taken over by their primary constituencies. That was it.

 

But they didn't factor some things into it. By 1964, they suddenly discovered that while they were taking over the jobs as permanent secretaries, ministers and heads of organisations, the senior partner in the coalition was taking over all the railway extensions, all the military installations, the Kainji Dam and even the new iron and steel industry that was being proposed. Then it struck them that the so-called uneducated northerners were not as uneducated as that. They had a clear picture of what they wanted. Now, that was when the break of the coalition started. Although Nnamdi Azikiwe refused to call Balewa to form a government in 1964, all they needed to do was to send soldiers to the place to harass him a little and then let him know that it required only two medical opinions for him to be declared unfit to take a decision. So he relented and allowed Balewa to form a government. From that moment on, a military coup was built into everything that was happening in Nigeria because, if you ask me, that was a military coup. From that moment, there was bound to be a coup in Nigeria, it was just a matter of time. When you look at it from that angle and you see that it was just the struggle to take over the resources of Nigeria that was at stake, and that it had nothing to do with any particular zeal on the part of any particular ethnic group, then you will realise that what we need to deal with is a very serious matter of economic management, and social welfare. And on that, I don't care who is listening, only one man had a solution that works – that worked yesterday, today and would work tomorrow. They should go and ask Awolowo, all the books he wrote in prison – Thoughts On Nigerian Constitution and Strength and Tactics of The Peoples' Republic of Nigeria." ... Odia Ofeimun

My comments:

Somewhere in there lies the truth of the matter. At least the late S.L Akintola's rhetoric lent credence to what Ofeimun wrote above. The line that the "Igbo" were peddling around, and still deceptively hung onto, was that they had surpassed the Yoruba people in the acquisition of Western "type" education and that they have out competed the Yoruba people. Akintola, reminded them, in his rhetoric in "Yoruba" of course, the great orator told them the Egbas, the Ijebus have been turning out educated people a clear century before the first "Ibo" knew what the inside of a classroom is, not to talk of knowing the inside of the university, he reminded them that they (Ibos) were new to civilization. 

The fact of the mater is: the "Ndi Igbo" were discriminating (they were being unneededly tribalistic) getting greedy over jobs that were being left by the colonialist in the most senseless manner, like when a hungary monkey all of a sudden sees banana. The "ibos" were shunting, as they say in those days qualified non "Ibo" and surreptitiously promoting the "I before others" tribal agenda that led in large part to their very down fall. 

We are seeing the the same short shortsightedness that did them in in the 60s which caused a lot of people to question if the "ndi igbo" had the capacity to be fair to non "Ibos". The lust to impose themselves pretending that they were better qualified is again rearing its ugly head in our time, I will tell you, it is NOT winning them any friends. We see it in all the civil service promotions.

Michael

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From: Afripol Afripol <aafripol@yahoo.com>
To: "naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com" <naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com>; "NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com" <NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2013 2:17 PM
Subject: [NIgerianWorldForum] Ofeimun speaks on Great Achebe

 

Ofeimun speaks on Great Achebe

http://afripol.org/afripol/item/1104-ofeimun-speaks-on-great-achebe.html

AFRIPOL

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