On September 26, 2013, Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos State offered his unreserved apology over the illegal and unconstitutional deportation of 72 “destitute” alleged to be of Igbo extraction to Onitsha at the thick of the night by the Lagos State government last July; thus, formally, ending the two months old debate, ethnic war and hate occasioned by that notorious deportation.
Following the footstep of Governor Fashola, the South East zone of APC had also rendered their apology to ndigbo claiming that the heat generated by the deportation saga is about costing the party the gubernatorial seat of Anambra State in the November 16, 2013 gubernatorial election.
In a way, one would not be surprised to read more apologies on the deportation issue in the days to come, most especially from the likes of Joe Igbokwe, CD Adinuba, Senator Chris Ngige, etc who had summoned the biceps to support the illegality of the Lagos State government.
Although Governor Fashola’s apology is widely viewed as a masterful last minute effort aimed at saving his political god-son, Senator Ngige, from imminent defeat in the Anambra gubernatorial election, he nonetheless struck again while trying to apologise to ndigbo in the lecture organized by the elitist Aka Ikenga to mark its 25th anniversary; this time around more deeply, if not delving into issues which ndigbo hold sacrosanct and have lately framed to be the “Igbo Question.”
According to Governor Fashola, his apology “does not take away the real questions that caused misunderstanding. It is those questions that Aka Ikenga must address if it must fulfil its purpose. Why should people feel compelled to migrate from one place to the other? Is there one part of this country that is less endowed, whether in human or natural resource?”
Continuing, the governor fumed, “How can development be so difficult in the part of Nigeria that gave us Ike Nwachukwu, Chinua Achebe, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Odumegwu Ojukwu, Alex Ekwueme and so on? How can development be so difficult in that part of this country?”
From the outset, it must be noted that it is easy for any discerning and educated mind to urge that Governor Fashola lacks understanding of what the Igbo nation and character stand for, even as it is evident that he does not understand the intricacies and relationship between development and migration; hence he lumped two independent variables together in his attempt to join the train of Igbo question albeit hastily and un-tutored.
Indeed, the emerging globalisation train has unlocked the narrowing and mixing up of migration as a consequence of (under)development. For example, Americans, Jews, Chinese, Germans, etc are all scattered in all ends of the world, would that be a sufficient reason to question the development stage of the US, Isreal, China, and Germany?
Of course, migration is as old as the history of man; whereas, in the early days, man migrated in search of water, arable land, good crops, and high yielding animals or to evade wars and pestilence; such general assumption that migration is a function of development is illogical and unsustainable in our world today. This is because we are living in an era when expertise, manpower, education, technology and information hold sway; thus, migration has transcended the narrow prism of push (demand) side of migration as Governor Fashola laboriously wants us to agree to include the pull(supply) side of migration too. And all these and other related dynamics of modern day migration and patterns find perfect explanation in the appreciation of the wider concept of globalisation.
Having established this fact, it is now imperative that an understanding of the Igbo nation and character is advanced and explained so that they can be well appreciated by non-Igbo. It can be generally said that ndigbo are a group of culturally homogeneous people with little dialectical differences living along the east/west of the Niger River of Nigeria.
The trinity of Igbo character is expressed in Aka Ikenga (industry and endeavor), Akpa Uche (cot of wisdom and reason) and Ukwu n’Ije (the will to sojourn). Thus, Aka Ikenga naturally propels the Igbo race to endeavor and to engage in productive industry which is guarded by Akpa Uche even as they live and vibrate at home or sojourn (Ukwu n’Ije) abroad. The conglomeration of the trinity of Igbo character leads to ntozu (accomplishment) and eventual Odenigbo (applause of fame) which are the marks of a fulfilled Igbo man.
From the foregoing, it is evidently clear that migration forms an integral character of the Igbo people. Little wonder they had traded, worked, travelled widely, married and lived harmoniously with their neighbours and hosts long before the arrival of the European merchants and colonialists who sounded the trumpet of the Nigeria State. It is also an incontrovertible fact of history that through trade and mercenary (of the Aro and Anioma), ndigbo had arrived and settled in what we today know as Lagos at least two decades before the arrival of the Nupe (Oshodi Tapas), Yoruba (Adele-Adenijis) and Bini (Apongbons-Idumotas).
However, it is not enough to question why ndigbo migrate and blame it on development as Governor Fashola did without fully contextualizing the environment where they live and the humanly imposed under-development of Igboland.
For example, whereas the Lagos State government operate an annual budget in excess of N400 billion largely as a result of federal allocations, all the states of South east spend only N330 billion yearly; this is also the case in state and local government areas creation in Nigeria which were skewed against ndigbo not minding their population, resources and skills.
Today, the heartland of the Igbo nation does not boast of a single federal presence in terms of heavy investment, functional power generation station, railway, industry, seaport, industrial park, etc which is as a result of a badly structured Nigeria that was enthroned after the Nigerian Civil War by the “winners” of the war to impede the Igbo and restrict their potentials perpetually.
Hence, ndigbo coined the word “marginalisation” at the return of civil rule in Nigeria to invite the world into its world of federal abandonment and dehumanisation. And the word marginalisation has come to form what we today know, loosely, as the Igbo question which if sincerely and properly appreciated would address Governor Fashola’s so called challenge to ndigbo on development.
However, ndigbo have striven, irrespective of their challenges in Nigeria, to develop their land to the level that can only be compared with Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt which are indeed cities developed using federal might and patronage but they want more; they want this country to be restructured in line with true and fiscal federalism; they also want the question of resource control to be addressed.
Ndigbo want to get their own fair share of federal patronage, presence and investment; they want the federal government to also finance the Greater Onitsha City project as it is doing in Lagos and Kano States; ndigbo want a functional seaport in Onitsha, railway lines and motorable roads all through their land.
Indeed, they want merit to ride the crest in federal employment and appointments just as they are interested in the enthronement of a Nigeria that works for all in strict obedience to the rule of law.
They are also in support of a national conference which shall set this country on the path of rectitude, merit, progress, prosperity and unity which unfortunately is being opposed by Governor Fashola’s All Progressive Congress largely because the status quo favours their states.
They want a fair and equal playing ground in Nigeria because they know that with fairness and equity, they shall return back to their enviable position of 1960s.
And we call on Governor Fashola and other well meaning Nigerians to go beyond sloganeering and key into these genuine aspirations and position of ndigbo for a greater Nigeria because, as the late Senator Chuba Okadigbo rightly observed at the Igbo Summit in Enugu on January 19, 2001, “There exists an intricate dialectic between the Igbo problem and the Nigerian problem. After all, what affects a part does affect the whole… When you denigrate hard work and thrift by or in one section, it rubs off adversely on the whole. If you dehumanize a part of Nigeria, the country suffers the impact. A nation in quest of progress and development must not cheat itself by deliberate neglect of any section. This is what the whole human rights movement throughout the world is all about. And Nigeria must be in sync with universalism.”
Okafor C. Udoka writes from Aba, Abia State
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