AHMADU BELLO SOWED THE SEEDS OF HATRED OF IGBOS IN THE NORTH

I stumbled upon a video on the Internet showing a vitriolic Premier of Northern Nigeria in the person of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto saying hateful things about the Igbos. His facial contortions give you a window into his heart that was filled with bile. He was so comfortable with shedding the blood of the Igbos if the North does not get its way. The killing of Igbos which he initiated, continues to plaque Nigeria today. The British hatred for the Anglican Igbo, made them turn a blind eye to the hate advocated by this man. That the British loves the Islamic North more than the Anglican Igbos, that profess the same religion with them, shows you the hollowness of religion as practiced by the West. Up till this day, Anglican Igbos will discriminate against another Igbo person of a different faith but still revere their British overlords. An amusing example in the interview was that of an Igbo man employed as a laborer in a labor camp rising to be a supervisor in a year. Here are the facts:
1. The Igbo man went to regular school.
2. The Northerner did not go to school or went to Arabic school.
3. The Igbo man worked hard all day without breaks which was noticed by the British supervisor.
4. The Northerner took 5 breaks during the workday to pray.
5. The Igbo man would take any position and work his way up to the top.
6. The Northerner especially those who consider themselves upper class would consider some jobs too menial.
7. The ambitious Igbo man would understudy his British boss and master the job in a short amount of time whereas the Northerner will coast along.

Now you see why the Igbo man will rise to be a supervisor. The Sardauna instead of building the North from the foundation upwards decided to build from the roof downwards. His hateful idea of Northernization without education is the reason that the North is still mired in colossal poverty despite arrogating most of the National Revenues to itself through non verifiable census figures, lopsided gifting of oil blocks, and monopoly of imported essential commodities given to Northerners.

To build an efficient, effective, and empowered workforce you start by education, education, and education. Even in education, Igbos who went to Ahmadu Bello University because the North could not fill its quota, told tales of how illiterate Northerners were being propelled along the learning curve by phantom grades, awarded by contracted professors who would lose their jobs if they protested. The ill-conceived Northernization policy of Ahmadu Bello has gone National and is now called National Character with a commission to boot. As customary, this bogus commission is dominated by Northerners and the circus continues. If a National Commission on Health calls for 36 medical doctors and there is no qualified medical doctor from Yobe State, then a Nursing Sister or a Nursing Brother who is an indigene of Yobe State would be promoted to a doctor to fill Yobe State’s position on the commission. What a farce!

I admire the late Sardauna for openly expressing his hatred for the Igbos and threatening to kill them if they do not agree with his Northernization policy. The so-called Igbo leaders then and now have been taciturn, aided by a little financial inducement from their oppressors. If Igbos had demanded a state of their own at Nigeria’s independence, the world would have sided with them. Now, the Igbos are using Biafra as a metaphor to highlight the injustice meted out to them by the Nigerian government. Only one true Igbo leader, the Most Rev. Dr. Anthony Obinna is seen as openly supporting the Igbo cause. Recently he was caught in a traffic jam while returning from a funeral. Massobites happened to be in the area. As he exited his automobile to take in some fresh air, he was surrounded by Massobites. Other Igbo leaders would have suffocated in their automobiles or covered their faces with handkerchiefs to avoid being photographed with Massobites.

Where are octogenarian and nonagenarian Igbo leaders, whose death in the struggle will turn them into martyrs for the Igbo cause? The real Igbo problem is the dearth of Igbo leaders and as long as Igbos believe in the nonsensical “Igbo enwe eze,” they shall continue to suffer in the Nigerian State where their properties are either confiscated by the Nigerian government under the guise of abandonment, abandoned for fear of loss of one’s life, or outrightly destroyed by raging mobs without compensation. The Jews are still collecting compensation for their World War II losses but the Igbos who claim to be Jews and are highly “intelligent” and “educated” are yet to drag anybody before the ICC (International Criminal Court at The Hague) for genocide and crimes against humanity, nor sue at the World Court to recover their properties confiscated by the Nigerian State.

The Igbos have to fight their battles with the law on their side. The West as the British have proven will not countenance the idea of a black man as their intellectual equal. The Igbos have great individual accomplishments but nations are built by group accomplishments.