Sunday, May 10, 2020
Dr M.I. Okpara And The Economic Blitz Of Eastern Nigeria
No one conversant with the history of Nigeria in the I950s and 1960’s will miss the overwhelming impact of Dr M.I. Okpara on the nation.
After all by 1964 he was fully in charge of the fastest growing and industrialising economy in the world- the Eastern Nigerian economy.
Nothing illustrates the warped sense of history and the complete abandonment of the values of merit and excellence in our national affairs as this wilful omission.
The period of Okpara’s stewardship of Eastern Nigeria is truly the golden age of Nigerian development.
As I pointed out in a public lecture in 1995, by 1964- five years after Okpara’s ascendancy to the premiership- Eastern Nigeria as recorded by a research group in Michigan State University in the US, Eastern Nigeria was the fastest growing and industrialising economy in the world – ahead of Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.
How did this happen?
It was the culmination of Okpara’s unique vision in which agriculture and industrial development were the twin pillars on which he built the Eastern Nigerian economy.
In agriculture his plans had a two-fold thrust- the development of the farm settlements as the anchor for food crop (such as rice) and poultry development, as well as the establishment of estates of oil palm, cocoa, cashew etc which were processed for export.
Alongside the agricultural projects, were numerous industrial projects scattered over the length and breadth of Eastern Nigeria.
In one frenetic burst of energy, a wave of maniacal and frenzied activity was on-going all over Eastern Nigeria.
As the book reminds us “ by January 25, 1963, the Michelin Factory at Port Harcourt was opened. The tyre factory was a USD 3,000,000 undertaking.
On March 22, the headquarters building of the Universal Insurance Company was opened in Enugu.
On May 10 the Nigeria Gas factory was commissioned at Emene near Enugu.
On May 16, the Aluminium Factory at Port Harcourt was opened.
On August 24, the Glass factory became operative in Port Harcourt.
On October 18, the Asbestos Cement Factory was opened in Emene.
On November 9, the foundation of the Central Bank was laid in Port Harcourt.
On November 30, the Golden Guinea Breweries was commissioned at Umuahia, for the production of larger beer and allied products.
On December 13 Hotel Presidential was opened at a whopping cost of BPS £2,000,000.
The burning fire for industrialisation led to the establishment of the modern ceramic industry in Umuahia, textile mills at Aba and Onitsha and a shoe factory in Owerri.
There was a catalogue of numerous small industries that were also established simultaneously with the major ones during this period.
It was during this period that the first phase of the farm settlements scheme were established - Ulonna in Umuahia province, Ohaji in Owerri Province- Igbariam in Onitsha province, Boki in Ogoja province, Uzo Uwanni in Enugu province, Abak in Annang province.
Each was to accommodate over 5,000 farmers and what was remarkable was the scrupulous effort for even spread of the settlements throughout the length and breadth of the region.
All these activities had been elaborated in his vision for the development of the region after the general elections of 1961.
As he stated…”the period immediately following the elections was a period for building the economic consciousness of the people”
It is this consciousness and burning desire to raise the standard of living of our people, the unflinching determination to assault poverty from all fronts, that has been distilled into the 1962-68 development plan.
Inviting the people as citizens of a democratic region to examine, approve, criticise or condemn any portion of the plan (the plan is the peoples plan) it provides for the development of the small village, it touches on the requirements of the largest city; it caters for the need of the smallest peasant industry and prescribes the means for the mounting of the biggest industries…”
What was remarkable in his vision was the appreciation of the role of the private sector.
As he observed to achieve rapid economic growth and raise the standard of living of the people, it was necessary that “the private citizens, the ordinary men and women everywhere must participate by taking a fair and equitable share in our development and industrial projects…”
He elaborates on this vision when he states
“…..In encouraging and participating in the industries established in the Region, our government was doing so on behalf of the citizens of the Region. It was, as it were, holding its shares on trust for the people.
As and when the industries have overcome their teething problems and the risk of failures minimized, government proposes to divest itself of most of its shares and the money realized used in pioneering into new industrial projects…”
Thus, the visionary did not only recognise the role of the government as the steward on behalf of the people but more importantly acknowledged the government’s fiduciary responsibility.
It was an incredible display of courage in the midst of rampaging risk factors and the energy to pursue longterm goals on behalf of the people.
It was a remarkable demonstration of transparency and accountability. It was a vision that was forty years ahead of its time.
These latter values were illustrated by his commitment to participatory democracy as shown in the fact that he inaugurated an annual series of leaders of thought conferences (a total of five in 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1965).
A remarkable aspect of his industrialisation plan was the collaboration and cooperation with foreign investors to undertake the large industries such as Michelin Tyre factory in Port Harcourt and the Nkalagu Cement factory in present day Ebonyi state.
Indeed in Okpara’s long term vision as he told me in a conversation in his home in Nkwoegwu in 1983 was that Port Hacourt through Aba and Umuahia going on to Enugu would have developed into a globally significant industrial megapolis and conurbation.
This drove his passion for the development of the University of Nigeria for which he has not, in my view, been given adequate credit.
He provided the money through his prudent management of the resources of the region.
If the politics of those times had been better managed, Eastern Nigeria would have been ahead of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore for we were indeed ahead of these success stories of the second half of the 20th century.
What was most remarkable was his spirit characterised by his disarming humility and rock-solid determination to confront all the odds frontally. These were exemplified by his return to medical school after the war!
We cannot end this without recognising the unique strategies he adopted for the management of the government and the instruments he adopted for his far reaching economic programmes.
For the latter, the Eastern Nigeria Development Corporation was the engine room for the pursuit of his economic development plans. His management of men and resources was imaginative, innovative and revolutionary.
The most remarkable attribute is that after his stint as Premier of Eastern Nigeria he returned to live in his father’s modest bungalow even as some members of his cabinet had vast estates in their hometown and elsewhere. That speaks volumes of his integrity.
He had arrow heads who coordinated the activities of the government in addition to the informal agencies of democratic participation.
He ceded the day to day running of the party to his old friend Dr L C Mbanugo, the civil service to Sam Oti, the intelligentsia to Professor Kalu Ezera and the economic domain to Odumegwu Ojukwu Snr.
These were his kitchen cabinet at it were and beyond the formal structures of the party and the bureaucracy. Thus, he could exercise an inspiring overview to the business of governance through the formal structures of governance, even as he recognised the validity of the informal networks that are the eyes and could invigorate governance.
In the final analysis his success ultimately rested on his understanding of his people and the operative environment that had shaped him and his people.
He certainly deserves intense study if we are ever going to appreciate where the rain started to beat us given our present circumstances.
The book is an honest effort but is riddled with avoidable typographical and other errors but it is a treasure trove of information on the Okpara years and a wistful reminder of what Nigeria could have been.
Nevertheless, the vision must survive and endure.
Professor Anya O Anya, PhD (Cambridge) D.Sc (Hon) FAS, OFR, NNOM
Abuja 26 February 2014
Biafra In The Eyes Of Yoruba Activist
Yoruba Born Activist Mr. Maiyegun wrote;
Biafrans voted in a Referendum to leave Nigeria on 26th May, 1967. Four days later, the administrator of Eastern Region at the time, Ojukwu declared Biafra independence; Gowon the honcho head of the northern military government moved the tanks into the Eastern Nigeria after all resolutions to get Biafrans back to Nigeria failed - 5million killed.
How many of you knew there was actually a Referendum for Biafra in 1967 and nearly 100% of the people voted to leave? They didn't want them to leave because of the Niger Delta crude oil.
Well, it was due to the killings of Igbos in Kano and North after the 1966 Gowon coup that things finally broke down. The Igbos returned to the east for safety and then a year later, voted en mass to leave Nigeria, like reasonable people should, the animal Gowon moved the tanks and killed 5million in 3 years, including women and children
Awolowo was Nigeria's finance minister, Obasanjo was there and that coward Murtala that killed unarmed men in Asaba and children when Nigerian army he led called people to come out of their hiding, that the war was over and when the civilians came out, men were separated and executed right there - their women raped and killed too.
These guys didn't remove history from Nigerians schools for no reason, they are criminals and history will never be kind to them
I don't need your like, I don't need your validation. If you don't like what I do, unfollow my page or I'll kick you out myself if you come here with your usual stupid Nigerian mentality with foolish questions.
Maiyegun General
Igbo scholar disgraces Femi Fani-Kayode
•Demolishes claims on Igbo/Yoruba history with facts and figures
By News Express
An Igbo scholar, Dr. Samuel Okafor, has made one-time Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, look so small and uneducated by using facts and figures to demolish the claims he made in the controversial August 8 article, “The Bitter Truth About The Igbo”, which set off a storm that almost threatened Igbo-Yoruba relations.
In the first part of an article entitled “The Lies of Femi Fani-Kayode”, Okafor, who has a First Class in History from the University of Nigeria Nsukka and then did a Ph.D in Nsukka on scholarship, dismissed Fani-Kayode as a “half-baked intellectual.”
He then proceeded, point by point, to address what he termed “the most reckless amongst the tangle of reckless comments spewed by Femi, a character who with each punch of his keypad stresses his severely unwell conditions of logorrhoea, delusions of enlightenment, history and sociology – amongst others.”
Below are Okafor’s words:
FEMI AND HIS SEVERELY IGNORANT LIES:
•Femi Lies About the Yorubas Being Nigeria’s Earliest Graduates:
From his myopic bubble Femi FaniKayode claims the Yoruba were the first to acquire Western education; the first ever known record of a literate Nigerian in the English Language is the narrative of an Ibo slave who regained his freedom and documented his life history as a slave from the time he was 11 years old in present day Ibo land till the time when he gained his freedom in the middle of the 18th century.
He later married an English woman and had 3 children. He died in 1795.
Femi, a basic Google-research will do you good here; check out the name, Equanoh OLAODAH.
Further Femi claims that the Yoruba were the first lawyers and doctors in Nigeria.
This is again a big falsehood. The first Nigeria doctor was an Effik man Silas G. Dove who obtained a medical degree from France and returned to practise medicine in 1840 in Calabar. This fact can also be verified from historical medical records in Paris.
I would also ask that you google the name BLYDEN – Edward Wilmot BLYDEN – an educated son of free Ibo slaves who by the mid-19th century had acquired sound theological education. He was born in Saint Thomas in 1832. He is one of the founding missionaries that established the Archbishop Vining church in Ikeja. Before the next time you succumb to your long-running battle with logorrhoea, Femi please do some research.
What about the third president of a free Liberia – President J JRoyle – again, a man of Ibo descent.
Please take some time to do some research so that we can discuss constructively. It is wrong to peddle lies to your people. It is academic fraud to knowingly misrepresent facts just to score cheap points with people who do not have the discipline to do research and accept anything you pour out simply because they say you are well educated. To again quote the great Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Joseph Stiglitz; Femi fits into the category of third rate students from first rate universities with an inflated sense of self-importance.
Let’s go on!
Who was the first Nigerian Professor of Mathematics – an Ibo man – Professor Chike Obi – the man who solved Fermat’s Last Theorem.
He was followed by another Ibo man, Professor James Ezeilo, Professor of Differentail Calculus and the founder of the Ezeilo Constant.
Please do some research on this great Ibo man. He later became the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria Nsukka and one of the founders of the Nigerian Mathematical Centre.
Who was Nigeria’s first Professor of Histroy – Professor Kenneth Dike who published the first account of trade in Nigeria in pre-colonial times. He was also the first African Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.
Who was the first Professor of Microbiology – Professor Eni Njoku; he was also the first African Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos.
Anatomy and Physiology – Professor Chike Edozien is an Asaba man and current Traditional Ruler of Asaba, the Asagba of Asaba. Who was the first Professor of Anatomy at the University College Ibadan?
Who was the first Professor of Physics? Professor Okoye, who became a Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960.
He was followed by the likes of Professor Alexander Anumalu who has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Physics three times for his research in Intermediate Quantum Physics. He was also a founding member of the Nigerian Mathematical Centre.
Nuclear Physics and Chemistry – again another Ibo man – Professor Frank Ndili who gained a Ph.D in his early ’20s at Cambridge Univesity in Nuclear Physics and Chemistry in the early ’60s. This young Asaba man had made a First Class in Physics and Mathematics at the then University College Ibadan in the early ’50s.
First Professor of Statistics – Professor Adichie who’s research on Non-Parametric Statistics led to new areas in statistical research.
What about the first Nigerian Professor of Medicine – Professor Kodilinye – he was appointed a Professor of Medicine at the University of London in 1952. He later became the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria Nsukka after the war.
What about Astronomy – again another Ibo man was the first Professor of Astronomy – please, look up Professor Ntukoju – he was the first to earn a double Ph.D in Astronomy and Mathematics.
Let’s go to the Social Sciences – Demography and statistical research into population studies – again another Ibo man – Professor Okonjo who set up the first Centre for Population Research in Ibadan in the early ’60s.
A double Ph.D in Mathematics and Economics. Philosophy – Professor G D Okafor, who became a Professor of Philosophy at the Amherst College USA in 1953.
Of Economics – Dr. Pius Okigbo who became a visiting scholar and Professor of Economics at the University of London in 1954. He is also the first Nigerian Ph.D in Economics.
Of Theology and theological research – Professor Njoku who became the first Nigerian to earn a Ph.D in Theology from Queens University Belfast in Ireland. He was appointed a Professor of Theology at the University College Zambia in 1952.
I am still conducting research in areas such as Geography where it seems a Yoruba man, Professor Mabogunje, was the first Professor. I also am conducting research into who was the first Nigerian Professor of English, Theatre Arts, Languages, Business and Education, Law and Engineering, Computer Technology, etc.
Nigerians need to be told the truth and not let the lies that Femi Fani-Kayode has been selling to some ignorant Yoruba who feel that to be the first to see the white man and interact with him means that you are way ahead of other groups.
The Ibo as The great Achebe said had within a span of 40 years bridged the gap and even surpassed the Yoruba in education by the ’60s. Many a Yoruba people perpetually indulge in self-deceit: that they were the first to go to school; to be exposed to Western education; that they are academically ahead of other Nigerian cultures of peoples.
Another ignorant lie.
As far back as 1495 the Benin Empire maintained a diplomatic presence in Portugal. This strategic relationship did not just stop at a mere mission but extended to areas such as education. Scores of young Benin men were sent out to Portugal to study and lots of them came back with advanced degrees in Medicine, Law and Portuguese Language, to name a few.
Indeed, some went with their Yoruba and Ibo slaves who served the sons of the Benin nobility while they studied in Portugal. These are facts that can be verified by the logs kept by ship owners in Portugal from 1494 to 1830. It is kept at the Portuguese Museum of Geographic History in Lisbon.
Why then would several Yoruba people peddle all these falsehoods to show that they are ahead educationally in Nigeria?
The true facts from the Federal Office of Statistics on education tell otherwise, showing that 3 Ibo states for the past 12 years have constantly had the largest number of graduates in the country, producing more graduates than Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Oyo states.
These eastern states are Imo, Anambra and Abia. Yet he calls Ibos traders. Indeed, the Igbos dominate because excellence dominates mediocrity – truth.
Let me enlighten this falsehood’s mouthpiece even further: before the civil war Ibos controlled and dominated all institutions in the formal sector in Nigeria from the universities to the police to the military to politics:
•The first Black Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan was an Ibo man
•The first Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos was an Ibo man
•The first Nigerian Rector of the then Yaba College of Technology was also an Ibo man
•The police was run by an Ibo IG
•The military as a professional institution was also run by elite-ilk Ibos.
Facts can never be hidden.
To be first does not mean you would win the race; let us open up all our institutions and may the best man win. Let us not depend on handouts or privileges but on heard work. Let us compete and give the best positions to our brightest – be it Ibo, Yourba or Fulani, and then we shall see who is the most successful Nigerian.
I find it difficult not to respond to some of these long-held lies that are constantly being peddled by Yorubas. One is that the Yoruba have the largest number of professors in the country. I would again ask that we stick to facts and statistical records. The Nigerian Universities Commission has a record of the state with the largest number of professors on their records and as at 2010 that state is Imo State followed by Ondo State and then Anambra State; the next state is Ekiti and then Delta before Kwara State. I am sure you Yorubas are surprised.
When you sit in the South-West do not think others are sleeping but I wish to address another historical fact and that is who were the first Nigerians to receive Western education. It is important that these issues be examined in their historical context and evidence through research be presented for all to examine.
I have continued my research for as the great sociologist and father of modern sociology – Emile Durkheim – put it, the definition of a situation is real in its consequence . What this simply means is that one must never allow a perceived falsehood to become one’s reality and by extension individuals who accept a defined position act as though the situation is real and apply themselves in that narrowly defined perspective.
Why is this important to state it is because for long the Yoruba have peddled lies that have almost become accepted as the truth by other Nigerians but it is important that we lay down the facts for others to examine and come to their own conclusion for facts are facts. Let’s go back to education. Historically, Western education resulted as a product of indigenous ethnic groups interacting with the whites through trade. The dominant groups sold slaves, ivory gold and a host of other products to their European counterparts in exchange for finished goods – wine, tobacco, mirrors, etc.
The Bini who were the dominant military force from the 15th to the 19th century raided and sold other ethnicities to the Europeans. Top on the list of those they sold were the Yoruba, Ibo and Igala. Various other ethnicities suffered as a result of the Bini military expansion. And the Benin Kingdom stretched from present-day Benin up to what is now geographically referred to as Republic of Togo. Indeed, the influence of the Benin Empire extended to the banks of the river Niger to present-day Onistha. There are huge Yoruba settlements in the Anioma part of Delta State who fled Yoruba land as a result of these attacks and constant raids. Yes, there are Yoruba people who are currently living with Ibos in the Ibo-speaking part of Delta and they are full citizens of the place no one refers to them as strangers and there is no talk about the Ibos being the host community like we hear from the Governor of Lagos State. But let me return to research. Slaves were moved from the hinterland to the coast and many were sold through Eko to the New World. These slaves were the first to encounter the Europeans and by extension their way of life – this included education in a Western sense. The Bini King had taken pains to establish a diplomatic presence in Portugal and the relationship developed into areas that extended beyond trade in the late 15th century and lasted well into the early 19th century. Scores of young Bpni youth were sent to Portugal and studied there, coming back with advanced degrees in various disciplines. The next set of people to receive Western education were the slaves themselves. Some of them managed to buy their freedom and develop themselves further.
For the Ibo it does not matter who your father is; the question is: Who are you? Who was Obasanjo’s father? Was he the most educated Nigerian? I am sure the answer is no. Yet this Great Nigeria led this nation two times as a military Head of State and as a civilian President. What about GEJ? Who was his own father? Was he the first Nigerian to go to London? The answer is no. In fact, he had no shoes, yet he is fully in charge. So it does not matter if your father was the first Lawyer or first Doctor in Nigeria but rather what matters is what an individual does with the talents the Almighty has given to him. Let us open up Nigeria for competition. That is the solution to our problems. Those who want privileges keep reminding us that their fathers were the first to go to school in London. Every generation produces its own leaders and champions. Like Dangote who is the biggest employer of labour in Nigeria today and the richest man in Africa. Was his father the first to go to study in London? Yet he is the master of people whose parents gave them the best. My brothers, the answer to the Nigerian problem is that we should establish a merit-driven society. “I get am before” no be property.
Source News Express
Posted 17/08/2013 04:10:34 AM
UNDERSTANDING YORUBA POLITICAL MINDSET IN THE CONTEXT OF IGBO SABOTEUR SYNDROME
—A Tribute to Bishop (Prof) Funmilayo Adesanya-Davis
Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD
Odogwu of Ibusa Clan, Delta State, Nigeria
Institute of African Studies/Dept of History& International Studies
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
E-mail: nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com
In October 1966 my late father Lawrence Obi Nwankwo Nwaezeigwe escaped the pogrom by the whiskers in the Northern city of Bauchi. Many of his relations and Igbo ethnic compatriots were not so lucky. In 1991, my Mother’s only brother Mr. Vincent Onyeachonam—a Brave and Brilliant Biafran Soldier during the Nigerian Civil War then working with Blackwood Hodge Nigeria Limited escaped the anti-Igbo Kano riots by the act of Providence, only to die in a ghastly motor accident shortly after along Warri-Sapele Highway. This is just my own side of the gory story of the Nigeria experience. Thousands of my Igbo compatriots have their own sides of the story to tell. And as things are moving in Nigeria today with the dominance of the present band of crass and self-centred Southeast Igbo political leadership, more Igbo people will have similar stories to tell in the future.
My father had after the May anti-unification riots against the Igbo in the Northern Region or Group of Provinces as General Aguiyi-Ironsi chose to call it, relocated us temporarily to Jos at the home of his Uncle—Mr. Adudu, since Jos was relatively friendly to the Igbo at that stage of the crisis. From Jos we were finally sent back to our hometown Ibusa. Back in Bauchi, while resuming his duty with the then Italian Construction giant—Stalin Astaldi as a Store-Keeper with caution like every other Igbo man then, he made several attempts to convey his property back home; but no Hausa-Fulani transporter was willing to transport them even to Jos from where he could have accessed another transportation to the South. His long frustration was eventually brought to an end by the outbreak of the Pogrom in October.
On that fateful day in October 1966, my father was alerted in his office by one of his Igbo colleagues who came panting, informing him that the people had started killing the Igbo. He immediately left his office and rushed back home where he took some money, put few belongings in his portfolio and left the house without knowing where he was going. As soon as he entered the streets, he was confronted by a Policeman who ordered him to open his portfolio for him to examine the contents.
My father knew that the tactic was for the Policemen to accost Igbo people, pretend to be interrogating them, and thereafter give sign to the mob which would then emerge and descend on their victims. So he pretended to be opening his portfolio while watching the Policeman with the corner of one eye. As soon as the Policeman thought he was fully concentrated on the business of opening his portfolio and beckoned on the mob, my father left everything and took to his heels with the mob pursuing him with murderous intensity. He managed to outwit the irate mob by miraculously jumping over the Public Works Department (PWD) fence, an incredible feat which left his assailants mopping with awe and panting with anger. He subsequently found himself in the hyena-infested jungle caves of the wild Bauchi Hills.
Two days after his sojourn in the forest caves he met his fleeing kinsman from Okpanam in the same Cave. With that he thus had a companion in suffering. They had pulled-off their shirts and were bare-footed. There was no food except Mbembe (Wild Blackberry) which they could only gather and eat during the night, since during the day they hid themselves in the caves like wild animals do and which they changed quite often for security purposes.
At a stage, his Okpanam kinsman who was much older than him in age became so hungry that my father was forced to follow him to the direction of the sound of a mortar to beg for food. When they got there they met a Fulani woman pounding dawadawa (Guinea corn) and before they could conclude their request for food the woman immediately raised alarm. Both men fled back into their cave haven as their assailants emerged, pursuing them deep inside the cave. My father informed me that even after the fruitless search one of them insisted on staying back in the cave and continued to search for them. But as providence would have it, they were concealed by the perpetual darkness of the cave. In the night they relocated to another cave where after two days his Okpanam kinsman resolved he was no longer going to bear the hunger and suffering, left my father and moved back to the city. My father never saw him again.
After one week of loneliness in the caves my father again felt he was no longer willing to continue with the sufferings and decided to go back to the city even if it meant being killed this time. He waited until it was getting to midnight and then left his cave residence. When he got to the outskirts of the city, he discovered that some children were still keeping-wake around a burn-fire and so he tactfully retreated to a nearby bush.
Around 2 am he resurfaced, found every place dead quiet and proceeded into the city with cautious steps. His port of call was the residence of his Yoruba friend and co-worker. The fact is that his friend was not expecting him at any point in time since the news of his death had spread all over Bauchi city.
So when he knocked on the door of his Yoruba friend and identified himself as Lawrence Nwankwo Nwaezeigwe his friend had every sense of belief that his late Igbo friend had visited him from the land of the dead. So he refused to open the door informing him that the Lawrence he knew was dead. After several fruitless attempts to convince his friend that he was not dead, he decided to sleep on the table outside the house.
Early in the morning when his friend opened his door, he saw my father dozing on the table outside. He shouted, Lawrence so you are alive! Immediately he took my father inside the house and informed him he was doing it at the risk of his life because the order was that anybody found hiding any Igbo should be killed as well.
He however informed my father that already some survivors were being gathered at the Police Station for safety and that he would do all he could to safely take him them.
My father took his bath and was provided breakfast. He was thereafter concealed at the back-seat of his friend’s car covered as a Muslim woman and driven to Bauchi Police Station, where he joined the throng of Igbo people including the wounded. His cousin Mr. Mgbede of Achalla-Ibusa who was married to a daughter of Ashibuogwu my maternal Grandmother’s relation at Umuosowe, Umuodafe Quarters, Ibusa, was not so lucky. He was blockaded in his car while fleeing from Bauchi, dragged out and hacked to death. It was from the Police Station that they were eventually airlifted to Enugu, from where my father found his way back home westward across the Niger.
I remember the moment he arrived at home the kind of tumultuous celebration that followed in our village. We had rushed back to our village with my mother from Umuosowe village where we were temporarily staying with her mother—my maternal Grandmother—Adaozele. On getting to our village, we met my father bare-bodied, bare-bodied with swollen-feet, and torn pair of trousers in the midst of excited crowd of our family members and villagers. As the celebration was going on, his mother—my paternal Grandmother—Mgboma got hold of a live hen which had been chased and caught for that occasion, smashed it dead on my father’s feet, and forced her tired breast into my father’s mouth to suck—exclaiming: “nwam a natagoo”, “nwam a natagoo” (My son is finally back). My father’s case was not an isolated scene in my town. Many families were in similar mood of jubilation as much as many others were in the mood of sorrow, having either heard of the death of their kinsmen or no news about their whereabouts.
My father was not alone in this stream of Yoruba magnanimity towards their Igbo Southern kinsmen. In one of my previous articles on this subject matter I was rudely informed by a deluded man from Awka that I did not do my research properly and that I should go and read Major Ademoyega’s book when I made reference to Col. Adekunle Fajuyi’s sacrifice of his life in defence of General Aguiyi-Ironsi. I did not have time to remind him that at that moment in question Major Ademoyega was convalescing in Warri Prisons after his boxing bout with Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna in Calabar Prisons over Ifeajuna’s sabotage of the noble objectives of the January 15, 1966 Coup.
Strikingly enough, Mrs. Aguiyi-Ironsi during her last ninety-year birthday celebration informed us that his first son who accompanied his father to the ill-fated tour narrated how Fajuyi was resisting the arrest of Aguiyi-Ironsi and subsequently elected to be taken along with him.
Brigadier-General Benjamin Adekunle—Black Scorpion was nearly killed by Murtala Mohammed for providing safe-passage for his besieged Igbo compatriots during the July 29, 1966 counter-coup. He was later relieved his post as Commander of 3rd Marine Commandos because of his unilateral withdrawal from Owerri Sector to save Biafra’s lifeline in which he was accused of deliberately leading Federal troops into vantage positions of the Biafran troops.
The then Col. Olusegun Obasanjo assisted by Major Bajowa prevented the Igbo from being massacred at Ibadan by Hausa-Fulani elements who were subsequently quarantined for that reason.
The then Acting Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan after the exit of Prof; Kenneth Dike, Prof. J. F. Ade-Ajayi paid all the Igbo Staff of the University four-month-salary advance to enable them go back home when Governor Adebayo ordered the whole Igbo in Western Region to go back to the East after the bomb explosion at the Nigerian Tobacco Company, Ibadan. Chief Obafemi Awolowo later cancelled the expulsion order and ordered both Major Mobolaji Johnson of Lagos State and Col Adebayo of the Western State to protect every Igbo in their territory; yet it was the same Chief Obafemi Awolowo that was continuously vilified as the goddess of Igbo failure in the Civil War just because he refused to be bought into Col Odumegwu Ojukwu’s bogus imperial ambition in the name of fighting for the Igbo.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo instituted the policy of mass hunger against the Igbo they would always shamelessly say. But the question is where in the history of warfare did the feeding of an enemy become a part of war strategy? Were the Igbo themselves not feeding on the flesh of the enemy-Federal troops that crossed their way? The Igbo say: “A bojaba akwa agadi nwanyi, a ga-abochaputa ife n’ime ya” (If we decide to probe deeply into an old woman’s cloth, something messy will definitely be discovered).
For the Igbo any group that did not buy into Col Ojukwu’s inordinate imperial presumptuousness even if opposed to the pogrom of the Igbo was the cause of Biafra’s failure. It has always remained the culture of blame allocation instead of sober reflections over their mistakes in the past—the case of the Yoruba did this against us, the Ijaw and Efik-Ibibio abandoned us, or the Hausa, Fulani and Middle Belt killed Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi and our people. What did the Igbo do to all these groups before their actions? Or does it mean the Igbo have been all the while in Nigeria’s history Angelic in their dispositions to other ethnic groups? Who do you blame for the invasion of a throng of fowls in your compound: the man who brought the termite-infested fire-woods into your compound or the fire-wood itself?
I once asked Chief Anomneze from Orlu in Imo State who was a one-time Patron of Igbo-Speaking Community in Lagos State how he was able to reclaim his large Estate in Ikate, Surulere, Lagos after the Civil War. He informed me that when he was fleeing to the East in the wake of the 1966 Pogrom, he handed over the buildings with their papers to his Yoruba friend; and after the civil war, his friend handed him back the houses with the papers and all the accruing rents collected during the period of his absence, with which he began life anew. Which Igbo can even do such to his fellow Igbo kinsman?
One fact is obvious! The Yoruba are more humane than any other ethnic group in Nigeria and ethnically united as much as they are historically conscious of themselves more than their often boastful Igbo counterpart. E. W. Bovil in his narration of Hugh Clapperton and Richard Lander’s journey through Yorubaland from Badagry in search of the Niger in 1825 described the Yoruba as: “a kindly hospitable people who gathered in thousands to welcome them at each of their stopping places.” From the mouth of Hugh Clapperton himself: “They were a mild and kind people, kind to their wives and children and to one another, and the government, though absolute, is conducted with the greatest mildness.” You can’t speak of Southeast Igboland in the same regard during the same period. Clapperton and Richard Lander with all their escorts should have within a moment of their appearance in the first Igbo village found their body-parts distributed in different soup-pots of their perceived hosts as rare delicacies. So humanitarianism ran through the historical blood vein of every Yoruba man, not by the impartation of European colonialism as is the case with the Igbo. It is therefore an incontrovertible fact that every act of a Yoruba man is founded on the fulcrum of historical construction of his primordial definition of Yoruba personality and not by the act of his association with either the Igbo or any other ethnic group in Nigeria.
This can be explained by the large number of seasoned and celebrated professional historians among the Yoruba who continue even after their retirements from active academic service to oil the wheel of their historical consciousness with nationalistic fervor. Indeed, looking at the first and second generations of Nigerian historians, apart from Kenneth Dike, J. C. Anene, Adiele Afigbo, F. K. Ekechi, Chinweizu, and John Asiegbu, no other class of Igbo historians can match the opulent intellectual harvests of successive Yoruba professional historians of the same class whose scholarly carriage and artistic intellectual craftsmanship have preserved the knowledge of history as a veritable weapon of political mobilization and ethnic consciousness among their people. These are the likes of Samuel Johnson, Saburi Biobaku, J. F. Ade-Ajayi, E. A. Ayandele, S. A. Akintoye, J. A. Atanda, A. B. Aderibigbe, R. A. Adeleye, B. O. Oloruntimehin, Patrick Cole, Bolanle Awe, I. A. Akinjogbin, and Anthony Asiwaju.
The extent of Yoruba pride in the subject of their history is noted by the fact that the Department of History at the University of Ibadan alone has produced five Vice Chancellors of the University, while the Department of History at the University of Lagos has produced two Vice Chancellors of the University. But to the Igbo of Southeast everything about their past is either Akuko-Iro (Folk-tale) or I go-Alusi (Idol Worship as they call it). This has given rise to successive generations of toothless band of decrepit political leadership surrounded by multitudes of insane sentimentally-driven moronic and lame-duck followership that only see their future political survival in Nigeria through the nose of primitive acquisition and accumulation of vainglorious wealth.
The question is how far has this vainglorious pursuit of wealth provided the Igbo the path to collective national security, stronger political bargaining power, and pride of place in the collective definition of Nigeria’s nationality question?
There is no denial of the fact that right from the beginning of modern Nigeria the Yoruba have been far ahead of the Igbo in matters of intellectual development and historical assertiveness which have led to their tremendous advancement in ethnic consciousness, profound spiritual maturity and institutional cultural nationalism. And these three forces of political mobilization made the Yoruba to rely heavily on mentorship as the vehicle of recruitment into political and academic leadership against Igbo cliental approach. In other words while the Yoruba see politics as a framework of commonwealth interest, to the Igbo it is a matter of buying and selling, a case of cash and carry in their habitual commercial mentality.
One can clearly see the varying results of these two approaches from the enduring legacy of Awoism compared to Zikism. In other words, while Awoism depicts a political framework guided by a pragmatic ideology that looks inwards in which the leadership pulls his subordinates along as he rises; Zikism depicts a political framework which is lacking in a definitive ideology, and mainly characterized by a leadership that uses its followers as foot-stools for political ascendency. A major consequence of the first pattern is that an Awoist never crashes politically without supporting comrades to his rescue at the eleventh hour. Whereas a Zikist crashes and that often heralds the end of his political adventure, career, and influence.
Dr. Alex Ekwueme was the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for over four years but he could not influence the simple promotion of Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife who later became the Governor of his State, from Director to Permanent Secretary for three consecutive years after the latter was due for promotion and his subordinates were being promoted Permanent Secretaries over and above him. Whenever he met his Vice President kinsman from the same Aguata Local Government Area then to request his assistance over the matter of his stagnation, Dr. Ekwueme’s response was usually “nwa nnaa a wotarom ife ndi ugwu n’eme?” (My brother I don’t understand what these Hausa-Fulani people are doing).
It took an ordinary Hausa-Fulani contractor who was often assisted by Dr. Ezeife to expedite actions on his contract file to break the jinx which a Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of Igbo extraction could not do. One day this Northerner entered Dr. Ezeife’s office and ask him, “Peter, what is happening to you? All your mates and even juniors have become Permanent Secretaries but you’re still a Director.” Dr. Ezeife replied him and said: “My brother I don’t know oh.” The man then said he would help him and immediately gave his name to those that mattered in authority and consequently Dr. Ezeife was promoted to Permanent Secretary not long after.
This is the characteristic clay-footed giantism and lame-duck political carriage of the average Southeast Igbo political leader today who will often desire to drag the politically principled, mentally balanced, ideologically focused and intrepid South-South Igbo political leaders and their energetic people into their whirlpool of political servility and dysfunctional ethnic consciousness. This is kind of people that want us to support them become President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; the kind of people that would first seek the permission of the Sultan of Sokoto before he appoints his brother to a responsible position.
The point of fact is that neither my father nor other victims of the 1966 pogrom, including subsequent victims of latter-day Hausa-Fulani victims, as well as the trending murderous activities of Fulani herdsmen, suffered this act of decimation because one Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu— a West Niger Igbo from Okpanam in Delta State led the coup of January 15, 1966 or because he killed Sir Ahmadu Bello the Sarduana of Sokoto in the process. For if that be the basis of judgment, what then should have been the reason for singling out the Igbo to be massacred in both the Jos riots of 1945 and Kano riots of 1953 when they were by every sense of judgment never the reason for the riots?
Major Kaduna Nzeogwu was explicit on the question of the ethnic dimension of the January 15, 1966 coup when he stated:
“In the North no! In the South, yes! We were five in number, and initially we knew quite clearly what we wanted to do. We had a short list of people who were either undesirable for the future progress of the country or who by their positions at the time had to be sacrificed for peace and stability. Tribal considerations were completely out of our minds at this stage. But we had a set-back in the execution. Both of us in the North did our best. But the other three who were stationed in the South failed because of incompetence and misguided considerations in the eleventh hour. …
ⁿThe Mid-West was never a big problem. But in the East, our major target, nothing practically was done. He and the others let us down.”
Or could it equally be said that it was Major Nzeogwu that promulgated the Unification Decree of May 1966 which heralded the pogrom of the Igbo that year? But the gullible and historically ignorant Igbo of the Southeast will always point at Major Nzeogwu—that noble man of valour as the cause of their political woes without going down memory-lane to understand the sequence of events in the country before and after the January 15, 1966 coup.
Pop
One fact remains steadily in my mind. If I find myself in the trenches tomorrow fighting, with my fellow Igbo kinsman from the Southeast shooting from behind, I will always look back every moment I hear the sound of his gun-shot to ascertain when he “mistakenly” points his gun at me. But this is not the case with my Yoruba, Edo, Ijaw, Urhobo, Isoko, Itsekiri and even Middle Belt kinsmen. Because I fully know like we West Niger Igbo do, that when these people set out for a collective objective they pursue it to its logical conclusion.
When Major Nzeogwu set out to plan and execute his 1966 coup he did not express any atom of equivocation. The same instance applies to Major Gideon Orkar, Col. Tony Nyam, and Chief Great Ogboru. These are men history will always enjoin us to emulate and celebrate and not those whose perpetual inclination to politics is founded on how to accumulate filthy wealth which their children will not even be able to manage after their death at the cost of the collective future of their ethnic group; those whose ancestors collapsed like pack of words before the invading British Colonial Forces as did Sokoto Caliphate before the troops of Lord Lugard in 1903.
The West Niger Igbo collectively resolved to resist the British invaders and our ancestors—the Bearers of the celebrated Anti-British Ekumeku Resistant Movement did it in a style and way which no other Igbo sub-group across the Niger can boast of. We came into the Nigerian Civil War as willing but circumstantial mercenaries for our besieged kinsmen and we equally distinguished ourselves as the best and trusted field commanders and troops of the Biafran Armed Forces.
Even after the Col Ojukwu had spilled the milk of trust between us and our Edo neighbours through the ill-fated Biafran invasion of Midwest in August 1967 and our people were abandoned to their fate as they did the Ikwerre, Etche and other Igbo of the present Rivers State, which resulted to retaliatory massacre of our people, our gallant kinsmen returned again in April 1968 for the second Biafran invasion of the Midwest and stayed put digging it out with the Federal troops until they heard of the surrender of the Southeast Biafran forces.
The likes of Captain Onwuenweoyi Uwaechue a.k.a Oliewunaji—a brave and undaunted Biafran commander from Umuodafe Quarters, Ibusa, assisted by another brave Biafran officer of Ibusa origin Lt. Anikamgbolu Okolichi from Ogbeowele Ibusa led the Biafran Army Company of mainly Ibusa origin to make Ibusa unsettled for the 70 Battalion of the Federal Troops stationed there till the end of the Civil War. Indeed Ibusa elders had to send emissaries to the bush to inform them that the war had ended and begged them to drop their arms and stop fighting.
If the Igbo are ever claimed to have dominated the officer corps of the Nigerian army before the Civil War, it was indeed the West Niger Igbo. My town—Ibusa alone had three Colonels—Okwechime, Igboba, and Nwajei, and Majors Emelifeonwu and Okonkwo who became Ojukwu’s Administrator of the ill-fated Republic of Benin, among other subaltern officers and other ranks.
We had Nwawo, Keshi, Morah, Ochei, Okonweze, Nzefili, and Trimingham all Colonels of the Nigerian Army, including Major Chukwurah before the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War. All these fine men of valour lost their pride of place in the Nigerian Army just because some group of Igbo people from the Southeast felt that an Nzeogwu from Midwest should not be allowed to be a hero in Nigeria. Name the number of the whole Colonels in the entire Southeast at the time and see if they equaled ours by proportion of population. Even in Okpanam where Major Nzeogwu came from, he was not alone; Major Asoya who distinguished himself as a brilliant Biafran Commander equally comes from there. We need not speak of Col. J.O.G. Achuzia—the most celebrated of all Biafran Commanders who abandoned his lucrative command position as a mercenary with the Lebanese Christian Militia to sacrifice all for the liberation of our kinsmen east of the Niger.
Even in recent times the West Niger Igbo even though suppressed on account of being Igbo are still there to prove their martial prowess. Brigadier-General Cyril Iweze from Ishiagu remained the most celebrated ECOMOG Field-Commander of the Nigerian Forces in Liberia. Obi (Col) Emmanuel Nzekwue a.k.a “Animal-Power” from Ibusa remained until his uneventful retirement from the Army, the best and highest Paratroop-Jumper in Africa. I need not mention that Admiral Dele Ezeoba from Ibusa not long ago left the Nigeria Navy as Chief of Naval Staff.
Nobody who knows me at the University of Nigeria will ever qualify me as a coward right from my undergraduate days till present. More than any of my contemporaries, and I stand to be disputed, I have risked my life and sacrificed my time and energy severally through positive actions just to promote equity, justice, and fair-play among the Igbo as an ethnic nation, as well as for the celebrated dignity of University of Nigeria, Nsukka as a foremost international higher institution of learning in Igboland where sub-ethnic bigotry has remained an endemic social virus among the Igbo of Southeast.
Under General Sani Abacha-imposed Prof. G. D. Gomwalk administration of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, I was arrested and detained by the DSS at Nsukka, handed over to the Police who detained me for three months at Cell-One State CID Enugu, and subsequently charged to court. I was suspended five times, charged to court five times, and discharged and acquitted five times by the court of competent jurisdiction not for armed robbery, not for 419, not for rape, not for murder, or any other crime, but for defending the Igbo right for justice and equity in Nigeria. I was subsequently dismissed from the same University on account of this not by Prof Gomwalk but a fellow Igbo of the Southeast Prof Ginigeme Mbanefoh. Or could the people of Ibusa—the Isu Mba Ogu define me as a coward even before assuming the title of Odogwu of Ibusa. They know that I am one of the symbols of “Charity begins at home.”
When Chief Femi Fani-Kayode was recklessly rampaging on the Igbo abusing every class of Igbo leadership, including vilifying Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu—nee Chief C. C. Onoh no Igbo journalist, politician, or intellectual was bold enough to confront him. It was the same me— a non-core Igbo that some core-Igbo leaders called to put Femi Fani-Kayode in his proper place, which I did with every patriotic diligence, and which not only stopped him from vilifying the Igbo personality but eventually tilted him towards being an Igbo supporter. The records are there online.
So let no Igbo group in the Southeast think the West Niger Igbo are begging for their protection. Rather they should be begging us for their protection. And this is what some of us have been doing by associating ourselves with our Southeast kinsmen and not the vice versa. Indeed, safe for the timely intervention of the Southeast Igbo women manifested by the Aba Women Riot of 1929, the Southeast should not have been liberated from the shackles of British Colonial Indirect Rule System christened “Warrant Chief System” as explained by my noble academic mentor Prof. Adiele Eberechukwu Afigbo of Blessed Memory from Ihube.
When the Yoruba decided on Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) they pursued it to its logical conclusion. When they decided on Amotekun they did not look for external counseling. When the Ijo and other Niger Delta groups resolved to seek redress through militancy they pursued it to its logical conclusion. But when the so-called core-Igbo of the Southeast attempted to emulate these people they were cowered into submission by Sokoto Caliphate. I don’t know the amount of extra-allocation of money or extra development projects from the Federal Government against those States that chose to do the needful for their people that followed this blatant and reckless act of quisling by Southeast Governors against the future of their people.
That the Igbo of Southeast are brave is an obvious truism; but this is so far as it goes with money-making. But when it comes to risking their lives on selfless patriotic thoroughfare for the liberation of their people: Forget it! They will always remind themselves of their primitive accumulations in the banks and vainglorious plots of land and estates they acquired. This explains why they often see every activist with the mindset of being a beggar or jobless. But this is not the case with the Yoruba who celebrate activists more than their politicians and even traditional rulers.
The average Igbo from Aguleri is willing and ready to donate millions of naira to purchase arms and ammunitions to fight and kill his kinsmen in the neighbouring Umuleri over a piece of land that would not cost one tenth of that amount. Yet when it comes to the collective defence of their Igboland, they vanish like mist in the air. And some of them want us—South-South Igbo to be proud of them as one common Igbo family. This can’t be possible. Are the Ikwerre, Etche, and their allied Igbo kinsmen of Rivers State cowards? Just look at Governor Nyesom Nwike of Rivers State and judge.
I decided to dedicated this piece to Bishop (Prof) Funmilayo Adesanya-Davis—a quintessential Yoruba Amazon from Kwara State because like the case of Mr. Bayo Adewoye from Ondo State she proved to me that, just as Herbert Macaulay—a Yoruba provided the political spring-board for the rise of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe into political stardom, the Igbo will never make any headway in their collective journey for political liberation from the shackles of Fulani Feudal Colonialism without the ladder of Yoruba support. I decided to initiate my legal action against President Muhammadu Buhari over his Islamization policy in 2016 after rigorous consultations with a cross-section of Igbo and Yoruba leaders who gave me go-ahead. But when it came to financing of the legal project my Igbo patrons recoiled into their selfish shells.
I remember Rear Admiral Godwin Ndubuisi kanu—one of the rare Igbo patriots that are hard to find, sending me to Enugu to meet one Engineer Okoye—son of Chief F. G.N. Okoye from Anambra State who was then the Chairman of Southeast Economic Council to help me discreetly mobilize financial support for the legal action. Not only did Engineer Okoye refuse his support for my action, but when I informed him I was going to my kinsman in Enugu—Archbishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of the Anglican Communion for assistance, he immediately telephoned to warn Bishop Chukwuma not to put his hands in my legal action. So by the time I arrived at the Bishop’s Court, he already knew my mission at that moment, having known me before then, and emphatically refused to put his hands in it.
My next port of call was a Yoruba man of Delta State origin who after listening to me simply said: “Well Tony if you are really serious about the battle, I will provide you with initial support.” He asked if I had a lawyer already and I said yes. He then called his Personal Assistant, a Yoruba, and gave him a note. He later instructed his Secretary to buy me food while sitting in his office. Within thirty minutes his Personal Assistant returned with a fat brown envelope and handed it over to him. He then called me and said Tony, this is 1.5 million naira. Use it and start off the case and keep me in touch in case of any further assistance. I moved to Enugu and consulted some Igbo leaders about my plan to file the case at the Federal High Court Enugu, but they advised me not to because their Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi would not permit such action against the Federal Government. Thereafter I decided to move to my Home-State Delta where my Governor Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa will be too busy pursuing the welfare of his people to obstruct the defence of the collective interest of the Nigerian Christians by one of his citizens.
Getting to Asaba, I took the money and called one of my supposed Southeast Igbo kinsmen from Isu in Imo State called Kelechi Nnadi who is a lawyer in Asaba and discussed with him about the matter and gave him five hundred thousand naira legal fee advance, two hundred thousand naira for filing costs, and later another two hundred thousand naira as addition to his legal fee. The same Kelechi Nnadi sold me out after he was promised Senior Advocate of Nigeria ‘(SAN) by Federal authorities and consequently invited the DSS to pick me up first at his office, and when that failed, he attempted again at the Federal High Court, Asaba. It took the miraculous appearance of an astute and well-known Edo legal luminary Pa Solomon Asemota SAN, to emerge at the scene and elected to take up the case at no cost before I was able to recover temporarily from the shock of Kelechi Nnadi-inspired DSS onslaught and my subsequent escape from Nigeria. My experience in this instance is legion which cannot all be recounted here.
It was in the midst of this Kelechi Nnadi-inspired DSS onslaught that I received a telephone call from Bishop (Prof) Funmilayo Adesanya-Davis who was then a Professor at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) but later became the Presidential Candidate of Mass Action Joint Alliance (MAJA) during the last Presidential election, inviting me to address Congregation of Christian leaders at Port Harcourt. I drove straight from Nsukka to Port Harcourt and addressed the group acquainting them of my legal action and the general trend of Islamization in Nigeria from my professional point of view as a historian of both Nigerian and Middle East Conflicts. They subsequently elected to offer me their support, gave some money for fueling, and linked me up to some Christian lawyers who subsequently joined Pa Solomon Asemota SAN in my legal team. It was also within this space of time that Prof Ben Nwabueze, SAN informed Pa Solomon Asemota SAN that he was joining the legal team, thereby assuming professional supremacy as Senior to Pa Asemota before my eventual escape.
When in the course of my present travail Bishop Funmi Adesanya-Davis learnt I was still alive and convalescing in Ghana, she quickly linked up with me and directed me to the benevolent Ghanaian Dr. Phillip Gbonsong who later became the cemen fondu of my escape from Ghana. Not only that she was solely instrumental to the award of honorary Doctor of Divinity and Professorial Chair to me by a United States of America University while still in the jungle of survival. She has since been in constant touch with me with her noble assistance.
So let those gullible Southeast Igbo dunderheads not believe that with all these gory experiences and knowledge of their Igbo saboteur syndrome one will be proud identifying with them as one common Igbo family. Indeed suffice it to state that the Igbo nation are of two types—those who are “Core” Igbo Saboteurs, and those who are “Peripheral” Igbo saboteurs, if we choose to define the whole Igbo nation as saboteurs. But in reality not all Igbo are saboteurs. The South-South Igbo are not, as the buttocks of the chicken will soon be exposed the more by the wind of time. I could remember what Prof Adiele Afigbo said to me when I visited him in his country-home at Ihube in May 1999 after my dismissal from the University of Nsukka, by Prof Ginigeme Mbanefoh for no offence than the defence of Igbo cause at the University. The same Mbanefoh saw me several times before his death after I was recalled nine years later by the benevolent Venerable (Prof) Chinedu Nebo, and could only utter one type of word repeatedly: “Tony kedu?” (Tony how are you?), and I would always respond: “Odi mma” (It is fine).
Prof Afigbo was then Director, Centre for Igbo Studies, Abia State University, Uturu, the same Centre I later became the pioneer Director at University of Nigeria, Nsukka. When he saw me, he exclaimed: “Nwankwo, your dismissal from University of Nigeria is like the death of Nzeogwu.” I responded by telling him sir, Nzeogwu was killed, but nobody can kill me, except when God decides to take me. And of course God wants me to continue talking and fighting for the collective interest of my people hence the reason for my being alive today in spite of all the schemes of the enemies. Reason why Igbos can never be President in Nigeria. In fact, Yorubas cannot and should not get out of Nigeria to form another Country with Igbos.
UNDERSTANDING NORTHERN NIGERIA
BY
Aare Kunrunmi Kakanfo
I have watched with dismay as several educated illiterates especially from the entire South blame, curse and abuse the core north for being who they are. It's unfortunate that we don't understand the North.
The North never wanted to be part of Nigeria until Azikwe convinced the British to persuade the Northern elites to join the independence struggle of Nigeria. The North knew that it can never be one with the infidels of the west and the east.
Northern Nigeria is actually far enlightened than the Entire South when it comes to survival, power mongering and conquest. The North knows that it is poor in arable lands, poor in crude oil resources and poor in human resources but it is very smart in using brute force, political power and poverty in subjugating other regions or ethnic enclaves.
Northern Nigeria is not backward like many people think, it is a civilization state. It comprises of two former Islamic empires namely the Borno empire and the Sokoto caliphate. As a civilization state, it has its own aspiration and yearnings as regards to the colonial contraption called Nigeria.
Northern Nigeria is not interested in building a country patterned according to USA, UK or Germany but interested in building a country patterned like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan or Sudan. It is a region that is hell bent in creating a Nigeria that mirrors the ultra-conservative medieval Islamic world. I am not abusing any religion, I am only stating the obvious because countries like Malaysia and Indonesia are Islamic countries but with modern and secular outlook to the world.
Ethnic minorities that are still shouting one Nigeria under a unitary system of government controlled by the core north will be the first victim of the arabization of the entire North that is to come. Go online and see the way core Northerners reason and threaten violence because blasphemy and religious dogmas. Thousands of Yorubas, Igbos, Ijaws, Tivs, Beroms, etc. have been slaughtered by irate mobs in Northern Nigeria since 1954 till date. It is a region built on the totalitarian philosophy of a religious dogma that believes that other religious adherents and other ethnic groups must be subjugated and conquered by all means.
The North is built on conquest and war. It is a civilization built on blood and total subjugation of others. It sees nothing bad in almajiris, street begging, subjugation of women, Nepotism, despotism, RUGA, territorial expansion, economic parasitism, mediocrity and weaponization of poverty.
While we Yorubas are thinking of qualitative education and intellectual breakthroughs, the core north is thinking of the total annexation of territories into the hegemonic one north fraud and the decimation of dissidents within its rank.
Northern Nigeria does not take prisoners, it crushes its perceived enemies. Look at how Sanusi was humiliated. Several dissidents who question Islamic beliefs in the north have been killed, maimed or kept in jail. The Sharia law is more important than the Nigerian constitution in the north. It is a country within a country.
The North is not ashamed to use fraud, bloodshed and violence to steal the crude oil revenue from the south, taxes from the south and human capital from the south to develop the north. It knows that Nigeria is a jungle and its only the biggest bully that makes the law.
There are two Nigeria, Northern Nigeria and the rest of Nigeria. Don't waste your time trying to talk about 2023, you are only renewing your bondage. If you are a Yoruba man or woman and you refuse to support the emergence of Oduduwa Republic, be rest assured that the Hausa-fulanis/kanuris are going to turn you and your entire race into slaves.
The North has transformed itself from being part of Nigeria to an internal colonizer. Northern Nigeria is not going to change neither is it going to agree to restructuring or building an egalitarian society, it is a civilization state built on feudalism and the destruction of other civilization.
Aare Kurunmi Kakanfo
FUPRE: A Dream Delayed Or Denied?
By Sunny Awhefeada
The Federal University of Petroleum Resources, (FUPRE), Effurun, Delta State was founded in 2007 and it caught news headline as Nigeria’s nay Africa’s first specialised university, dedicated to the study of petroleum resources.
The idea of FUPRE was novel and many thought that in no distant time the university will take its place in the global commune of scholarship, technological innovation and economic advancement. Since it bears the imprimatur of petroleum, which spews forth dollars, many had imagined that the university will approximate the ideals of what a first rate university should be.
The dream that birthed FUPRE was lofty. So was the vision that inspired it. But dreams do die and visions do get blurred.
Today, FUPRE’s lofty dream is under threat. Its enabling vision is under assault. FUPRE’s unending ordeal arising from abysmally poor funding since inception appears to be nearing climax.
The non-inclusion of FUPRE in the 2018 budget submitted to the National Assembly points at nothing, but a deliberate design to finally asphyxiate the university. Since it opened its portals for its first batch of students in 2007, the university has had to contend with deprivations arising from a scheme of financial strangulation.
The telltale of financial kwashiorkor is unmistakable in FUPRE. Dearth of learning infrastructure such as modern lecture halls, libraries, laboratories and workshops; inadequate accommodation for students, poorly motivated and overworked staff and a forlornly un-academic environment have become the recurring experience of FUPRE due to financial starvation.
What is playing out in FUPRE is by no means fortuitous. It is a deliberate ploy to destroy the university since it is in the South and then promote ancillary institutions in the North! Evidence?
The National Institute of Petroleum Policy and Strategic Studies and the National College of Petroleum in Kaduna, in the North, were both advanced N15 Billion and N10 Billion respectively, even when they were yet to take off.
Yet, FUPRE remains stranded financially. There have been tendencies to either replicate or move critical infrastructure from the South to the North. This, of course, is part of the agenda to undermine the South.
A few years ago when the National Maritime University, now at Okerenkoko, was being conceived a professor of Northern extraction in one of the approving bodies made moves towards locating the maritime university in the landlocked North!
The tendency to undermine the South in the allocation of institutions of critical and strategic importance has been on for a long time and it is not likely to end soon.
An example is the location of military institutions. The Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA), the Command and Staff College, the National Defence College and the Nigeria Defence Industries Corporation are all located in the North. Why has the NDA not been replicated in the South? Even the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) is in the North. Why has it not been replicated in the South.
The Police University is also in the North. Are these coincidences? No and no and no! These institutions are central to national development and cohesion; hence, they are located in the North to not only ensure easy access and ascendancy in service by Northerners, but to also ensure that the South is dominated and led by the noose.
It is a neo-colonial strategy, oiled and sustained by Nigeria’s caliphate-oligarchs to entrench and deepen their hegemonic hold on the South.
The configuration of the Nigerian state has always been for the South to produce the nation’s wealth, while the North, like a profligate husband, squanders it. The many years of military rule during which the North appropriated the nation’s oil wealth attest to this.
Whatever will benefit the South is often negated. That is why the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) set up as an intervention agency.
STATEMENT BY SENATOR (DR.) ORJI UZOR KALU
In Abuja On May 8 2020.
Today, the Supreme Court of Nigeria gave a judgment in my favor, quashing the conviction which the lower court had entered against me. By today's judgment, the Apex court of our dear country affirmed my right to fair hearing and equal protection of the law.
The past five months have been quite a profound period for me. As challenging as that period has been, it has provided me an opportunity to learn invaluable lessons about our country, our peoples, our justice system and the true meaning of love. I mean love for family, love for our country and love for humanity.
I want to use this moment to thank my family, my colleagues, my friends, my supporters, the people of Abia State, and all Nigerians for their unflinching and unwavering confidence and trust in me through the very testing period. We all know today that their prayers have not been in vain. I also use this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Nigerian Correctional Service for the unalloyed professionalism and sincere humanity extended to me by its staff while I was in their custody.
I must accord a special mention to the Justices of our Supreme Court for their unwavering commitment to rule of law. We all stand reminded of the consistent and strategic relevance of the Nigerian Supreme Court in holding this country together, even in moments of great peril.
As far back as in the 1971 case of LAKANMI V. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE FEDERATION, (the Ademola Adetikumbo-led Court) the Nigerian Supreme Court has severally rescued this country from the precipice. Also throughout the dark era of military rule in Nigeria, the Supreme Court neither wavered nor flinched in its commitment to justice and fairness.
And despite some moments of distraction and mass hysteria, the Nigerian Supreme Court has remained the veritable compass to the highest ideals of justice attainable in this country. This long tradition of the court was exemplified in today's judgment. I was humbled by the court's boldness and sense of justice as shown in my case.
Overall, my experience tested and reaffirmed my belief and confidence in our country, Nigeria. My case is a true Nigerian story with a bold MADE-IN-NIGERIA stamp on it. It is a story of initial injustice that was caught and ultimately corrected. It is a story of restoration. It is a story of how a wrong was righted and how justice and truth prevailed in the end. It is a story of the power of hope.
My case should teach us all that even though we may not get things right at the first attempt, with patience and dedication, we shall get them right eventually. That is the lesson of my case and that is the lesson of our country - that with dedication and patience, we shall place Nigeria in its rightful place eventually.
Before I end, I would like to let it be known that the events of the past five months gave me an added perspective on matters of justice and injustice in Nigeria. I have come to know that the course of justice will not be complete if it stopped at my case. It must continue until it touches the lives of millions of Nigerians who face injustice anywhere in this world.
I shall be dedicating my time henceforth to ensuring there will be justice for all Nigerians whether they are in Sokoto or Akwa Ibom or in Lagos or Maiduguri or in Jos or Enugu, or wherever they may be. Justice for one man or for a few people will no longer be enough in this country.
A system whereby over 70% of all prison inmates population is made up of people awaiting trial cannot be allowed to continue.
Situations where innocent people are falsely charged with murder just to get them out of the way does not dignify our country and cannot continue.
Justice must now mean justice for all. That is my pledge to Nigerians.
I look forward to rejoining my colleagues in the Senate as soon as possible.
Thank you and God bless all of you.
Signed by:
SENATOR (DR) ORJI UZOR KALU
The sad story of the country called Nigeria
The sad story of the country called Nigeria.
With a booming economy throughout the 70s, and 80s
Nigeria was touted as one of the most promising major emerging economy.
But that breakneck growth sputtered to two decade low since 1999, with many observers pointing to the corrosive effect of endemic corruption—including a spate of scandalous embarrassment from spurious allocations by the National assembly to themselves under the civilian administration as major reasons.
Perhaps more than Nigerias weak currency and rising inflation, the graft problem has undermined institutions and thwarted efforts to reduce poverty and catalyze sustainable growth in the world’s largest black
democracy.
Public revelations of corruption, including major scandals in different branch of the economy particularly the national assembly and the oil industry have galvanized a rising public with increased demands for better governance.
The tide may spur new political movements, and force the government to address transparency and aproach towards corruption.
We must be serious on combating government malfeasance and Prevent Corruption in high places to curtail officials from cashing in on opportunistic looting. Our parliament are a major embarrassment when it comes to the way they selfishly embezzle funds into their personal accounts instead of towards public projects. It is pathetic that the money they allocate to themselves for cars,houses, furniture, securities,wardrobes are more than what is allocated for education, health,security, roads and other important sectors that are supposed to help keep the economy growing .
We have seen our government time and time again, borrowed from foreign leaders only for the money to be shared among themselves.
WE as a nation must embark on a national conscience awareness by changing our attitudes towards this culture of worshiping money and lips service if we must get things right.we must also stop collecting money from politicians before and during elections, this will put an end to vote buying and make politicians to pay the price of not performing at the poles.
If a politician is voted out for not performing, it will serve as deterrent to other office holders ,by making them realise that there is a price for none performance if they or their Party is voted out of power.
This corrupt officials have become emboldened respectively, by political parties who have thwarted convictions, and arguably increased incentives for bribery, corruption and embezzlement of public funds. In recent years, graft pervaded society from development, stymied economic growth and reduced the country to impecunious and impoverished country.
Services have collapsed, maintenance are imaginary , infrastructures are nonexistent both at state and national level.
We should not be scrimping on investments in public safety. The lack of infrastructure spending is costing us lives in Nigeria. It's costing every commuter." "For an economy to grow we must invest in what will fuel us for generations to come but unfortunately we are not.
Our roads are death traps, roads remain the essential network of the non-virtual world. They are the infrastructure upon which almost all other infrastructures depends. They are the paths of human endeavor, but our legislators are suffering from optical illusions to see that.
We must change our culture and orientation, our country is dead and ready for burial.
Chris Okobah Ph.D
With a booming economy throughout the 70s, and 80s
Nigeria was touted as one of the most promising major emerging economy.
But that breakneck growth sputtered to two decade low since 1999, with many observers pointing to the corrosive effect of endemic corruption—including a spate of scandalous embarrassment from spurious allocations by the National assembly to themselves under the civilian administration as major reasons.
Perhaps more than Nigerias weak currency and rising inflation, the graft problem has undermined institutions and thwarted efforts to reduce poverty and catalyze sustainable growth in the world’s largest black
democracy.
Public revelations of corruption, including major scandals in different branch of the economy particularly the national assembly and the oil industry have galvanized a rising public with increased demands for better governance.
The tide may spur new political movements, and force the government to address transparency and aproach towards corruption.
We must be serious on combating government malfeasance and Prevent Corruption in high places to curtail officials from cashing in on opportunistic looting. Our parliament are a major embarrassment when it comes to the way they selfishly embezzle funds into their personal accounts instead of towards public projects. It is pathetic that the money they allocate to themselves for cars,houses, furniture, securities,wardrobes are more than what is allocated for education, health,security, roads and other important sectors that are supposed to help keep the economy growing .
We have seen our government time and time again, borrowed from foreign leaders only for the money to be shared among themselves.
WE as a nation must embark on a national conscience awareness by changing our attitudes towards this culture of worshiping money and lips service if we must get things right.we must also stop collecting money from politicians before and during elections, this will put an end to vote buying and make politicians to pay the price of not performing at the poles.
If a politician is voted out for not performing, it will serve as deterrent to other office holders ,by making them realise that there is a price for none performance if they or their Party is voted out of power.
This corrupt officials have become emboldened respectively, by political parties who have thwarted convictions, and arguably increased incentives for bribery, corruption and embezzlement of public funds. In recent years, graft pervaded society from development, stymied economic growth and reduced the country to impecunious and impoverished country.
Services have collapsed, maintenance are imaginary , infrastructures are nonexistent both at state and national level.
We should not be scrimping on investments in public safety. The lack of infrastructure spending is costing us lives in Nigeria. It's costing every commuter." "For an economy to grow we must invest in what will fuel us for generations to come but unfortunately we are not.
Our roads are death traps, roads remain the essential network of the non-virtual world. They are the infrastructure upon which almost all other infrastructures depends. They are the paths of human endeavor, but our legislators are suffering from optical illusions to see that.
We must change our culture and orientation, our country is dead and ready for burial.
Chris Okobah Ph.D
THE SITUATION IN NIGERIA.
The lecturer who insists on sex for a young girl to pass is complaining about the rot in Nigeria.
The pastor who pays his driver 20k in Lagos or PH while his own son schools in the US is complaining about the hopelessness in Nigeria.
The trader who removes 2 bowls of rice from the bag, rebags and sells as a 'full' bag is complaining about the wickedness in Nigeria.
The civil servant who comes to work once a week and shows up end of month to receive alert is complaining about politicians who do nothing.
The student who spends the weekend partying only to start posting Instagram pictures on Monday is complaining that Nigeria is stealing his/her dreams.
The motor owner who can't join a simple queue but keeps darting in and out of traffic to shunt is complaining about disorderliness in Nigeria.
Doctors in public and teaching hospitals on government payroll who abandon patients on the floor but are thriving in their private hospitals are complaining that Nigeria is hopeless.
Until we realize that the value of Nigeria today is the average of our own individual values, we will keep fooling ourselves.
We are all architect of our economic development woes. Stop the blame game. Our attitudes and unpatriotic behaviour should stop.
COPIED!
WHEN COMMON SENSE IS NOT COMMON!!!
FROM PRESIDENT OF OHANEZE, JOHN NNIA NWODO.
I remember a time in this Country when all the six Ministers in Jonathan's kitchen Cabinet were all Igbos.
Ayim Pius Ayim was Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was in charge Finance, Emeka Wogu was in Labour and Productivity, Berth Nnaji was in Power and Energy.
Dieziani Madueke was the powerful Minister for Oil.
The six of them outside the Federal Executive Council would meet and decide what and what not to be discussed at the larger FEC.
Whatever they decided would eventually be the position of Government.
In six years, this was the situation.
Okiro and Onovo had the Police under their control.
Ihejerika and later Minimah controlled the Army.
These powerful Igbos could do and undo.
Nigeria was in their pockets.
Rather than care about the poor Igbo chaps scattered all over the Country, they were busy diverting Billions of Naira into their accounts at home and abroad.
The Second Niger Bridge, they didn't do. They shared the money.
The Lagos/Calabar rail lines passing through nine States, three of them in the South East, they were not bothered.
They refused to pay the Chinese the Counter part fund. They shared the money.
Enugu/Onitsha, Aba/PH and other roads of economic importance to their fellow Igbos, they abandoned them.
Who is to blame?
Who is marginalising the Igbos?
You had your chance, you bungled it.
There was only one Yoruba Minister worth mentioning at the time, Akinwunmi Adesina.
He was in Agriculture. His budget was less than 1% while Emeka Wogu in Labour had over 10% for his Ministry.
Ayim had unlimited access to the treasury for the benefit of himself and Family members.
The poor Igbo guys meant nothing to him.
If an Igbo becomes President tomorrow after Jonathan, will there be any difference?
The Igbo man will marginalise his fellow Igbo people...
PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Under Former President Jonathan, A South Easterner:
Senator Pius Anyim - former Secretary to the Federal Government for 5 years - Igbo.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala - former Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economy for 5 years - Igbo.
Senator Ike Ekweremadu- former and incumbent Deputy Senate President for 5 years plus - Igbo.
Emeka Ihedioha - former Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives for 5 years -Igbo.
General Ihejirika - former Chief of Army Staff for 4 years - Igbo.
Diezani Alison Madueke - former Petroleum Minister for 5 years - Ijaw/ Igbo.
Senator Stella Odua- former Minister of Aviation for 4 years - Igbo.
Please add these to the List. All since the present Democratic dispensation in 1999.
Evans Enwerem - Igbo- Senate President.
Chuba Okadigbo - Igbo- Senate President.
Adolphus Wabara - Igbo - Senate President.
Ayim Pius Ayim - Igbo - Senate President.
Ken Nnamani - Igbo - Senate President.
Chinedu Nebo- Igbo - Minister of Power.
Bert Nnaji - Igbo - Minister of Power.
So who really is marginalising who, when all these had all the chance in the world to get their kinsmen their fair slice of the National cake?
Did they not get the slice?
Hell they did. Where did it go? Into their individual pockets.
Ask them.
THE 5 TRADITIONAL PRAYER POINTS OF NDI-IGBO - WHAT MY FATHER TOLD ME
Chijioke H. Orji, Esq.
Among Ndi Igbo (the Igbo speaking people) kola nut is revered and used for traditional ceremonies like marriage, funerals and anything of paramount importance.
If you ever visit an Igbo, the first thing he does to welcome you is to offer you kola nut. If he fails to do so, then you are not welcome to his house. The kola nut is used to offer prayers. This prayer is offered only in the Igbo language and never in any other language, national or otherwise. The prayer is offered by the oldest person around who comes from the home of the person that presents the kola nut. As the prayer is said, at every stage, it is greeted with Amen in Igbo. Depending on which part of Igbo land, the word Amen is IHAA or ISE. The word Ise also generally means 5 in the Igbo language. In a part of Igbo land, because ISE means 5 as well as AMEN, during the prayer over kola nut, 5 things are demanded of God.
These 5 prayer points namely; Longlife, Prosperity, Good Health, Good Children/Successors, Love and Peace in the family are what I now describe as *the traditional prayer points of Ndi-Igbo.*
Longlife :
God is requested to grant longevity to all. This is to enable them enough time to achieve their aspirations in life.
Prosperity :
In the realization however that a person who lives long without the means to sustain good living will live miserably, a second request for the wherewithal to live well is made.
Good Health :
It is held that a healthy life can make life worth living for anyone who lives long and has the resources to live well. So the third prayer point is for good health.
Good Children/Successors :
According to the epistemological beliefs of Igbo people, when a man dies he continues to see what is going on but lacks the capacity to change it. Thus the Igbo believe that his home deserves to be taken good care of by good descendants. Hence the fourth prayer is for good Children who will successfully take over the management of home following the eternal departure of one.
Love and peace:
The fifth prayer and by no means the least is for the reign of love and peace in the home without which life can be rough, uninteresting and unpleasant.
THINGS THAT CAUSE REGRET AT OLD AGE
When younger we make various choice's without the future in mind. Sometimes those choices bite us in our mid-life. These are some of the things one might regret when they're older.
1. Marrying the wrong person
When you're young, check your motives for marrying. Don't marry to copy your peers, or for social standing or out of pressure. Marry for love and companionship, marry the right person, marry your best friend. For if you marry the wrong person or for the wrong reasons, you will have to put up with that person the rest of your life. Things might get worse between you two; then depression, physical abuse, affairs, pain, shame, court cases, bitterness will define your mid-life years all because you chose the wrong one. Things will get worse when children are involved. Make the right choice of a spouse when you are young.
2. The opportunities you did not seize
When you are younger many doors will open, you will get many chances. Many young people let these opportunities go because of fear, laziness, or pride; yet well younger and with more energy is the best time to start a venture and a name for yourself. Some think the opportunities are too big for them. Take advantage of them or one day when you're older you will want to go back and grab those missed chances.
3. The bridges you burned
When we are younger, we care little for relationships, what most think about is getting money and moving up the ladder of success at all cost. Many use and trample on people to progress, they take relationships for granted, messing up bonds, sleeping with people for personal gain. But these bad actions will catch up with you ahead. When you will realize how empty life is without love and friends. When you will have success but no one around you or no one to trust you.
4. The child you aborted
You are a young lady, you get pregnant and you are scared. You take the aborting option quickly thinking of that moment then. But when you are much older, you will look back and wish you kept that baby. When you will be rich and successful you will wish that child you gave up on would be around to enjoy the fruits of your hard work. Being a single mother doesn't mean you can't make it in life or you can't find a man in future.
5. The child you rejected
Young man, you impregnated a woman, she told you she's pregnant with your child. You rejected her and the baby and ran. But years later when you're 50 something, you will wish you were responsible, you will wish you manned up and became a father to that child. You will see that child excel and become an adult but will have no claim to that grown child who you rejected from the beginning. You will regret being a Dead Beat Dad by choice
6. The marriage you destroyed
So you get married to your good fiance; the first months in marriage were good but shortly after, with your money and charm, you started having affairs. You became unfaithful. Your spouse begged you to stop, your children started hurting, your marriage was collapsing. One day when you are older, it will hit you how foolish you were to destroy the good marriage you had began to build for mere temporary thrills in affairs that did you no good. You will realize the damage you caused to your children and spouse.
7. The God you disowned
When you are much older you become wiser, God becomes more real as you see life in a more meaningful way. But don't wait to get older to start enjoying a relationship with God. Know God when you are young, build your future with God. Don't be a young rebel who runs back to God when age catches up.
8. The body you messed up
You have only one body to live with all your life. The cigarettes, the alcohol you are abusing, the drugs you are taking, the unhealthy food you're consuming; all that will destroy you slowly. When you are 50 and lifestyle diseases catch up with you, you will wish you took care of your body when younger, that you exercised more; but now the damage is done.
9. The time you wasted
The time you are wasting when younger in worry, wrong relationships, laziness, being a couch potato, giving excuses and pursuing meaningless things; you will never get it back.
10. The dreams and talents you shelved
Are you talented when young; are there things you love to do and you are good at them? Nurture those talents, exploit them, don't give up even if you encounter set backs, don't give up on your dreams. If you give up, when you're older you will look at your peers who stuck to what they love and made it and think to yourself, "That could have been me". Pursue a career, study a course you love. Don't waste years of your life in a field that doesn't fulfill you.
11 The name you defamed
When you are older, a legacy is very important, the value of your name is crucial. You will ask yourself what is your reputation, what are you leaving behind? Your legacy is a sum total of your actions since youthful days. We write our biography by how we live life everyday. When you look back your path and you see the mud you threw at your own name, the shame you attracted and the little value you have added to the world; you will regret.
12. The wealth you threw away
Are you riding on good money during your productive years? Earning good money? Don't throw away that money in clubs, reckless living and wasteful shopping. Invest with that money, widen your revenue stream, make that money work for you and keep it safe to take care of you in your older years. Leave an inheritance for your loved ones so that you will never say "I wish I knew better"
13. The good love that got away
Is there that great person in your life loving you good? Don't push that person away, or else that person will walk out your life and you will never ever find someone that incredible and who connects with you all your life. It will torment you to grow older with thoughts of "What if I was still with that person?"
14 byThe parents you despised
When younger, it is easy to show contempt to your parents; what do your parent's know? They are old-fashioned, shady and small -minded. But your parents are still your parents whether you agree with them or not, whatever their style. Don't let your parent die or age separated from you, reconcile and make up. When you get older, you will realize why your parents wanted to be close to you. The older you get, the more you see the value.
Thanks for reading
To realize
The value of a sister or brother
Ask someone
Who doesn't have one.
To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.
To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.
To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam.
To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.
To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother
Who has given birth to
A premature baby.
To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.
To realize
The value of one second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident.
Time waits for no one.
Treasure every moment you have.
You will treasure it even more when
You can share it with someone special.
To realize the value of a friend or family member:
LOSE ONE.
Do not keep this with you, lt might bring blessings to everyone you pass it to
Remember....
Hold on tight to the ones you love!
Do not keep this letter.
Send it to friends and family to whom you wish good life at their old age.
Remain blessed.
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