Iliyasu Gadu
Ilgad2009@gmail.com
08035355706 (Texts only)
Having conquered and subjugated the territory which came to be known as Nigeria under their colonial rule, the British were faced with the task of building the infrastructure to effectively exploit the natural resources of the territory. There were roads and railways to be built for transportation of goods and people; telegraph wires to link the far flung areas for the purpose of communication; power and energy to be provided to the emerging towns and factories to be established for processing of raw materials.
In some other British colonies in Africa especially Eastern Africa, this was solved by importing indentured workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc who built the railways, the telegraphs and other colonial infrastructure.
But in Nigeria, it was the Igbos from Eastern Nigeria that were largely deployed by the British for this purpose. Thousands of Igbos built the Apapa port in Lagos which accounts for their large settlements in outlying areas like Ajegunle, Olodi Apapa and Ijora. Igbo labourers also did the same thing in Port Harcourt and Calabar. Thousands of Igbo labourers also helped build the railways from Lagos and Port Harcourt into the hinterland to as far places as Nguru, Kaura Namoda, Bauchi, Gombe, Kumo, Jos, Kafanchan, Makurdi, Zaria, Kano and Kaduna. The technicians that built and ran the telegraph lines (Post and Telecomms) as well as the Power Infrastructure (the old Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, ECN) all over the country were mostly drawn from the Igbo ethnic group.
It is no gainsaying the fact that whereas the British conceptualised and designed the infrastructure of colonial Nigeria, it was the Igbos that largely gave practical effect to the concept. In that respect more than any ethnic group Igbos can be credited with the distinction of being the builders of modern Nigeria. The resultant dispersal of Igbos across Nigeria first as the labourers and builders of the Infrastructure of Nigeria and subsequently as artisans, traders, teachers, and in other vocations, instilled in the Igbos a pioneering frontier spirit that exists till today. Indeed as early as the beginning of the twentieth century when the colonial enterprise was just commencing in Nigeria Igbos communities were already in existence in far flung areas of the country. Wonder why and how Igbo personalities like the great Nnamdi Azikiwe, Odumegwu Ojukwu, Jim Ifeanyichukwu Nwobodo and many others were born outside Igboland? They were children of first generation Igbo workers who were drafted to build the colonial infrastructure. Thus in virtually every community in Nigeria today apart from the indigenous inhabitants of the area Igbos are likely to be next in terms of population, presence and influence.
At the time of Nigeria’s Independence from Britain in 1960, generations of Igbos had either been born and raised outside Igboland or had been long term residents in those areas such that many counted themselves with justification as having more affinity to those areas than the origins of their forebears.
The January 1966 coup and the attendant sad consequences ruptured the salutary development of Igbo integration into the Nigerian system. Suddenly the Igbos found were loathed and distrusted in many of the communities that had hosted them amicably for years. Millions of Igbos who had been born and raised in those communities and knew no places other than those areas were either expelled or killed in great big bleeding batches as reprisals for the events of the January 1966 Coup. The subsequent civil war that resulted from these developments further cut a deep gash in the mutually beneficial relationship between the Igbos and other ethnic groups in the country.
Not only has this affected the Igbos deeply it has also cast a pall in the psyche of the Nigerian system wherein one of its major ethnic group remains largely out of the loop in terms of reckoning, relevance and recognition. From being in some ways the primus inter pares in the scheme of things in Nigeria, Igbos now look and feel rueful as they are reduced to objects of suspicion, ethnic profiling and stigmatized at every turn in the Nigerian system. What comes to other ethnic groups as a matter of constitutional and legal rights, the Igbos have to plead and lobby for in a humiliating manner it is granted them more often in puny proportion to what they asked for.
It must be stated that perhaps the Igbos cannot be totally blameless from some of the issues that lead to their stigmatization. They are often seen by other Nigerians as aggressive, covetous and driven by arrogance and hubris. Other Nigerians see the Igbos as people who tend to look down and seek to cut corners in their competition and in their commerce. Due to their extra motivation to succeed in their endeavours, Igbos often drive themselves to lengths that some consider as unnecessarily unethical and dangerous.
But have other Nigerians ever stopped to ever considered that Igbos may have been driven to these negative behaviours and practises by the sense of collective rejection they feel at the hands of fellow Nigerians over the years?
I think the time has come for Igbos and other Nigerians alike to square the circle on the Igbo question. In our normal ways of doing things of this nature we have talked ad nauseum over the years but we have always not come to the point of resolving it. We may not have realised it, but failure to resolve the Igbo question has been one of the albatross of our efforts at national development over the years. The Igbos have proven to be creative, innovative goal getters and their talents are required to complement the efforts of others to move the country from where it is stuck and sinking down presently. I stand to be corrected, but no single ethnic group has invested in many ways on the Nigeria projected than the Igbos. But the Igbos cannot give their all to this country if they have to keep looking over their shoulders at whether it is worth the while to do so when they have not been reintegrated into the scheme of things in a country they have contributed more than anybody else to build.
The Igbos must also work to get the chip off their shoulders. There is an unhelpful sense of lack of self-confidence about what should be their place and role in the political stakes in the Nigerian system. Igbos have carried this posture in national politics that they have come to believe that either Nigeria owes them a favour or that it is not worth their trouble to invest vigorously in political engineering in the country. In this regard one often hear and see Igbo political figures saying rather in a tone of defeat and lack of self-confidence ‘’Will they allow an Igbo man to rule’’? or ‘’We are hated by everybody in Nigeria’’. This pathetic sense of abnegation has tended to cost Igbos the opportunity to make their pitch in national politics.
If the Igbos allow this psyche to rule their politics it may become a fixture and other Nigerians will come to regard it as given that Igbos are indeed economic and commercial giants, but political dwarves as it is being said rather derisively in some circles in Nigeria.
Let it be known that resolving the Igbo question can only come about when Igbos themselves begin to carve out their political niche in a constructive manner in order to pursue their interests within the larger Nigerian system.
