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The Igbos hates themselves, really? I would make this as concise as possible, to enable many of you to read and digest it, full dose.
Do you know that the South-East region has one of the least amounts of federal presence? Howbeit, the Igbo people are the richest per capita of any ethnic group in Nigeria.
Dr. Magnus Kpakol, the former Director General of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), said that Anambra state has the highest number of entrepreneurs in the country. Anambra also has the highest number of affluent citizens per capita than any other indigenous people of any state in the country.
According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, after Lagos state, Anambra state has the highest number of Micro Finance Banks in Nigeria. See folks, the banks are not there to dance ‘Galala’ they are there because there is cash flow even in small towns.
Where are my going with all these, you may ask? Please read on, am about to make my point.
An article published in 2014 by Nigerian Insight titled “The rising rate of poverty in Nigeria” gave a detailed breakdown of poverty rate in Nigeria. The article reported that the North-West and the North-East had the highest poverty rates in the country in 2010 at 77.7% and 76.3% respectively. Yet, Northern Nigeria has produced 9 out of the 14 Presidents of Nigeria and has ruled the country for over 36 years of its 55 years of independence. Let us also add the fact that the North has the top richest men in Nigeria. Tell me, how much love is going around there?
Furthermore, in the same report by Nigerian Insight, Sokoto State had the highest poverty rate at 86.4 per cent. A previous report conducted by another daily about a decade ago in 2004 stated that Jigawa State had the highest poverty rate in Nigeria at 95%.
Why is there more prosperity per capita in the East than anywhere else in the country? The answer is simple. Igbo people know how to help themselves. The Igbos has perfected the system of apprenticeship, whereby the patriarch or the most successful person in the village or in the kindred would take some young men and sometimes women along with them to the city. They would live with them for some years. During the time they would spend with their ‘master’, they would be taught how to be successful in trade. After the agreed number of years, they would be settled with money and connections to start their own business.
Back in the days, when I visit the village I would ask, where is Okeke? Oh! He has gone to Lagos with his in-law.
Where is Okafor? He has gone to Port-Harcourt with his Uncle.
This is a typical trend in the South-East, one that is marked with love and the sincere desire to help one another to succeed. I wonder where the notion of hatred among Igbo people originated from.
As a young boy I used to be told the awful stories of how Biafra lost the Nigerian civil war because they were sabotaging themselves. They said the Igbos would lead the Nigerian military to the hideouts of the Biafran soldiers for a ‘piece of meal’. Until I grew up, I believed that narrative to be true. Of course, there might have been saboteurs in the Biafran camp (just like in any camp during warfare), but that was certainly not why Biafrans lost the war. I won’t go into it today.
Technically, considering the fact that the majority of the people killed by Boko Haram are from the North, can we say that the Hausa/Fulani hate themselves? How much love could possibly be in the city of the Caliphate, Sokoto with poverty rate at 86.4 percent?
The illegal oil bunkering and refineries in the South-South are perpetrated by mostly Ijaw people. So can we say that the Ijaws hate themselves? Many Ijaw people reading this would disagree! Same goes for other parts of the country.
According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) , it is most likely for most whites to be killed by whites, and most blacks to be killed by blacks. The obvious reason for this is that most people are killed by someone they know and most people are related to and live near people who are of the same race as themselves.
Hate is hate everywhere and love is love everywhere. Hate and love knows no racial or religious orientation. It knows no boundaries.
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