How South East Igbo Enslaves Delta Igbo
Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD
As the Igbo say, and to state it in the noble West-Niger Igbo dialect: Onye nwanneya n’agba ajo egwu n’ako oko n’igbogbolo anya (a person whose kinsman is dancing in a queer manner scratches the cover of his eye). The Igbo of the West Niger are scratching the cover of their eyes today because their Southeast Igbo kinsmen have long been dancing in a queer manner to the mad drums of political music in Nigeria, and it appears that the situation is getting to the point of irredeemable precipice.
In Nigeria of today the Igbo of the Southeast are the most politically corrupt, culturally disconnected, economically blindfolded, socially cosmetic, and clandestinely patriotic, all of which are woven in the pitiable garb of religious bankruptcy. They are the most fictional in character— lacking in moral judgment, political orientation and thought as much as they have the best brains in intellectual fiction: Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, John Munonye, Chukwuemeka Ike, Nkem Nwankwo, Flora Nwapa or Dora Ifudu and a lot more.
Or do I need to mention Miss Chimamada Adichie the trending Igbo fictionist and ultra-feminist who out of her over-blown pride in what she sees as her towering literary achievement rejected her husband’s name as demanded by Igbo customs and tradition and instead elected to remain a perpetual cosmological spinster in her father’s house. To her, because her father was a Professor of Statistics and her mother a Registrar of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, it would be too demeaning to her family noble status and her assumed towering image as a literary giant to adopt her husband’s paradoxically inconsequential surname.
This is an outright taboo in Igbo customs and traditions which cannot be permitted among the Igbo of West Niger. Even the noble Princess of Ogwashi Kingdom Dr. Ngozichukwuka Okonjo-Iweala with even a more noble family background with better educated parents—both Professors and higher attainment who hyphenated her father’s name with that of her Abia State-born husband knows quite well that such untraditional double identity would not have been permitted if she were married to her West Niger Igbo kinsman. But among the Southeast Igbo anything goes. It is on record from both her husband’s family and her staff during her double tenures a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that her sublime qualities as a humble housewife to her husband remain hard to find among women of contemporaneous and equal attainments. A woman who would tell her staff as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that she was closing for the day because her husband was arriving to Nigeria and needed to be taken care of after a long journey is hard to find among Southeast women of her status. This is a clearly defined difference created by the dividing banks of the lordly Niger.
It is obvious that at the centre of the gangrenous state of Southeast Igbo value system lays their inability to distinguish between cultural values from religious beliefs. The average Igbo of the Southeast does not know where his traditional value system begins and ends with his orchestrated fanatical but dubious attachment to Christianity. And this is the point of mental cogitation where corrupt mindset with regard to value judgment begins to set in and soon grow to fertilize into institutional spiritual bankruptcy that overflows into the thoroughfares of their political life, social etiquette, and cultural identity all which is driven by the whirlpool of what is better described as economic brigandage.
This is in total contrast to what is better described as Yoruba spiritual creativity and cultural adaptability which resulted to a profuse sense of cultural nationalism, ethnic consciousness and a commingle of mutually accommodating religious beliefs. That inherent spiritual creativity in the Yoruba saw the infusion of Black African cultural nationalism into the spiritual framework of their Christianity to generate what we know today in academic circles as “Ethiopianism” which E. A. Ayadele describes as “African nationalism expressed through the medium of the church”, from which such independent African Churches as the “African Church”, Cherubim and Seraphim (Aladura), and Celestial Church of Christ all founded in Yorubaland sprouted.
How many of such Churches exist in Southeast Igboland today except mushroom fake Sabbath Churches and the likes whose spiritual activities are hard to different from those of the formal Native Doctors? How many ignorant Igbo are aware that it was this innovative and creative ability of the Yoruba that led to the formation of what is today known as Reformed Ogboni Fraternity, originally known as Reformed Ogboni Christianity with the objective of countering such European domineering Secret Society as Freemason, among others? What has the Igbo contributed to the body of the Christian Church with all their bogus claims of being the most Christianized ethnic group in Nigeria, except using it as the vehicle to destroy their time-honoured value system and identity, as well as an instrument of financial scam?
Today those episodic acts of Yoruba spiritual creativity and sacrifice are being re-played by current Yoruba dominance in the terrain of Christian leadership in Nigeria. The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners Chapel, Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries, Deeper Life Bible Church, T.B Joshua’s Church of All Nations, and Tunde Bakare’s Latter Reign, all of which have the spiritually gullible Igbo of the Southeast as their most catchment ethnic group. Even the only Igbo-driven Church of the same spiritual status—Christ Chosen has its leader being ridiculed and maligned by his Igbo kinsmen as not being well educated and using charms to attract adherents. To state the obvious even Bishop Okonkwo’s TREM is out of contest because when you remove his presence in Lagos, there is nothing left other than the isolated Temple on the Mount of Umunya his hometown.
Even the Roman Catholic Church Adoration Ground con-men Reverend Fathers are not left out in reaping assiduously from the spiritual credulity of their moronic Southeast Igbo kinsmen. Nobody is getting any feedback from the once famous Reverend Father Ede’s Elele Holy Spirit water-driven miracle Adoration Ground, from where people had to transport large cans of spiritualized water to their homes adorned with spiritualized stickers and head-gears to ward off evil spirits. Of course his Universities and other economic academic institutions are evidence of the intervention of the Holy Spirit then.
Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka should have had more spiritual respect if he had pursued his family’s spiritual trade as a Native Doctor with utmost diligence. But since money is the end objective of Southeast Christianity and like a typical Southeast Igbo man, he chose the path of Spiritual Political Economy. He produces packaged pure-water and yogurt, and sells his monotonous musical tunes all in the name of “Mother Mary”.
He is an expert in destructive political prophecy with impetuous religious showmanship and perilous mentality of authoritarian oracle of God. Yet, he never foresaw the massacre of more than fifty of his adherents at Ukpabi in Nsukka by Fulani herdsmen or the numerous acts of heinous murders by the same Fulani herdsmen at Eke and its environs where he has his Pure Water and Yogurt Factory. Even the on-going Corona Virus-19 that has denied him his major source of revenue did not appear to him even in dreams. He told us that President Goodluck Jonathan has turned to Badluck Jonathan. The question is how far Father Mbaka with respect to your prophecy against President Goodluck Jonathan and the current political situation in your country?
Meanwhile as the Yoruba are utilizing their Ancestral Deities and their Groves as Heritage Sites attracting UNESCO recognition and serving as sources of tourism, the Igbo are destroying and maligning theirs in the name of their cataclysmic belief in Christianity. The other time some local land speculators of Awka-Etiti origin in Anambra State hiding under the vile cloak of “Born Again” Christianity invaded the Forest Grove of their time-honoured Deity, felled the trees and divided up the land among themselves, accusing the very Deity that had lived with their forefathers for centuries of being the cause of their immediate economic and spiritual woes. Even as I am writing some groups of Abatete indigenes in Anambra State are meeting in various locations finalizing their plans on how to invade the Sacred Grove of their Omaliko Deity and divide up the land in the name Christ battling the Devil of their Ancestors. This is the Southeast Igboman for you.
The other time again it was Reverend Father Obinna of the Roman Catholic Adoration Ground at Uke in Anambra State who in his shameless spiritual ignorance of the common theme of Igbo cosmology claimed that to have destroyed the Iyi-Oji Deity at Nkwelle Ezunaka. Does one destroy a spirit force by merely destroying the housing symbol of its presence? Has Iyi-Oji any physical symbol of identity like the Roman Catholic crucifix, and statutes of Mary, Jesus Christ, and the Saints which are outright objects of worship and adoration? The question is why did he not move further to Iyi-Oji Deity at Odekpe in Ogbaru Local Government Area where even his Roman Catholic adherents are the largest clients in the adjudication of disputes brought before the Deity to perform the same Gideonian act of spiritual zealotry? The Nkwelle Ezunaka happened simply because the poor Holy Traditional Man of God in-charge of the Deity had no strong family support.
At Nsukka it was the case of one Ngozi Adoro from Alor-Unor claiming to have destroyed the revered and dreaded Adoro Deity but only ended up joining her ancestor on the Christmas day of the same year. It is only in Nsukka that a combined team of Traditional rulers, Church leaders and lawyers conspired to destroy the Adoro Deity with the help of the State Government for the major reason that the Deity was appropriating disputing clients from them. What do you expect from the ordinary people when Traditional Rulers of Southeast extractions take bribes and hand down injustice in the name of justice, the Churches cover up their crimes by hiding under the cloak of Christianity, and the lawyers compel their clients to swear to oaths with the Holy Bible to give false evidence in Court? Adoro does not take bride nor condone false accusations and any client appearing before her knows the instant judgment.
It is also at the same Nsukka that Reverend Father Obayi started his Adoration Ground by moving from one household to another collecting their traditional religious symbols and storing them in a reserved space at the Diocesan Headquarters in his myopic knowledge of what stands for idol worship, but with an ulterior economic motive. Knowing very well that artifacts are rare items of research in African history and culture and that there have been on-going demands for the return of such material cultural items carted away by British Colonial officials, one had expected him to donate such items to the University of Nigeria Museums at the Institute of African Studies and Department of Archaeology and Tourism, he chose to store them waiting for the opportunity to trade them in cash. Indeed one might not be surprised if some foreign artifact agents drive into the Church compound one night and cart away those spiritually cursed items under favourable bargaining terms.
In the recent past the same Southeast Igbo have come to confront another spiritual con-man called Odumeje, who as Chinua Achebe wrote, like the little bird called Nza, after overfeeding himself with a bowl of fufu decided to challenge his Chi to a wrestling bout. While his Yoruba Pentecostal counterparts are busy gathering adherents from his backyard, he is busy challenging the custodians of his father’s ancestral heirloom to a dog-fight of spiritual nihilism. He felt that the only means of increasing the number of his adherents and thus increases his lean finances is to challenge the whole Traditional Doctors in his Southeast Igboland to a spiritual combat. Let him cross over to the South-South or Southwest and try such and see the instant result.
It is only in Southeast Igboland that a person’s political importance and base of mobilization of support is measured by his denominational affiliation. It does not matter if the person has the best intentions for his people or has the best quality and ability to deliver. What matters is if he is a Roman Catholic or an Anglican. Peter Obi had to abandon the most popular and best candidate to succeed to him in Office as Governor of Anambra State from Umunya simply because he is of the Anglican Church and Peter being a fanatical Roman Catholic needed by every means a fellow Roman Catholic to succeed him.
This was the reason why he had to bring Willy Obiano from outside the Party mainstream to succeed him. Today both men are the best of friends if to define it in paradoxical terms. This is the same Peter Obi who wants to be President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and expect other denominations outside Roman Catholic to support his bid. The same Peter Obi gave out plots of land to the Caliphate for the building of an International Islamic Centre at his Agulu hometown in return for support for his Presidential bid. Suffice it to state that in both South-South and Southwest geo-political zones nobody cares about what denomination and religion one belongs to so long as you present yourself as the best candidate.
On November 16, 2013, the now Senator Rochas Okorocha then Governor of Imo State, and Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, for Governor of Abia State now serving Prison sentence for fraud at Ikoyo Prisons, compelled eighteen Southeast young men to denounce Christianity and convert to Islam with sumptuous financial inducement at the National Mosque, Abuja. The eighteen young men of which seventeen were from Imo State were later renamed: Suleiman Nwachukwu, Ibrahim Uchenna Ukah, Muhammad Sani Stanley Uziogwe, Bello Kelvin Nmadu, Habibullah Kosoro Ofolete, Jamilu Osita Agocha, Haruna Chichebem Nwabirika, Abdulazeez Paschal Iroegbulam, Suleiman Ifeanyi Uzoma, Adam Nduka Nweko, Dawuda Nnaemeka Uzoma, Aliyu Prince Onyekwume and Musa (Anayo) Adugbaa. Rochas Okorocha was said to have doled out the sum of two million naira to each of the seventeen Imo indigenes, Orji Uzor Kalu gave out the sum of ten million naira to all the new Muslims collectively.
These two men who claim to be sworn Christians of the Roman Catholic denomination with well-decorated altars of the Virgin Mary in their respective homes threw all moral cautions overboard just because of their inordinate ambition to become President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They did such with unrivalled impunity just because of the dominant moral depravity of the so-called core-Igbo of the Southeast, who will always regard them as both their heroes and leaders.
How many Southern political leaders in the South-South, Southwest, and Middle Belt have condescended so low as to act in such dubious political manner just for their political ambition? How many Yoruba Christians did Chief Olusegun Obasanjo convert to Islam before he was elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? How many Ijaw Christians did Dr. Goodluck Jonathan covert from Christianity to Islam before he was elected the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? How many Ijaw militants did Mujaheed Asari Dokubo convert to Islam even as a Muslim? Why should any sensible Igbo of the South-South be proud to identify himself as belonging to the same Igbo stock with the Igbo of the Southeast under these utterly demeaning and shameful circumstances?
In a similar servile circumstance, out of poverty of spiritualism and inordinate quest for material things of life, a Traditional ruler in Imo State—Eze Sylvester Dimunah overnight became Eze Musa Dimunah. What a sorry-tale of a people corrupt in mind as in both body and spirit, yet claim to be the cemen fondu of knowledge and understanding in Nigeria? Does the action present a good impression of traditional leadership worthy of emulation? The same people want to tell the whole world that they are the best Igbo in Nigeria. Best in making money; yes but mostly without the accompanying dignity. One can then see why confirmed criminals are often elevated to the exalted position of Traditional Rulers in Southeast without regard to the guiding principles of their ancestral heirloom.
It is this money question that explains why Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu could without a pinch of conscience as the former leader of defunct Biafra reveal his private discussion with Admiral Alison Madueke—the first Igbo to attend the office of a Service Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, on the latter’s position on the annulled June 12, 1993 Presidential election, to General Sani Abacha, leading to his uneventful retirement. For doing so, Dim Ojukwu was rewarded with the contract of managing Federal Highway Toll-Gate revenues until the abolition of Toll-Gates. Of course Dim Ojukwu remains a hero to his Southeast Igbo kinsmen, but will history forget this ugly aspect of his role as a celebrated Igbo leader that led his people in a war of attrition that lasted thirty months with millions of lives lost?
Even among the Igbo women of the Southeast one could see this same cancerous stigma of mammon concupiscence creeping in with reckless abandon. Oby Ezekwesili—the acclaimed initiator of the anti-Goodluck Jonathan “Bring Back Our Girls” Hash-Tag did not feel a pinch of moral judgment when she attended an International Conference in South Africa at a time other African nations were mourning their dead killed in the same country in Xenophobia attacks, of which her Southeast kinsmen were the mostly affected. Incongruously adorned with her obtuse low-cut that leaves her perpetually undetached from her secondary school age taxonomy, what mattered to her was her self-importance as “Oby Ezekwesili” from core-Igbo and not what mattered to the collective survival of her Igbo nation.
Quite interesting is the information that Prof Egodi Uchendu of the Department of History and International Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka has been commissioned by a group of Igbo leaders to confront me on this matter of Igbo saboteur syndrome. This is not surprising however, because this was the same woman who petitioned to the Muslim Fulani officials of DSS against me reporting that I stopped her from advancing the cause of Islam in Igboland from the intellectual angle through her book on Islam in Igboland. She was equally said to have contributed a huge sum of money and donated to the DSS to support their effort to eliminate me. Yet she professes “born again” Christianity, often forcing her students to undertake night vigil prayers in her residence, a pretentious spiritual carriage she capriciously utilized in tracking down her most humble unsuspecting husband into marriage only to later turn into a tigress unto him.
My offence against her was that I reviewed her book which she had been using to rip-off some unsuspecting Islamic leaders in the North in the name of advancing Islam in Igboland and found it to be a plagiarized work, which the expert Committee of the Faculty of Arts investigated and certified her guilty, only to be overturned by the University Management Committee due to the influence of her husband who is a Professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. I was even informed that the University Management Committee advised that I should be cautioned but short of stating who should caution me. She was only lucky because the decision was taken after I had fled the country. Otherwise it should have gone to the Senate of the University. The first question should have been why did she withdraw the book from the University Bookshop and other sale outlets?
The said book titled “DAWN FOR ISLAM IN EASTERN NIGERIA: A History of the Arrival of Islam in Igboland” published in 2012 in Berlin by Klaus Schwarz Verlog, was not only an intellectual historical disaster, but a copious plagiarism from both a 1996 Bachelor’s Degree Project Report submitted to the Department of History and International Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, by one Muhammad Muhili Oluwa, who I believe is currently a lecturer at Lagos State University, Ojo, titled: “HISTORY OF ISLAM IN IGBOLAND WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON NSUKKA ZONE OF ENUGU STATE”, and Professor Michael Onwuejeogwu’s article titled: “THE IGBO CULTURE AREA” in the edited book by F. C. Ogbalu and E. N. Emenanjo titled: “IGBO LANGUAGE AND CULTURE” published in 1975 at Ibadan by Oxford University Press.
One interesting aspect of the investigation is that at the time the rumour of plagiarism was brooding in the Faculty, Oluwa”s Project Report disappeared from both the Departmental Library and the Africana Section of Nnamdi Azikiwe Library. It took a clear instance of divine intervention for Oluwa’s Project to be located; and it happened that one day an official of the Nsukka-based Ifesinachi Transport Company brought the Project Report to the Head of Department as a lost item in their office. That was when I was commissioned to carry out a surgical intellectual analysis of the book which was by then being forced on the students to buy at the cost of five thousand naira.
At the end I found out that it was not only Oluwa’s work that was plagiarized by his erstwhile lecturer, but also Professor Onwuejeogwu’s work and another Undergraduate Project Report on Islam in Mbaise which equally disappeared from the Library shelves but could not be located. Indeed my report which came by way of a review article titled; “ISLAM AND BANKRUPTCY OF IGBO INTELLECTUAL TRADITION—Egodi Uchendu in Dawn of Islam in Eastern Nigeria” is online as a public reference source material.
The case of Egodi Uchendu is a clear evidence of spiritual bankruptcy creeping into the intellectual arena of the Core-Igbo of the Southeast, where a lecturer will become a Professor by plagiarizing an undergraduate Project Report, be parading herself as a Fellow of Historical Society of Nigeria, and still remains in the employment of the University just because of her husband’s influential position in the University; whereas there were a lot of people in the same University whose cases were not as serious as that of Egodi Uchendu but were dismissed without reference to any external influence. The instance of a Reverend Father at the Department of Mass Communication who was dismissed for a case of plagiarism which was not as serious as that of Egodi Uchendu readily comes to mind. May be had the Reverend Father been married and had an influential Professor as wife, he could not have been dismissed.
It appears on the whole that the Igbo of the Southeast have been abandoned by both the God in Heaven and their Ancestors within and consequently condemned to eternal political damnation as perpetual second fiddlers and a beggar-ethnic group in Nigeria. The rate with which their current generation of political leaders adorn themselves with the garb of clawless political chivalry that only ends in the harems of Fulani political Concubinage has become so shameful and unimaginable to comprehend as to cast the proverbial Igbo intrepidity into the historical trashcan of mythology.
The Southeast boasts of the most boastful class of citizens in Nigeria who indolently take their leaders’ gross acts of quisling as their traditional way of life, an attitude which can never be tolerated in both Yorubaland and South-South. The citizens mope and languish in spiritually-inspired political bondage like morons while their leaders run berserk with unimaginable impunity and political brigandage showcasing their lame-duck political integrity with reckless abandon and shamelessness.
Just tell me which among the five vulture-necked Governors of five Southeast States is not a quisling to the Caliphate, yet their people are the most hated, most humiliated and most oppressed by the same Caliphate. Can anyone compare the Southeast Governors in any sense with any of the Governors in the South-South and Southwest in terms of integrity, patriotic attachment to their people, and carriage of office?
What happened in Imo State with Emeka Ihedioha could only take place in the Southeast because even the Supreme Court is sensitive to what will be the reactions of the citizens in the event of such controversial judgments. They know that the Southeast has the most clawless brand of political morons with the characteristic dispositions of toothless bull-dogs which can bark without biting. And having instructed their leading Igbo spiritual con-man Father Ejike Mbaka to carry out a test-false prophecy in respect of the case, the jurists knew that nothing would come out of the decision to impose a Caliphate-friendly Governor on Imo State.
The case of Bayelsa State was permitted by the citizens on two grounds. First, the Court decision was founded on grounds of the personal integrity of the Deputy Governor-elect which no sensible person of South-South origin would support. Second, the election has proved to Serieke Dickson that he was not in control of Bayelsa State but Goodluck Jonathan, and the new Governor is well aware that his political future lies more in Jonathan’s hands than those of Dickson. But this was not the case with Imo State where the people were disenfranchised with impunity.
I bet you, if it were in South-South and Southwest the likes of Ejike Mbaka and Odumeje should have been spiritually quarantined in their respective villages to fully concentrate on their original calling as Native Doctors. This is the class of men of God that consult a team of Native Doctors in the night and abuse them in the daytime, like the man who sleeps with a mad woman in the night and spits on her in the daytime.
Southeast Igboland is where impunity of leadership has become the trade-mark of political chivalry and achievement and thus a model for every citizen to adopt. The more a leader swindles the conscience of his mammon-enchanted citizens the more he is treated with reverence and adored as the living oracle of their iniquitous god of politics. One will not be surprised to see Chief Orji Uzor Kalu welcomed from Ikoyi Prisons at the end of his prison terms with four sets of traditional music troupe—his Igbere village, his Bende Local Government Area, Abia North Senatorial Contingent, and official Abia State Government troupe.
They are only best in running highfalutin bogus ethnic organizations which serve no purpose for the citizens other than acting as conduits for pursuing self-aggrandizement, undue political attention, and limbless policies towards resolving their intractable problems. Just think of some of these organizations and their names and compare their actions with similar organizations among other ethnic groups. OHANEZE (Citizens and kings) —who are the “Oha” and who are the “Eze”? How many of the ordinary Igbo citizens are involved in the organization to warrant the use of the term “Oha”, and how many Igbo traditional rulers are involved in the general framework of the organization to warrant the use of the term “Eze”?
The other one is IGBOEZUE (The Igbo have gathered together)—how many Igbo even know about the organization much more gathering together? There is also AKA-IKENGA (Right Hand of adventurism and achievement)—what has the group achieved collectively as an exclusive Lagos-based Igbo Corporate Social Club other than engaging in endless social showmanship—the Igbo extension of Ikoyi Club? Few months ago, one of their prominent members Oscar Onwudiwe was reported saying that only Alhaji Abubakar Atiku of all citizens of Nigeria including himself, has the panacea to Nigeria’s problems. What makes him think that Abubakar Atiku is better than him except the fact that he is from the Southeast where every sense of self-assertiveness has disappeared from the people and the virus of political mendicancy has become the culture of the day?
Most interesting are the two con-men-driven pro-Biafra movements. The first is the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) led by con-man Raph Uwazurike. The question is how far has he gone with the achievement of the Sovereign State of Biafra beyond solving the problem of the Sovereign State of his Stomach? Then just look at the maverick Nnamdi kanu-driven Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). Who are the indigenes and non-indigenes of Biafra? Has it not been proved by his actions that the Igbo of the Southeast are the indigenes of Biafra while the rest people he carves into his fairy counry without their consent are the non-indigenes.
We need not go into the cosmological meaning of the concept of “World” to define the roles of the Uturu-based World Igbo Summit Group (WISG)—a Pan-Igbo organization which has become more of a talk-shop for rudderless exchange of reactionary and conservative ideas than a vehicle for positive and practical political change in Igboland; a Forum where even men of over eighty years of age are afraid to speak the truth, stand by the truth, and act according to the truth for fear of death. They operate within the political orbits of self-importance, self-preservation, and subconscious besieged mentality that sees even the most intellectually and politically tested among them recline into the protective shells of innocuous status of Elder Statesmen whenever occasions of sacrifice arise.
It appears to me that only the Professor T. U. Nwala-led Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) has a working-meaning attached to its name; because what the Igbo of the Southeast need with urgency is the total overhaul of their morbid political orientation, spiritual regeneration, moral readjustment, and overall mental carriage, all of which are summed up under the major theme of development. But whether Alaigbo Development Foundation has the capacity to stand up to the meaning of its name remains a subject of another theme.
One could see from every angle the Southeast is viewed that they are unpredictable in nearly everything that looks laudable except in crime. If you are planning how to rob a bank with a Southeast Igbo be well assured he will invest everything he has—energy, talent, resources, and time to achieve the desired objective; even though you must remain vigilant at the conclusion of the venture otherwise you become another story of the success of the venture. But if it is a matter of patriotic venture to emancipate his people and generations yet unborn from political servitude, be assured that he would renegade when confronted with money even from the Devil. This is the root of the Igbo question in Nigeria today. Given the direction of the current political tide in Nigeria, the Igbo of the Southeast might see themselves isolated politically by the South-South, Southwest, and the Middle Belt to give them enough rooms to continue their habitual saboteur disposition and chosen political Concubinage with the Caliphate.
Tony Nwaeziegwe is the Odogwu of Ibusa Clan, Delta State
Institute of African Studies/Dept. of History & International Studies,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka