Igbokwe’s 50 Years After Biafra sets agenda for Southeast development

“Without a leader, a race is ruined. Without a leader, a race is rudderless.

Without a leader, a race is doomed to irreparably fail.” This quote picked from one of the passages in Joe Igbokwe’s new book titled, Igbos: 50 Years After Biafra, seems to summarise the essence of the book.

Written in a simple language for elucidation and easy comprehension, the book, published in 2021 by Clear Vision Limited, gives a cogent account of Ndigbo from obscurity during the pre-colonial period to eminence in the colonial, pre-independence and the post-independence era of Nigeria’s history. It harps on the ingenuity and resilience of Ndigbo to emerge from their agony to be a force to reckon with in the nation’s polity.

In a sequel of events, the author chronicles how the civil war termed the Nigeria-Biafra war turns the once nova people into a lame-duck without clear point objectives and leaders to direct them. Saying this situation has not only made them be individualistic in their approach to business and politics but has also contributed to making any of them that gets a political appointment and contracts turn into hatchet men and join forces with their ferocious adversary.

Archiving Ndigbo’s events in every quarter of a century, the book situates the current edition from 1995 to 2020. X-raying how the Igbo have progressed in the last 50 years the Civil War ended from 1970 to 2020. It is a compilation that looks forward to having another 25 years appraisal after this edition.

Critically looking at the situations on the ground, Igbokwe notes that Ndigbo is myopic when it comes to identifying and aligning with the right political party that will lift them out of their assumed political miasma, stressing that the periods they hobnobbed with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have further set them decades backwards. He observes that the shout of marginalisation remains appealing when Igbo politicians are outside government, but once they get into government, they do everything possible to repudiate such claims.

According to Igbokwe, who is also an Igbo man, Ndigbo should align with the All Progressives Congress (APC) to play dominant roles in Nigerian politics. He also calls for them to have a leader to look up to.

This leadership, according to him, must be a charismatic one that will emerge through its capacity to read the political chessboard, mentor many upcoming positive-minded youths, and be consistent and ever ready to make sacrifices to position the people over his self-interest.

Divided into six chapters, the 286 page-book with 85 full-page pictures that rekindle the memories of the war, the dramatis personae that have influenced decisions in the politics and history of the country.

Igbokwe wants Ndigbo to struggle, not by ceding, to get the power they want, saying power is never given on a platter of gold. He calls for the people to strategise and position themselves for it.

For Igbokwe, the answer for Ndigbo’s inclusiveness in Nigeria’s politics is not in self-determination, but in a renewed effort to build bridges and forgive past hurts.

Chronicling the ordeals of Ndigbo from the first chapter to the fifth and concluding on the sixth, the author calls for Ndigbo to remove harmful traditional practices like the Osu caste that has degraded many of its people, saying a total ban on this obnoxious practice that has created pains would help unite the people.

He assures that strengthening the traditional institutions, making them strong to fiercely fight to recover the society from sliding into decadence and love of money would help build integrity and trust among the people and across the country.

Despite its good counsel, the author goofed when he said 80 percent of Nigeria’s resources come from the Southeast region. He followed the thoughts of Dr. Arthur Nwankwo, which has been overtaken by the creation of the six geopolitical zones that restrict Ndigbo majorly to the Southeast Zone.

The quote reads: “As a consequence of the Civil War of 1967-1970, entire Eastern Nigeria is being steadily left behind by Nigerian history and its propelling forces, notwithstanding that over 80 per cent of the wealth of the nation — the target of power play, power intrigues and power conspiracies are sourced there,” Dr. Arthur Nwankwo.

The Nwankwo’s quotation magnified in the book is false, as out of Nigeria’s nine oil-producing states, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa account for about 80 per cent of it. These states belong to the South-south Zone, which is not part of the Southeast Zone.

This misinformation must be corrected, especially when readers of a diverse and varied ethnic group will not only see it as historical material but as a torchbearer of a people making waves in Nigeria.