By Innocent Obiorah
The old Eastern Region was one of the most blessed regions in the world. Its only equivalent was the biblical land of Canaan, flowing with milk and honey. Our founding fathers had a beautiful dream that was being translated to concrete reality before the disruption of the First Republic in a military coup that shouldn’t have happened .
That January 15 coup and the counter-coup of July 1966 cannot be justified and shouldn’t have happened. Unfortunately, we cannot turn back the hands of the clock. Time only moves forward. We nevertheless owe it a duty to ourselves to learn from history and find a way to ensure that the ugly past does not impede our progress. There are nations that have had similar experiences and they rose from the ashes of their ruins to a great nation. Rwanda is just one recent example of how one visionary leader can turn the fortunes of a country from bad to good.
Unfortunately, the old Eastern Region has completely lost its bearing on account of the civil war. The region, which stood shoulder to shoulder with its Northern and Western counterparts, has lost the way. Because of our disunity, our resources are being plundered and used to create billionaires outside our region, while we wallow in abject poverty.
I have also heard some people from the old Eastern Eegion make the mistake of claiming that Lagos is a no-man’s land or that no one owns Lagos. I will like to bring to their attention that even the Yoruba who come from other Yoruba states are having trouble convincing Lagosians that they belong to Lagos. If people from the old Eastern Region live anywhere in Western or Northern Nigeria for three hundred years, they will still be Easterners, hence, we must sleep and wake thinking of building back our motherland.
Through out history, investors always lost their investments to the locals when there is revolution or disorderly disintegration, hence, it is always better to invest in one’s own homeland.
While appreciating the Yoruba and the Hausa for their dynamic welcoming attitudes towards us, the question I ask myself is: what is happening to us? How do we build back the old Eastern Region to engineer economic cooperation and integration? How has the mighty fallen so fast? Have we lost our minds? Do we know what we are doing by forgetting and literally abandoning our homeland and its God-given blessings and wealth?
In 1967, General Yakubu Gowon divided the old Northern, Western and Eastern Nigeria into different states. In spite of this artificial state creation, which was designed to divide and weaken us, the old Northern Region and the old Western Region still pose the myth of One North and One West, whereas the old Eastern Region is still at war with itself. One wonders why people of the old Eastern Region are moving massively to other regions when they have more to gain by working and building infrastructures in their own region such as seaports, dry ports, rail lines and massive road networks that will make the region great again.
No one wants the oil that belongs to the riverine communities. The Igbo who are one of the major tribes in the old Eastern Region do not want to own the oil wells that belong to Niger Delta people but just want to work together as neighbours for the betterment of the region.
Some people may want to argue that the Igbo will dominate the minorities but this is false. The Igbo have not taken what belongs to any group in Nigeria. The Igbo are known for their industry and for building cities other than heir own. The people of the old Eastern Region should work together, whereby the ultimate goal should be to better the lives and the standards of living of the people of the region.
As Charly Boy would say, “Our mumu don pass.”
I think it’s time to think home and build back our motherland, make it safe, secure and prosperous. One would weep to see the riverine ethnic groups who have cooperated and given all they have to the Federal Government of Nigeria but what they get in return is water pollution, soil degradation and poverty. Many people still live in thatched houses, decaying farmlands, unemployment and high cost of living more than anywhere in Nigeria. This lack of unity in the old Eastern Region has been a disaster for all easterners because we do not trust each other in our region; we are eager to go to other regions to develop their lands but deny our children their future.No one wonders why each region is developing aggressively except old Eastern Region.
No one is asking for the Eastern Region to come together to become one region again but to reconcile and work for their common development and emancipation. We cannot neglect and abandon our future because the system is unjust to us.
I support the quest for resource control. Instead of communities controlling their minerals, the Federal Government is dashing ownership rights of oil wells to people outside Niger Delta. The facts are that all minerals belong to the communities where they are deposited. That’s why God planted the people there. The reconciliation of all Eastern Region will bring about massive investments to this neglected region.
I read in the newspaper where a Nigerian court purportedly issued a warrant of arrest against the former oil minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke. This woman has been targeted and subjected to all manner of defamation and persecution for doing nothing but serving under a government that lost election.
Mrs. Madueke has since left office. The question one may ask is, what is happening with our crude oil sales since 2015? The last time I checked, the minister was not the accounting officer of the ministry but only in charge of formulating policies. The NNPC whose responsibility it is to manage oil resources was variously headed by permanent secretaries and group managing directors. How many of these officers that worked with the former minister have been prosecuted or are being persecuted? How many oil blocks are traceable to the former minister?
While not holding brief for the former minister, I make bold to say that 95 per cent of Nigerian leaders have mismanaged Nigeria’s resources. No person in his right mind will accuse a select few of wrongdoing but protect others who have committed similar offences.
It is common knowledge on the streets of Nigeria that once you defect and cross over to APC, which is the ruling party, your sins are forgiven, hence the President, who made fighting corruption his mantra, is today eating and dining with certified looters who are supposed to be locked up in jail. If we are a country governed by laws, the laws should be for everyone and for every tribe and not for some targeted selected group and minority.
At the time of writing this piece, basic crude oil sales in the international market was above $90 per barrel, which means we are back to oil boom. What is the country gaining from the boom and how are we managing this new wave of boom and what are we setting aside as savings?
I appeal to Dr. Edwin Clark to start the process of healing and reconciliation between the South-South and South East. This will be a beginning of rebound and renaissance for us as a people united by fate.
•Obiorah writes via Innoobiorah@gmail.