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From Jude Chinedu, Enugu
Emeritus professor of Political Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Obasi Igwe, has called for true restructuring, which will involve opening up of ports and international waterways in Eastern Nigeria and other parts of the country as remedy to the present troubles facing the nation.
Igwe, who spoke at a webinar organised by the Centre for Igbo Studies, UNN, in conjunction with Njenje Media TV said that in trying to hold the Igbo down, the past Nigerian leaders executed an economic blockade in Eastern Nigeria. The situation had crippled the economic fortunes of the nation and birthed unemployment, anger, frustration and hopelessness among the people.
He noted that the Council of Igbo Elders and other organisations have presented a proposal which will see the lifting of the economic blockade in Eastern Nigeria and a return to what was obtainable in 1957 as a necessary condition for restructuring. He insisted that changing the constitution of Nigeria was not really the issue.
“We now demand that the Eastern ports and others not just in Igbo land be reopened. We are now clamouring for restructuring. The problem with some Igbo intelligentsia is political illiteracy. They don’t even understand the meaning of restructuring. Not that they are incapable of understanding it but that they are unwilling to persevere to study it. Some of them do not even know the meaning of Igbo. They don’t even know Igbo history.
“They don’t know that the Igbo opened Port Harcourt otherwise known as Igwe-Ocha. Igbo opened Bonny and Opobo. They don’t know that the Igbo were a leading maritime nation in the entire West African Gulf of Guinea. That Igbo populated America not through the air but through the Igbo coastal ports. That the essence of abandoned property is an ethnic cleansing of the Igbo to pretend that the Igbo are landlocked.
“And that this land-locking phenomenon was an economic blockade in 1967, it is still subsisting today. That economic blockade was targeted at the main Igbo ports of Bonny, Opobo and Port Harcourt to make sure that the Igbo neither import nor export, thereby diverting the Igbo to Lagos. Therefore, de-industrialising the East of Nigeria and making sure that unemployment, depopulation, disease and acrimony are what you find in the East.
“Not only within the Igbo communities but other communities. So, when they say to the Igbo in Lagos, go home, they want to incite the Ijaw to lay claim to the Bonny and Opobo ports. They will go and incite the Ikwerre to say they are not Igbo; you are from Spain. They will tell the Etche not to agree so that by this divide and rule, the Ijaw will be suffering, the Ogoni will be suffering, Ikwere and Etche and other Igbo in Rivers State will be suffering; the Igbo hinterland will be suffering,” Igwe stated.
He noted that other various ethnic nationalities in the south, including the Bini, the Itsekiri, the Ijaw, the Ibibio and the Efik, all have their own ports, arguing that opening them up will ease the gridlock in Lagos that has impeded development of Nigeria.
Igwe continued: “Our aim in restructuring is to make sure that there is a multi-regional development in Nigeria, with each area regaining access to their ports. We will also see that the reopening of the eastern ports will trigger development from the Middle Belt down to Maiduguri.
“There will be a spillover effect because in trying to hold the Igbo down, they have held the Middle Belt down, they have held the North East down and have held Nigeria down.”
