IGBO MUST LEARN FROM CIVIL WAR MISTAKE – Prof. Anya O. Anya

By Clifford Ndujihe & Yinka Ajayi

Professor Anya O. Anya, 80, is primarily a biologist but he is at ease with politics, governance, law, economics and administration among others. The pioneer chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group,

Excerpts:

What is your take on alleged marginalisation of the Igbo and agitation for Republic of Biafra by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB?

I am the President-General of Ndigbo Lagos. I was the chairman of the committee that organised the last Ohanaeze election. Igbo should know that in the situation we have in Nigeria, we will always have a problem until certain structures and issues are taken care of. So, we should then work for that. We should also know by asking ourselves certain difficult questions. Why is it that people love and hate you in equal measure? While acknowledging the achievements of the Igbo they also hate them on the other hand. Therefore, we need to interrogate ourselves and solve certain problems that will enable us navigate our way in Nigeria. I have raised an important question that nobody is talking about. The Igbo need to answer that question before moving forward to decide what they want in Nigeria. In 1964, Eastern Nigeria was the fastest growing and industrialising economy in the world. I stumbled on the data and made it public in a lecture in 1974-75. In other words, in 1964, Eastern Nigeria was in advantaged position in Nigeria. In 1964, there was a problem between the North and the West. There was no problem between the North and the East and also there was no problem between the West and the East. How come that by the time the circle went round the Igbo were now at the centre of the Nigerian problem to the extent that there was a pogrom? Out of that pogrom came the war. Obviously, once you have pogrom, it became difficult for leaders to appear reconciliatory. Your people cannot be killed and you appear to be seen to be looking for peace when the other people have not even said ‘we are sorry. So, it is difficult for any leader to negotiate. But the central question is: Do you go to war at a time when all the advantages were in your favour? If the answer is no, then, did you explore the alternative ways of handling the crisis? History suggests the answer was no. If the Igbo would be honest to themselves, we will learn the mistakes we made in the past so that we can avoid them in future. Of course I will join in the call for the release of Mr Nnamdi Kanu (IPOB leader). If you kept him in prison for 100 years, it will not solve the problem. However, what is happening in the Niger Delta now and the circumstances that forced them to start looking for alternatives to deal with Niger Delta tells me that sooner than later they will start looking for alternatives to deal with the Igbo. Nnamdi Kanu and others did not witness the civil war but they are reacting to the situation in Nigeria. Until you address the injustice in Nigeria we will be wasting our time. It is not only the Igbo. There is no part of Nigeria that does not have a problem.

In one of your books, you talked about what the Igbo lost under former President Goodluck Jonathan. What do you mean?

In 2013, two years after former President Jonathan won the election, he did a very interesting thing. He told his kitchen cabinet to give a summary of all they did in the last two years. Talking about projects they did and the ones money was provided for. When they finished, they discovered that the North-Central had N495 billion committed to it; the North-West where his political challenge was had N395 billion committed to it; the South-West had N215 billion; the South-South had N212 billion but remember that the South-South had the Ministry of Niger-Delta Affairs and NDDC, even if he (Jonathan) didn’t provide anything more, there is already enough commitment going there. That of the South-East was N74billion. In other words, Igbo land did not have up to 1/6th of what the North Central was getting; they didn’t get up to one-quarter of what the North-West was getting; Igbo land didn’t get up to one-third of what the South-South and the South-West got. Even an area that did not do well as the South-East got more. And yet some still refer to the Jonathan administration as an Igbo government. When I got to know about this development, I made contact with President Jonathan. Being the first most educated President of Nigeria, his major disadvantage was because he schooled in Otueke, Bayelsa State and got his tertiary education nearby in Port Harcourt. So, there was no way he would have built up his network within the complexity of the Nigerian system. With wide network, it means if you are to address the problem in one section of Nigeria, you will know somebody in that region that will enlighten you about it. But I thought he was brilliant enough to learn on the job. To keep the appointment with Dr Jonathan, I went with Chief Emeka Anyaoku to see him. The first thing he said was that his government was Igbo-centred but I told him that the data we were working with showed the contrary. We gave him one or two advice on what to do.

What were the things you told him?

First is the nature of his job, in any country there is what we call established men, they are the ones that define the goal of the nation, they define what is in the national interest. They also define the important values. They sketch out boundaries for nations and such people don’t hold offices. By the time a man gets to such stage, such a man can look back and beat his chest that he has left the society better than he met it. They may not be at the purview of the public but they exist and it means you have to look for them because they have experience. You cannot attract them with anything. You don’t appoint them, they are people that when things gets tough, you call them for advice, you also encourage them to discuss among themselves. In the United States of America, for instance, people may not know this, there are almost seven people who are not in office but it does not matter which government comes, their views shape the government. Nigeria does not have it. At my level, I should no longer be concerned with the affairs of the Igbo alone knowing that if we have a good system in Nigeria the Igbo will be taken care off. The Igbo do not want anything special than what Nigeria wants. At this level, I should be more concerned with the larger picture. There are certain challenges in Igbo land that most of us are called upon to give advice on that we ought not to have anything to do with. The next crop of leadership should already be in place. I clocked 80 on the 3rd of January, there are things that I should not be involved in again in Nigeria. The two major things that consumed my time in the last four to five years were that I was the chairman of major companies in Nigeria, and also the Pro-Chancellor of a University. I want to now engage myself to motivating people, and particularly, paying attention to the youths by educating and lecturing because there are so many brilliant people in Nigeria, I want to be putting them together and start pointing them to the future. Developing a country is no longer a rocket science, the things to do are known and the kinds of leaders that can do them are also known.