By Obasi Igwe
Goods and services through a modernized Port Harcourt, Bonny and Opobo ports, mutually complementing with the Calabar-Bakassi, Ibaka deep sea, Brass-Nembe, Bomadi and Burutu counterparts, would greatly prosper the coastal and riverine Igbos, the Efik-Annang-central Ibibio-Ogoja, Ijaw, Ogoni, and Andoni; have mighty beneficent effects upon the Eastern hinterland by assisting  its rapid industrialization  and, of course, more economically facilitate progress in  the Middle Belt and Northeast of Nigeria and, thus, complementing the efforts of our Yoruba compatriots to develop Nigeria as a whole from the Western angle.

Prof Obasi Igwe

The elimination of poverty would considerably wipe away areas of mistrust, antagonism, kidnapping, violence and widespread criminality within and between groups and individuals nationwide. By now, Opobo should have been a modern ship-building industry, Bonny practically a Singapore in the Bight of Biafra, and Port Harcourt beyond the reach of any poverty. But since the last 50 years, those spreading the ideas and policies  that Barrett seems to hold dear have made sure that the entire region is impoverished, divided, weakened, and environmentally and psychologically devastated – all, in pursuit of what he calls “Nigerian interest” in Rivers state.

Nigerian  interest

This “Nigerian interest” ensures that Port Harcourt is closed to the import-export trade, so that Mbamiri peoples would not see prosperity and their hinterland kith and kin also benefit from it. The Port Harcourt to Makurdi, etc railway, via Enugu, would not be modernized, except through Cameroon, if possible, lest a physical link is re-established between coastal and other Igbos, and a commercially facilitated unity among them re-emerges.

Instead, a more political than economic Calabar-Lagos, East-West road and railway are mounted against all odds, so that the Eastern minorities and de-Igbonized southern Igbos would be travelling by road or rail to Kano, Kaduna and Maiduguri, via Lagos, where they would also import and export, and buy at inflated costs goods and services that Port Harcourt, Aba, Calabar, Uyo, Yenagoa, Onitsha, Asaba, Nnewi etc, could more cheaply provide.

Since the organized ethnic cleansing programme against the Igbos in their own homeland, and futile propagandas to make people pretend to what they are not, there is no relenting of the economic emasculation of the people of the East in pursuit of the “Nigerian interest” in the Rivers State.

Jaws of the booming prosperity: Lagos is admirably now the fifth largest economy in Africa, mostly by combing a Yoruba capacity for modernization and some well-converted “luck”, with the enormous wealth from the oil-rich East. The Rivers state, especially when in cooperation with others in the East, ought to be the largest economy in Africa, at least given that what is prospering others in Nigeria comes substantially from her underbelly.

But from the jaws of the booming prosperity, suffering Rivers people are consistently persuaded to snatch  poverty, lest the Igbos of the state answer Igbo, and cooperate with their hinterland brethren, instead of scattering into “lower Niger languages”, “Igboids”, “ Rivers people”, etc., desired of them by their “admirers”, while every other ethnic groups remain whatever they’ve always been. Nearly all past indigenous rulers of the pre-Bayelsa Rivers state, had tended to assume that the only way they could establish their credibility as “true Nigerians”, was to ensure that Port Harcourt ceased to function as a bouncing commercial port city.

Bitterness, division and poverty were promoted as much as possible between Rivers groups and between them and the Igbos of the hinterland. At any moment that prospects appeared to detach from this falsehood, and position the state and people to assume their rightful place as the greatest economy in Africa, those like our man are alarmed, and hurry to re-procure a new intellectual basis for a continuation of disaster.

This is a patriotic Nigerian, one of whose many attributes seems to be the use of special coinages to reach his goals. Incidentally, many of the two-fold truths canvassed generally end up putting facts on their head. Barrett did it in his Danjuma: The making of a general (1979), has been doing so and, once again, walked along the path in his “Rivers at 50: Golden opportunity to promote regional cohesion”, published in the “Daily Sun” of Wednesday, May 17, 2017. While one would presume that the author was in any way interested in promoting “cohesion” for the good of any “region” he, in substance, was revealing a disappointment that  whatever minimal  cohesion that had priorly been attained on a peaceful basis between the otherwise distinct groups, has almost totally broken down since 1967, when alternative new grounds of hatred and destruction of  the Igbo nation, and ultimately even of Nigeria, especially the other  nationalities of the East and South, were proposed for them by the 1966-70 assassins, pogromists, and ethnic cleansers.

A sample of Lindsay Barrett. Nearly all the published testimonies of the January 15, 1966 attempted revolution and unnecessary bloodletting, gave clear proofs of the plan of the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA), to use  certain army officers to unlawfully take  over Nigeria as a whole, “wallop the West” already conquered by them, crush the Middle Belt much further, and destroy the national intelligentsia and every other opposition, to pave way for the government of their exclusive  feudal choice – all of which could lead to the disintegration of the county. Even Saro-Wiwa confirmed that many regarded the Majors as heroes, because they were thought to have “only forestalled a coup that was being planned by the Nigerian National Alliance”.

According to him, many people saw even in Adaka Boro’s uprising, an actual “part of the NNA coup which had been foiled by the military takeover. It was said openly that the idea was to plant a war of secession in the Niger Delta area, and to use this as a pretext for Sir Abubakar’s government to declare a state of Emergency in the East and arrest NCNC leaders there. However, the coup having happened, Isaac Boro was loath to cancel plans which had taken months to prepare,” hence his action was “sinisterly bewildering to his people” – On a darkling plain (1989). There are countless other testimonies, we were led to know, confirming that to preempt that looming catastrophe was one of the main reasons that the youngsters precipitately struck – without thorough preparations and with no definite success.

Western crisis of 1964: Barrett was face-to-face with General Danjuma, one of the main actors in the Nigerian disaster and, possibly, that NNA plot. He had Danjuma clearly confirm the story, but, instead of following it up with appropriate questions, he was more interested in propagating the casus belli of “Igbo Coup”, either as a means of diminishing his responsibility or outrightly denying his conscious leadership in the holocaust. The man had confessed that before January 15, 1966, “certain political situations began to have their effect within the ranks of the army.

The Western crisis of 1964, and the Tiv Riots, were debated quietly but intensely and there were allegations that during the Tiv Riots some Nigerian Army officers had overstepped the boundaries of their authority and made certain arrests on the instigation of interested factions in the dispute”.

Barrett didn’t ask Danjuma to substantiate his story of Igbo Coup by revealing which factions there were : Igbo faction and Nigerian faction, whereof Igbos would need to stage a coup d’état on behalf of their own; Northern vs  Southern, Western vs Northern, Eastern vs Northern, Middle Belt vs  Northern, and every other imaginable factionalizations, their vice versas, syntheses, whatever. In which faction was Danjuma and why? Why should he, such a very new junior officer that should concentrate on his career, be already knowledgeable about factions in the army; which factions were debating those “situations”, who were the army officers (same as those killed in January 15?) that overstepped the bounds of their legitimate authority, and which political factions were instigating them to be unjustly arresting the Yoruba, Tiv and other innocent Nigerians?

Were those politically inspired and part-militarily consenting mass murders, kidnappings, arrests, detentions and humiliation of political opponents, not adequate proof of a plan to subvert the constitutional order and gain overall control of the country? If by 1964 factions had been unlawfully injected into the army, with elements of the upper military hierarchy assisting corresponding politicians to carry out mass carnage in the society, would it be appropriate to accuse Nzeogwu that stopped this political terrorism, and Barnett to evidently concur that it was the January 15 putsch that introduced fractionalization in the Nigerian army? And, having admitted that  “Lt. Col. Gowon’s instructions (to Danjuma to “arrest” Ironsi and inform Gowon through a special phone line, when the treason is accomplished) were in agreement with Major Danjuma’s thinking”, and Danjuma boasting that even “if  Gowon had ordered him to call off the action then, he would have disobeyed the order”, was there anything left from the horse’s mouth to establish the deep involvement of  the duo, despite their continually amusing denials, in the planning and execution of Ironsi and Fajuyi (who Danjuma claimed to have betrayed his guest by seeking a separate “assurance of his personal safety”), the high crimes that sent millions of Nigerians unto untimely graves, and several other calamities that have befallen the country, including  upon the Northern (mostly christian) and Deltaic minorities today? When any leaders permit militics to overshadow politics, or seek military solutions to political questions, a nation is smuggled into an unapproved military occupation, which can only result into disaster, and that was the situation before January 15.

Political  questions

It would be space-wasting to repeat Barrett’s transfer of his methodology in the article on “Rivers at 50…”, except to ask a few questions: Who were the “indigenous ethnic groups that were the original owners of the territory” of Port Harcourt but were replaced by hinterland Igbos, which justified the “abandoned property” programme, as claimed by Barrett? Before the opening of  Bonny by some Ngwa/Ndoki adventurers (which was like going to the moon in such ancient days), the Igbos knew of the Akpor, Mgbom, Isoma (not same as Isuama), Aro, Awka, Ndoki, various inland migrant and warring groups, who were either autochthonous or nearly so thereabouts, and for almost a thousand years involved in the traffic between the hinterland and the Igbo coastlands. Even as late as a 100 years ago, it was essentially the Igbos, both on the Diobu and Okirika sides, that were involved in land transactions concerning the modernization of the great Igbo sea ports of Port Harcourt and Bonny. So, which were the non-Igbo “indigenous ethnic groups” replaced by the Igbos  that  Barrett had in mind?

Similar Igbo primordial coastal activism was dominant in the rise and consolidation of several central Deltaic dynasties and city-states, including the Nembe confederations (Ogbolomabiri, Bassambiri, Twon Brass, Okpoama, the New Calabar, Okirika, etc.), further deepening the sanguinary ties between the Igbo nation and Ijaws, until disrupted by the contradictions of adversarial Western capitalist economism in these parts.  Igbo relations with other Eastern nationalities were also generally harmonious and mutually beneficial before colonialism.

After joining Gowon to oppress the Igbos, Diete-Spiff would return to one of these kingdoms to continue enjoying his life, regardless of the fact that the Ijaws, like their Igbo brothers and sisters, are still suffering, with him only recently seemingly awakened to their lamentations. That same torch of coastal pioneering and development would from the combined efforts of the Igbos, from the hinterlands to the coast, once again lead to the establishment of Opobo in 1869, as a consequence of the Bonny revolution, nicknamed civil war. In all these efforts, Igbos did not discriminate against anybody benefiting from the outcomes of their sacrifices. So, who were those other “coastal people” for whom “Chief Harold Dappa-Biriye from Bonny” needed to formulate a close collaboration with Alhaji M. D. Yusuf, in order to separate from those in the hinterland, if we have to believe Barrett?

A young man was victimized in the Nigeria police and returned onto his people at Nsukka, only to discover a love, pampering and acceptance that transformed him into a great leader; was inveigled into creating a division in the East via a “Niger Delta Republic”, and afterwards unnecessarily murdered. Does Barrett know who this Adaka Boro was and those that killed him? Yes Dappa-Biriye, O.C.J. Okocha, Obi Wali, Peter Odili, Ada George, Celestine Omehia, Rotimi Amaechi, and Nyesom  Wike, etc., should have genuine interest in the prosperity of the Rivers people and revival of Port Harcourt as cosmopolitan and active port city, but how many of those listed by  good Barrett are interested in the Rivers state being the largest economy in Africa prospering the Mbamiri, by releasing it from confinement to “Nigeria interest”, and how many are only concerned with restricting  Port Harcourt  to a comfort zone of the Rivers elites, excluding it from most of the Igbo nation, and channeling that Rivers prosperity elsewhere? Are there not persons who seem to, if possible, wish to build a wall against Port Harcourt and the sea, or appear to blame God for positioning the port there, lest it assists in re-uniting the Igbos? When did Diete-Spiff welcome “members of the Igbo ethnic group, especially its business class”, and why “the business class”? In which cities in the old Eastern Region were “indigenous citizens” isolated for special favour, which was denied in Port Harcourt? Were the Ngwa favoured in Aba,Waawa in Enugu, etc? What is the situation in other towns and cities of Nigeria and the world?

Did the creation of the Rivers state cause so much acrimony because Port Harcourt was a major commercial centre, or because it was a commercial centre programmed for special demographic transplantation? What is the purport of Barrett’s reminder or insinuation to the Rivers people that the 50-year anniversary should provide an opportunity for “promoting regional cooperation without compromising its identity …”, and how would observing this advice of not compromising identity be “in the advancement  of national interests’? Is the division, disaster, chaos, impoverishment and bloodshed imposed on the Rivers state and people since 1967, the national interests being advanced?

Barrett claimed that Nigeria invested $40 billion in the Niger Delta. Is that the reason why they destroyed what would take more than ten times the amount to remedy? Were the various dams, river basins, roads, cities, etc invested in various parts of the country accompanied by killing off their peoples or holding them to ransom? The money invested in the Niger Delta was substantially from the Niger Delta, but were those invested in other places from those places? Then, what about the almost $1 trillion in foreign banks, oil blocs, etc stolen by those that invested $40 billion in the Niger Delta? These people are erecting all sorts of expensive projects for their peoples, but to build a road and rail bridge connecting Bonny and Enugu, and another connecting Brass and Aboh, to restore ancient trade patterns, and prosper the Rivers and Deltaic peoples, would be anathema.

Nigeria today is at a crossroads; a truism. One problem is that previous methods of thought and governance that created the present outcomes are still worshipped   by some people in the stubborn expectation of different results. Whereas, the theory of nation- building has progressed from the institutive arrogance of “national interest” to the constitutive reality of people’s interest, the aggregation of which would reveal the former, some people are still imagining the “good old days” of cruelty, hatred and fascism, in service of “national interest”. All the historical evidence is that the peoples of the East have since time been one people, and that they achieved more when united.

There is not a single Igboman that doesn’t have an Efik-Annang-central Ibibio-Ogoja, Andoni, Ogoni and Ijaw blood in him, and none of them that is also not Igbo in some way. The East is messed up because some people ignore the above truth from their ancestors and listen to the likes of our good Barrett.  The distinguished man seems worried that the contrivance called South-South is not working and cannot, because it is built on hate to legitimize the ethnic cleansing, and the division and exclusion of the Igbos from their coastlands.

The East must rise beyond it to truly develop. While the Igbos need to rescue themselves from excessive self confidence that blocks the building of effective coalitions, the other nations of the East must rescue themselves from the “insufficient” confidence that makes some imagine that brothers are automatic enemies, and tempts them into hanging their salvation upon far-away “demons”. The unity of the East would create wide opportunities for the unity of the South, whereof we can approach like-minded Northerners to help rescue them from their own equally self-imposed life sentences.

Others in Nigeria are uniting themselves, and Igbos will do the same, and this will be across “Regions”, preparatory to a renegotiation of the polity and beyond. Igboland and people, down to the coast, are older than Nigeria, and should no more be permitted to be re-defined by later-day saints to equate with their crimes against humanity. Igbos wish every nationality in Nigeria well, and they ought to also wish the Igbos same. From Igbo unity, we would move into Eastern, Southern, and other willing unities that ought to yield into a civilized society. That remains the basic Igbo aim. If Nigeria is to divide, it should be in a peaceful and harmonious manner between what would still become mutually cooperating African nations; and if unity, it must be crafted from our hearts and minds in ways favourable to all and sundry. In this evolving scenario, the Lindsay Barretts may well restrict their well-constructed isms and ologies that fuel division and hatred, and promote poverty in the East and elsewhere.