The Spirit of Biafra: The Igbo Renaissance

A common perception other Nigerians have of an average Igbo person is that their inescapable enterprise genre is marked by the following attributes: (1) a desire to try out new things or approaches; (2) love for thrift and savings; (3) penchant for smartness; (4) an eye for shortcuts and cost-saving options; and (5) an early desire to maximize personal gains covertly or remotely. These qualities largely explain their early recovery from the Civil War devastations.

But is appears that the perceived feeling of marginalization associated with the Civil War and the events culminating to it is still fresh in the Igbo psyche. Additional feeling of neglect arises from what is often described as the Igbo Question, relating to the following concerns, among others:

• Appointment of qualified persons of Igbo origin to head "sensitive" posts, and zoning the presidency of Nigeria to the Southeast.
• Giving the Southeast more federating states and LGAs as other geopolitical zones.
• And, revisiting losses of the Igbos during the Civil War favorably possibly with some compensations.

Two other vexatious issues that the Southern states (including the Igbo nation) have clamored for recently are the ban on open grazing, and restructuring Nigeria to give federating states more resources and authority as it is the case in the United States whose model of presidential democracy Nigeria copied. The Southern states of Nigeria have banned open grazing to reduce herders-cultivators crises and check the menace of killer herdsmen, but the federally controlled law enforcement institutions have declined to enforce.

But despite some shortcomings and setbacks, the Nigeria National Assembly since 1999 has made significant progress with constitutional amendments; a process that is still ongoing. It is possible that the Igbo nation gets what it wants within the Nigerian federation, if Igbos are able to build consensuses among themselves and engage in political horse trading and negotiations with the other geopolitical zones as a cohesive political economic bloc.

Perhaps the slow pace that the Igbo Question is being addressed or a perception that it may never be addressed soon has rendered the Igbo society, especially youths in the homeland, vulnerable to the propaganda of a few pro-Biafra secessionist apologists still insisting on having a breakaway state from Nigeria.

This Book discusses the dangers associated with such secessionist campaigns and why they should be avoided, and proposes how the Spirit of Biafra can be transformed into a movement for the political-economic advancement of the Igbo nation. Specifically, the proposed movement should be founded on consensus building among Igbo politicians, tracking the activities of elected/appointed public office holders of the geopolitical zone to ensure that they perform as expected, and creating a multinational institution to pivot a comprehensive development of the homeland and empowerment of Igbo people worldwide.

The Book has five chapters. Chapter one explains the context of self-determination and why secessionist pro-Biafran groups are not acting in the best interest of the Igbo nation. Chapter two makes a case for the spirit of Biafra to be transformed to an empowerment movement for the Igbo nation within the Nigerian state. Chapter three explains the Igbo apprenticeship system and how it can be improved. Chapter four discusses the importance of political engineering and the creation of a multinational holding corporation to empower Igbo people and support development in the homeland. Lastly, Chapter five reviews arguments for and against the Jewish identity of Igbos people, and proposes that the Igbo nation draws lessons from the ability of Israeli Jews to build national level social cohesion while remaining individually competitive.