By Ahmadu Shehu, PhD.

My previous article titled If there was Biafra generated debates around Biafra’s disadvantages (and advantages) to the Igbo people. Many of these comments were very insightful, and in line with the thoughts I presented. While I cannot respond to all the commentators, I will briefly address the most salient rejoinders. But, once again, let me quickly state that this conversation does not target the Igbo as an ethnic group. Instead, I aim to provide an outsider view to these pressing issues of national unity on which all Nigerians share equal rights and responsibilities to tell ourselves the home truth.

Some commentators say that the article was biased as I only focused on the disadvantages and neglected the “obvious” advantages the Igbo will gain from Biafra. However, I do not see a single demographic, economic, geographical or even political advantage the Igbo will gain by simply seceding from Nigeria. That is the thesis of the previous article. In fact, the post-exile writings of Odumegwu Ojukwu, the architect of Biafra himself, buttress this point.

The most critical observations from many prominent Igbo elites and friends claim that as much as the Igbo people enjoy Nigeria’s unity from both economic and political perspectives, we should equally be thankful to the southeasterners for the jobs they create for other Nigerians. In other words, the Nigerian market saturated by Igbo traders is also lucky to have the Igbo money as capital for the employment of other Nigerians.

Well, this claim might seem valid at face value. Still, it may not be entirely accurate when Igbonomics – a term I use here to refer to the economic strategy of the Igbo people – is subjected to a critical view. In the said article, I noted that one of the weaknesses of the southeastern economic model is that it is closed to other Nigerians. The resentment the Igbo folks have against the majority of Nigerians do not allow “strangers” from any region of the country to freely establish or run businesses in Igboland. That is why most Igbo billionaires today were made one hundred per cent in and by other regions of this country, but not the other way round. There is hardly a non-Igbo billionaire made by or in the southeast.

This xenophobia is not only applied against the Hausa-Fulani northerners or the Yoruba south-westerns but also their closest cousins, the Niger-Deltans. This approach is based on three exclusionist strategies of Igbonomics: First, the market and product, and indeed the value-chain must strictly remain an Igbo affair. Second, other regions’ markets, their products and value-chains must be proportionately shared with the Igbos. Third, to drift public attention from this ongoing reality, maintain the victim card by crying louder than the bereaved – the real victims of marginalization. While the first two tenets are lawful but greedy, the third is a clear case of hypocrisy. Here is a simple example to foreground this scenario.

The Igbo form the largest group of Nigerians in the diaspora. Since Nigeria is an import economy, the Igbo people in diaspora serve as business agents for their brethren in Nigeria. Therefore, the import business is basically an Igbo – Igbo transaction. Here in Nigeria, these goods are transported mainly to the southeastern markets, such as Abba and Onitsha. Instead of Lagos or Port Harcourt, most Igbo traders, who are widely dispersed across the nooks and crannies of this country, buy their goods mostly from Igbo distributors in the southeast. Another Igbo – Igbo transaction.

Up here in the north and other parts of the country, the Igbo employ strictly Igbo artisans, mostly from their own villages or communities in the east, and in some cases, the so-called northern Igbos. From sales girls and boys to messengers, marketers and suppliers, the Igbos domiciled in the north only trust their own ethnic brothers regardless of the opportunities employing locals might portend to their businesses.

For instance, you find a single Igbo shop owner in a village. By the following year, s/he has brought two, three or four Igbo artisans, thereby growing in population, manipulating the resources and seizing the business opportunities further away from the local people.

In most cases, the deal is that a separate business in the same line is established for the younger artisan, expanding further the grip of the Igbos in that line of business in the communities they are domiciled. Thus, the profits, gains and resources of the business in any of these communities become an Igbo affair entirely. Therefore, in this arrangement, the Igbo create jobs primarily for themselves while other sections of Nigeria serve as their consumers.

While the Igbos living in the north own properties and investments in the region, they return their proceeds to their homelands. Thus, I can bet my last penny that Igboland has more properties and investments built from profits and wealth acquired outside the Igboland than those made from the businesses run within the Igboland. Moreover, I had said earlier that businesses domiciled in the southeast largely depend on the larger Nigerian market to thrive.

Therefore, it should be clear from the foregoing that Igbonomics in the north is an Igbo economic affair that largely – if not only – benefits the Igbos. The brutal truth is that the Igbo are NOT marginalized in Nigeria. Instead, they are playing a victim card to maintain the economic status quo. While the various sections of this great country have a lot to thank one another for, none of these sections should claim any superiority. Neither should any of these play a gimmick of marginalization. We are equals in the hands of God and our country.

Dr Ahmadu Shehu is a nomad cum herdsman, an Assistant Professor at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, and is passionate about the Nigerian project. You can reach him via ahmadsheehu@yahoo.com.

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7 thought on “Igbonomics in Northern Nigeria”
  1. The writer has really did justice to the reality and clear the clouds of doubt as well as the flames of sentiments. May Allah make it easier for us to accept the truth even if it’s against our own self.

  2. My favourite Northerner, my Number One Fulani brother, I thank God I have you, a correct intelligent linguist like me, who confidently discusses these ethno-economic and ethno-political divides bedeviling us because the more you shed light on these perceptions and events, the more you help generate topics for thoughts and discussions that help enhance our understanding of our respective ideologies. Dear noble friend of mine, your words on the business attitudes of most Igbos are well captured. I’m proud that you paid attention to this salient phenomenon. However, more needs to be done in creating more room for discussing the reasons why Igbo business men think the way they think, which give rise to acting the way they act. Same way as the knowledge of the ideologies for which people from other tribes and economic sectors think, which give birth to the way majority of them act, also. By sharing these aspects of knowledge, Nigerians will understand each other better and the fears which hinder our collective advancement of nationhood will be duly allayed.

  3. Yes very brilliant write-up here, may almighty Allah continously guide the writter and bless his entire family, may almighty Allah bless our great country nigeria amin

  4. Believe me my man, some of the ideologies behind that for the business men still boil down to the problem of human capital, how to help the immediate family, who and how to hold the person accountable, how to trace the person home if he steals your money. Have you also observed that these businessmen demand absolute loyalty from their servants, who get to live in their houses for further monitoring and retraining of character for about a period of 5 years before ‘settling’ them? Many of them have established the thought of not getting that ‘accountable’ loyalty outside their kinsmen (same way, unfortunately, Buhari’s numerous actions portray). However, the attitude is not so among Igbo people in the civil service; especially in the federal civil service establishments.

    You know in most native Igbo lands before the whitemen came, traditionally there were no kings, so every man is a king in his nuclear family while the eldest is the king figure (as the most respected) in the extended family. In matters that concern an entire village, all the villagers, especially the eldest sons from each family have equal rights to speak their minds. In these settings, the Igbos imbibe the instinct of recognising and appreciating quality of thoughts and intellect of persons once spotted, no matter where the person comes from; remember it’s because everyone is viewed to have equal right and possess equal ability in creating value, unless otherwise proven. Even recognised visitors or new entrants welcomed in the community are called to attend the meetings to speak in their favour incase there is a matter concerning them, and for the common good. As such, this lifestyle makes the Igbo people open to acknowledging and associating with quality, no matter the tribe. Here in UNN for instance, corp members and individuals from other tribes who come to serve or do their PG programs, respectively, that are spotted to have quality of thought and learning, are most easily considered to be retained by us.

    Here, unfortunately, we only have staff from Tiv, Igala, Yoruba but none from Hausa or Fulani. I must tell you, my dear Ahmad, I do not know whether it’s because we do not get easy access to the best of other tribes. Most Igbo people, who have not journeyed into true national or International academic related events or places, respectively, believe that Hausas and Fulanis do not go to school and do not seek knowledge. Most of us believe that even those of you who go to school get pushed up the ladder without ‘meriting’ the new heights of academics, institutional or political positions. My humble sef used to feel like that too until I met you, you changed my perception because of the knowledge you express and this is why I enjoy every bit of time I spend with you.

    Did you remember the ideas we shared in Gwagwalada in 2019? What I felt about how our linguistic colleagues should stive to do proper research with tangible data, was only expressed by you without you knowing that I felt the same way until I heard you say the same thing that had occupied my mind/views. When I share it with my fellow colleagues, both Igbos and non-Igbos, they feel I’m exaggerating about what linguistic research ought to be.

    In addition, the fear of easy outbreak of violence due to persistent misunderstandings, especially in matters connected to religion and tribalism influences the actions which you have report, too.

    So, my dear intelligently admired co-thinker, these issues and actions are products of ideologies and little experiences, which need to be unlearned through literature and encouragement of enhanced interaction. It’s just that most times, poor security in Nigeria and poor accountability of who did what to who, makes people lack the bravity to express their feelings and reasons for resentment of others. I’ll never feel uncomfortable to hear you express them as you bravely give us both (and I pray the wider Nigerians access these writings and share their views) great opportunities to share, learn and unlearn perceptions and ideologies. 👌🏽

  5. Professor, permit to disagree with you that the igbos runs and all Igbos inclusive business that may connote danger to them if Biafra is established. One of the major reasons every business is dominated in a perfect market by the Igbos is bcos, non Igbos feels incapable of competing with Igbos and as far as such situation is concerned, it is not an igbo people’s making.
    Again, the issue of trust is there, how do you entrust your business onto a man without trace or unknown family background? An Igbo man can be traced to his family home land anytime anywhere and such attribute cannot be said of some of our brothers from the north.
    On the issue of importations, it is not true as stated by you sir that Igbos imported goods are solely discharged in ìgbo land. 70 to 99 % of all goods imported by the Igbos are discharged in Lagos.
    Finally, while others tribes sees their Kano, kaduna, Abuja and Lagos as their own domin and comfort fields for better to conquer, the Igbo man sees the global world as his market square hence the Igbos ventures into every field in all nooks and crannies of the global world and exploits.

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