By Sam Onuigbo
When the Global Igbo Foundation Initiatives invited me to deliver a keynote address recently, they framed a tricky, but simple title: “Igbo Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.”
The invitation came at a moment of quiet reflection.
However, as I got ready, I realised that the title did not envisage a linear chronology, but a diagnosis of a persistent condition. Our yesterday is not a buried past; it is the bedrock upon which our present uncomfortably rests. Our tomorrow is not a distant prospect, but an urgent negotiation waiting to be honoured.
The venue was a modern conference hall in Abuja, Nigeria’s purpose-built capital, a city that often feels like a grand experiment in neutrality. Yet, there is no neutral ground when discussing the place of the Igbo in the Nigerian project. The December air was thick with Harmattan dust, blurring the sharp lines of the building. Inside, the atmosphere was different—clear, focused, charged with a collective understanding that we were about to engage in more than a ceremonial speech. We were to attempt an act of historical cartography, mapping the soul of a people onto the contested terrain of a nation.
I began with pleasantries, commending the organisers. Such gatherings are vital. But, civility must not become a cage for difficult truths. So, I stepped into the heart of the matter, a story that begins with a fundamental misunderstanding.
European colonialists, armed with the tidy logic of monarchies and centralised states, looked upon the intricate, republican societies of the Igbo and saw chaos. In their reports, they labelled us “stateless,” “argumentative,” and “ungovernable.” What they failed to comprehend was a civilisation that had perfected a demanding form of participatory democracy long before it became a global ideal. Our governance was woven through village assemblies (Ama Ala), councils of elders, robust age-grade systems, and powerful women’s councils (Umuada). Leadership was earned, debated, and constantly held to account. This was not anarchy; it was a sophisticated social contract.
This intrinsic resistance to autocracy is not an abstract concept. It has faces. One is King Jaja of Opobo.
Born MbanasoOkwaraozurumba in Amaigbo, sold into slavery as a youth, he rose through sheer will and commercial genius to found a powerful city-state, Opobo, and dominated the palm oil trade. His crime was refusing to let British trading interests dictate terms to African producers. For that defiance, he was lured onto a British warship under a purported truce, kidnapped, tried in Accra, and exiled to Barbados, the West Indies. He died in 1891 in the Spanish Island of Tenerife on his journey home. His story is not a footnote: it is a central parable of Igbo enterprise and the price of resisting injustice and exploitation.
Then came the women of Oloko, in what is now Ikwuano, my own local government area in Abia State. In 1929, tens of thousands of Igbo women rose in what was glibly termed the ‘Aba Women’s Riot.’ It was a profound, meticulously organised revolt against colonial taxation and the corruption of warrant chiefs.
It reshaped the political consciousness of southern Nigeria. To the colonial mind, however, it was further proof of an innate, troublesome rebelliousness. In truth, it was the logical eruption of a culture with a low tolerance for injustice. What was branded as stubbornness was, in fact, a deep-rooted ethos of communal accountability, best encapsulated in the proverb Onyeaghalanwanneya — “let no one abandon his brother.”
This philosophy would fuel our most remarkable transformation. Geographically insulated, the Igbo encountered Western education later than some coastal societies. But when we did, we pursued it with a ferocious, collective hunger. Families sold parcels of ancestral land; communities pooled resources to sponsor their brightest children. Education was not a private luxury but a communal investment. The returns were staggering.
Driven by this ethic, the Eastern Region under Premier NnamdiAzikiwe, conceived the idea of establishing a university–the law for the university was passed by the Eastern House of Assembly in 1955. It was not based on crude oil revenue. Under Premier Michael Okpara, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka commenced on 7th October, 1960–Nigeria’s first indigenous university, funded from the region’s agricultural revenues.
Before the dark clouds gathered, the Eastern Region was an economic dynamo. Some scholars, like Paul Anber argued, it was among the world’s fastest-growing economies in the mid-1960s, investing a staggering 45% of its revenue in education. The momentum was palpable, tangible.
Then, the deluge.
The Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) was a cataclysm. The suffering and loss are well-documented. But the war’s true legacy for the Igbo was forged in the so-called peace that followed. The Federal Military Government’s promise of “Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction”—the famous “3Rs”—proved, in our experience, to be a cruel phantom. Reconciliation was a hollow slogan. Rehabilitation was tokenistic. Reconstruction was deliberately selective.
The infamous policy of offering a flat £20 compensation to Igbo with bank accounts, regardless of their previous holdings, was not an act of economic policy; it was an act of engineered pauperisation. It was followed by the Indigenisation Decree of 1972, which transferred major commercial enterprises to Nigerian hands. A financially prostrate Igbo population could only watch from the sidelines as national assets were acquired by others.
Most crippling, however, was the geopolitical surgery that came later. The Justice Mamman Nasir Boundary Adjustment Commission of 1975 did not simply redraw administrative lines; it performed an amputation. It severed entire Igbo communities from their kith and kin, ceding them to neighbouring states. The deadly surgery eventually solidified the reduction of the Igbo-majority zone to only five states in a federation where other major zones had six, or in one case, seven. This was not an accident of demography.
It was structural marginalisation, engineered directly into the architecture of the Nigerian state. Our political weight was diluted, our access to the federation’s resources systematically constricted.
And yet, here we are!
Today, against every engineered obstacle, the Igbo are arguably Nigeria’s most potent entrepreneurial force. This is not a stereotype to be romanticised; it is a hard, observable fact of resilience. We rebuilt from ash. The bustling markets of Aba and Nnewi are engines of indigenous, often improvised, manufacturing. The IgbaBoi apprenticeship system remains one of the world’s most effective models of venture capital and commercial mentorship, seeding business empires across Lagos, Accra, and beyond.
Our contributions to the modern Nigerian identity are inextricable. From the foundational statesmanship of NnamdiAzikiwe to the global economic leadership of NgoziOkonjo-Iweala; from the literary universes of Chinua Achebe and ChimamandaNgoziAdichie to the cinematic revolution sparked by Living in Bondage; from the technological foresight of Philip Emeagwali to the sporting brilliance of KanuNwankwo and ChiomaAjunwa. We have invested, quite literally, in every corner of Nigeria, often at greater risk and with more tangible bricks-and-mortar commitment than any other group. Our belief in the Nigerian idea is demonstrated in commerce, infrastructure, and culture.
But, this belief is now a wearying faith, strained by a persistent, unignorably arithmetic of injustice. As I told the audience in Abuja, the South-East remains the only geo-political zone in Nigeria with five states. This is not a minor administrative detail.
It translates, daily and inexorably, into fewer governors, fewer senators, fewer members in the House of Representatives, fewer local government chairpersons, fewer federal appointments, and less voting power in constitutional matters. It is a concrete ceiling placed on a people’s political aspiration. How does one pledge full-throated allegiance to a union where one’s seat at the table is permanently, deliberately smaller?
This brings me to the core of my message, the blueprint for tomorrow. The Igbo future in Nigeria must be negotiated. It cannot be a plea. It must be a principled, clear-eyed, and strategic engagement for equity.
The recent establishment of the South East Development Commission (SEDC) by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a significant and welcome gesture. It is, at long last, a tangible mechanism to address the deferred “Reconstruction” of a region devastated by war and neglect. For this, we offer sincere appreciation to the President. But, it cannot be the final destination. It should be the first step on a longer road to redress.
The logical, necessary, and just next step is the creation of a sixth state in the South-East. This is not a request for special favour. It is a demand for the correction of a foundational anomaly that has poisoned the well of national unity for nearly five decades. It is the minimum prerequisite for a genuine sense of belonging.
During a recent family thanksgiving service that I hosted at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Obuohia Obi-Ibere, Ikwuano Local Government Area, I publicly expressed my confident assessment that President Bola Tinubu will secure re-election in the 2027 presidential election.
This projection was based on the administration’s implementation of consequential policy decisions aimed at the structural repositioning of Nigeria for sustained prosperity, economic growth, and enhanced national security. While cognizant of prevailing national challenges, I maintain that the President has demonstrated capable stewardship in piloting the nation’s affairs during this initial tenure.
In substantiating this outlook, I referenced encouraging macroeconomic indicators, including the statistically documented decline in food prices, a reduction in the inflation rate, and the successful unification of foreign exchange windows.
Furthermore, the marked absence of fuel scarcity throughout the festive period was a tangible indicator of improved economic stability. Collectively, these positive trajectories form the foundation of my conviction regarding the administration’s electoral prospects.
Our blueprint for tomorrow rests on several pillars: transforming our legendary apprenticeship system into a formalised engine for youth employment and modern entrepreneurship; catalysing a technology-driven industrial revolution in our cities; a vigorous, deliberate revival of our language and culture, which are the vessels of our identity; and, most critically, intelligent pan-Nigerian coalition-building. Our politics must evolve beyond defensive reaction and into the art of strategic, bridge-building negotiation.
As I concluded my address, the room was silent, the weight of the recounted journey pressing down. The path forward is clear. The Igbo destiny is inextricably linked to Nigeria’s. We have done the hardest part: we survived, we thrived against engineered odds, and we contributed relentlessly to the national development. We did so through communal grit (igwebu-ike), through an unwavering belief in education, and through an entrepreneurial spirit that refuses to be extinguished.
Now, the contract must be renewed on fair terms. The Nigeria we have believed in, often against the evidence, must believe in us enough to rectify its own structural injustices. Our shared tomorrow depends on a Nigeria courageous enough to embrace true restructuring and equitable federalism. This is not an Igbo agenda; it is a Nigerian imperative. Only when this negotiation is honestly engaged can the full, formidable potential of the Igbo—yesterday’s republicans, today’s builders, tomorrow’s indispensable partners—be fully unleashed for the sake of one, just, and prosperous Nigeria.
-Onuigbo, is a former member of Nigeria’s House of Representatives
