Development Problems of Igboland

by Mac Odu

1.         There is near total absence of meaningful education in Igboland. We were far ahead other developing nations before the army struck in 1966. Graduates of University of Nigeria up until the Biafra War held other universities at bay in public service and private sector.   We were tops in secondary school education. Yours truly was not able to make it into secondary schools in Eastern Nigeria in 1956 and consequently had to relocate to Lagos to access secondary education. The educational system was destroyed by the military following the Biafra War. The University of Nigeria had to be crippled for fomenting the Biafra War. I am personally guilty of rousing students to war. That is why I have this duty of re-orientating our progeny to right courses. An emergency period of twenty years would be required to correct the distortion which the military created. This means that repair should start with primary education today such that by twenty years time the effect shall start registering in terms of productivity and sustainability.

2.         The geometric effect of inaction or drift in current idiom is too horrendous to contemplate. Consistent effort would have to be applied over twenty years to achieve this.

3.         There is too much governance in our land. States and Local Governments that have been created have not achieved fostering of development nodes. Consumption nodes have been accentuated through ineptitude and greed. Only the falsely derived leadership has stood to benefit from the huge resources from our land. No tangible impact has been engendered for common folk for want of appropriate social responsibility component of leadership.

4.         There is   disconnect between policy pronouncements and actual delivery of development. Politics seems to dictate shares of national wealth, instead of productivity itself. Traditional production centres have been abandoned almost irretrievably to ruin. Economic paradigms must be evolved from grassroots activities. Production must be anchored on food self-sufficiency and long term security in local idiom; and processing of produce with unique production techniques must be developed with local ingenuity. Advanced world cannot help us here. They sell us Hi-tech products and call them off at will leaving us in the lurch time and time again. Our inability to refine our own oil is a case in point.

5.         Established local organizations should be strengthened with public sector infused credit. Faith based organizations, community based organizations already in place and co-operatives should be financed by public sector to act as media for provision of credit. Political bodies should not trap resources meant for development and lavish them on power seeking and power keeping.

6.         Infrastructure should be adequately installed to ensure unbroken productivity and distribution of produce, goods and services. The local markets should be used as paradigm for policy formulation in industrial development. Industrial development must not be outward looking or outwardly induced. Nigeria’s large market should be the focus of production first. Surplus should go to African market on reciprocal arrangement based on comparative advantage.

7.         Patronage of foreign goods should be limited to items that cannot be substituted. Comparative advantage should favour local foods, consumer goods and substituted machinery. Info media should be intensified on orientation of our people to local staples, consumer goods and hardware locally produced.

8.         Local creativity should be provided credit to replicate plants and machines at our level of sophistication. Technology should no longer be pretentiously taught in institutions. They must be assimilated by the new generation as basis for survival in the future. Proper Technology Transfer Institutions should be funded and provided with appropriate engineering equipments and processes to ground training. Research findings lying idle in existing institutions should be unearthed and prototypes mass produced to remove drudgery from our producers of goods and services.

9.         Human Development Index must be positive for any real development to find anchorage in any polity. We have squandered our capacity through greed and must now start afresh seeking to develop our youth in the right direction.

10.      A federal system of government that encourages development of components of the federation without subtle drawbacks must be returned to. It will be the only path to reducing the overload of governance. Government at Federal Level should devolve on zones. The states are too many and too unwieldy for our level of discipline with public funds. Let states be dissolved to lessen the burden of governance and financial outlay connected therewith.

11.      Every citizen of Nigeria must know that only what is right will lead to real growth. Wrong principles cannot lead to positive results in any human condition. What is hidden must come to light some day. So shall all the deliberate falsehood concerning populations and shares from the commonwealth. Any other posturing based on felt fears of domination will not redound to national development. Those who can best deliver development should be called to serve the commonwealth.

12.      Ndigbo must return from the entire world and develop their base. They incarnated among Ndigbo for this purpose. Shirking their responsibility to their people under any fears or ruses is destructive to their spirits and cannot lead individuals and groups to fulfillment no matter how apparently wealthy they become. Ndigbo worldwide should be nearing sixty million people and less that twelve million inhabit their own land. This is an unnatural condition for intrinsic growth. Most are hounded by their transgressions in past lives to dread their homeland. A large number who were rebels of tradition and culture suppose they would escape sanctions of ancestors by permanent migration. They deceive themselves. Nature catches up with them eventually. The world is a unity with one law powering it. Empty symbols of well-being litter Igboland. There are precious few productive plants to show for the massive capital salted away in palatial homes. Nnewi remains a shining example thanks to a few far-sighted Ndigbo. Ndigbo could have exclusively cornered industrialism and compelled Igbo centrism in the Nigerian project. We have lost it and no change is in sight. It is not too late to turn to return of capital to Igboland. That would hurt no one if it is done in slow time frames.