By Chuka Nnabuife
Reading a PDF copy of the recently delivered 50th Inaugural Lecture of Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS) was sour-bitter endeavour for me.
Sour because it was not totally a bitter reading experience for me. At least, the 57-page verbiage offered me print material for a long night reading. But bitter because after keeping me awake up to very early morning, I felt sad upon reaching the last text.
But I have not read an intellectual piece that potentially proke Ndịgbo to look inward and think home as that bundle of bias puked by a UDUS don. From introduction to conclusion Prof. Ahmed Bako did his best in running circles around his topic, ‘The Igbo Factor in the History of Intergroup Relations and Commerce in Kano: Opportunities and Challenges Revisited’ without penetrating it.
Bako, a professor of African and Nigerian History with over 35 years, post-PhD and a cumulative of 43-year experience as an university academic failed to make a convincing scholarly argument on his thrust. Rather, he sensationally magnified the ‘challenges’ while conspicuously muting the ‘opportunities’ in topic he chose.
He gave his link with his topic thusly: “My interest in undertaking a number of researches in this area was partly due to the result of my little experience when I started secondary school education in 1971 in Kano Educational Development Center (KEDC) located in the area of Sabon Gari where Igbo migrants are mostly residing in Kano. The school was located in the premises of Igbo Union Grammar School that was disbanded by the federal government as the result of January 1966 coup that banned all political associations in the country.”
Farther, he stated how his childhood influenced the study and actually his entire professional life because after researching for his doctoral thesis on the Igbo and others in Kano issue, he went ahead to build a career and faculty on it.
His words: “If my childhood experience is anything to go by, I can say with confidence that my secondary school days enabled me to see Igbo, physically, for the first time. But before this time I have heard a lot of frightening stories about Igbo as wicked people who killed Sardauna. However, in my youthful enthusiasm during the secondary school days I befriended some Igbo classmates without knowing that I will be a student of history to write about Igbo community in Kano.
It was this youthful experience especially my familiarity with the area where my secondary school is located that influenced my decision to conduct my PhD Research on intergroup relations in Sabon Gari Kano. I was able in the course of my several visits to Sabon Gari for field work to know quite a number of Igbo and even to befriend some. My closest Igbo friend during the time was Lawrence Agu Ezetah who came to Kano in 1948 from Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State after he was discharged from the colonial Army. At the time when he settled in Kano he only possessed elementary school education. While in Kano working with the ministry of Health he privately took and passed London GCE Ordinary and Advanced levels. In 1961 he gained admission into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and graduated with Bachelors degree in Law (LLB). The Civil War could not allow him to attend Law school until in the period between 1971-1972.
Until the time he answered the call of Allah Lawrence was the President General of Igbo Community Association Kano State. He owned a Private Chamber in No 5 Sarkin Yaki Road Sabon Gari. It was my cose association with Ezetah that encouraged me to venture in later years into the study of the activities of Igbo in Kano. My concern initially as a student of inter-group relationswas to find out why are Igbo the main actors in most of the conflicts that are taking pace between migrant groups and the Kanawa. One other issue of motivation to venture into this area of study is for the fact that Igbo activities in Kano and Northern Nigeria at large contain elements that require historical research and explanation.
This means any historical study of Kano since the beginning of Colonial Era will be incomplete without giving due consideration on how the Igbo Diaspora impacted positively or otherwise on the economy and society.”
Given that premise, one read Prof. Bako with enthusiasm for how his basic school experience in an Igbo community in Kano enabled a deeper insight into his research; how his cited ‘friendship’ with the said lawyer, Ezetah rubbed off on the topic; his research findings to butterss or dismiss the notion of Igbo people’s ‘wickedness’ among other hopes he raised.
But all through the paper, he neither addressed any of those issues nor brought up any insight that could vitiate or counter the bandied notions in the street.
Rather, from his beginning with protocols to his conclusion, he engaged in rigmarole. He clearly failed to establish his argument or, at least, the plank(s) of his narrative. He did not even have the balls to establish what informed or what he learnt from his befriending a person like Mr. Lawrence Agu Ezetah or even tell his audience what the lawyer said on his topic, to corroborate his reported ‘field work’ efforts.
He even did not interrogate the merits or demerits of the closure of his alma mater basic school. Was the fact that a certain Igbo Union owned a school enough for government to close a school for ‘political association’. If someone, an acclaimed professor of History, for that matter, was to report such a development in his academy research, shouldn’t he probe the reasons behind it?
In ‘The Igbo Factor in the History of Intergroup Relations and Commerce in Kano: Opportunities and Challenges’, Prof. Bako, clearly ignored or kept out many vital information, raising doubt of his objectivity in the study. Sadly, and dangerously so, the issues he eliminated are so crucial that, their absence mare his work totally. But more worrisomely, led him to a narrative and conclusion that bode vices for Nigeria’s unity — a diadem that a renowned scholar of his stature should crave.
From page 7 where he dwells on ‘The Igbo settlement in Kano’ through the subsection ‘Settlement and Consolidation of Community’ (page 16) to ‘The Igbo Community During the Second World War’ (page 20) to ‘The Role of Igbo State Union’ (page 23) the UDUS don was found opining, pontificating, adumbrating and alleging and shopping for insinuations instead of convincing authoritative sources to cite.
Instances of his gaffe: He claimed that hunger and a lack of arable farmlands which, in him still persists, pushed Igbo people out of Igbo Land to Kano. How would anyone believe that? Based on which facts?
“What accelerated the massive Igbo migration to Kano and other northern cities was the population density and shortage of land which was and are still the man features of Igbo land, especially Owerri and Onitsha, the Igbo heartland. In 1952, the rural gbo Districts had an average population density of 346 persons to a square mile as against 151 for the Yoruba land, 100 for the midwest region and 60 for the northern region. In some parts of Igbo Districts, population density was as high as 800 persons per square mile.
The lowest density in Igbo land was 143 persons to a square mile in 1953 while in the north, it was as low as 25 persons.in actual fact the Igboland has the highest population densities anywhere in Nigeria and this explains why people were compelled to move out from overcrowded and resource declining environment to areas of economic opportunities. With so many persons on the land, food deficit became inevitable as agriculture could not support the local population as the land is thickly forested and forest clearing was very difficult.
This means the Igbo were forced to come to Kano and other parts of northern Nigeria especially Kaduna, Makurdi and Jos among othersbecause of unfavorable environmental conditions.”
He claimed that Igbo people embraced Western education because of their desire to dominate others. How can that be true?
He stated that between 1930s and early 1960s Igbo arrived in Kano for low-level jobs in the rail line and other factories, and by their gaining of the system, outwitted every other indigenous group, including natives (the Kanawa) to become the most dominant ethnicity in business and corporate workforce. What a way to invoke the angst of others on a people? Worse, never was any Igbo man in Kano interviewed or reported in such a tarnishing account. Yet, the professor claims to have Igbo friends.
Page 26 where he served his ‘opinion’ (that is what it is) on ‘Igbo Businesses During the Nigerian Civil War’ through the subsection on ‘The Igbo After the Civil War’ (page 34) was where he showed his subjectivity. He did not find issues in the aftermath of the 1966 coup detat such as the mass-killing of Igbo people in Kano (pogrom and forced exodus of Igbo in the city) worth his attention
While reporting the aftermath of the war his bias came out clearly. He noted, in passing, that the businesses and property of Igbo people were forcefully taken or stolen once they were forced out of Kano but opts to dwell on two or three Igbo individuals, Mr. F.E. Okonkwo, Chief J.B. Egbe (Ozoma of Ezi) and a man he referred to as a “Bendel Igbo’, Mr. F.E. Dibiamaka who were allies of the Kano Emir, who he claims, their business and property were left, untouched during the war and returned to them after. He failed to note the tens of thousands of Igbo people who were either killed or sacked and had their businesses and properties taken.
It is in the subsection ‘Igbo in Spare Parts Business’ (page 42) that Prof. Bako displays his uncloaked bias and disdain for Igbo people.
His words on Igbo people who were struggling to make ends meet after coming out of Nigeria’s Civil War without money or means of living: “Having realized that they lost political power because of the civil war they decided to embark on the capture of economic power through commercial activities and innovation. Commercial centers of Igbo land such as Nnewi, Aba and Onitsha during this time became centers for the experimentation of industrial skills fabricating spare parts among other things.”
Note how the professor manipulated the people’s for survival to mean plot to “capture economic power”. That was how he dubbed the people’s sincere quest for education as a mission to “dominate” other people. This trend of insensitive, careless and streetlike commentary, regrettably runs through the entire unresearched paper. To ponder how such a mundane elevation of ramshackled street shed rumours got elevated to a presentation in a university, let alone an inaugural lecture, is a painful exercise in imagination.
Such examples of unwarranted Igbo tainted that can badly rock the foundations of Nigeria’s unity dot the paper, profusely. Imagine Bako, a professor, blaming Igbo for the outcome when a Kano man raised the rent of his shop beyond the reach of his fellow Kano person who was doing textile business therein because it was an Igbo man who later took the shop. Prof. Bako’s narrative in his paper’s ‘Igbo in Textile Trade’ subsection on page 43:
Igbo traders gradually marginalized or even displace large number of Hausa traders. A typical example of a Hausa man displaced by the Igbo was Ahaji Abubakar Makwarari. He became a textile retailer in 1974 in a stall he rented from Alhaji Salisu Barau Zage at the cost of £6,000 per annum. In 1986 he was ejected due to his failure to pay the new rent of £30,000. Chief David Obi Oknokwo (sic) paid the stated amount and occupied the stall. Many other Hausa traders such as Lawal Sulaiman (Minister), Alhaji Yahya, etc, were displaced by the Igbo who were ready to pay high rents.”
Aside the plethora of hate expressions, the lecture has many language flaws, from grammar to proof reading eyesores. But the most put-off problem with its language is the tens of times the author used the expressions ‘migrants’, ‘diasporans’ and ‘refugees’ to describe Igbo people in his paper. These are very incorrect descriptions of citizens of a nation in their country. Being lexical or socio-politically correct is an art any public speaker should have. So, UDUS should not have put up Prof. Bako for an inaugural lecture (a meeting of town and gown) because his outing in the citadel’s 50th inaugural lecture erodes their brand significantly.
Apart from his presentational challenges, his thematic thrust when compared with his status as a senior academic researcher pose big questions on his faculty.
But he even arrived at his ‘Conclusion’ which can arguably, pass as a shameless slide into mundane persuasions he clearly dropped evidence that he was not heading on the path of any objective research work. For example, this his statement clearly established that he was out to put a partition between ethnicities in Kano:
“The Vice-Chancellor Sir, even though how the Civil War affected Igbo community in Kano has been one of the most popular discourses in the history of Igbo Diaspora community, one unresolved issue which has not been given much attention is on how the war created opportunities and even became a blessing to indigenous merchant class in Kano. My view in this issue is that much as the war negatively affected the Igbo one also needs to pay attention to the corresponding opportunities it created to the indigenous merchant class. Obviously, it would be absurd in this lecture to try to give a compete story of all what happened, but I can try at least to pick out and comment upon some few opportunities which seem to be particularly important.”
And that was what the lecture did — pitting the Igbo community against the rest of other communities in Kano and even entire Nigeria.
In his ‘Conclusion’ he nails it crudely thusly: “There is no doubt in the fact that the broadening base of the Igbo in Kano and their success has given rise to criticisms against them by the indgenes who consistently blame them for taking over enterprises as well as landed properties which would have otherwise be under their control. The Igbo have also been accused of constituting a drain on Kano economy in terms of repatriating funds to develop their homeland.
“One crucial point which cannot be overemphasized in the relations between the Igbo and the indigenes is (sic) that the Kino people since early colonial era have been perceiving the Igbo as a serious rival migrant group. This perception had been proved true when the Igbo residents greeted 15th January Military Coup and the May, 1966 Unification Decree and the centralization of the federal Civil Service with loud cheers and jubilation as Igbo victory over the Hausa.” When and how did this happen? How would a professor (of History, for that matter) not foresee the danger in making such an unresearched, crisis-potent statement in Nigeria that is so socially challenged?
What a lecture that should not have happened at least for its insensitivity. Unsurprisingly, it is, disgustingly, a typical example of a fast expanding unsubstantiated trend of Igbo-slamming even among the very top intelligentsia in some quarters of Nigeria.
However, one good ‘take home’ Ndịgbo should get from the development is to pay serious attention to the ‘think home’ (Akụ Lue Ụnọ) philosophy that several states in the South-East, particularly, Anambra are now preaching. Ndịgbo definitely, should not be having cheap local champions, who cannot even hold their heads high in their basic courses, taint them with their repugnant use of English and suspect pedagogy.
Igbo, think home! Anambra and others have prepared you good home for your commerce.
*Nnabuife is a consummate journalist and human capital consultant.
