How Igbo Traders Control Critical Sectors In 31 States, FCT

Traders at Aguiyi Ironsi International Market, Ladipo, Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos

Outside the five states that make up the South East geopolitical zone, traders who are of Igbo extraction are controlling critical sectors in 31 states and the Federal Capital Territory, reports by our correspondents reveal.

Reports from the South West, South South, North West, North East, North Central and the FCT, showed that investments of Igbo traders, cutting across all sectors dot the state capitals, LGAs, major towns and villages in other parts of the country.

The South East geopolitical zone is made up of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states. At a time, agitation for secession is being spearheaded by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Igbo traders enjoy peaceful, uninterrupted trading in other parts of the country.

'Igbos own 73% of Abuja property'

In Abuja, Igbo traders dominate the nerves of businesses in the city centre and the area councils.

Reports by our correspondents showed that the Igbo control housing and hospitality businesses just as they exclusively dominated spare parts and building materials trade in Deidei, Zone 5, Apo, Zuba and Mararraba.

During his tenure as minister of FCT, Malam Nasir El-Rufa'i, declared that the Igbo have acquired about 73 per cent of landed properties in Abuja.

"Sixty-eight per cent of the land allocations in the FCT belong to the 19 northern states, but in the actual land ownership, 73 per cent belongs to the Igbo with the most aggressive in land ownership belonging to the indigenes of Anambra State, while Ebonyi lags behind," El-Rufai said in 2007.

Sources in major markets in the FCT said most of the shops are owned by Igbo traders and investors.

An Abuja native in Kubwa, Mr Sunday Gazazhin, said no Nigerian would be comfortable with what Biafra agitators are doing to northerners in the South East.

Gazazhin, who is a youth leader, said Abuja indigenes have sacrificed their land willingly to Nigerians when the same right is being denied to other Nigerians in the eastern part of the country.

An Igbo trader who is a former chairman of Abuja Building Material Market in Deidei, Comrade Anthony Chukwuneke, told Daily Trust that he is in support of Biafra agitators and denied their involvement in attacking northerners in the South East.

When alerted about the Igbo's huge investment scattered in the North, in the event that they seceded, he replied, "The only thing that the Igbo trader should expect, is a special tax imposition against his business".

S/East traders dot 44 Kano LGAs

In Kano, the Igbo are going about their normal business with several investments in the commercial centre of northern Nigeria.

The spare parts and construction products market at Kofar Ruwa is one of the market areas in Kano where the Igbos dominate or play a significant role in the business of the market. While they are not the only tribe involved in the market, they control the highest volume of trade in it.

It was observed, however, that during the sit-at-home order of the IPOB recently, business activities in the market went on as normal.

Similarly, at the popular Sabon Gari Market (Abubakar Rimi Market) in Sabongari area of Kano, the Igbo and other non-indigenous tribes go about their day-to-day businesses peacefully with their hosts.

Daily Trust reports that aside from the major business interest, there is hardly any village in Kano's 44 local government areas that an Igbo man or woman would not be seen conducting his/her business and living amicably with their hosts.

Beyond the markets and other business interests, the Igbo are similarly heavily invested in the multi-billion Naira properties business across the state with a concentration in the Sabongari area of Kano metropolis.

While several individuals of Igbo extraction in Kano approached for comment declined on the basis of the sensitivity of the issues, Daily Trust recalls that the Eze Ndigbo of Kano, Igwe Boniface Ibekwe (Ide 1), had in a recent press release on behalf of the Association of Igbo Traditional Leaders in Diaspora, reaffirmed their "unalloyed support and commitment to the sustenance of a strong and virile Nigeria, where peace, unity, justice and equity prevail."

In Taraba, south-easterners dominate commerce

Igbo traders have dominated the building materials, spare parts, pharmaceuticals and other businesses in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital and other major towns in the state.

Findings revealed that 95 per cent of building materials, spare parts and pharmaceutical shops in Jalingo, Wukari, Takum, Gembu, Zing and MutumBiyu are owned by Igbos.

At Jalingo main mechanic village, almost 95 per cent of spare parts shops are owned by the Igbo. They also form over 65 per cent of the total motor mechanics in Jalingo and other towns in the state.

Similarly, most of the big pharmaceutical shops along Palace Way, Barde Way and other locations in Jalingo as well as in other towns and villages across the state are owned by the Igbo.

Bayelsa's economy under Igbo traders' control

Over 80% of businesses operated in Bayelsa State are owned by Nigerians from the South East region, our correspondent reports.

The Igbo traders see themselves as part and parcel of the state. Finding shows that many supermarkets, filling stations, eateries and clubs as well as other petty businesses are operated by Igbo people.

Checks at Swali Market, the biggest market in Bayelsa State, indicate that people from the South East are operating in the market peacefully with the people of the state.

A popular supermarket in Yenagoa, the state capital, belonging to an Igbo businessman is said to be the pioneer supermarket in the state.

Some Igbo traders' union leaders who spoke with Daily Trust said they have been operating in the state even before the creation of Bayelsa State.

Why we are leading in Akwa Ibom -- Eze Ndigbo

In Akwa Ibom, the Igbo are leading in the food market, household goods and supermarkets, electronics/electricals and auto/mechanical. They are in the majority in the automobile market called the mechanic village in Uyo, among other businesses.

They have continued to thrive even in the face of insecurity that is not just threatening Nigerians, the nation's territorial integrity but also the economy.

The Eze Ndigbo in Akwa Ibom, His Royal Highness, Eze Dr CYC Umeakuka JP, attributed the knack of the Igbo to thrive in business despite insecurity in the country to the peace they enjoy in the state and the hospitable nature of the people.

Umeakuka, who is also the President General of Eze Ndigbo in Nigeria and the Diaspora, said their risk-taking streak was a contributory factor to their success in business.

Igbo businesses thrive in Lagos

Despite the agitation led by the IPOB for an independent nation for the eastern region, businessmen from the area are thriving in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria.

A visit to major markets in the state indicated that they are doing their business without any hindrance.

Some major markets in the state, such as Alaba International, Jankara, Ladipo, Oyingbo, Computer village are dominated by people from the eastern region.

At Alaba International Market, which is the largest electronics market in Nigeria, they said there is no discrimination against them.

A visit to the Apapa ports also revealed that they are very active in clearing goods. In the hospitality business, a good number of hotels in the state are owned by Igbo businessmen.

Some of the businessmen who expressed confidence in the unity of the country claimed that the president and his men promoted the agitation in the region. They claimed that President Buhari has always shown his alleged dislike for the region through his utterances.

Collinson Oha, an electronics dealer in Alaba International Market, who has lived and traded in Lagos for over 12 years, said the people asking for separation are not happy with the way the government is handling things in the country.

Another trade, Chinozo Ebere, said the agitation in the South East has not affected his relationship with traders and customers from other regions.

However, some of them said if the agitation for Biafra succeeds, they would be willing to continue trading in Nigeria while they relocate the headquarters of their business to the new nation.

By Ismail Mudashir, Hamisu Kabir Matazu, Adamu Umar (Abuja), Clement A. Oloyede (Kano), Magaji Isa Hunkuyi (Jalingo), Bassey Willie (Yenagoa), Iniabasi Umo (Uyo) & Abiodun Alade (Lagos)

Article was first published at the Daily Trust, June 30, 2021

The Bitter Truth About The Igbo

Femi Fani-Kayode

BY FEMI FANI-KAYODE

PREMIUM TIMES

AUGUST 8, 2013

Permit me to make my second and final contribution to the raging debate about Lagos, who owns it and the seemingly endless tensions that exist between the Igbo and the Yoruba. It is amazing how one or two of the numerous nationalities that make up Nigeria secretly wish that they were Yoruba and consistently lay claim to Lagos as being partly theirs. Have they forgotten where they came from? I have never heard of a Yoruba wanting to give the impression to the world that he is an Igbo, an Ijaw, an Efik or a Hausa-Fulani or claiming that he is a co-owner of Port Harcourt, Enugu, Calabar, Kano or Kaduna. Yet more often than not, some of those that are not of Yoruba extraction but that have lived in Lagos for some part of their lives have tried to claim that they are bona fide Lagosians and honorary members of the Yoruba race.

Clearly it is time for us to answer the nationality question. These matters have to be settled once and for all. Lagos and the South-west are the land and the patrimony of the Yoruba and we will not allow anyone, no matter how fond of them we may be, to take it away from us or share it with us in the name of ”being nice”, ”patriotism”, ”one Nigeria” or anything else. The day that the Yoruba are allowed to lay claim to exactly the same rights and privileges that the indigenous people in non-Yoruba states and zones enjoy and the day they can operate freely and become commissioners and governors in the Niger Delta states, the North, the Middle Belt and the South-east, we may reconsider our position. But up until then, we shall not do so. Lagos is not a ”no-man’s land” but the land and heritage of the Yoruba people. Others should not try to claim what is not theirs.


I am not involved in this debate for fun or for political gain and I am not participating in it to play politics but rather to speak the truth, to present the relevant historical facts to those that wish to learn and to educate the uninformed. That is why I write without fear or favour and that is why I intend to be thoroughly candid and brutally frank in this essay. And I am not too concerned or worried about what anyone may think or how they may feel about what I am about to say because I am a servant of truth and the truth must be told no matter how bitter it is and no matter whose ox is gored. That truth is as follows. The Yoruba, more than any other nationality in this country in the last 100 years, have been far too accommodating and tolerant when it comes to their relationship with other nationalities in this country and this is often done to their own detriment. That is why some of our Igbo brothers can make some of the sort of asinine remarks and contributions that a few of them have been making in this debate both in the print media and in numerous social media portals and networks ever since Governor Fashola ”deported” 19 Igbo destitute back to Anambra state a while ago.

In the last 80 years, the Igbo have been shown more generosity, accommodation, warmth and kindness and given more opportunities and leverage by the Yoruba than they have been offered by ANY other ethnic group in Nigeria. This is a historical fact. The Yoruba do not have any resentment for the Igbo and we have allowed them to do in our land and our territory what they have never allowed us to do in theirs. This has been so for 80 long years and it is something that we are very proud of. As I said elsewhere recently, to be accommodating and generous is a mark of civilisation and it comes easily to people that once had empires. The reason why many of our people take strong exception to the apparent outrage of the Igbo over this ”deportation” issue and the provocative comments of my friend and brother Chief Orji Uzor Kalu when he described Lagos as being a ”no man’s land” is because the Igbo have not only taken us for granted but they have also taken liberty for licence.

We cannot be expected to tolerate or accept that sort of irreverent and unintelligent rubbish simply because we still happen to believe in ”one Nigeria” and we will not sacrifice our rights or prostitute our principles on the alter of that ”one Nigeria”. Whether Nigeria is one or not, what is ours is ours and no one should test our resolve or make any mistake about that. ”One Nigeria” yes but no one should spit in our faces or covet our land, our treasure, our success, our history, our virtues, our being and our heritage and attempt to claim those for themselves simply because we took them in on a rainy day. It is that same attitude of ”we own everything”, ”we must have everything” and ”we must control everything” that the Igbo settlers manifested in the northern region in the late 50’s and early and mid-60’s that got them into so much trouble up there with the Hausa-Fulani and that eventually led to the terrible pogroms where almost one hundred thousand of them were killed in just a few days. Again it is that same attitude that they manifested in Lagos and the Western Region in the late ’30’s and the early and mid-40’s that alienated the Yoruba from them, that led to the establishment of the Action Group in April, 1951 and that resulted in the narrow defeat of Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe in the Western Regional elections of December, 1951. As a matter of fact they were the ones that FIRST introduced tribalism into southern politics in 1945 with the unsavoury comments of Mr. Charles Dadi Onyeama who was a member of the Central Legislative Council representing Enugu and who said at the Igbo State Union address that ”the domination of Nigeria and Africa by the Igbo is only a matter of time”.

That single comment, made in that explosive and historic speech, did more damage to southern Nigerian unity than any other in the entire history of our country and everything changed from that moment on. To make matters worse, in July 1948, Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe made his own openly tribal and incendiary speech, again at the Igbo State Union, in which he spoke about the ”god of the Igbo” eventually giving them the leadership of Nigeria and Africa. These careless and provocative words cost him dearly and put a nail in the coffin of the NCNC in the Western Region from that moment on. This was despite the fact that that same NCNC, which was easily the largest and most powerful political party in Nigeria at the time, had been founded and established by a great and illustrious son of the Yoruba by the name of Herbert Macauley. Macauley, like most of the Yoruba in his day, saw no tribe and he happily handed the leadership of the party over to Azikiwe, an Igbo man, in 1945 when he was on his dying bed. How much more can the Yoruba do than that when it comes to being blind to tribe? Can there be any greater evidence of our total lack of racial prejudice and tribal sentiments than that? If the NCNC had been founded and established by an Igbo man, would he have handed the whole thing over to a Yoruba on his death bed? I doubt it very much.

Again when northern military officers mutinied, effected their ”revenge coup” and went to kill the Igbo military Head of State, General Aguiyi-Ironsi on July 29th 1966 in the old Western Region, his host, the Yoruba Col. Fajuyi (who was military Governor of the Western Region at the time), insisted that they would have to kill him first before taking Aguiyi-Ironsi’s life and the northern officers (led by Major T.Y. Danjuma as he then was) promptly obliged him by slaughtering him before killing Aguiyi-Ironsi. How many Igbo know about that and how many times in our history have they made such sacrifices for the Yoruba? Would Aguiyi-Ironsi, or any other Igbo officer, have stood for Fajuyi, or any other Yoruba officer, and sacrificed his life for him in the same way that Fajuyi did had the roles been reversed? I doubt it very much. Yet instead of being grateful the Igbo continuously run us down, blame us for all their woes, envy our educational advantages and resent us deeply for our ability to excel in the professions and commerce. Unlike them, we were never traders but we were (and still are) industrialists and when it comes to the professions we were producing lawyers, doctors, accountants and university graduates at least three generations before they ever did. That is the bitter truth and they have been trying to catch up with us ever since. For example the first Yoruba lawyer Christopher Alexander Sapara Williams was called to the English Bar in 1879 whilst the first Igbo lawyer, Sir Louis Mbanefo, was called to the English bar in 1937. Again the first Yoruba medical practitioner, Dr. Nathaniel King, graduated in 1875 from the University of Edinburgh whilst the first Igbo medical practitioner, Dr. Akannu Ibiam, graduated from another Scottish University in 1935.

Yet despite all this and all that they have been through over the years and despite their terrible experiences in the civil war we are witnessing that same attitude of ”we must control all”, ”we must own all” and ”we must have all” rearing its ugly head again today when it comes to their attitude to the issue of the deportations from Lagos state and when you consider the comments of the Orji Kalu’s of this world about the Igbo supposedly ”owning Lagos” with the Yoruba and supposedly ”generating 55 per cent of the state’s revenue”. It is most insulting.

And I must say that it is wrong and unfair for anyone to lay the blame for the perennial suspicion and underlying tensions that lie between the two nationalities on the Yoruba because that is far from the truth. We are not the problem, they are. Pray tell me, in the whole of Nigeria who treated the Igbo better than the Yoruba after the civil war and who gave them somewhere to run to where they could regain all their ”abandoned property” and feel at home again? Who encouraged them to return to Lagos and the West and who saved the jobs that they held before the civil war for them to come back to when the war ended? No other tribe or nationality did all that for them in the country- only the Yoruba did so. And the people of the old Mid-West and the Eastern minorities (who make up the zone that is collectively known as the ”south-south’ today) have always viewed them with suspicion, have always feared them and have always resented them deeply. From the foregoing, any objective observer can tell that we the Yoruba have always played our part when it comes to accommodating others. This is particularly so when it comes to the Igbo who we have always had a soft spot for and who we have always regarded as brothers and sisters. It is time that those ”others” also play their part by acquiring a little more humility, by knowing and accepting their place in the scheme of things and by desisting from giving the impression that they own our territory or that they made us what we are.

Now, let us look at a few historical facts and one or two more Igbo ”firsts’ that many may not be familiar with to buttress the point. The Igbo people were the FIRST to carry out a failed coup on the night of Jan 15th, 1966 under the leadership of Major Emmanuel Ifejuna, Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Christian Anuforo, Capt. Ben Gbulie, Major Timothy Onwatuegwu, Major Donatus Okafor, Capt. Ude, Capt. Emmanuel Nwobosi, Captain Udeaja, Lt. Okafor, Lt. Okocha, Lt. Anyafulu, Lt. Okaka, Lt. EzedIgbo, Lt. Amunchenwa, Lt. Nwokedi, 2nd Lt. J.C. Ojukwu, 2nd Lt. Ngwuluka, 2nd Lt. Ejiofor, 2nd Lt. Egbikor, 2nd Lt. Igweze, 2nd Lt. Onyefuru, 2nd Lt. Nwokocha, 2nd Lt. Azubuogu and 2nd Lt. Nweke in which they drew FIRST blood and openly slaughtered and butchered leading politicians and army officers from EVERY single zone in the country except their own.
I should also mention that even though this was clearly an Igbo coup there was one Yoruba officer who was amongst the ringleaders by the name of Major Adewale Ademoyega. It was a very bloody night indeed. Amongst those killed were the Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, the Premier of the Western Region, Chief S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Federal Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Brigadier Zakari Maimalari, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, Colonel Ralph Shodeinde, Lt . Colonel James Yakubu Pam, Lt. Colonel Abogo Largema and numerous others. They did not just kill these revered and respected leaders but in some cases they mocked, tortured and maimed them before doing so, took pictures of their dead and mutilated bodies and killed their wives and children as well. For weeks after these horrific acts were carried out, the Igbo people rejoiced and celebrated them in the streets and markets of the north, openly displaying pictures and posters of the Saurdana’s mutilated body with Nzeogwu’s boot on his neck, loudly playing a famous and deeply offensive anti-northern song in which northerners were compared to goats and listening to it on their radios, jubilating that they had brought an end to what they described as ”northern rule and Islamic domination” and openly boasting that they themselves would now ”rule Nigeria forever”. Though the first coup failed the matter did not end there.

The very next day after the Jan.15th mutiny and butchery had failed and did not result in Ifejuana taking power in Lagos, the Igbo people set their ”plan B” in motion and they were the FIRST to carry out a successful coup in Nigeria just one day later on Jan. 17th 1966. This was when the Igbo Major-General J.T,U. Aguiyi-Ironsi (who was Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Army and who had inexplicably and suspiciously not been murdered by the young Igbo officers in their violent mutiny and killing spree the night before) in collusion with the Igbo Acting President Nwafor Orizu and the entire Igbo political leadership of that day, invited the remnants of Sir Tafawa Balewa’s cabinet to a closed door meeting, threatened their lives and took power from them at the point of a gun. Aguiyi-Ironsi did not just ask them to give him power but he took it from them by force by telling them that he could not guarantee their safety if they refused to do so. Meanwhile Orizu point blank refused to do his duty as Acting President and swear in Zana Bukar Dipcharimma as the Acting Prime Minster when the members of the cabinet and the British Ambassador (who was also at the meeting) implored him to do so since by that time there was a power vacuum because the Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, had gone missing and had probably been murdered. It was in these very suspicious circumstances and as a consequence of this murky and deep-seated Igbo conspiracy that General Aguiyi-Ironsi came to power. Amongst those that were present at that famous ”meeting” that are still alive today are Alhaji Maitama Sule, Chief Richard Akinjide and President Shehu Shagari who were all Ministers in Balewa’s cabinet . Those that doubt the veracity of my account of this meeting would do well to ask any of them exactly what transpired during that encounter.

Yet the seeming success of the conspiracy was short-lived. Only six months later, on July 29th 1966, General Aguiyi-Ironsi and no less than 300 Igbo army officers reaped the consequences of their actions and plot when they were all slaughtered in just one night during the northern officers revenge coup which was led by Lt. Colonel Murtala Mohammed, Major Abba Kyari, Captain Martins Adamu, Major T.Y. Danjuma, Major Musa Usman, Captain Joseph Garba, Captain Shittu Alao, Captain Baba Usman, Captain Gibson S.Jalo and Captain Shehu Musa Yar’adua as they then were. Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon was put in power by this group after that and a few weeks later between September 29th 1966 and the middle of October of that same year approximately 50,000 Igbo civilians were attacked and slaughtered in a series of horrendous pogroms in the north by violent northern mobs as a reprisal for the killing of the northern leaders, including Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Saurdana of Sokoto, by Major Nzeogwu, Major Ifejuna and other junior Igbo officers on the night of Jan. 15th 1966. Please note that despite the fact that a number of Yoruba leaders were killed on that night as well no Igbo civilians were massacred anywhere in the west by mobs in reprisal killings throughout that period.

The Igbo understandably left the north in droves after those terrible pogroms and fled back to the east from whence they came. And perhaps that would have been the end of the story but for the fact that they also declared secession and sought to dismember Nigeria. They then made their biggest mistake of all by provoking a full scale military conflict with Nigeria when they launched a vicious and unprovoked attack against the rest of the south attacking and conscripting the eastern minorities , storming the Mid-West and attempting to enter Yorubaland through Ore to capture it. Thankfully they were stopped in their tracks by the gallant efforts and courageous fighting skills of the Third Marine Commando (which was primarily a Yoruba force and which was under the command of the great Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, ‘the Black Scorpion’), prevented from entering the west, driven out of the Mid-West, pushed back into the East, defeated in battle after battle and were eventually brought down to their knees and forced to surrender to the Federal forces in Enugu.

The Igbo and their Biafra fought Nigeria and killed Nigerians for three hard years in that brutal civil war in which over one million courageous, loyal and faithful sons and daughters of the Federal Republic lost their lives at the war front trying to stop Biafra from seceding from the federation, from taking our land and from taking the minority groups of the Mid-Western Region and Eastern Region and our newly-discovered oil with them. Yet despite our massive casualties and the monumental loss of life that the Federal side suffered (a total of 2 million died on both sides) the Igbo people were welcomed back into Nigeria after the war with open arms. Yet it was only in Yorubaland and especially in Lagos that they were given all their ”abandoned property” back and welcomed back as brothers and sisters without any reservations or suspicions whatsoever. Everywhere else in the country for many years they were denied, deprived, shunned, attacked, killed, discriminated against and humiliated but never in the southwest or Lagos. It is the Igbo people more than any other that have complained about marginalisation in Nigeria, forgetting that there is no other country in the world in which there was a major civil war and yet only 10 years after that war ended the losing side produced the Vice President for the whole country in a democratic election in 1979 in the distinguished person of Vice President Alex Ekwueme.

Some have described my submissions in this debate as being ”inflammatory” and have claimed that I am ”not a true progressive” for making them. I reject these labels and I wonder whether those people that conjured them up described the comments of my dear friend and brother Chief Orji Kalu as “inflammatory” and whether they labelled him as ”not being a true progressive” when he erroneously claimed that the Igbo generated 55 per cent of the revenue and owned 55 per cent of businesses in Lagos and that they are effectively the owners of the state. Unlike most of those that are attempting to label me and brand me as a tribalist I know the history of Lagos and the Yoruba very well.

We will not let anyone poison the minds of our Yoruba youth or dispossess them of their heritage by keeping silent when we witness the irresponsible and dishonest propagation of the most desperate and despicable form of historical revisionism that some Igbo leaders are suddenly churning out. If anyone thinks that they can intimidate us into keeping quite when their leaders say such things then they will have the biggest shocker of their lives. We shall not be silenced and they shall not pass. Lagos and the Yoruba generally have much stronger historical, cultural and trading ties with the Bini, the Itsekiri, the Urhobo, the Isoko, the Hausa-Fulani, the Tapas, the Nupes and the Ijaws than they do with the Igbo. The input of those other major ethnic groups to the development of Lagos and their stake in her is far greater than that of the Igbo. Whether anyone wishes to accept it or not that is the bitter truth. We will not let anyone distort history and we will not keep silent when we hear the irresponsible and disrespectful effusions of those that seek to substitute truth with falsehood. When it comes to Lagos it is time that everyone respected themselves and knew their place. The Igbo particularly should display a much higher degree of respect and gratitude to those who were gracious enough to accept them in their land as equals when things were very difficult for them and who treated them with love, respect and kindness after the civil war when hardly anyone else was prepared to do so.

We the Yoruba have accommodated others in Lagos and throughout the South-west and we have let them live in peace for the last 100 years. As a matter of fact we have been glad to do so because as far as we are concerned that is one of the hallmarks of civilisation- the ability to accommodate other faiths, other cultures, other races and other nationalities and to create an equitable and just racial melting pot where equal opportunities are available to all. It is a great and noble virtue to be open and tolerant but that does not mean that we are fools and it does not mean that we do not know who we are, where we are coming from, what is ours and what our heritage is.

The fact that we have allowed others to thrive and settle in our land and share it with us does not mean that we have stopped owning that land. The suggestion that Lagos is a ”no-man’s land’ and that the Igbo or any other nationality outside the Yoruba generate up to 55 per cent of it’s revenue or business is absolutely absurd and frankly it has no basis in reality or rationality. It is not only a dirty lie but it is also very insulting. Guests, no matter how welcome, esteemed, cherished and valued they are, cannot become the owners of the house no matter how comfortable they are made to feel within it. Those guests will always be guests. Lagos belongs to the Yoruba and to the Yoruba alone. ALL others that reside there are guests, though some guests are far closer to us than others. The Igbo are the least close, the most distant and the least familiar with our customs and our ways. They ought to be the last to be claiming our heritage and coveting our land and neither can they claim to have made any real input to our glaring success. For them to think otherwise is nothing but delusion.

ARCHIVES: Nigerian Marries Peace Corps Girl...

Clement and Catherine Onyemelukwe wedding in Lagos.

DECEMBER 27, 1964

LAGOS, NIGERIA (THE NEW YORK TIMES)—The granddaughter of a prominent American banker was wed to a young Nigerian today.

In marrying ciement C. Onyemelukwe of Lagos, Catherine Danforth Zastrow, a tall blonde former Peace Corps volunteer from Fort Thomas, Ky., has joined the small but growing number of American‐Nigerian couples who have settled down to life in post‐independence Africa.

Many have encountered serious problems. All have told of difficulties in adjustment. But most of the unions have survived.

Clement Onyemelukwe was born 31 years ago in the remote town of Nanka in Nigeria's eastern region. His father, a contractor, was barely literate in English, but saved enough money to help all of his three sons work their way through college.

Mr. Onyemelukwe took degrees in engineering and economics from Leeds University and the University of London. He then joined the Electric Corporation of Nigeria— Nigeria's giant public‐owned power utility —and rose swiftly to become chief engineer of the Transmission and Distribution Division.

“This is a real Horatio Alger story,” said Peter Zastrow, the bride's father, an engineer with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in Cincinnati.

Mrs. Onyemelukwe, born in Huntington, L. I., attended Highland's High School in Fort Thomas, which is in the Cincinnati area, and was graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1962 She has spent the last two years with the Peace Corps teaching German at the Federal Emergency Science School in Lagos.

Her maternal grandfather, the late Herman W. Danforth, was appointed the first president of the Federal Land Bank in Woodrow Wilson's Administration in 1917. The bank was formed to grant long‐term farm mortgages

Mr. and Mrs. Onyemelukwe have confided to friends that their decision to marry was a difficult one.

There was an initially adverse reaction from parents on both sides, especially from the Onyemelukwes. They felt their son should marry someone from their home district, or at least a girl of their own Ibo tribe.

But their resistance dissolved after they came to Lagos and met Miss Zastrow shortly before she finished her Peace Corps contract and returned home to announce her engagement.

“When Cathy first broke the news,” Mr. Zastrow said, “I was intellectually for it but emotionally against it.”

This sort of thing has to happen to this generation for better relations between countries,” Mr. Zastrow said. “They are very devout Christians —more Christian than many Americans.”

Catherine Onyemelukwe is the second Peace Corps girl to wed a Nigerian out of a contingent of more than 600 volunteers, almost half of whom are women.

Among the wedding guests were Mr. and Mrs. William Saltonstall, former headmaster of Exeter Academy and now head of the Peace Corps in Nigeria.

Others in attendance included English, American, and

A Difficult Decision Nigerian business leaders here. Sir Mobolaji Bank‐Anthony, Nigeria's most prominent industrialist, was master of ceremonies at the reception on the palm‐shaded lawn of Clement Onyemelukwe's suburban home. More than 500 persons attended.

In A Local Beer, A National Hero

Mitchel Emeka (right) and Chidiebere Kalu (left) at a bar in Lagos. Image: Linus Unah

BY LINUS UNAH


How Nigeria’s Hero Lager savvily entangled itself with the ideals of a secessionist leader — and built a brand in the process

TheThe 11-pointed star beams yellow, orange, and red, and from its place upon a dark green background, the pull is irresistible — especially since it calls from the label of a green, 60-centiliter bottle containing alcohol. That sun, which rose but never glowed for too long, means a lot to Mitchel Emeka, a manager with a transport and logistics company in Lagos. “Not like I am too keen about Biafra,” says Emeka, referring to the state that broke away from Nigeria in a secession attempt in 1967. “But seeing the rising sun on it, and learning that it is brewed in the [southeastern] town of Onitsha, hooked me.”

This beer, Hero Lager, is consumed around Nigeria, where bargoers and those drinking at backyard parties down it mostly from bottles, enjoying its hoppy and slightly bitter taste. Perhaps more important than its social function, though, is the fact that Hero Lager has become an inspirational symbol in Nigeria since it was launched in 2012, tapping into positive associations with the southeast region’s loyalties, struggles, traditions, and tastes — a beer for locals, by locals. According to Lagos-based beer industry analyst David Masifon, the brand enjoys a certain “‘this is our own’ factor, which makes other brands seem alien,” he says. What helps it even further is its “association with Igbo culture and nationalist sentiments, [which] played a key role in helping the brand usurp pre-existing brands in the East.”

At another bar in the southeastern town of Nsukka, photo and video journalist Alphonsus Ogili had just finished a bottle of Hero Lager. “When I look at this bottle it reminds me of our heroes that fought for Biafra, especially Ojukwu,” he says. Across plastic tables on the bar, Hero rested alongside other drinks. “The war has ended, but another war is here with us — demands for self-determination are still there.”

In May 1967, seven years after Nigeria’s independence from Britain, military officer Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the Eastern Region’s secession from the rest of the country. The move was in response to a series of military coups that fueled ethnic rivalries and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Igbo people; Ojukwu’s breakaway region was deemed the Republic of Biafra. Ojukwu’s act led to a bloody civil war that lasted until January 1970 and resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million people in the eastern region, primarily from starvation, fighting, and disease.

The war’s outcome nonetheless, Ojukwu was widely seen as a regional hero for daring to challenge the federal government: Throughout his life, in much of Southeast Nigeria, Ojukwu was celebrated for standing up for the country’s southeastern region and its predominantly Igbo population. (Ojukwu went into exile after the war ended, but returned 1982 when former president Shehu Shagari granted him an unconditional pardon.)

When Ojukwu died November 2011 at the age of 78, his casket, covered in a Nigerian flag, was flown around the country and to his birthplace, Zungeru in northern Nigeria. He was buried in March 2012 in his hometown of Nnewi with full military honors. Former president Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Nigerian author and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings, and other governors and politicians were among the crowd at his funeral, which took place about 20 kilometers away from Onitsha — a city that happened to be home to a burgeoning brewery.

In February 2011, London-based beer giant SAB Miller Plc (now part of Anheuser-Busch InBev) invested an initial $100 million to build a brewery in Onitsha, the commercial hub of the southeastern state of Anambra. The brewery would officially open in August 2012, on the banks of the 4,100-kilometer Niger River, and coming in the wake of Ojukwu’s burial, the brewery christened its flagship beer “Hero.” The heroic branding was hammered home even further with a label featuring a rising sun, a reference to Biafra’s flag, a horizontal tricolor of red, black, and green with a rising sun in the middle.

Given the timing and symbolism, Igbos believed that “Hero” referred to Ojukwu and almost immediately nicknamed the beer “Oh Mpa,” which in Igbo means “Oh my father,” in honor of the secessionist leader. It sold for 150 naira (roughly 90 cents then), below the price of major beers dominating the market. It was common to hear people asking their friends and relatives, “Have you had Oh Mpa?”

“Hero made people literally mad when it came into the market,” Emeka says of the craze. “This is because the beer was made in our region, by our people for our people.”

His friend, Chidiebere Kalu, chimes in. “When it came, it was a mania,” Kalu, an aspiring musician, says. “It gave us a sense of belonging; this is our own. Drinking it felt like you’re playing a role in Igbo struggle.” The beer quickly became popular in local pubs, bars, restaurants, lounges, clubs, and inns throughout Igboland.

According to Igboke Onyebuchi, project manager of Advocacy Partnership for Good Governance in Enugu, a city in the southeast, the brewery has savvy to allude to the fallen leader. “The brewer localized the brand and it gave the people a sense of ownership,” he says. “The brand has a common story with our history and struggle; we find ourselves and our cause in Hero Lager.”

As more Igbos accepted the brand, demand forced the producer to invest an extra $110 million to increase its Onitsha brewery’s capacity, expanding it from 700,000 to 2.1 million hectoliters in 2014.

That sense is still strong today. Almost 50 years after Biafra surrendered, calls for independence have only grown louder with each passing decade. People in the region say they are marginalized and punished for trying to secede. Several secessionist groups have emerged since 1999, including the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (Massob), Biafran Zionist Movement (BZM), and, more recently, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which started in 2014 and has huge support among young generations of Igbos.

Renewed demands for self-determination — often in the form of peaceful protests and hoisting of the Biafran flag — have led to killings, torture, arrests, and detention. Massob’s leader, Ralph Uwazuruike, was detained and later released on several occasions. In October 2015, Nnamdi Kanu, the director of Radio Biafra and a charismatic leader of the IPOB who has a dual British and Nigerian citizenship, was arrested on treason charges before being released “on medical grounds” in April 2017. In September 2017, the Nigerian military declared IPOB a terrorist organization and raided Kanu’s home. His month-long disappearance fuelled more anger. A video of him praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem was widely shared online a month later, confirming he was safe and out of the country.

On a recent sweltering Tuesday afternoon in Onitsha, Radio Biafra aired on a cable-powered TV at a roadside bar and store in the Awada neighborhood. A phone-in program came on around 1:40 p.m., just after the Biafran anthem played. The presenter talked about “senseless killings” in Nigeria, calling the country a “mess.” Three of the five men in the bar were drinking Hero Lager.

“When Biafra comes, we are going to have a direction of our own,” a man in the bar says, a bottle of Hero resting between his legs. The bar’s owner says she sells up to 20 plastic beer crates of Hero, at 12 bottles a crate, per week.

For Hero, maintaining its reputation among consumers requires becoming immersed in what makes them tick: Hero retains a strong presence in local cultural celebrations. “Everything about their advertising is usually promoting Igbo culture,” says Onyeka Okoro, who manages Favor Royal Bar in Enugu. “Hero is giving the other beer drinks a big gap in our bar: Nka bu nke Anyi [this is our own].”

“The first time we brought Hero here three years ago and hung a banner to announce the arrival, many Igbo people filled our bar,” says Obinna Eze, manager of a bar in the Yaba district of Lagos. Eze adds that he sells about 60 Hero beer crates per week, up from about 40 crates in 2016.

For the brewer, the race to remain in the consumer’s consciousness is an ever-evolving triangle in which innovation and aggressive marketing hold sway. In May 2018, Hero Lager was knighted with a new “red cap” crown cork to mimic the red cap worn by respected chiefs and elders in Igboland, which serves as a symbol of respect, achievement, and social recognition. It was during this event that the Obi of Onitsha, the city’s traditional leader, bestowed the beer with the title “Mmanya ejiri mara Igbo.” Literally translated, this means “the beer that identifies Igbos.”

For several decades, Nigeria’s beer market has thrived on an oligopolistic structure in which Heineken’s Nigerian Breweries (NB Plc) holds more than 60 percent of the market share and London-headquartered Diageo Group’s Guinness Nigeria controls over 25 percent, according to United Capital Plc, a Lagos-based financial and investment advisory. The makers of Hero Lager, Intafact Breweries, came third, with 7.3 percent share.

In late 2016, Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, acquired SABMiller for over $100 billion. With the acquisition, Anheuser-Busch InBev became a majority shareholder in SABMiller’s subsidiaries in Nigeria, and later merged them into International Breweries Plc, making it Nigeria’s third-largest brewer with a combined capacity of 5.7 million hectoliters. In 2018, International Breweries completed a new $250 million plant in the southwestern town of Sagamu, its largest in the continent outside South Africa. International Breweries now has four plants across Nigeria, and offers a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages including Budweiser, Hero Lager, Castle Lite, Grandmalt, Stella Artois, and Eagle Stout.

Investment in the local beer industry remains attractive thanks to Nigeria’s growing population — about 200 million inhabitants and rising — coupled with an expanding middle class, rapid urbanization, and a currently low beer consumption per capita of 11 liters a year.

Proving that it understands its market — and in a play to stay regionally relevant — Hero’s brewery recently launched a campaign called “Echefula” — which roughly translates to “Never Forget Your Identity” — to promote cultural heritage and values, and to push for more appreciation of cultural traditions, a consideration that’s top of mind for many Nigerians: Recently, Igbo rappers Tobechukwu Ejiofor (known as IllBliss) and Owoh Chimaobi Chrismathner (Zoro) released an eponymous single extolling Igbo cultural traditions and exhorting listeners not to forget their cultural identity.

Since August, the campaign’s banners have sprawled across pedestrian bridges on the expressway in Onitsha and on walls in Enugu. Billboards loom large over streets in Onitsha, Enugu, Asaba, and on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital Abuja; a towering billboard with “NEVER FORGET YOUR IDENTITY” and #ECHEFULA written on it sits on the bank of the Niger River, adjacent to the brewery where Hero is made. There’s no better time to start a campaign like this, especially with older generations lamenting that younger people are losing touch with Igbo traditional culture and its language.

Hero’s brewer took the Echefula campaign a step further by introducing The People’s Hero, a 10-week reality TV show to celebrate the “richness and beauty” of the Igbo ethnic group, Tolulope Adedeji, marketing director at International Breweries Plc, told Lagos’s national newspaper, The Nation.

Auditions were held in the southeastern cities of Owerri and Enugu to select some 20 contestants out of a pool of about 2,000. They would engage in singing, acting, dancing, and spoken-word poetry to help judges rate their understanding of Igbo culture. A total prize of 10 million naira (around $28,000) has been earmarked for the winner and two runners-up.

Though competition continues to increase and Hero battles for dominance with other cheaper beers, its affinity with the culture and the Igbo cause still makes it a favorite.

“Everything about Hero Lager reminds me of home,” says transport and logistics manager Emeka, who is from the town of Nsukka. “I am drinking it now and will continue to take it always.”

SOURCE: EATER