Igbo Forum on Restructuring (IFR)
Background
The havoc inflicted on indigenous civilizations by colonialism, concretized by the forced Amalgamation of 1914, made Nigeria a country with no genuine sense of nationhood, benefitting a coterie of corrupt individuals, and only held together by the violence perpetrated by the state on the hapless citizenry. Since colonialism Governments have been promising to run the country for the good of everybody but, apart from a few temporary breaks these have all been in vain.
By 2014 many had come to the understanding that the problem is foundational; that the non-consensual nature of the "union" would continue to make it a violent, shaky and largely unproductive experiment; that with an anachronistic basis the superstructure would sooner or later eventually collapse; and that instead of the exercise in futility that inheres in building from the top, it is more rational to rather build from below, so to have a better and stable constitutive union of the people than an instituted arrangement from above benefitting only a few, and invariably degenerating into a possible chaotic end as a failed state.
Hence the virtual unanimity in the demand for a consensual reconstitution of the polity otherwise called restructuring on the basis of ethno-linguistic cultural groups. Such a restructuring, by enabling the people take charge of their national destiny not only stems the existential threats facing various groups, but would also reposition the country upon a civilized structural-functional foundation that peacefully saves our civilizations, promotes inter-group harmony, genuinely addresses the majority-minority and security issues, triggers the country's competitive development, and affords her a pride of place within the comity of nations. By granting ethno-linguistic cultural groups some degrees of relative self-determination a foundation is laid for their mutually beneficial peaceful coexistence, for an end to their existential fears, and for a final solution to the national question in Nigeria.
Igbo not happy with Nigeria
The Igbo are not happy the way Nigeria has been treating them since colonialism, through to 1937, 1945, 1949, 1953, May 1966 to 1970, and mid-2015 to mid-2023. In particular, the Igbo are fed up with the killings, pogroms, genocide, ethnic-cleansings, economic blockades, de-industrialization, poverty and marginalizations, and want to start rebuilding the Igbo society after the endless series of devastations imposed on them before and after Nigerian independence.
Different rules, laws and standards are applied to Igbo sons and daughters in education, jobs offerings, business opportunities, politics, elections, the courts, military-security, professions, everything, and the idea of level-playing field or sense of justice is anathema in the Nigerian establishment entrapment.
Only in a Nigeria could a state be suspected deliberately waging war against her own citizens as a policy principle, like for eight years between 2015 and 2023 allegedly having elements labelled Unknown Gunmen to do so on its behalf, encouraging terrorists to snatch and rename aboriginal lands, indirectly promoting mutual acrimony and divide-and-rule between groups, and righteously continuing an economic blockade and political disenfranchisement against them 60 years after a gruesome war purportedly intended to bring the peoples together. Many innocent Igbo children are dead, still missing, or in self-imposed exile, missed by their loved ones, because of atrocities targeted against them between mid-2015 and mid-2023. Hence, when other Nigerians introduced the idea of restructuring, the Igbo embraced it with an open mind, in the hope that what was said was what was meant.
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SOME QUESTIONS ON RESTRUCTURING SOME PEOPLE ASK ON THE IGBO.
To better understand the Igbo Position on Restructuring and other constitutional matters, it is important to clarify a few things:
Why are the Igbo fighting for territory?
The Igbo are not "fighting for territory," but rather prefer to live in a society without an ethnic definition or profiling, where individual potentials are optimized for the good of family and community without reference to tribe, tongue or territory. But, rulers carved out territories they called States and LGAs to make it easy for them to either oppress or pamper any groups on locational or geo-ethnic bases; roads, factories and other infrastructure are gifted on account of such territories; compatriots agitate for a restructuring, and that again hinges on territory; Igbo land has been under an unspoken but effective economic blockade, and that also means targeting a territory; and the Igbo had suffered an ethnic-cleansing and "identity crisis" onslaught with histories re-written, which yet again touched on territory. There is hardly a way that people are treated on account of the territory they come from while a solution would avoid the mention of territory, or reminding whoever is interested that it was the Igbo that opened here or there, owned this or that, and so on. When Nigerians stop using tribe, tongue and territory as policy instruments, everyone shall end references to them.
Concerning the East in particular, the Igbo prefer a return to the earlier days of love and mutuality, when communities, tongues, traditions, families and everything mixed together and overlapped, unlike these days of divide-and-rule, and treatment of peoples based on the territory they come from or language they speak. Eastern communities were created and squeezed together in a specific location as one people by the Author of the Universe, whether Annang-Efik-Ibibio, Bassa, Idoma, Igala/Igede, Igbo, Ijaw, Isoko, Obollo/Andony, Ogojas, Ogoni, Urhobo, even Tiv, etc, and should be acting together as one Region to recreate a dynamic Eastern pole of brotherly development. That is the Igbo preference, but how can the Igbo go about it without appearing to be conspiring to use the resources of others to selfishly develop Igbo land!
Are Igbo landlocked and "struggling" to have access to the coast?
Igbo have been a coastal nation from creation, identified as the "Opuu" and part of the Ethiopias by the earliest 15th century European explorers. So, the Igbo have never been landlocked by anyone or anything, and are not "struggling" to gain access to the coast they already pioneered and belong to. The Igbo have nothing to prove to anybody on what history already affirms, being a coastal people from antiquity, and the dominant maritime nation in the Gulf of Guinea since the 15th century, by which they, more than others, helped open and populate the Americas and oil European industrialization through the coastal ports that they opened, developed, owned and used, such as Igweocha, Ubani, Opobo, part-Okrika, and others well-recorded from countless ancient documents, down to the Willink's Commission that noted:
The Ogoni Division is divided from the Brass and Degema Divisions by a broad arm of the sea which runs up to Port Harcourt, and by a long stretch of Ibo territory which culminates in this . . . Ibo town"* - p. 51. Even the said Ogoni and Degema Divisions, the rise of the Kalabari states of Abonnema, Bakana, Buguma, and many other communities in the central Niger Delta, were products of Igbo pioneering coastal activity, and bear a heavy Igbo imprimatur.
So, Igbo are not "struggling" to own what they are already, and facilitated others into. But, the Igbo would continue to lay the facts bare for whomsoever is interested. As the Igbo used their own ports they also used the AkwaCross ports of Bakassi, Calabar, Ibaka, Ikang, Oron, the Ijaw ports of Akassa, Brass-Nembe, and so on, because as close cousins Easterners generally lived at peace and cooperated with one another until colonialism and Nigeria's divide-and-rule, when previously peaceful brotherly relationships unfortunately became reverse-engineered into things fall apart.
Are Igbo expansionist by nature?
Everyone seems expansionist by nature except that the degrees might differ. So, the Igbo are "expansionist by nature" if that means a natural instinct to struggle to make their businesses grow wherever they are, and build homes and extend social relationships anywhere they find themselves. With this definition, it means that all other mortals are "expansionist" too. Man must continue to expand or die, is an ineluctable law of nature, society and thought. Many modernists appreciate this broad-minded Igbo attribute, although there are others that unnecessarily feel threatened by it, calling it "expansionism." But, except by lawful purchase, a true Igbo does not aspire to add an inch of any other man's territory to his own. Yes, aboriginal Igbo land is relatively over-populated with considerable soil exhaustion due to centuries of service to the global economy, but the Igbo are generally content with what God has given them, and have never waged war to add to their territory.
IKWERRE MATTER AND OTHER RIVERS IGBO
Are the Igbo forcing the Ikwerre or anyone else to become Igbo because of seaport?
First, the Igbo have been a coastal nation long before the emergence of their good Ikwerre kith and kin in the 20th century, and they are not the only Igbo group in the Rivers State or coastal Igbo society. There are also the Ndoki group of Afam, Bonny/Ubani, Obigbo, Opobo, Umuagbai, and others; the Abo/Ukwuani group of Ahoada, Ali-Ogba, Egbema, Ekpeye, Ndoni, Ohaji, and others; the Etche protectors of the great Amadioha, and several others. Even the Eleme of the Ogoni are practically Igbo, indeed like many other Ogoni, not to speak of a high Igbo content among the Andony/Obollo brothers and sisters. We would not mention the Ijaw central Niger delta, since a number there may, in these times when division is encouraged, not like anyone saying that they are more than 90% of Igbo blood.
So, who are the Ikwerre, and why such particular attention to them?
The Ikwerre are the Igbo group in the Rivers State that live closest to the Igbo seaport of Port Harcourt, which is also the major route to the ancient Igbo coastal port of Bonny. But, unfortunately, some circles believe that by getting some empowered Ikwerre elites to deny their Igbo identity, a "landlocking of the Igbo" to continue the economic blockade, or depriving them those seaports, would be made easier, using a construct that since the "owners of the port" are not Igbo, therefore reopening the ports for the Igbo would be against the wishes of its non-Igbo owners. Even though there is no equivalence, they do not apply the same arguments to Lagos vis-a-vis the Awori, nor treat the Warri, Brass, Calabar, etc Eastern ports any much better. Nor modernize and reopen the ports for the Ikwerre that are "not Igbo," to prove their selective love for the Ikwerre, other than using some of them as divide-and-rule instruments against their kith and kin. So, not modernizing and reopening the Igbo ports to benefit the Ikwerre, other Rivers Igbo and hinterland, are all part and parcel of an impoverishment policy built upon fallacious "arguments."
On who the Ikwerre are, we hear from the people themselves:
"Ikwerre is a nickname given to the Iwhuruowhna people by the Igbo" - Professor Otonti Nduka, one-time President-General of the Ogbakor Ikwerre, in _Studies_ _in Ikwerre_ _history and_ _culture_ _1_, p. 42. And, who are the Iwhuruowhna that he was referring to, which some Ikwerre reductionists claim is the "real name" of the Ikwerre people? _Iwhuruowhna_ is an improper dialectal rendering of _Iruoha_ (face or specimen of a people), which was a praise-name of an Igbo community that Professor P. Amaury Talbot earlier stumbled upon in his studies. The Iwhuruowhna that Talbot mentioned applied to the Igbo, not Ikwerre, and he so duly noted in a 1932 work:
"Igbo . . . (of) this region, the inhabitants of which, though undoubtedly of the same stock as those dwelling further northward (i.e. Igbo hinterland), are known among themselves as Ihura-Onhia." In other words, the Ihura-Onhia are a specimen of the Igbo "further northward" - _Tribes_ _of the_ _Niger delta_, pp. 13-15, abridged. There is not a single Igbo community that hasn't its own praise-name, and for a collection of politicians to impose the praise-name of one village as the collective praise-name covering all communities both suppresses the others' own praise-names and looks somehow, although perfectly lawful.
"Ikwerre" also represented an affirmative answer to the question, "do you agree?" (I kwerela?/I kwere ekwe?) or "do you accept the terms governing your settlement here with us"? In answer, both the Etche (e kwele m) and their new neighbours (ayi kwerule m), speaking the same language, agreed to shelter within a single political unit of Ikwerre-Etche, under the Eastern Ahoada Province of 20th century colonial Nigeria, which an interpreter, a certain Kaiza, rendered to a Consul D. O. Concraine, as "Ikwerre" and, since then, the label has stuck - A. C. Tasie, _Ikwerreland_: _History, culture &_ _people_, pp. 1-2.
Yet again, another level of confirmation: the British conducted a national survey of Nigerian clans and communities titled British _Intelligence_ _Reports_ for their own use between the late 20s and early 30s, enabling the people to voluntarily confide to them who they were. A Mr. Worka, an Ikwerre man, claimed that to settle a Warrant Chieftaincy dispute in 1933, "the British Divisional Officer called for oral history of the Ikwerre tribe" - p. 1 of Sam Woke, "Origin of Ikwerre," in _AKWA: An_ _Ikwerre_ _socio-cultural_ _journal_, vol. 1. An Ogbakor Omenele Publication, with a Foreword by Captain Elechi Amadi. And, the British duly recorded what the Ikwerre confided to them on the very first page of the Ikwerre part of the British Intelligence Reports. In the "Intelligence Report on the Ikwerre Clan Area," in E. P. 17583/10, written at the Secretary's Office, Southern Provinces, Enugu, Nigeria (with no Igbo State Union or Igbo-dominated Eastern Regional Government in existence), and received at the Resident's Office, Port Harcourt, on April 15, the British informed themselves that "Ikwerre is a loosely-knit Igbo clan consisting of seven groups, with a total population estimated at 56,117." Today, that population has grown into millions.
It is left for the reader to determine whether the Ikwerre are being "forced" by anyone to become Igbo because of seaport. It would further interest the reader to know that if the Igbo nation is to be ranked in hierarchical order, the Ikwerre, Etche, Bonny, Opobo and others in the Rivers State would be over and above the rest in many positive indices, and the rest of the Igbo nation needs them greatly for those excellent attributes like the sophisticated resilience in the face of extreme oppression between 1967 and the creation of Bayelsa State, such that the Ikwerre do not need to apply to belong to a civilization in which they are a leading light. Above all, it is in the best interests of all the Igbo to be together as God made them to be, although some circles appear to need the Igbo torn into shreds for reasons they know best.
From whatever angle, the Ikwerre, from themselves and from others, are therefore totally and entirely Igbo, always proud to say so to whomsoever, just like the rest of the Igbo nation are also very proud of them, and not a strange ethno-linguistic group distinct or separate from the rest of the Igbo, regardless that between 1970 and about 1993 some elites, for reasons well known to every average Nigerian, started to disrespect their ancestors and blaming them for being part of the persecuted, oppressed and marginalized Igbo nation, belittling and humiliating the great Ikwerre Igbo kith and kin, recklessly abusing history and dishonoring their proud identity, and misleading and mentally disorienting their children, all because of a civil war in which a country made identity-denial the only means of escaping death, and not being honest to one's self, the only route to economic, political and social climbing.
Rest of the Igbo fully understood the terrible humiliating circumstances the Rivers Igbo found themselves, starting with the ethnic-cleansings at Bonny and flight of its Igbo King who had to die in exile, and the wisdom in adopting any survival strategies for the Ikwerre and other Rivers Igbo peoples, but only appeal that the artificial divisions have lasted for far too long, and that unity instead of division into mutually separated weakened bits and pieces, provides a historically more reliable guarantee for survival and prosperity in the modern world.
Who carries the blame for the ethnic-cleansing code-named Abandoned Property?
Igbo do not blame the Ikwerre or any other Rivers Igbo for the ethnic-cleansing mania code-named Abandoned Property. The Rivers Igbo were oppressed by it as much as the hinterland Igbo, and they were not in charge of Rivers or federal government when it took place. In fact, it was the Ikwerre and other Rivers Igbo individuals that risked their lives for rejecting the vindictive Abandoned Property. Those who authored the ethnic-cleansing introduced a false lexicon titled Upland-Riverine dichotomy, to make it easy to specify their victims, and also make it appear that a particular tribe owned the coasts and others off them, whereas both Rivers Igbo and other tribes are contiguous to the coast.
Ikwerre is therefore a collective name for various Igbo groups, including the Abaja, Aboh, Asaba, Awka, Bende, Enugu, Etche elements, Isuama, Ndoki, Ngwa, Okigwe, Onicha, Owerre, Western Igbo or Anioma areas, etc from the interior, together with the Aro, Mgbom and other local Igbo that remained in the 20th century around Igweocha, now Port Harcourt, after the almost 500-year Igbo-European relations via Ubani or Bonny, to benefit from the jobs offerings of the railway and ports constructions since about 1912. No Ikwerre grandfather came from Benin or even knew the road to it, and one cannot use the dishonest falsifications of today, such as _Rumu_, to insert himself into the honest truths of the past, like _Umu_, to identify who was where, when and how.
Despite the countless writings on the Igbo and the East over centuries, no "Ikwerre" or "Rebisi" divisive propagator can point at a single document referring to such a lexicon before the 20th century, which absence in effect proves the relative recency of the terminology in Igbo/Eastern history. They answer "Ikwerre" because the term correctly describes the circumstances by which such Igbo group arose, and there is no better name to describe the diverse assemblage of Igbo dialects in that part of the Igbo riverine and coastal lands.
Igbo are not attempting to claim Port Harcourt from the Ikwerre people; the Ikwerre ownership of the port is in the broader context of its Igbo ownership through the Diobu kith and kin, who were not Ikwerre per se, when the port was being negotiated. And, it remains very praiseworthy that the great Ikwerre kith and kin have very competently been protecting that Igbo ownership of Port Harcourt, and only need one step further to re-ignite the city's maritime fame.
The Ikwerre remain a leading light of the Igbo nation and very highly respected Igbo group with no problems whatsoever with other Igbo kith and kin. Illustrious Ikwerre and other Rivers Igbo leaders like Jackson Mpi, Amabibi Nsirim, Obi Wali, an independent candidate Nwobidike Nwanodi who mobilized both local and migrant Igbo majority to defeat NCNC official candidate Elugwaraonu in a keenly contested 1964 federal election, Emmanuel Aguma, Okogbule Wonodi, H. E. Senator Francis Ellah, etc., while fighting for Ikwerre and other Rivers local needs as all politicians do, had been in the forefront of championing the Igbo cause at the general level, and like Jaja before them, never chose any other tribe over their Igbo, no matter what.
Effects of civil war and ethnic-cleansing
Then, the civil war and the looming total extermination of the Igbo nation, of which the Igbo of the coastal areas, especially near or around Port Harcourt where some Ikwerre are found, bore the brunt of the atrocities. Innocent people were being arrested, tortured, disappeared, ordered to de-Igbonize and deny their Igbo identity. Many who refused to do so were killed; the Igbo Bonny King fled and died in exile. Senator Dr. Obi Wali was murdered right inside his home because he and other Ikwerre leaders refused to support the Abandoned Property ethnic-cleansing against their hinterland Igbo kith and kin. Chiefs, elders and elites who refused to deny their Igbo identity were variously humiliated, threatened and dealt with. Survival, not ethnic identity, became the primary need, especially as the hinterland Igbo were in no position to render help, given that they themselves were undergoing similar or worse severities.
Rise of politicised Ikwerre ethnic identity and its ideologues
Unlike the general Ikwerre and other Rivers Igbo populace, the politicised ethnic Ikwerre ideologues were the source of Rivers "identity crisis," poverty, underdevelopment and non-reopening of the Igbo ports.
The politicised ethnic Ikwerre elites emerged and operated between 1970 and 1993 approximately as a group of individuals who either out of fear, the need for self-preservation and survival, selfish political ambitions, or because they were among the very few Ikwerre that compromised their being, mistakenly saw in the line of least resistance or identity denial the only assurance of personal political, economic or professional advancement. Not everyone could cope with intimidation, victimization and fear, even Peter.
Unfortunately, there was almost nothing puzzling that this political group did not do in those decades to achieve ends, which has substantially faded away today. For example, despite a Benin Oba having earlier rejected any connections of Ikwerre with Benin they, just to spite whoever, and prove they were more "patriotic" than "patriotic" Nigerians, would travel to kowtow to another Benin Oba, pleading to emanate from "Benin" and volunteering to be his slaves, a taboo among the Igbo for an elder to prostrate before a son or a bigger masquerade bowing to an inferior one (not in intellect, please, but in terms of the age of the Igbo 4,000 to 6,000 iron culture that was far ahead of a much later-day Benin iron civilization). Even the said Benin civilization that the political ethnicists cling to was only a later-day successor to an earlier Igbo Igodomigodo/Ado-na-Idu civilization that covered the area deep into today's Yoruba lands - see B.O.N. Eluwa, _Ado-Na-Idu history_ of _Igbo_ _origin_.
In everything the group emphasized agitation over facts of history. They exhibited a penchant tor insulting their ancestors for being Igbo and cutting the nose to spite the face, so to impoverish the Ikwerre peoples by a dis-inclination to demand a modernization and reopening of the Igbo ports of Port Harcourt, Opobo and Bonny that would have brought the Rivers peoples themselves prosperity, possibly making the State one of the largest economies in Africa, with spillover effects to the Igbo hinterland, other Easterners, the Middle Belt and far North. They outsourced and abandoned Bonny and Opobo, two other Igbo coastal ports, into historical falsification and anti-Igbo assimilation; wisely or unwisely permitted themselves to be wedged by Bonny and Opobo, to enable Ikwerre become a buffer dividing the Igbo and separating its hinterland from the coast, which in effect landlocked themselves and converting Port Harcourt from the busy coastal port it used to be into a dysfunctional lake of zero utility except as place of elites' relaxation instead of trigger of prosperity.
The great Garden City gradually degenerated almost into a wasteland of carcinogenic soot, street dustbins, inter-group acrimony and social strife. The group would ritually be shifting their falsified "histories" and narratives from a "wave of migrations about the 13th century" due to a "misrule of Oba Ewuare," seen by no one and noticed nowhere, to a "RUMUOMASI Declaration of Ikwerre People" in 1965, to every other imaginable fabrication except pointing at a single record that such manufactures ever happened. The "Benin" migrants do and say anything except providing a single document or other proofs that anyone met or saw them all through the almost 500 years of cross-Atlantic relations since the 15th century.
The whole theatre depended on what the group imagined to be the eagerness of Nigerians to "deal with the Igbo," and not upon any shred of empirical or even logical facts.
We use the past tense because many of the divisive anxieties have disappeared, and Igbo of all varieties have returned to the erstwhile traditional understanding of the imperative for unity, in view of the common existential challenges of survival and development facing them. The Igbo now know that they have no other alternative than to unite across the 13 contiguous States of their major or minor indigeneity, down to the coast. The Igbo do not seek one inch of other's lands, and hope that others have a similar mindset towards the Igbo.
Are the Diobu who ceded Port Harcourt to colonialism, Ikwerre?
Partly answered already. The Willink's Commission was explicit that "the same kind of accusations were brought by the people of Diobu against those of Ikwerre, who belong to the same tribal group" of Igbo - p. 43. In other words, the Diobu and Ikwerre stood on separate and equal pedestals as Igbo. Hence, the Diobu, though Ikwerre by extension used to complain against the "Ikwerre" per se over _lebensraum_. The Ikwerre are perfectly owners of Port Harcourt just as every other Igbo in the Rivers State and beyond does . . . through the indigenous Diobu who, themselves, were not part of the Ikwerre new arrivals or party to the "treaty" between the local Etche and the migrant Igbo mediated by Consul Concraine.
Over centuries and millennia the Igbo aboriginals and Aro Confederacy established, owned and used the Igweocha, Bonny, Opobo ports, and the British Willink's settlement, just like European explorers and colonial operatives duly recognized and re-affirmed them as Igbo ports. It was Diobu, not Ikwerre, Rebisi or Iwhuruowhna, that was in the 1913 Hargreaves Agreement that ceded the Igweocha port to the British who called it Port Harcourt, but the Diobu as Igbo remain nevertheless part of Ikwerre by extension, and the details are immaterial to the Igbo since they are both part and parcel of the same Igbo nation. One proof of the authenticity of the Diobu as original Igbo people is the use of _umu_ or _omu_ for children in the Hargreaves agreement, instead of the _rumu_ manufactured today by the "Benin" guests.
The narrative that the Ikwerre have 4 LGAs and therefore "majority" in the Rivers State, is meaningful only if in gratitude to the Diobu community and respectful of the Aro confederacy and the Igbo nation in general that opened and own the territory, admitted others and lived harmoniously together, and should not be used as part of the intimidations against those Ikwerre that objected to the Abandoned Property's Igbo-denial aftermaths.
I'm Igbo, I'm not Igbo . . . an Ideology of Poverty
Wealth from the Rivers and coastal Igbo areas, Ijaw and Ogoni lands, prospered Nigeria, built paradises all over the country, produced billionaires in dollars and pounds, created all manner of "moguls," developed towns and villages, but left their peoples largely poor and desolate, deprived them the oil wells and blocks that they rightly deserve, their environments destroyed almost beyond repair or remediation, the social fabric and ecosystem, fish and fauna devastated, youth restiveness and social tensions always flaring up, and life-span greatly shortened by carcinogenic airs, foods, substances and general environment.
The only way that prosperity, social stability and peace can return to those parts is to modernize and reactivate the ports system, re-link them to the Igbo interior and up to the far North via the Middle Belt, to recreate a dynamic industrialization and import-export pole of development in the East. Instead of this, those politicising Ikwerre ethnicity divert their energies and talents into preventing the reopening of the ports on the pretence that the ports belong to them and they hold a veto power over their fate. They strive that the Ikwerre be isolated from an Igbo contagion, and rather remain as a "separate ethnic nationality" from rest of the Igbo. Hence, whereas demands for the dredging, modernization and reopening of the Igbo ports to end the economic blockade and retrigger an Eastern pole of development to complement the West to Sokoto, etc axis facilitated by the Lagos ports system, issue from the Igbo hinterland, activities to stop this from happening emanate from the same "we are Igbo, we are not Igbo" elites whose people would benefit most by returning the ports into optimal functionality and creating massive jobs for their own youths. This cutting one's nose to spite the face, they enjoy so much.
In effect, the activities and tactics of the Ikwerre politicised ethnicity elites have brought the Rivers State, the East and others poverty, the continuation of the ports closures and economic blockade, and unnecessary divisions between kith and kin; and the Igbo, including the Ikwerre and others in the Rivers State, want these divisive, harmful and impoverishing activities ended.
In a nutshell, the politicised ethnic Ikwerre started as an intimidated and compromised elites compelled by survival necessity to impose an identity-denial falsehood on themselves and younger generations; they are not a genuinely distinct ethnic nationality from Igbo. They use "Ikwerre" and other shifting nomenclatures such as Iwhuruowhna and Rebisi, nowhere in the lexicons before the 20th century, to deceive themselves and others, and they remain a major source of the selfish prosperity of themselves, but impoverishment of the Ikwerre and other Rivers Igbo, the rest of the Igbo, East, Middle Belt and far North, whose faster development depends on the reopening of the Igbo and other Eastern ports, which is only possible by an undivided demand for their modernization and reopening. Unlike other big and small ethnics, the Ikwerre, Rebisi, Iwhuruowhna, and other terminologies in which they conceal their activities, were nowhere in the Deltaic, Igbo, Eastern, Nigerian and African lexicons, all through the cross-Atlantic history, and there is zero proof of their presence as a separate ethnic or linguistic group from the rest of the Igbo, or even as migrants from any "Benin." They are unable to show where they have been hiding since they left "Benin" or wherever, and why it took them 500 years till the 20th century scrambles for railway and colonial administrative jobs to arrive.
The Igbo respected them greatly, they were empowered to be doing what they were doing, and held most of the keys to Igbo and Eastern economic, political and cultural renaissance, and the Igbo continue to appeal to the lingering remnants to assume that historical responsibility, and stop the amusing "I'm Igbo, I'm not Igbo" impoverishing entertainment.
Why not the rest of Igbo simply let the Ikwerre be, and go on without them?
The rest of the Igbo are not after the Ikwerre that claim to be from a "Benin" or wherever and, therefore, not Igbo; the Igbo are after their Ikwerre kith and kin who have refused to deny their ancestors or betray their Igboness.
The Igbo are not requiring the "Benin" migrants to return to their "Benin" ancestral home, but to learn to stay peacefully with their aboriginal Igbo hosts. Moreover, if other Igbo people abandon their Ikwerre kith and kin because there are Ikwerre that are "not Igbo," what happens to the Ikwerre that are Igbo, what happens to the Diobu owners of the Igweocha ports, what happens to the Aboh/Ukwuani-derived Igbo, the Afam, Ali-Ogba, Ekpeye, Etche, Ndoki-derived Igbo, Ndoni, Obigbo, Opobo, Ubani/Bonny, Umuagbai, and several other Igbo communities in the Rivers State; what about the Anioma peoples, and several frontier Igbo communities being forced into strange domains, etc? When everyone abandons the other as if people are Abandoned Property, who would be left to become Igbo? Ethnic nationalities in Nigeria are uniting themselves, and the Igbo would be making an existential mistake by permitting themselves to be scattered into bits and pieces, simply because for whatever selfish reasons some elites strive against unity.
A lot of divide-and-rule mischief and propaganda was invested for decades to sow an artificial "identity crisis" within the Rivers, Anioma, the frontier and several other Igbo groups, hence the foregoing "elaborate" explanations. They are not at all meant to disrespect anyone's political choices and tactics, but for objective historical purposes.
IGBO MARITIME TRADITIONS, A CREDIT TO HUMANITY
The Igweocha, Bonny, Opobo and other coastal ports founded, developed, owned and used by the pioneering Igbo maritime nation, for centuries before Nigerian independence, into which others became gradually admitted, were critical to the development of the Gulf of Guinea, and in the opening, expansion and development of the Western hemisphere and oiling of the European industrial revolution. Through those coastal ports the Igbo led a major African contribution to global progress, which remains a great history that anyone "struggling" over those ports or in any manner undermining the demands for their re-entry into full functionality, would consciously be facilitating underdevelopment and poverty.
Igbo coastal ports were utilitarian instruments for the advancement of man, and not the hatred, divisive and backward centres that some elements seem to desire them converted into.
Igbo national movement, of ancient origin.
As long ago as the 15th to 16th centuries, European explorers had related with coastal Igbo peoples; in the 18th century, Olaudah Equiano had testified to a contiguous Igbo nation down to the coast; in the 19th century, a famous Igbo intellectual and freedom fighter had declared the Igbo intention of establishing an "independent, united, Christian and civilized nation . . . that the Ibo kings and chiefs elect a supreme king to rule from a seacoast capital, preferably Bonny" - Christopher Fyfe, _Africanus Horton_, p. 80. The illustrious James Africanus Beale Horton, had himself announced to the world that the "Empire of the Eboes . . . bounded . . . on the south by the Atlantic . . . divided into numerous independent tribes . . . but having one national sentiment . . . the seat of the ab initio Government should not only be near to, or on, the sea-coast, but also be a place of commercial importance. Bonny, having all the advantages above described, is most adapted for the commencement of such an important undertaking" - Beale Horton (1868), _West_ _African countries_, pp. 154, 172, abridged. If there were any different tribes existing in or owning Bonny other than the Igbo, such an ancient Igbo-specific proposal wouldn't have been made.
So, the Igbo have been an ancient coastal nation, known domestically and recognized internationally as such, opened and used their own coastal ports, and remarkably influenced global trade and commerce with them - with no signs of whomsoever that might rather divert those great centres of global commerce into false agitations for places of comfort and relaxation, instead of triggers of development and prosperity,
Is modernizing and reopening Igbo ports contingent on who came from a "Benin," or is Igbo or not Igbo?
Not at all. First, the Hargreaves agreement was between the Diobu and the British, and Port Harcourt is owned by the Diobu Igbo, Bonny by the Ndoki Igbo, and Opobo by extension also Ndoki Igbo. Secondly, ports are a federal list, and would be dredged, modernized, reopened to retrigger an Eastern pole of development, regardless of where anyone came from or claims to be. Certainly, many people seem to imagine that the political or "Benin" Ikwerre hold a veto power over the Igbo ports; they do not, but are allowed to enjoy the obfuscations and hocus-pocus because Nigerians seem excited by the show they regularly put up about being or not being Igbo.
Whoever owns Lagos has not prevented the federal government developing the Lagos ports to function for the Yoruba and other Nigerians. So, while anyone is free to come from wherever and stay peacefully with others who didn't come from "Benin," the Igbo need the Igbo and other Eastern ports dredged, modernized and officially re-launched to restart the process of rebuilding the East, Middle Belt and far North down to Maiduguri/Lake Chad, in readiness for the AfCFTA, and part-foundation for a prospective $5 trillion economy within unimaginable time. The Igbo say, Onye kwe, chi ya ekwe!: If you believe it's achievable, your god will help you achieve it!
A solemn appeal: From Eastern pole of poverty to Eastern pole of development within Nigeria
When God placed people together and forefathers closed ranks within a common ground, there were divine and objective purposes in doing so. Therefore the Igbo are yet again appealing to immediate neighbours as to all Nigerians: the AkwaCross, Andony, Idoma, Igala and Igede, Igbo, Ijaw, Isoko, Ogoni, Urhobo, even Tiv and beyond, are close cousins, God placed them close for a purpose, they have lived peacefully together since time before Nigeria happened to them; the best thing is to unite and recreate a vibrant pole of development that would have positive spillover effects down to the Middle Belt and Maiduguri/Lake Chad to complement the West to Sokoto axis triggered by the Lagos ports complex, instead of acrimony to undo each other. All should ask themselves why anyone would want to curtail the other, and why choose poverty when in unity, the area is blessed beyond measure. Nothing is broken that cannot be mended, both in Nigeria and in its East-wing.
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4 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RESTRUCTURING ADVANCED BY THE IGBO
1.. Regions based on single-ethnic or consenting multi-ethnic nationalities, to replace States, LGAs, Geopolitical Zones, North, South, East, West, etc paradigms. 5 coastal Regions in the South and 5 riparian Regions in the North are proposed by the Igbo, with relevant maps.
2.. Military-security reorganization to achieve security balance between Regions, of which Regional police is only one element.
3.. Resource ownership and control reverts to the Regions, which would fund the centre on agreed terms.
4. National ideology/ethos: a mixed private-public free enterprise secular economy and political system, separating religion from state and political affairs.
SOME SPECIFIC ISSUES
I. Definition of ethnic nationality. There has to be a definition of ethnic nationality, to foreclose sponsored political groups infiltrating a conference in the guise of ethnic nationality. An ethnic nationality is a distinct ethno-linguistic cultural group, not simply a dialect of another, and so identified either during European contacts, colonial rule, or at Nigeria's independence in 1960.
II. ALL Southern Regions to contiguously abut the coast and retain their traditional coastal ports. Going rightwards: Yoruba (Apapa, Lekki, Tin Can, etc), Bini (Gelegele, Ughoton), Itsekiri (Koko, Ode Itsekiri/part-Warri, Ogidigben), Urhobo (part-Warri, Sapele), Ijaw (Akassa, Brass-Nembe, Burutu, Ke - the Kalabari states of Abonnema, Bakana, Degema, founded by the Igbo, are being consulted), Igbo (Bonny, Igweocha/Port Harcourt, Okrika/Abumotu, Opobo), Ogoni (Onne), Andony/Obollo (Ngo), AkwaCross/Annang-Efik-Ibibio and Ogojas (Akwa/Ibaka deep sea, Bakassi, Calabar, Ikang Akpabuyo, Oron). ALL Northern Regions to be riparian, abutting either the Niger or Benue Rivers.
Igbo have mapped the above in a 10-Regional proposal. The 3 Middle Belt Regions could merge into one or two, and portions of the South merge either with the Igbo or Yoruba, to form a bigger Eastern or Western Region, both of which could reduce the number of Regions.
III. YES to history-based plebiscite and referendum, and NO to post ethnic-cleansing plebiscite and referendum. This should be a principle of general application to both the East, Middle Belt, North, and West.
IV. Private property rights protection.
V. To the Igbo restructuring is not a mere slogan, but should be a way out of poverty, by ending the economic blockade against the Igbo and other Eastern coastal ports; a path to the deep dredging, widening, modernization, and multimodal (air, cultural, cyber, rail, water, etc) re-linkage of Igbo/Eastern and other ports to the interior, to retrigger the industrialization and import-export economy of the East, across the Middle Belt, and down to far Lake Chad ends.
VI. Regionalization would help end condoned terrorism, police and military violence, arbitrary arrests and detentions, extortions and robberies along highways, and military drills in built-up areas.
VII. Duration of restructuring exercise. Should conclude before May 2027, with elections temporarily put on hold by an act of necessity, and resumed on post-restructuring principles.
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IGBO POSITION SUMMARISED
The Igbo fully support the right to self-determination for Nigeria's ethnic nationalities, regardless of size.
~ Uphold that Regions be based on ethno-linguistic civilizations or groupings thereof.
~ Insist that all Southern Regions retain their historical contiguities to the coasts, together with their coastal ports, which in consequence means an end to the economic blockade against the Igbo and East.
~ That same way that all Southern Regions are coastal, all Northern Regions shall be riparian and abut either the Niger or Benue Rivers, in anticipation of a Niger-Benue dredging for a vigorous industrial take-off.
~ Resource control: the Igbo support that Regions own and control their resources, with agreed percentages to the common purse.
~ The Igbo agree to the abolition of the concurrent list and retention of exclusive and residual powers, by the centre and the Regions respectively.
~ The Igbo specifically continue to demand liberation for all Nigerians, including both the Hausa, Fulani, and the Middle Belt ethnicities, and insist that leaving the Hausa subjugated under the caliphate system, the Fulani masses not permitted to fully integrate into the democratic process, and the Middle Belt remaining as conquered and occupied territory, would render any restructuring meaningless, and possibly postpone an evil day.
Therefore, the caliphate parallelism and the Almajiri system and banditry it uses to subjugate the Hausa into extinction should go to enable Hausa children peacefully gain free secular education, become spiritually, politically and economically emancipated, and regain paramountcy in their God-given Hausa land; the abolition of the caliphate system would integrate the Fulani masses fully into the democratic process by freeing them from spiritual attachment to an obnoxious apartheid system that attracts them nothing but hatred. The change would enable both Hausa and Fulani live peacefully together within a democratic secular order for, if the alternative is to create a separate Fulani Caliphate Region, the question would arise on who to donate the land for such a Region.
In the same vein, Middle Belt aboriginal groups should also regain total paramountcy in their God-given lands; the farms, rivers, communities, roads and forests returned to them, and laws governing land rights and alienation be fully respected.
Some Nigerians imagine that the Igbo are typically fighting "other people's wars," but the Igbo feel an obligation to empathize with others, and carry along with them their well-known republican democratic traditions everywhere they go.
~ Finally, the Igbo recognize the need for Regional Police and other Regional military-security paraphernalia as already recommended in the Willink's settlement.
IGBO YOUTHS AGAINST BALKANIZATION, OR SPLIT IGBO REGIONS, AND FOR A UNITED IGBO REGION.
Various Igbo youth organizations, including Ndi N'asu Bia (NNB), Igbo Unification Movement (IUM), Indigenous Igbo Congress (IIC) of Rivers State, the Anioma Peoples Movement (APM), the Igbanke Strategic Group (ISG), the Delta North Youth Coalition (DNYC), and the Bonny United Front (BUF), etc., are working tirelessly for the unity of the Igbo peoples in all the 13 contiguous States of their major or minor indigeneity. They vehemently condemn all attempts whether internal or external to scatter the Igbo into bits and pieces of mutually antagonistic and unviable entities, and consider such designs as a continuation of the genocide.
Igbo youths fully support the restructuring of Nigeria on the basis of ethno-linguistic cultural civilizations, and condemn any selective application of that general principle to undermine Igbo homogeneity. They demand a single and undivided Igbo Region of united Abia, Anambra, prospective Anioma, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Rivers States down to the coast, plus the Igbo communities in Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Edo, and Kogi States.
Igbo youths warn against adding more injustice to existing ones and the further fragmentation of communities in the guise of restructuring them. They demand a history or evidence-based examinations, especially colonial and pre-colonial records in case of competing territorial claims.
Igbo youths remain unhappy the way they are singled out and treated in Nigeria, and remain alarmed by the continuous killings and insecurity everywhere, a situation that reminds them of the massacres between Benin and Agbor, down to Asaba, and the vicious ethnic-cleansings in the Rivers State in which many like Dr. Obi Wali were killed for opposing man's inhumanity to man. The relentless injustice reminds them of the victimization and "derecognition of the stool of Chief Jackson Mpi, the first-class chief of the Ikwerre . . . the dethronement of Samuel Uwakwe Ogan, the Amanyanabo of Okrika, a king of Igbo descent, and of King William Dappa Pepple of Bonny," all done to cleanse the Igbo and Igbo history off the coastal and riverine areas.
Igbo youths call to mind the sacrifices of Dennis Osadebay, Emmanuel Aguma, Nwobidike Nwanodi who the overwhelming joint local and migrant Igbo population in 1964 helped win on merit a bitter contest against NCNC's official candidate Elugwaraonu, and Chiefs Jackson Mpi and Amabibi Nsirim, all of whom defended Ikwerre, etc interests, without compromising their solid Igbo identities.
Igbo youths particularly recall with delight the efforts by Chief Amabibi Nsirim to tell the truth about all of the Ikwerre peoples, especially Isiokpo and Okpo Wagidi, its Aro founder.
At the heat of the vindictive de-Igbonization campaign in the Rivers State, Nsirim had courageously written, "The truth you must know" in the _Nigerian Star_ _Newspapers_ of October 16 and 17, 1975. Instead of challenging him with facts, a B. E. Nwosu followed with a series of diatribes on November 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, titled, "Reply to J. A. Nsirim," in the same newspaper which, with the inclusion of D. A. Emejuru's _Without prejudice_, same year, added to the distortions schemed against Ikwerre history. Igbo youths are determined to seek out, elaborate and publish Nsirim's manuscript, "BY A COMMITTEE ON THE RESEARCH OF IKWERRE HISTORY Jan 10 1959.1974," for the enlightenment of the Ikwerre new generations as great and proud Igbo peoples.
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WAY FORWARD FOR NIGERIA
The Igbo, aware of the complex logistics involved, with enormous respects highly praise all past and future organizers of conferences for the restructuring of the polity, and consider such exercises as of utmost necessity at this moment in Nigeria's existence. Restructuring the country based on ethnic-nationality civilizations is long overdue, and the time to take up the challenge is now. The Igbo appreciate that there must be challenges each step of the way, and acknowledge that the accumulated lessons can create an opportunity for a more effective and consensual final outcome. The Igbo shall therefore continue to engage with everyone, until appropriate and equitable solutions are arrived at to the national question in Nigeria.
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Igbo everywhere, from the Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT), the Igbo in the Americas, Canada, Europe, South Africa and Asia, youths and elders, having been briefed on the recent Abuja Restructuring Conference, clarified as follows:
Having exhaustively examined the Report of the Igbo Forum or team on Restructuring, the Igbo are satisfied by their honesty of purpose, their measured and considerate proposals, and fully endorse the principles they laid down for a just and equitable restructuring of the polity.
~ The Igbo unreservedly express implicit confidence in the Igbo team on restructuring, especially their unalloyed support for the rights to self-determination within the country for all of Nigeria's long-oppressed ethnic nationalities, and enjoin all Nigerians to support the principles laid down by the Igbo, together with the 10-Regional framework.
The Igbo advise a continuing dialogue with all serious entities for the restructuring of Nigeria on the basis of ethno-linguistic nationality civilizations or groupings thereof, and express readiness to continue to support the Igbo team in this regard.
~ The Igbo enjoin the Federal and State governments and all Nigerians to approach the restructuring issue with utmost sincerity, sense of justice, and fair play, with a mindset for outcomes equitable to all citizens.
SPECIAL CASE FOR NNAMDI KANU'S UNCONDITIONAL RELEASE
The Igbo see in the unconditional release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners, above all Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his colleagues, as maintained by the Igbo delegation at the recent Abuja Conference, as a gateway to mutual trust and confidence in discussions on the future of Nigeria. The Igbo are therefore yet again calling for:
(1) The immediate and unconditional release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
(2) The immediate listing of his long-delayed court case for accelerated hearing.
(3) Official attention to the re-statement of support for simultaneous individual regional referendums held for the Regions by themselves and monitored by independent parties, or a nationwide referendum conducted by an independent body, as has been continually advocated in all conferences, as the ultimate means of enabling Nigerians decide for themselves the structural, constitutional or other trajectory they desire the country to follow.
SIGNED BY:
I. Emeritus Prof. Elochukwu Amucheazi - President-General, Igbo Leaders of Thought.
II. Prof. Dozie Chukwuokolo - Secretary-General, Igbo Leaders of Thought, and Member Igbo Delegation.
III. H. E. Amb. Uche Ajulu-Okeke (Nne Mmuo) - Member Igbo Leaders of Thought, and Adviser Igbo Delegation.
IV. Dr. Katchi Ononuju - Member Igbo Leaders of Thought, and Deputy Leader Igbo Delegation.
V. Prof. Obasi Igwe - Member Igbo Leaders of Thought, and Leader Igbo Delegation.
Cc:
H.E. Senator John Azuta-Mbata, the President-General, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.
Igbo in the US,
Igbo in Canada, Igbo in Europe,
Igbo in South Africa,
Igbo in Asia,
Ndi N'Asu Bia (NNB),
Igbo Unification Movement (IUM),
Indigenous Igbo Congress (IIC),
Unify Igbo Now Movement (UINM),
Anioma Peoples Movement (APM),
Igbanke Strategic Group,
Delta North Youth Coalition,
Bonny United Front,
Rivers chiefs and elders,
Anioma chiefs and elders,
Anambra chiefs and elders,
Imo chiefs and elders,
Ebonyi chiefs and elders,
Enugu chiefs and elders,
Abia chiefs and elders,
HRH Dr. Nwachukwu Anakwenze, the Onowu and Igwe-elect of Abagana, for the World Igbo Congress (WIC).
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ADDENDUM
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WHY THE IGBO DELEGATION CONDEMNED AND REJECTED THE ABUJA RESTRUCTURING CONFERENCE COMMUNIQUÉ OF AUGUST 20, 2026.
1.. The organizers' breached several of their own rules, the most critical being the selective application of the principle of ethno-linguistic cultural restructuring, in a fixated mindset against the Igbo.
This was the number one problem the Igbo team had. In words, demeanour and deeds, the organizers never thought Igbo land and people were anything other than the "5 States allocated to the Igbo." They never even thought the Igbo had ever had or should have ports, and repeatedly referred to the Igbo in the Rivers State, Anioma, Edo, Kogi and other States as "minorities" to the Igbo; wondering why the Igbo "greedily" wanted to "annex" those "minorities" into Igbo land; and consistently "advised" the Igbo delegation to go "discuss" with those "minorities" if they wanted to "annex" them into Igbo, and stop claiming they were Igbo or "forcing them to become Igbo."
They resisted any pleas for explanation, despite a goodwill message from the Ohanaeze Ndigbo President-General. All they knew was that Igbo means the "5 States allocated to them," and firmly refused to read the letters of the Diobu and Obior-Akpor members of the Igbo delegation, or take note of the Anioma member of the Igbo team. The Regions they ignored consensus and "voted" to "approve" forcefully conscripted Anioma into a certain Delta Region where they would be an unwilling minority; Igbanke and other westward frontier communities were thrown into a Benin Region; Rivers Igbo became attached to Ogoni while throwing out Bonny and Opobo to Ijaw to landlock Port Harcourt and the Ikwerre and other Rivers Igbo themselves. It was all to enable the conveners arrive at their desired formula of "dot in a circle" of 5 States, which they wanted the Igbo team to accept and sign into as "Igbo Region," and happily return to tell our people that "Igbo Region" had finally arrived. It was almost impossible to believe that this ethnic-cleansing design was still what anyone could have in his mind up to the 21st century.
From the very moment they breached that principle of ethno-linguistic cultural restructuring, which they invited everyone to Abuja for, they never spoke directly to the leaders of the Igbo delegation again, and concentrated on the actors from the places they called "Rivers Region," "Midwest or Delta" Region, "Benin Region," and other places they had distributed Igbo-speaking peoples into.
They would later be announcing to the press that the Igbo leadership was "disingenuous and cynical" for not signing into that scheme, wondering if they "represent(ed) the view of the Igbos." Maybe suggesting that the organizers know of some other "Igbos" ready to endorse a scheme by which other ethnic nationalities are united and coherent while the Igbo are scattered into bits and pieces.
2.. The organizers went ahead to yet again breach their other rule that decisions would be arrived at by consensus. They reverted to a voice-voting; which arbitrary change of rules suggested another bad faith and ill-intention, and not in alignment with series of constitutional and similar conferences that adopted consensus as best able to guarantee popular acceptance and stability.
3.. The Igbo delegation was not invited into the Communiqué drafting group, but the organizers simply fetched some people answering Igbo names to represent the official Igbo team, hence our calling the Communiqué a product of deceit and charade.
4.. Whereas the Igbo delegation included the Diobu and Obior-Akpor peoples from the Rivers State, the organizers refused to read their letter, but instead gave prominence to one or two political Ikwerre elements that came there to divide the Igbo group and with whom the organizers were in constant liaison; telling the official Igbo delegation to "go and discuss with them," almost like the "go to court" responses to legitimate concerns.
5.. Not only disrespectful of the Ikwerre presence in the Igbo delegation, the organizers equally failed to condemn calling the Igbo slaves, disrespect to the Ohanaeze President-General, a great Igbo and Ikwerre son, as "traitor" to the Ikwerre despite his goodwill message to the conference, and several other unkind words towards the Igbo. Leadership of the Igbo team would equally be favoured with unkind words.
6.. Whereas there were only two isolated voices that shouted "ayes" for the creation of a separate Rivers Region inside Igbo land, the rapporteur refused to acknowledge the "nays" and arbitrarily announced, "the ayes have it," despite overwhelming protests. The organizers demonstrated an open commitment to having a separate "Rivers Region" from Igbo land.
7.. The organizers ab initio refused to define ethno-linguistic nationality, to preclude _arrangee_ political groups like those from the Rivers State infiltrating the conference in the guise of ethnic nationalities.
8.. Unlike the Igbo delegation that distributed their position, with appropriate maps, the organizers, despite years of agitation, arguments and planning, arrived with nothing, and made available not even a single document or paper that anyone could study to ascertain the justification for their Regional claims. They merely read a piece of paper not made available to others, asked for "ayes," and probably discouraged other groups from sharing any papers or documents. So, apart from materials emanating from inconclusive platform debates, everyone came out of a conference of such magnitude without the papers of the different Regions and conferees, except those of the Igbo.
9.. Hence, despite the shortness of time, it was ONLY the Igbo delegation that brought along the British Willink's Commission report, a compilation of Igbo Position, with Maps and accompanying explanations, and shared to the conferees for close study and analyses.
10.. The Igbo saw the organization, process and unilateral Communiqué, as not intended for true nation-building, but as a ploy to blandish delegates to sign into the schemes of the organizers, with little or no serious regard for the legitimate interests and concerns of others except, maybe, to actually obstruct those legitimate interests.
11..In particular, the impression that the organizers wanted a divided and landlocked Igbo scattered into different mutually exclusive and weakened "dots in a circle," while achieving their own unity, coherence and coastal access, made the Igbo delegation to begin to worry about the actual motives of the entire process.
12.. Contrary to some press reports, the Igbo team, abiding with instructions given them, did not walk-out, but stayed to the very end in hopes of being listened to, before leaving the hall only to surprisingly behold a press conference being held by the conveners without priorly informing or inviting the Igbo delegation. It was after their unilateral press conference that the Igbo delegation announced to the press a rejection of the unilateral Communiqué distributed to the press. The Igbo delegation felt they were dealing with those whose minds were made up on what they wanted out of Nigeria either at the expense of others or no matter what adverse effects elsewhere of their ambitions.
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Nevertheless, the Igbo team and the Igbo nation still believe that Restructuring on the basis of ethno-linguistic civilizations, such as with the English, Irish, Scotts, and Welsh in Great Britain, and similar ethno-linguistic groups or civilizational arrangements in other countries, are the only right and correct way to solve the national question in Nigeria, bring it peace and stability, and position her as a potential factor for peace and progress in the world. Lessons have been learnt, and the efforts should therefore continue till success is achieved.
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