by DODO OKAFOR....

From its post-independencet Olympian heights, Igboland today lies postrate, helpless, raped to a submissive state by its political elites.   If Zik could, from his grave, he would have cautioned some, and cursed others.

Zik was the visionary and creator of  University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN. Today, UNN, once celebrated nationally and  internationally suffers from arrested development, trouble is its Vice Chancellors in the last 20 years had been Igbomen!




Are we then our own worst enemies? Do Igbo political leaders see their own people as preys?  Who then can save Ndigbo? How can we save our land? Maybe,  finding answers to questions below may lead to our El Dorado...

1. Why was Willie Obiano Peter Obi's favoured successor after he ruled Anambra state for an unprecedented 8 years?

2. Why did Orji Kalu consider Theodore Orji the best man to lead Abia State in 2007? Was Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi the best man Sullivan Chime could have favoured to succeed him in 2015?

3. Was the interest of Abia public considered in 2015 when Theodore Orji went above and beyond the call of duty to rig the guber election for the befuddled Okezie Ikpeazu?

4. Why are Igbo leaders wicked to the land? Why does selfishness always override the interest of the general public?

5. Why did Rochas Okorocha turn against the very people that braved all odds, fight monsters and spirits to elect him in 2011?

6. In the past 20 years of democratic governance in Nigeria,  the only 2 standout governors we have seen in Igboland are Peter Obi and Sullivan Chime. What happened to the rest? The educated and the stark illiterates?

7. Why did public acclaim and media honors become more important to Chimaroke Nnamani that he suddenly forgot that he was elected to provide  quality governance to the Enugu electorates?

8. How did a US trained medical officer become so rustic that he elected to roll with cultists, criminals, and armed robbers than seek the company of wise men in leading the state? Why or where did Chimaroke Nnamani lose it?

9. Ikedi Ohakim was a humble man who never imagined he would one day smell the governor's office at Owerri.  When fortune however thrust him to the pinnacle of power in his home state, this little known fellow suddenly became an emperor and began to oppress hardworking men and women in Imo.

10. How about Chinweoke Mbadinuju? Was he charmed by some cosmic forces that he saw no sense in being sensible as a governor?

11. What happened to the land that once produced M. I. Okpara and Akanu Ibiam? How did we substitute Micheal Okpara's foresight with Okezie Ikpeazu's debauchery?  How did Imo fall from the Olympian heights set by Dee Sam Mbakwe to the idiocy of Rochas Okorocha?

12. How were Zik's vision and wisdom succeeded by the love of sycophancy that has been the hallmark of governance in Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi's Enugu?

13. Could we have offended anyone in Anambra that Peter Obi was directly succeeded by the clueless Willie Obiano?

 I am of the conviction that it is about time we began to seek some spiritual understanding to these oddities? How did Okezie Ikpeazu become governor?

14. We can blame the Theodore Orjis of this world, the Peter Obis and Orji Kalus for imposing mediocres on the land but we must ask: how on earth did a Theodore Orji become so powerful that he single single-handedly decided who governs a state with more than 2 million adults?

15. Abia today is like a wasteland. Pensioners have not been paid in more than 2 years, civil servants are dying of hunger and the youths cannot find labour for their hands.

16. There are no fully functional general hospitals in all of Igboland and what you have as public schools especially in Abia and Imo states are legalised centres for exam malpractices and other forms of immorality and drug abuse. In much of these schools, you will hardly find any serious teaching and learning going on.

17. What future awaits a land whose education is in shambles? It is unfortunate many commentators are not paying necessary attention to these because they are largely on the payroll of the political elites.

18. How does anyone drive a 100 million naira Range Rover on Imo roads? Have we become so silly that we have no wisdom to recognize that we make a mess of the white man's invention when we put their machines on these bad roads?

19. The biggest enemies of Ndigbo today are the political and economic elites in the land. They are the reason we have characters like Ikpeazu,  Ugwuanyi and Obiano as governors while Oyo has Seyi Makinde who is doing everything possible to reposition Oyo state for glory. In 10 years time, some lunatics will look at the giant strides made in Oyo and blame Awolowo for starving our children during the Biafran war.

20. Imagine where we could have been if Oseloka Obaze was governor in Anambra,  Alex Otti at the helm in Abia, Frank Nneji in Imo and another good mind at the centre of things  in Enugu? These men would not be moved by the sight of money, they would not be intimidated by godfathers and they would not cower before Abuja...

21. No, our elites would rather frustrate them than watch them become governors. We prefer early morning drunks, old men who run after teenage girls and men who have no esteem as governors.  Yet, when our land is overtaken by the economic plague of poverty, joblessness and diseases, we prefer to blame Awolowo whoo died eons ago or abuse Zik for not doing what a George Washington would have done.

22. Sadly,  while we remain stuck in the lunacy of wickedness and crazy leadership, other lands are advancing the frontiers of the economic development,  taking leadership positions in ICT, healthcare and agriculture...

23. Do you know that UNN VCs and officials loot more funds than what their counterparts from other universities  in other parts of country do? Interestingly,  the VCs of UNN have come from only two "core Igbo states" in the last 20 years. When are we going to blame Hausa-Fulani for the shadow UNN has become?

24. In  UNIZIK, ABSU, and several other universities in Igboland,   vice chancellors trained with public funds are doing everything to fraustrate people from disadvantaged economic backgrounds from acquiring university education and yet- we say nothing about those.

25. Do you wonder why we have more Igbo "agberos" in Lagos and Abuja than those from other tribes? Well, no prize for guessing: the answer is simple- we have Ikpeazu, Ugwuanyi and Obiano as governors- men who have no clue about progressive governance.