Open letter to my fellow South-south people

<!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]-->

South-south: neglected and abused by Northerners

By Donald Ekpo

I write this letter to remind us that our region, known as the South-south today was a creation of the North for the sake of creating the disunity we face today. And more so, it was not just for the disunity for them to win the war, but to also take away our resources, our manpower and our economic future. In 2014, when President Jonathan, a son of the so called South-south, decided to re-contest the 2015 elections, Sheik Junaid Mohammed, in an engagement on behalf the Northern protectorate, reminded us that the so-called South-South was a creation of the North for effective management of the Northern interest in Eastern Nigeria.

How bad could this be? Can we imagine that? So, while we are busy reminding ourselves that we are a different people or that the Igbos are wicked and are trying to kill us, the North is joyously taking over and owning 85% of our oil wells while the West takes the leftovers. And what do we get? Noise! Even the supposed football legend, Sunday Okechukwu Oliseh, is busy telling us he is not Igbo as if it is a curse to be Igbo.

One wonders if the name “Okechukwu” is of Hausa or Yoruba origin. When you speak Igbo as a language and yet claim you are not Igbo, is that not the saddest thing that can happen to any people of identical culture? Even Major Kaduna Nzeogwu that led the first coup that was said to be an Igbo coup is from Okpanam village in today’s Delta State. Could he have come out to say today, like Sunday Oliseh said, that he was not Igbo? If the Abakaliki or Nsukka indigene who has a more distant dialect of Igbo is Igbo, how come the Anioma or Okrika indigene, whose dialect is easily understood, is not Igbo? How did a people of the same culture get so separated this far?

I write this letter to speak to those of us regarded as minority tribes. How can we be minority when, in essence, we are known to be about 35 million of the said 180 million of the estimated population of Nigeria? How can we be a minority in our own lands if we were not treated as such or if we did not accept to be such? If those from the alliance which separated us from the West are said to be about 50 million in population and our brethren in the East are said to be about 40 million, how can we accept that we are a minority? Our compatriots from the alleged minorities of the North are said to be another 30 million. Who then is the minority? Having run through these figures, we know who the real minorities are. Be it as it appears, the truth is that our region was broken into two so as to weaken our original strength given that, at a combined population strength of 35 million plus 40 million people, our economic and entrepreneurial strength put together, would be something the ruling alliance will be worried about. So why should we ever think that it is logical to claim we are two different peoples when, in essence, we have always been one and the same people for over 1,000 years before the arrival of the white man? If what the white man did to us was not bad enough, is it not ridiculous that we allowed a certain minority made up of immigrants from fringes of the Sahara Desert to assume control of our economic and political future?

Evil Northerners: House slaves of the British for colonising Biafraland

I write this letter to ask my brethren in the South-south these pertinent questions. Let us assume the very worst situation in this supposed fracas between us and our Igbo brothers. Why are we worried about the Igbos taking over our “natural resources”, (assuming they don’t have theirs); ARE WE PRESENTLY IN CONTROL OF OUR “NATURAL RESOURCES”? Does it make more sense that our natural resources are being controlled by some strange people from over 700 miles away? The same people that kill us at will at any single provocation of their religion? People who even kill us in our land? People who challenge us to the ownership of these our very own resources? People who show absolute disregard for who we are? People who think it is a privilege for us to be in any position of authority? And finally, people who do not, in any way, have the kind of entrepreneurial skills that we have? Why would we allow our imaginary quarrel or fights with our brothers next-door to translate into the decision of one of the women in King Solomon’s judgment who insisted that, since she couldn’t have the contested child, the other woman should not either?

Nigerian Army of occupation

So are we, in essence, saying it is better for none of us brethren to own our resources simply because we don’t trust our brothers, yet we do nothing about the strangers who have ripped us apart? Are we logically correct in believing this senseless fabricated quarrel? Even while we are senselessly worried about how the Igbos will colonize our people because that is what we were told and that is what some in the ruling alliance are still trying to tell us, can we sincerely tell ourselves that the Igbos are that evil? Evil enough to leave their own natural resources in Abia, Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu states to come and take ownership of our own resources? How will they do that? How possible will it be for a people that barely kill by the sword to be compared to our present oppressors from up North? Do we honestly see that as a possibility? How and why did we allow these propaganda to go this far? Is this not what the hegemonic alliance has used to rule us through the divide-and-rule scheme? Sheik Jumiad Mohammed said it clearly that our separation was a creation of the North for the effective management of our regional resources while we keep fighting an imaginary enemy.

Donald Ekpo is a hardcore Biafran