ON IGBOPHOBIA AND DEVELOPMENT OF YORUBALAND

Igbos thrive as entrepreneurs anywhere they go. In Kano, the area they control is bigger than some towns. That’s mainly Sabon Gari. They thrive because they have a traditional apprenticeship scheme that ensures they will always multiply and possibly dominate their business environment, through a self-help network. In Niger Republic, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, The Gambia etc, all of which I’ve visited, the situation is the same. Igbos dominate trading of goods like spare parts, apparels, electrical/electronics, building materials, computer and accessories etc. And they become so rich because all these countries are import-dependent.

We aren’t Igbo, we are Yoruba. Our natural calling is in the intellectual sector as academics and professionals. In the business sector, we pioneered modern industries: Odutola Tyres, Adebowale Electricals, Oluwa Glass, Lafia Canning Factory, Nigeria-Romania Wood Company etc. Talking of Big banks, we were also pioneers: WEMA, National, Cooperative, Trans, Gateway etc.

Across Europe and America, the Yoruba diaspora constitute not less than 50 percent of Nigerian academics, doctors, nurses, IT experts etc.

Back home, we own thousands of private schools where the Igbo we talk about strive to enrol their children at huge cost. We also dominate the private universities. If we take an inventory, half are owned by Yoruba or dominated by Yoruba. These are multibillion Naira ventures.

What undermined us was the absence of men of Awolowo’s vision in power. Awolowo had tried to create something akin to the Igbo entrepreneurial scheme in Yorubaland through the establishment of cooperative societies in various trade, for which he had established the Cooperative Bank and the Cooperative College in Ibadan.

That was to complement the big industrial estates he had created in Ikeja, Oregun, Ilupeju etc with numerous medium and small scale businesses to give us an industrialised homeland. Had his vision been sustained, we would have had thriving trade groups dominating today’s Alaba, Ladipo, Trade Fair markets etc in Lagos and elsewhere in Yorubaland.

The Tinubu they’re promoting now like an extraordinary visionary, what did he do to promote Yoruba enterprise in Lagos? He mainly helped big entrepreneurs to thrive, some of them Indians and Lebanese and Igbo that we are castigating!

And, has any of our governors thought of developing Yoruba enterprise through entrepreneurial training, cooperative societies, and business loans in partnership with any of our banks?

Except we want to become xenophobic like ignorant South African street urchins, we cannot start fighting Igbos against living in or doing business in Yorubaland. Most of their younger generations were born in Yorubaland and attended schools with our children. Their real home is Yorubaland. They only regard Igboland, which they visit once in a year, as their place of origin. 90 percent of their assets are in Yorubaland. They only build a nice house in their village to show off, many of which are inhabited by lizards and wallgeckos 350 days in a year.

To turn the tide as Yoruba, our hope is in organising ourselves to continue with our developmental trajectory where Awolowo stopped.

—- Professor Femi Olufunmilade