After the civil war, Igbos who trooped down in millions to the east leaving their businesses and property in different parts of the country launched out again. This time, with nothing!

After the civil war, Igbos who trooped down in millions to the east leaving their businesses and property in different parts of the country launched out again. This time, with nothing!

After the civil war, Igbos who trooped down in millions to the east leaving their businesses and property in different parts of the country launched out again. This time, with nothing!

Many of them lost their houses and businesses in various parts of Nigeria either to the government or to an envious neighbour under the guise of abandoned property. So, most of them had to start from scratch all over again.

Twenty or thirty years later, they built back their property, business empires and chains of business networks. On one occasion of celebrating this great come back, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was invited by Igbo businessmen based in Alaba.

Ojukwu looked at the massive investments of his brothers. He shook his head and called them Ndi amaro ife. He asked them, when will you learn your lesson? Why didn’t you take these investments to the East?

Igbos are the only people in Nigeria that have massive and fixed investments outside their ethnic geography. They are the only ethnic group in Nigeria that live outside their base as if they are in their father’s house. Other ethnic groups in Nigeria are more circumspect in setting up fixed investments outside their ethnic origin. To them, it is a big risk.

Why is it a big risk? The unity of Nigeria is ‘Somehow’.

I am a proud supporter of One Nigeria and fully understands the promise our nation holds. But, I am no fool who pays a blind eye to the weight and implications of our diversity.

Nigeria is deeply culturally and religiously diverse. And this diversity makes total assimilation difficult. Our deep diversity is not what one or two hundred years of togetherness can erase.

Each region in Nigeria knows their own and protects their own first. No region in Nigeria is innocent of this primordial sentiment, make no mistake.

Once you are outside your own region, you are a stranger. If you do not understand this and do not allow this fact to guide your operation as a Nigerian no matter how welcoming your host community is, then the joke will be on you the day push comes to shove.

When Awolowo said Nigeria was a mere geographical expression, he was trying to remind us about the somehow nature of Nigeria’s unity.

When Ahmadu Bello told Azikiwe we cannot bury our differences he was reminding us all of the somehow nature of Nigeria’s unity.

When Awolowo orchestrated the first cross carpeting in Nigeria politics and stopped Azikiwe from being the Premier of Western Nigeria, it was to drive this point more home. In turn, Eyo Ita was yanked off from being the Premier of the East to give way to the real landlord.

Can Nigeria be a truly united nation? Yes, it can in the future when the light of education has fully penetrated all nook and cranny of Nigeria. We will get to that point in the future of being wholly one when religion, tribe and culture will not determine the basis for electing political leaders.

But till then, I repeat, till then, you must accept that where you are truly welcomed in Nigeria is in your ethnic province. Once outside there, you are like the proverbial cock that stands on one leg when it gets to a strange land. Getting comfy by pretending we are one is deliberately misreading the handwriting on the wall.

Regrettably, my Igbo people once they leave their own enclave, keep pretending to forget this fact their own brethren in the East and other ethnic groups in Nigeria are fully aware of and live by.

Buying of lands, building of big houses where you are a stranger is a sign you have no plan to leave but you have come to dominate. What the indigenous people need is a little crisis to remind you, you are not one of them.

For those who may ask, is it not better Nigeria divides and stop with the pretense of being one? To these people I say, many real life marriages are like Nigeria where couples fight and mind their own business, yet, will never break-up because they are wise enough to know that what they stand to gain by living as one outweigh what they stand to lose by going their separate ways.

Not all marriages exist because of love. Some exist because it is profitable and have been heavily invested upon. If you dare try to break this kind of union because you feel they have no love or because they cuss and fight each other, that is when you will realise you cannot break what has profit and promise of greater profit.

Despite our differences, the safety and opportunities this country offers us are enormous. However, you need wisdom not to be a casualty while exploring the immense opportunities.

It was Ojukwu senior who was an astute business man that realised this and tried to counsel his son but he wouldn’t listen. Ojukwu junior had to fight a war before understanding how peculiar Nigeria is and how to navigate it’s peculiarities.

Regrettably, many of my Igbo people have stubbornly refused or pretend not to understand the peculiarity of One Nigeria. To this set of Igbo people I join Ojukwu in asking, ‘When will you learn your lesson?’