“We must understand that a so many sectors in the Nigeria economy have suffered so much setback and even extinction because of this hatred – who does it help?”
By Staff Reporter
There is this viral statement alleged to have emanated from former President of Nigeria Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in which it read; “Major good decisions are not taken in Nigeria by FG because It will favor the Igbos more than others. The statement goes ahead to state that “FG Is ready to see Nigeria crumble rather than make a Decision that will favor Igbos even If It will Improve the Economy
Whether this is true or not is a non issue, however, it is very obvious that the institutional hatred of Igbo men in Nigeria is killing the economy, and until we decide to acknowledge that this tribe “Igbo” is naturally gifted, Nigeria will forever be down and it won’t affect them.
I was privileged to come across the authentic TSS documents for the establishment of steel company and others in Nigeria. This was during my days as a junior consultant for the privatisation of number of government owned establishments across the country. My company was one of the few Nigerian consulting firms for BPE on privatisation.
I personally did the technical evaluation of DSC Aladja, Ajaokuta Steel, NTM Kano, EMCON and several steel rolling Mills. Apart from DSC Aladja, all the other establishments were wrongly sited.
I read documents day and night to build up reports for BPE for intended bidders.
Ajaokuta was meant to be in Onitsha but the FGN then refused and was ready to spend extra to use belt conveyors from the Atlantic to Ajaokuta. This was extra cost and serious logistics challenge for the build up and running of the steel Mills even if it was realized.
Two companies refused to take the deal but the third Russian firm reluctantly agreed, warning that the steel company might not be able to survive. Their warning came to pass as this is the main reason for that Ajaokuta will never work. Its either the Niger is dredged to allow big vessel movement to the plant (for the imported pellets smelting) or you continue to move heavy pellets from Lagos to Ajaokuta by road or overhead conveyor belts.
Now due to same hatred and fear the FGN chose the later.
Likewise, we are supposed to have iron rolling Mills from same Onitsha yet they chose to establish the ones in Jos, Itakpe, Oshogbo etc that were never meaningfully utilised.
The auto assembly industry was meant to feed from these steel companies for eventual full scale auto manufacturing. We were supposed to have three major auto contenders in the three geopolitical zones. Namely:
1. PAN (Peugeot of France) in Kaduna
2. NITECO (VOLKSWAGON of Germany)in Lagos
NTM (STIRE, IVECO and FIAT of Italy) in Enugu.
Every other was done as planned but the NTM was later taken to Kano were it failed even without producing one truck.
The Eastern government was pushed to start up ANAMCO with (MERCEDES of Germany) as a result which became the most successful amongst all. Even with all the FGN patronage and support for especially PAN.
I can go on and on. Imagine what INOSSON is doing today should have started years earlier before South Korea and India.
But we must understand that a lot of other sectors have suffered so much setback and even extinction because of this hatred.
I now ask the question, who does it help?
Who amongst the tribes has this hurt most so far?
Hatred is a very deep disease that kills the hater slowly and surely.
