(Born 5 May 1914, Arundizuogu, Biafra)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
CELEBRATED AFRICAN peoples-centred transformative intellectual, graduate of University of Chicago, arguably the profoundest political economic thinker in the provisional restoration-of-independence government of (British occupied) east region Nigeria, home of the historic Igbo village republican democratic states that had flourished for over a millennium; minister of economic development and planning and architect of the 1947-1966 transformation of this pre-Igbo genocide political economy to Africa’s most dynamic with immense possibilities.
The Ojike Plan had envisaged a 20-year timeframe, beginning in 1954, during which the east region would be transformed into an advanced multifaceted industrial and agricultural economy. Such was the impressive pace of this programme that, by 1964, ten years later, the overall economic performance of the east had not only outstripped the rest of Nigeria but was in fact Africa’s fastest growing economy. The east had the best schools and the first “post-conquest” university system (University of Nsukka) in the country, the best humanpower development in the country across a range of fields including, crucially, engineering, science, medicine, the arts, the middle-range technical cadre, and sports.
The region also had the most integrated infrastructural development in Nigeria and its manufacturing, distributive and extractive enterprises centred in the Enuugwu-Nkalagu-Emene conurbation to the north, Onicha (commercial capital and home to the future Oshimili stock exchange and index) to the west and Igwe Ocha-Aba-Calabar to the south were clearly the hubs of the making of this African industrial revolution of recent history.
BUT for the Igbo genocide, launched by Britain, under Harold Wilson’s prime ministership and its Fulani islamist/jihadist north region-led Nigeria client state on 29 May 1966 and continuing as these lines are written, 53 years on, the longest genocide of contemporary history, with the murder of 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of the Igbo population during phases I-III of this crime (29 May 1966-12 January 1970), the east was on course to construct the “Taiwan ” or the “China ” or the “South Korea ” or the “India ” in Africa – 20 years before these post 1939-1945 war much-vaunted “economic transformational miracles” of the era emerged...
CELEBRATED AFRICAN peoples-centred transformative intellectual, graduate of University of Chicago, arguably the profoundest political economic thinker in the provisional restoration-of-independence government of (British occupied) east region Nigeria, home of the historic Igbo village republican democratic states that had flourished for over a millennium; minister of economic development and planning and architect of the 1947-1966 transformation of this pre-Igbo genocide political economy to Africa’s most dynamic with immense possibilities.
The Ojike Plan had envisaged a 20-year timeframe, beginning in 1954, during which the east region would be transformed into an advanced multifaceted industrial and agricultural economy. Such was the impressive pace of this programme that, by 1964, ten years later, the overall economic performance of the east had not only outstripped the rest of Nigeria but was in fact Africa’s fastest growing economy. The east had the best schools and the first “post-conquest” university system (University of Nsukka) in the country, the best humanpower development in the country across a range of fields including, crucially, engineering, science, medicine, the arts, the middle-range technical cadre, and sports.
The region also had the most integrated infrastructural development in Nigeria and its manufacturing, distributive and extractive enterprises centred in the Enuugwu-Nkalagu-Emene conurbation to the north, Onicha (commercial capital and home to the future Oshimili stock exchange and index) to the west and Igwe Ocha-Aba-Calabar to the south were clearly the hubs of the making of this African industrial revolution of recent history.
BUT for the Igbo genocide, launched by Britain, under Harold Wilson’s prime ministership and its Fulani islamist/jihadist north region-led Nigeria client state on 29 May 1966 and continuing as these lines are written, 53 years on, the longest genocide of contemporary history, with the murder of 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of the Igbo population during phases I-III of this crime (29 May 1966-12 January 1970), the east was on course to construct the “
Mbonu Ojike City of Innovation and Enterprise
THE MAIN thrust of this plan is still valid and should be retrieved from the archives, reworked, and adapted by the ongoing Biafra freedom movement to 21st century priorities and the advantage of new technologies. This phase would appropriately be Ojike Plan II and the Mbonu Ojike City of Innovation and Enterprise, built on the morrow of the restoration of Biafra independence, will offer Biafrans with multiform creative interests and goals, especially start-up entrprenuereship, an enabling environment dedicated solely to work through their ideas and transform this great Land of the Rising Sun.
(John Coltrane Sextet, “Out of this world” [personnel: Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Donald Garrett, clarinet, bass; Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: live at Penthouse Jazz Club, Seattle, US, 30 September 1965])
******Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe
