There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe Page A
Authors: Chinua Achebe
Ads: Link
were a number of other factors that spurred the Igbos to educational, economic,
and political success. The population density in Igbo land created a “land hunger”—a
pressure on their low-fertility, laterite-laden soil for cultivation, housing, and
other purposes, factors that led ultimately to migration to other parts of the nation:
“In Northern Nigeria there were less than 3,000 Igbos in 1921; by 1931 the number
had risen to nearly 12,000 and by 1952 to over 130,000.” 4
The coastal branches of the Yoruba nation had some of the earliest contact with the
European missionaries and explorers as a consequence of their proximity to the shoreline
and their own dedication to learning. They led the entire nation in educational attainment
from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. By the time the Church
Mission Society and a number of Roman Catholic orders had crossed the Niger River
and entered Igbo land, there had been an explosion in the numbers of young Igbo students
enrolled in school. The increase was so exponential in such a short time that within
three short decades the Igbos had closed the gap and quickly moved ahead as the group
with the highest literacy rate, the highest standard of living, and the greatest proportion
of citizens with postsecondary education in Nigeria. The Igbo, for the most part (at
least until recently), respected the education that the colonizers had brought with
them. There was not only individual interest in the white man’s knowledge, but family,
community, and regional interest. It would not surprise an observer that the “Igbos
absorbed western education as readily as they responded to urbanization.” 5
I will be the first to concede that the Igbo as a group is not without its flaws.
Its success can and did carry deadly penalties: the dangers of hubris, overweening
pride, and thoughtlessness, which invite envy and hatred or, even worse, that can
obsess the mind with material success and dispose it to all kinds of crude showiness.
There is no doubt at all that there is a strand in contemporary Igbo behavior that
can offend by its noisy exhibitionism and disregard for humility and quietness. 6
Having acknowledged these facts, 7 any observer can clearly see how the competitive individualism and the adventurous
spirit of the Igbo could have been harnessed by committed leaders for the modernization
and development of Nigeria. Nigeria’s pathetic attempt to crush these idiosyncrasies
rather than celebrate them is one of the fundamental reasons the country has not developed
as it should and has emerged as a laughingstock. 8
The ploy in the Nigerian context was simple and crude: Get the achievers out and replace
them with less qualified individuals from the desired ethnic background so as to gain
access to the resources of the state. This bizarre government strategy transformed
the federal civil service, corporations, and universities into centers for ethnic
bigotry and petty squabbles. 9 It was in this toxic environment that Professor Eni Njoku, an Igbo who was vice chancellor
of the University of Lagos, was forced out of office. An exasperated Kenneth Onwuka
Dike, an ethnic Igbo and the vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan facing similar
bouts of tribal small-mindedness, famously lamented during this crisis that “intellectuals
were the worst peddlers of tribalism.” 10
One of the first signs I saw of an Igbo backlash came in the form of a 1966 publication
from Northern Nigeria called
The Nigerian Situation: Facts and Background.
In it the Igbo were cast as an assertive group that unfairly dominated almost every
sector of Nigerian society. No mention was made of the culture of educational excellence
imbibed from the British that pervaded Igbo society and schools at the time. Special
attention instead was paid to the manpower distribution within the public services,
where 45 percent
and political success. The population density in Igbo land created a “land hunger”—a
pressure on their low-fertility, laterite-laden soil for cultivation, housing, and
other purposes, factors that led ultimately to migration to other parts of the nation:
“In Northern Nigeria there were less than 3,000 Igbos in 1921; by 1931 the number
had risen to nearly 12,000 and by 1952 to over 130,000.” 4
The coastal branches of the Yoruba nation had some of the earliest contact with the
European missionaries and explorers as a consequence of their proximity to the shoreline
and their own dedication to learning. They led the entire nation in educational attainment
from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. By the time the Church
Mission Society and a number of Roman Catholic orders had crossed the Niger River
and entered Igbo land, there had been an explosion in the numbers of young Igbo students
enrolled in school. The increase was so exponential in such a short time that within
three short decades the Igbos had closed the gap and quickly moved ahead as the group
with the highest literacy rate, the highest standard of living, and the greatest proportion
of citizens with postsecondary education in Nigeria. The Igbo, for the most part (at
least until recently), respected the education that the colonizers had brought with
them. There was not only individual interest in the white man’s knowledge, but family,
community, and regional interest. It would not surprise an observer that the “Igbos
absorbed western education as readily as they responded to urbanization.” 5
I will be the first to concede that the Igbo as a group is not without its flaws.
Its success can and did carry deadly penalties: the dangers of hubris, overweening
pride, and thoughtlessness, which invite envy and hatred or, even worse, that can
obsess the mind with material success and dispose it to all kinds of crude showiness.
There is no doubt at all that there is a strand in contemporary Igbo behavior that
can offend by its noisy exhibitionism and disregard for humility and quietness. 6
Having acknowledged these facts, 7 any observer can clearly see how the competitive individualism and the adventurous
spirit of the Igbo could have been harnessed by committed leaders for the modernization
and development of Nigeria. Nigeria’s pathetic attempt to crush these idiosyncrasies
rather than celebrate them is one of the fundamental reasons the country has not developed
as it should and has emerged as a laughingstock. 8
The ploy in the Nigerian context was simple and crude: Get the achievers out and replace
them with less qualified individuals from the desired ethnic background so as to gain
access to the resources of the state. This bizarre government strategy transformed
the federal civil service, corporations, and universities into centers for ethnic
bigotry and petty squabbles. 9 It was in this toxic environment that Professor Eni Njoku, an Igbo who was vice chancellor
of the University of Lagos, was forced out of office. An exasperated Kenneth Onwuka
Dike, an ethnic Igbo and the vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan facing similar
bouts of tribal small-mindedness, famously lamented during this crisis that “intellectuals
were the worst peddlers of tribalism.” 10
One of the first signs I saw of an Igbo backlash came in the form of a 1966 publication
from Northern Nigeria called
The Nigerian Situation: Facts and Background.
In it the Igbo were cast as an assertive group that unfairly dominated almost every
sector of Nigerian society. No mention was made of the culture of educational excellence
imbibed from the British that pervaded Igbo society and schools at the time. Special
attention instead was paid to the manpower distribution within the public services,
where 45 percent
Similar Books
