It is common to hear some people say that Igbos love money so much, and much more than people of other tribes in Nigeria. I just don’t agree.
1. If Igbos love money so much, why did the mainstream Igbos refuse to join the APC, even though it is the party in power controlling majority States, with a lot of money to throw about trying to get followers from Igboland. But this failed woefully. For seven years that the APC was in power, Igbos shunned the party and stuck with PDP & APGA which had no money to give to anybody. So who said that Igbos love money so much?
2. When former President Goodluck Jonathan was campaigning for his re-election, he spent over two weeks in Yoruba land and spent a lot of money empowering his party members for campaign. When he visited South East, he spent only two days and relatively little as campaign support fund to his party members.
I recall the day he invited the South East Presidents-General executives in Igboland under the leadership of Odegba and I to Owerri during his visit to canvass for grassroots support. After canvassing for support, we all went back to our respective States on our own, just as we came ,without any financial inducement. The same with other PDP support groups. Yet, at the end of the day, Igbos voted massively for him at the elections. Who said Igbos love money too much?
3. At the onset of the last civil war, both the Gowon-led Federal government and the entire Nigeria media had predicted that the war last only three months, given that Biafra had no arms at the time and no money to buy any.
But Igbos stood their grounds in support of Ojukwu even in the face of hunger, starvation and death in their millions at a time many Nigerians were taking over the properties abandoned by Igbos in various parts of Nigeria. But this did not deter Igbos from fighting on for three years in defense of a cause they believed in, not caring a hoot about losing their hard-earned property and life-savings. Is this how Igbos love money too much?
4. Also during the war, Igbos whose towns were captured by Nigerian troops would be comfortable with living with the Nigerians soldiers and many escaped at the slightest chance to join and suffer with their brothers in Biafra held territory. This was despite the constant supply of food items and other goodies to Igbos in captured territories through the international Red Cross. Yet people say Igbos love money or wealth too much.
5. Again, shortly after the war broke out, some foreign countries made overtures to Ojukwu for concession of some oil facilities in exchange for military support. But Ojukwu shunned these offers and instead went ahead spending his father’s life savings in pounds and dollars to support the Biafran cause, when he could have accepted the offers from foreign nations like Gowon did and save the money for himself and his family. Yet they say Igbos like money love much?
6. At the early period of the war when Gowon created the 12-State structure including the defunct East Central State, it was a hectic task for him to find a willing candidate to serve as Administrator of East Central State as all the five Igbo Professors offered the juicy job declined it in moral sympathy with his fellow Igbos fighting and dying across the divide.
It was on a second thought that late Ukpabi Asika accepted to serve after a secret meeting of prominent Igbos who agreed on the need for an Igbo to be in charge of administration in the captured territories to prevent and minimize victimization of Igbo civilians there. If Igbos love money too much, why didn’t each of these Professors jump at the offer at first mention?
7. In the early days of the Nigeria’s Second Republic when political parties were being formed, there was nothing the NPN timbers and calibers like C. C. Onoh, Dr. Ekwueme, Professor Odenigwe, Professor Chuba Okadigbo, Dr. K.O Mbadiwe,and other Igbo NPN members did not do to lure late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to their party with non Igbo juggernauts like Alhaji Tahir, Alhaji Umaru Dikko, Chief Adisa Akinloye, Chief M. N. Ugochukwu, Dr Joseph Wayas and others.
But Zik resisted these entreaties and monetary inducements and settled with little known NPP, with such political featherweights then as Jim Nwobodo, Sam Mbakwe, Vincent Ikeotuonye, who was about the only political stalwart in the NPP, Olu Akinfosile, Edwin Umezeoke, Frank Oloto, Edwin Onwudiwe, Paul Unongo, Guy Ikoku.
8. At the end of the day when the NPN won the election at Federal level, Igbos maintained allegiance with the NPP , in spite of the huge money being doled out to NPN members, just as they are doing with the APC. So who said Igbos love money too much?
The reason people say that Igbo people love money more than other tribes is just that Igbos are more hardworking, more persevering, and know better how to make money than other tribes in Nigeria.
He is not lazy.
He toils day and night in order to succeed in his business.
He sees an empty building and thinks of a factory.
He sees a forest and he thinks of an estate.
He is knowledgeable in money management.
The Igbos have unique business acumen and are able to make money out of nothing which others cannot do.
They see business potential where others cannot.
The Igbo man is family and community conscious. He will make do with a shirt and a pair of knickers for one whole month to save enough money to become rich to be able to train his siblings in school or other enterprises.
The Igbo man struggles under rain and shine to make money so that he can use it to help other people in his village to become wealthy also, so there can be enough money to train others.
He becomes wealthy. He goes to his village, picks some boys, trains them in business and they become wealthy also. These in turn return to the village and do the same thing.
The Igbos will succeed in business where others fail and will look for business where others dare find difficult to go. Reason you will find an Igbo man in every country, town and village under the face of the earth.
Igbos don’t love money more than others. Only that they have the guts to make money.
Mazi Omife I. Omife
Mbuze Mbaukwu