Fiery Enugu-based Catholic priest gave his views today on the current agitation for the secession of southeast Nigeria from the rest of the country as the Republic of Biafra.
He said:
“No Hausa person owns property in Igboland. No Yoruba person owns property in Igboland. But 60% of businesses in northern Nigeria are owned by easterners. 40% of businesses in western Nigeria are owned by Igbos.”
Mbaka implied that Igbos had the most to lose by the breakup of the country. He claimed to know about how much Igbos owned across Nigeria because he was regularly being invited to to say blessings at the opening of new businesses by Igbos, especially in northern Nigeria. He said:
“Go to Sabon Gari in Kano and see what Igbos own there”. He added that they could complain that they were not enough of them in government, but under former president Goodluck Jonathan, an Igbo was finance minister, Central Bank governor, and so on.
He went on to suggest that those Igbos that have been seduced into agitating for Biafra by Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) are “the children of the poor”, who in his view, are not thinking properly about the implications of secession. Mbaka said those people were being deceived by Kanu.
Mbaka then moved on to what could happen in an independent Biafra if it ever came to fruition. He said: “If you think we have trouble in Nigeria now, we will see trouble in Nigeria. No Anambra man would let an Enugu man be president, no Imo man would let an Abakaliki man be president”.
He was very convinced that fault lines between different Igbo communities would come to the fore if Biafra ever became reality. When challenged on talking about politics, Mbaka responded that “politics is part of life” and “I read political science and political philosophy”. He added that decisions made by politics affect everyone.
From Daily Times
He is stating the real Facts Biko.
ReplyDeleteDevelop "Biafra" first...maka mgbe oso ga-ada
Remember what happened in the first war... Many of our families came down from their affluence over there to nothing down her ...because they built all their mansions "on sands".
Eziokwu na ada aja-aja na nti
Nne,eziokwu na ada akwa aja-aja na nti.
DeleteEziokwu ka okwulu
Tell them,true is bitter to the ears.
Spot on @ Nwambaka
God bless you for this wonderful piece..
Mbaka is the greatest saboteur.. He is yet to apologize to some of his gullible followers for telling them Buhari was the messiah. Change indeed!
DeleteDontQuoteMe™
For the first time i totally agree with Fr. Mbaka.... Its children of the poor that are supporting this agitation...ask Igbo rich kids what they think... You will be surprised.
DeleteNa sidon look we dey
ReplyDeleteI no they put mouth on things that concerns priest, cos I have one in my family
ReplyDeleteWe are being marginalised we have to speak out or protest like Charly boy and not leaving and creating biafra, I am not in support of Kanu but I am in support of his anger, we are being marginalised truly
ReplyDeleteWhen others were been marginalized under GEJ, what were you agitating for back then?
DeleteWhen everything was SS/SE under GEJ, what did you do with all the influence and power?
No one is marginalising the Igbos except it is in your thoughts.
Anonymous 10:43, you didn't just type that everything was about SS and SE under Jonathan. Check again
DeleteShut up you lots, under Gej, s administration the northerners had key position including Jega,can Buhari make an igbo man an inec chairman, umu ewu, gerrout I don't argue with dumb people. He did alot for the almajiris then the northerners still didn't vote for him and he did alot for them.
Delete@Chicky, so because of Jega as INEC chairman it implies GEJ favored the North, what myopic thoughts.
DeleteThen as Kachikwu is Petroleum Minister, Buhari is favouring the Igbos too then!
It is no fluke that people without viable reasons to oppose something only result to insults, you just confirmed it as well.
They should just stop this biafara ish..
ReplyDeleteMost of our foods are gotten from Dia.. We Igbos are very lazy.
Igbos lazy? You lie for this one o, just say they don't enjoy farming, they go for big big things
DeleteI honestly doubt you are igbos
DeleteBecause if you are igbo, lazy won't be the word to associate us with. We're lazy, yet we are going to loose the most if biafra happens?? We are lazy and yet we are in every single state in Nigeria surviving? ? Doing business?? Building houses and developing that area??
YOU can call us all the names but lazy isn't part of it.
so true
ReplyDeleteYour head dey there father.more anointing 4 u sir!
ReplyDeleteThumbs up for speaking the truth sir. Igbos are divided among themselves hence their inability to consolidate and field a reliable candidate for any major political post. So whose fault is this? Continue chanting marginalization without putting your house in order....all will amount to nothing.
ReplyDeleteExactly my point, God bless you sir for speaking the truth, I am not for Biafra but I support restructuring and true Federalism
ReplyDeleteWell, I agree with Mbaka on this one.
ReplyDeleteBut it is also clear that the Igbos continued concentration of their properties outside the SE is simply a response to a deliberate attempt by the past and present leadership of the country to undo the states within the SE/SS regions by choosing to scantily develop the region in terms of capital infrastructure. Imagine that the short-sighted managers of our national economy decide to make operational the sea ports in the southern region of the country, what economic impact such would make within the SE and adjoining areas-job creation, new business, foreign investments, tourism expansion, etc.
Igbos will continue to seek better amenities in other parts of Nigeria and the world until the day when they can will be in the driving, call the shots and redress the deprivations they've had to endure over the years.
You are quite wrong on this!
DeleteI would go to postulate that the Igbo culture which is based on land ownership has caused them to want to hold on tightly to their lands and thus keep shutting out the other tribes.
I am Yoruba married to an Igbo but I can't buy land in Iboland except my brother in law buys and then transfers to me!
While other tribes welcome others, the Igbos hold onto themselves and have forgotten that all great nations develop by influx of people.
Politics and influence are required to gain development. Igbos are not in power politically thus influence would have been the next thing but unfortunately, they also miss out on that by being closed to others.
So when projects are being discussed, while the natives of West and North are demanding, they get support from the SS/SE people that would benefit from such developments as they have businesses or relations there. For the SE, who else is gonna support to influence things?
Until Igbos opened up to accept others as they've been accepted by others outside the SE, they would continue to be susceptible to these sort of grandstand thinking which has no vaais.
*no basis.
DeleteAnon 10:51 👌👌
DeleteAnon 10:51 you are very correct! We Igbos love land more than ourlives! We can even kill for a land.
DeleteBring development to your town, all the elders will come out to call prize for you. You will kill goat for them, the eldest in the family will collect money for goat, the person that saw the land will collect money, the mother of the person will collect at the end, you'll leave them with their land to be planting cassava and burying their children destinies.
Go to east no single company except for few ones. That is the reason everybody is in Lagos looking for jobs and Igbos have major companies here in Lagos and beyond but it's very difficult to get land in the east.
Here in Lagos once you have the money, getting land or acres os very easy.
And GEJ couldn't open any sea port in the SE or even his SS???
DeleteAnon 10.51 your analysis is quite brilliant and objective, lucky igbo husband you got there. Anon 9.29 first off, the waters in the SE are a too shallow for deep sea portz. Then imagine if we had our major ports I, the SS with all the unrest political volatility, the country would have been I, a lot of trouble. If igbos want development they need to pen a,d also unite. And another, when the first set off people that catch on to an idea are the poor and uneducated, then its most likely a bad idea....that is science.
DeleteWell said! It's just a pity that they won't listen and what will be, will definitely be.
ReplyDeleteWhen Biafra is achieved, Igbos would be forced to develop their country...so no shaking.
ReplyDeleteDontQuoteMe™
Start first by moving out of Nigeria back to Biafra
DeleteHe said the real facts
ReplyDeleteVery true,eziokwu na afu ufu na nti,I was in Onitsha to buy somethings,two barrow men(Hausa and Igbo man) were having issues and after it was settled, the Hausa man said to the other man "e debe isi ka onye abakaliki" (ur head is like an abakaliki man's head), cos he speaks Igbo too and the other man is not from abakaliki o but igbo. To my amazement, the Hausa man and other market probably anambra men,started laughing ,I asked why and they said it's a common yabbing. I tire,where Igbo brothers are laughing at another Igbo man with Hausa man yabbing another person by calling him abakaliki man which is another Igbo town.I vex o,am from ebonyi state married to an anambra man. And these are the ppl that want Biafra,we hate ourselves and just like northerner think they are superior, an average anambra man thinks he is better than any other Igbo man from another part.
ReplyDeleteFr Mbaka is confused. I listened to a sermon where he said that Igbo cause should be spearheaded by folks like him, Iwuanyanwu, etc instead of Kanu. My question is: Why haven't they done so since? Why did it take Kanu"s agitation for him to start yarning bulshit. The man is fake as hell.
ReplyDelete