Biafra Of The Mind: A Call For New Eastern Civilization
A conversation about what the Igbo nation once represented before the tragedy of 1967 and what we can still become without waiting for permission from Nigeria or validation from any other people.
By Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
There is a long overdue conversation that Ndi Igbo must now confront. It is not a conversation about secession, flags, referendums or cartographic boundaries. It is a conversation about destiny, agency and civilization. A conversation about what the Igbo nation once represented before the tragedy of 1967 and what we can still become without waiting for permission from Nigeria or validation from any other people.
Before the war, the Eastern Region did not waste time lobbying the federation for federal allocations, waivers, approvals and licenses. We did not await Abuja, Abuja did not exist. Rather we built a self sustaining economy powered by skill, discipline, cooperatives, industry and communal capital. The result was astonishing. Under the leadership of Dr Michael Iheonukara Okpara, the Eastern Region became the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest in the world. This transformation was not funded by oil, nor by IMF loans, nor by foreign aid. It was funded by Biafra of the mind, a mental republic of production, merit, enterprise and modernisation.
Factories rose. Textile mills, ceramic factories, breweries, shoe industries, agricultural estates and machine tool ventures sprang up. Cooperative farms spread across the hinterland. Export receipts strengthened the regions liquidity. Eastern Nigeria became a model for what an African industrial civilisation could look like without oil and without external patronage. It was an Igbo miracle, achieved with our own hands, brains and capital.
Then the guns came. The blockade came. The genocide came. The humiliation of the twenty pounds policy came. Bank accounts were frozen. Families were stripped of accumulated wealth. A proud people were pushed to the edge of economic ruin. Nigeria expected permanent submission. Instead Ndi Igbo performed what may be the most underrated economic recovery in modern African history. Without World Bank bailout programs, without UN reconstruction campaigns, without IMF recovery credit, Ndi Igbo rebuilt. Markets were rebuilt. Shops reopened. Industrial clusters reemerged. Distribution networks resurfaced. Transport companies reappeared. Diaspora trade routes expanded. We rebuilt because our true Biafra has always been psychological before it is political.
The tragedy today is that a new generation has inherited Biafra of anger without inheriting Biafra of strategy. They inherited the protest, the grievance and the lamentation, without inheriting the industrial blueprint that once made the East the pride of Africa. Okpara did not organise marches and he did not chant slogans. He built factories and export systems. He was not waiting for restructuring, constitutional reform, true federalism or Igbo presidency. He built despite the federation, despite the contradictions and despite the hostility. Federal hostility could not compete with Igbo efficiency.
Our present dilemma is worsened by the rise of a new class of Igbo internal saboteurs. The politician obsessed with his own ambition who mortgages the collective destiny for personal ticket renewal. The businessman addicted to import monopolies who fears indigenous industries. The clergyman who monetises helplessness and disguises it as destiny. The influencer who converts victimhood into a profitable social niche. The elite who are invested in consumption rather than production. These people are not leaders, they are gatekeepers of regression. They trade the future of an entire nation for temporary access, appointments, patronage, settlement and selective inclusion in Nigerias political theatre. They are not committed to Igbo emancipation, they are committed to their own advancement. They must be ignored.
Ndi Igbo must stop thinking like a tribe and start thinking like a civilisation. If we choose, we can transform the South East into the Dubai of Africa. Dubai began with no diaspora, no industrial heritage, no technical base, no literacy culture and no indigenous private sector. We possess all of these. What we lack is aggregation, coordination and elite unity of purpose. Igbo capital is abundant but scattered. Diaspora talent is vast but unorganised. Industrial clusters exist but are unacknowledged by the state. Igbo markets are global but not yet structured for export domination.
We must specialise. Aba can lead in apparel, leather goods and consumer manufacturing. Nnewi can lead in automotive, machinery and electrical components. Onitsha can lead in finance, logistics and commerce. Enugu can lead in education, design and technology. Owerri can lead in computer technology, AI, IT, services, tourism and media. This is how Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Germany were built. No civilisation builds everything. Civilisations choose domains of strength. Specialisation precedes scale, and scale precedes power.
Education must also return to production, not certification. We must produce engineers, machinists, toolmakers, agronomists, coders, designers, industrial chemists and export managers. Education must become a pipeline for industrial capacity, not a conveyor belt for CV accumulation and political commentary.
Diaspora must transition from remittance to investment. Remittances feed families. Investments build nations. Israel, Ireland, Taiwan and Singapore were rebuilt by diaspora return flows of capital, machinery, standards, technology and knowledge. Ndi Igbo already have this advantage. We simply have not activated it.
Above all we must reject the psychological dependence on federal permissionism. Nigeria will never give Ndi Igbo what Ndi Igbo can build for themselves. Okpara understood this. Achebe understood this. Ojukwu understood this. Ironically even Gowon understood it. Yet many Igbo elites today pretend not to. They still chase Abuja as if Abuja is a hospital for Igbo ailments. Abuja cannot heal a civilisation problem. Abuja cannot supply destiny. Abuja can only offer appointments and titles. Civilisations are built, not allocated.
The destiny of Ndi Igbo is not necessarily secession.
The destiny of Ndi Igbo is civilisation. When a civilisation rises, boundaries become irrelevant and power becomes magnetic. People gravitate towards success, not sentiment. The only revenge history respects is development. Not war, not protests, not hashtags and not grievance. Development. Factories, export receipts, cities, capital, technology, institutions and global leverage. That is the true Biafra of the mind. The Biafra that no blockade can choke, no policy can confiscate, no decree can abolish and no politician can negotiate away.
The Hausa Fulani elite strategise for dominance. The Yoruba elite strategise for positioning. The Igbo elite strategise for survival. This must end. Ndi Igbo did not come into this world to survive. We came to build and to shape civilisation. Our ancestors did it before the war. Our parents rebuilt after the war. Our children must do more than complain about Nigeria on social media. They must build a new Eastern civilisation.
That is the unfinished chapter. That is the work. That is the destiny.
...Hon. Chima Nnadi-Oforgu is Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
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