Shall We Tell The President That South East Is Not Landlocked?

Buhari

 

Even though the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the state governors, as well as many other leaders of thoughts from the South East, have said it an umpteenth number of times that they want to be part of one united Nigeria, where peace and justice reigns and thus are not in support of secession, it is important to let the world know that the Igbo leaders are not doing it out of weakness, or because their proposed Biafra is going to be a landlocked country. They are not doing it because they are scared as business people that without Nigeria they cannot have access to the sea to do business with the world. They are doing this because they appreciate the value of the economy of scale that united Nigeria’s 200million+ population provides. They are doing it because they have seen how the huge population of China and India forms a ready market for goods and services produced by Chinese and Indian companies and thus gave them the anchor or stability to survive at home, even as they promote their export trade.

Even Buhari that is happy that South-South rejected Biafra, is not because he loves South-South people more than his Northern people that he has favored disproportionately over the past six years of his administration, it is because the position ensures Northern access to South-South oil and gas and of course access to the sea that goes with it. So it is also convenient for him and the Northern elite to want One Nigeria.

One of the take away from Arise TV interview with President Muhammadu Buhari recently was that the president is not bothered to reach out to the elders or leaders of the South East to negotiate an amicable resolution to the growing insecurity in the region allegedly perpetrated by the Eastern Security Network (ESN) of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The group has vehemently denied the allegations leveled against it mostly by the security agents.

The president was rather more interested in whether the South-South was also part of IPOB’s Biafra, and having been convinced that the region had allegedly opted not to be part of Biafra, the President could not contain his excitement and was gleefully telling his interviewers that IPOB’s Biafra even if they succeed in exiting from Nigeria, would not have access to the sea.

Buhari told Arise TV, “I was encouraged by what I heard, nobody told me. Two statements from the South-South: one by the elderly people, they said this time around there would be no (secession). And again the youth made the same statement; such encouragement.”

“So that IPOB is just like a dot in a circle. Even if they want to exit, they’ll have no access to anywhere.”

Having concluded that IPOB’s Biafra would be isolated and cannot have access to the sea which some South-South elders and youths had assured him, the president felt he has no need to engage with the South East region, but rather vowed to unleash the military and the police after IPOB members and supporters.

Let us assume without conceding that the Igbo people of South East Nigeria would vote to secede from Nigeria in a UNITED NATIONS conducted referendum, and not the type being advocated by the so-called Northern youths under the aegis of Coalition of Northern Groups, and the Northern Elders Forum (NEF).

Let us also assume without conceding that the people making up this new country would be only Igbo-speaking people of present-day South East Nigeria.

Going by these two assumptions, I want to posit that this new country will not be a landlocked country, as President Muhammadu Buhari assumed and wants his listeners and viewer in his Arise TV interview to believe. That is why education is important. An educated mind is an inquisitive mind. The president should have asked how is this new country going to survive without access to the South-South sea route? Perhaps he did, and if he did, then they gave him false hope that the Biafra he imagined would be isolated and would have difficulty doing business with the rest of the world.

The question of South East’s access to the sea had been answered in 2017. Former governor of Imo State Dr. Ikedi Ohakim answered the question with clarity and without any ambiguity in a lecture he presented on Tuesday 23 May 2017 at the First International Chinua Achebe Conference held at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu State.

This is the excerpt of his paper titled appropriately, “South East Is Not Landlocked.”

The paper reads in part, “Please let it be known from today that South East is not landlocked. It is only our economy that is locked. One quick way of unlocking the economy of South East is through marine business. Contrary to the impression that the South East is landlocked, the truth is that it has one of the potentially deepest seaports in the country at Osemoto/Oseokwa in Imo and Anambra states.

“A seaport was designated there in 1959 but the project was abandoned and the admiralty member erased for obvious political reasons. African Development Bank (ADB) feasibility report on this is unambiguous. Oseokwa (Ihiala LGA, Anambra State) and Osemoto (Oguta LGA, Imo State) are the deepest natural harbor in the country (over 20m deep) and offer real naval and marine transportation platforms if developed.

“Besides, it lies only 18 nautical miles to the Atlantic Ocean and a strategic hub for the oil industry and inland dry-docks to promote trade. This potential seaport has the capacity of handling over 35 percent of marine business in Nigeria. As a

matter of fact, it was the attraction to these potentials that made my administration in Imo State site the Oguta Wonder Lake and Resort Centre in the area to encourage the federal government and foreign investors.

“If Ndigbo pursues and completes the seaport, it will also open up over 3,000 square kilometers of the most fertile agricultural land that has one of the highest alluvial deposits which has been in existence for well over a million years. My pursuit of this revolutionary project attracted both national and international panic and may have cost me second tenure as governor (see “Democracy By Military Tank” by Ethelbert Okere). This deep seaport will create over two million jobs, directly and indirectly, in marine business, oil and gas, power, education, housing, agro-food industry, entertainment, tourism, etc. With that type of setting, Igbo youths will have no need to crisscross the country in search of jobs and in the process endangering their young lives.” I end my case.