How my Z-600 dream car production died Jealousy is eating Nigeria green Igbos are their own worst enemies I supported Buhari but didn’t know about Islamisation agenda By Chioma Gabriel – Editor Special Features IN 1997, Dr Ezekiel Izuogu, an Electrical Engineer and lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, came into public limelight when he designed and developed the Izuogu Z-600, the first African indigenous manufactured car which was described by the BBC as ‘ the African dream machine.
The then Head of State, General Sani Abacha, set up a 12 man panel made up of professionals to ascertain the roadworthiness and authenticity of the car and after several days of probing, the committee gave Dr Izuogu’s car a clean bill of health. General Sani Abacha, represented by the Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen Oladipo Diya, at a well-organised unveiling ceremony which had over 20 foreign ambassadors and thousands of people in attendance promised a grant of N235 million to Dr Izuogu but he never got the money. In 2006, the government of South Africa invited Dr Izuogu to a presentation about the car in the presence of several world-class engineers. They invited him to set up a plant in South Africa and begin the production of the car and he reluctantly agreed, though he wasn’t happy that the benefits of employment generation will be lost on the locals of Naze and the Nigerian human resources environment.
But on Saturday, March 11 2006, no fewer than 12 heavily armed men broke into Dr. Izuogu’s factory in Naze and carted away various machines and tools including the design history notebook of Z-600, the design file Z-MASS, containing the design history for mass production of Z-600 car, and the moulds for various parts of the car. In this encounter with Vanguard, Dr Ezekiel Izuogu talks about his dream for an indigenous Nigerian car, the Igbo question and why Nigeria is the way it is. You seemed to have faded off the scene since you launched your Z-600 Car in 1997, what are you doing currently? I am engaged in the international research of emagnetodynamics, a car engine that works with nothing. It produces its own energy and if you put it in your car, you can drive the car for 50 to 100 years. The engine works without petrol and if you have emagnetodynamics engine in your car, you can drive your car without petrol. It is not an electric car but a car in its category. It is being perfected in 130 countries across the world. That engages me completely. A car engine that works without fuel, is it possible? It has been done. The prototype has been produced and the world is surprised that the black race can do this. Russia, South Africa, New Zealand have perfected it. Europe has perfected it, so, that is what has been engaging my attention and I also didn’t like the way politics is going in Nigeria.
I’m in the All Progressives Congress, APC, but I don’t like the way things are going in Nigeria. Also read: The evil of unitarisation, by Patrick Obahiagbon What happened to the Z-600 car you produced? It was the first car we produced in Africa. We finished it and the government at that time, the government of General Sani Abacha supported it after he saw it in Owerri. In fact, the government wrote a letter that I should receive N253 million in order to smoothen the body of the car. The government was very impressed by the design and everything but no kobo came to me. Nigerians kept attacking the Z-600.
The problem in Nigeria is jealousy, there is a lot of jealousy in Nigeria, they kept attacking this product in the press and I didn’t have time to be replying them. I was more concerned with emagnetodynamics. So, that is the position. I thought the businessmen in Nigeria would take on the car and mass-produce it but they didn’t do so. And I have a more important design which is the invention of this emagnetodynamics engine or what they called the Izuogu Engine by the World International Property Organisation. So, that is what has happened. Your emagnetodynamics, is it in Nigeria now? Not yet. Is it that Nigeria did not believe in your innovations but other countries accepted you? The Izuogu machine is working in many countries of the world. Some people are even producing it illegally. They are going to pay us damages. They are producing it in Pakistan, they are producing it in America and few other places in 139 countries, but we are the owners of the franchise. Those who are producing it will pay us for it and if we want to produce it in Nigeria, we will do so. Nigeria is not technology-minded, otherwise, they would have embarked on it.
There’s this automobile company that says it wants to manufacture electric cars but ours is better than electric cars which need recharging twice or three times a day. We are far ahead. This does not need recharge or fuel and you can use this engine for about 50 years. The other day, Leyland Motors was in the Sun and they said they were going to produce the electric car and all that. It was exciting but electric cars are far below what I have invented.
They should be producing this car with our engine, that is what Leyland should do. They should enter an agreement with us and buy the rights to produce it. Did you market this idea in Nigeria? No, it has not been marketed at all. Many people don’t even believe that it is achievable because it is against the law of science, it is against the law of conservation of energy. So, virtually all engineers and scientists don’t believe it can be produced but it has been produced.
That means the problem is not Nigerians not buying into it but you not introducing the engine to Nigerians The problem is not Nigerians in this case even though Nigeria didn’t encourage me. President Muhammadu Buhari administration gave us only N10 million three years ago. Perhaps, you didn’t ask for more… I did. It was in the papers, it was the Minister of Science and Technology that presented the money to us and they had the media cover it. I thank the government for the gesture but I told them that it was most inadequate for this kind of invention. I made it clear to the press. But like you said, the product should be marketed. Even Europe that is producing it asked that it be marketed to other places. You didn’t market the Z-600 car after such much hype was made about it in the past. What really happened to it? The point is when you make a design and the design is successful, it now lies with those who are holding cash to promote it. If people had put in N5bn into the Z-600, you would have seen the car all over Africa. That design took me 14 years to design and manufacture. I used all the cash on me to manufacture it, to try to fabricate it and all that.
And now, I have another design which is far more important, that is the Izuogu Engine, and I didn’t want to waste time arguing with pressmen and those who were hired to be writing that no Igboman can produce a car, no Igboman can do anything, this man is not a mechanical engineer, he is not an automobile engineer, how could he come from electronics to produce a car? All these arguments were in the press and I refused to reply to any of them. There was no need. But I think times are changing. Look at what Innoson is doing and he’s succeeding. If his own cars are being used even in government quarters, even by the military, I think this is the time to push yours… We have different orientations. I am an inventor and not somebody who brings the car parts together. Innoson has done tremendously well but we’re not in the same category. We’re on different levels. How? I design a car, produce it, then I design the emagnetodynamics machine and I produced it. I am an international researcher. Innoson and I are at different levels. You talked about jealousy and when I look at Innoson and his current travails, would you say jealousy is playing out in his case? Yes, there are people who attack those who go into science and technology especially from the South East. It’s a culture which should be discouraged because everything we are doing is for the good of Nigeria. This emagenetodynamics machine can remove unemployment from the whole country. So, if you are attacking it because I am an Igbo man, that is self-deceit. Any intellectual property that you do here is for the good of the whole country, Nigeria, Africa and the whole world also. Everybody is a beneficiary and so, anybody that is attacking us in Nigeria is short-sighted which should not be in the system because Nigeria should take her proper place in the world. Now that you brought the Igbo thing into it, many have been saying that the enemy of the Igbo is the Igbo. Is this true? That is very correct. I watched a programme on TV sometime where a man was saying that the best thing that can happen to Nigeria is to produce a Nigerian President of Igbo descent but that it is an Igbo man that will kill him. The man was making a statement and he is not Igbo. The truth is, the selfishness among the Igbo is too much. Now, for this emagnetodynamics machine, it was a Yoruba governor, Dr, Olusegun Mimiko who gave N65 million three years ago to support us. No Igbo governor has given us a farm. Alex Ekwueme gave me N12.5 million when he was alive and he was going to give me another N22 million before he died.
But what about the other Igbo governors? They know about it but they won’t support it. So, the endemic selfishness among the Igbo should be tackled for Nigeria to move forward. It’s unfortunate. In other words, besides the perceived hatred of the Igbo by other ethnic groups, the Igbo are their own worst enemies… Yes. There’s that personal jealousy. It beats my imagination why the Igboman will not be excited by the good thing God is doing through them. We should support ourselves, we should love ourselves first for the other Nigerians to love the ingenuity of the Igbo. Nigerians should love Nigerians. If anything good is coming to Nigeria whether, from Kaduna, Oyo, Kafanchan, Port Harcourt or Enugu, we should love it because we all are Nigerians. If the economy of Nigeria is good, everybody will enjoy it, no matter the language you speak. But when the passion for the country is not there, we will continue having problems in Nigeria. I told you how a Yoruba friend put in N65 million for the project. I didn’t sign for it. He said I should continue what I am doing. That is a Yoruba man but some people will say Yorubas don’t like Igbos. It is not always the truth. It depends on who you meet. Nigeria fought a civil war in the past, but it’s like the events in Nigeria today are worse than the events that led to the civil war in 1967… I am 70 now. I was there when the civil war started and was fought, and I can confirm to you that the hatred in Nigeria today is worse than the events of 1966 that led to the civil war. And it is the responsibility of the man we made President to correct it. When I was supporting Buhari in 2015, people were phoning me and asking me to stop but I didn’t. I believed that if he can fight corruption, we should give him a chance. I didn’t know there was an Islamic agenda in the whole thing. To propose Ruga all over Nigeria is frightening and it is the duty of the President to stop it in whatever guise it is coming. If he imposes that, he is endangering the whole country and you are telling the different parts of Nigeria to prepare for war. If you are asking Muslims to prepare for war through the introduction of Ruga, you are also asking Christians to do the same. And if there is war, there can be no progress and Nigeria has not recovered from the 1967-70 war, let alone prepare for another one. So, I appeal to President Buhari, let him stop this thing. He was elected to protect the lives of Nigerians no matter their village, no matter their tongue, it is the responsibility of the President to protect the lives of Nigerians, whether they are Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Tiv, Ijaw or from wherever.
He should not introduce any programme that will obstruct peace or endanger lives. I am appealing to him, I prayed for him in all the states in the federation to succeed in 2015, but the kind of vibes coming into Nigeria now is scary. I am speaking as a Christian. I will always make sure Christian and other peoples’ interests are protected. I cannot be a party to any conspiracy that will endanger the lives of Christians in Nigeria. Neither will I be a party to a conspiracy that endangers the lives of any Nigerian, whether he is a Muslim, a pagan or a Christian or whatever. I cannot be a party to that conspiracy. Everything should be done to avoid it. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo wrote a good letter to Buhari. That letter should be skillfully studied. Those who are attacking OBJ are not patriotic at all, they are anti-Nigeria. Obasanjo spoke as an elder statesman and he has been there. He has been President of Nigeria on many occasions and it was out of the burden of his heart that he wrote the letter.
Strangely, the people attacking Obasanjo were happy when he supported Buhari during his first term. If he is now writing him letters, we should take it seriously in the interest of Nigeria. Obasanjo saw an increase in ethnicism, structural imbalance, and religious intimidation, why do we have so much distrust now? The policies of the government are not helping issues. If government policies are good, Nigerians will not be kicking. Let us stop the discrimination. All those in government should stop the discrimination against other tribes. Some people are calling for restructuring, some are calling for the national conference. Many feel marginalised in the scheme of things, what is your take, restructuring or another confab? I have attended two national conferences. I attended the one that was held five years ago and the one before it. We are done with conferences. In the last national conference, Nigerians bared their minds and it was a northerner that chaired the conference. We did our best. The resolutions of that conference should be implemented. All the recommendations of the last conference should be implemented. You can only implement it if you want Nigeria to move forward because the resolutions are equivalent to restructuring. Nobody will have an undue advantage, Nigerians will strive on an equal basis and if we’ re striving on equality, the best candidate will emerge. But if you want to structure it one side against the other, it will only lead to confrontations, fighting and threats of war and that is not good. You’re a member of the APC, many have said the Igbo play bad politics and they put their eggs in one basket and in the process, are losing out in the scheme of things. There is no Igbo among security chiefs and in key government positions That is why President Buhari should make the changes. He is the father of the nation and the number one citizen of Nigeria. He should make changes in his policies. The security chiefs cannot come from one side, it has never happened in Nigeria since independence.
These positions are normally scattered among the tribes. So, if he now wants to pick them from one tribe in the country, there will be problems. How do you asses our elders in Nigeria, Northern elders, Afenifere, Ohanaeze and many others? Are they guiding us in the way we should go? The leadership of these elders are not behaving well and their misbehaviour goes back to selfishness. When people said the Igbos voted one side, it is because of the orientation they got from the leadership. In Yorubaland, some of their leaders said, vote 50-50. If two people are vying for the presidency, chances are that one of them will win. If you vote only one side and the other side wins, it means you are technically out of government. So, in a mature political understanding, you don’t really rule against anybody, let the people be guided by their consciences. If people are guided by their consciences and they vote according to the leading of their consciences, no section of the country will vote only one side, they will vote both ways. It is those who are calling on the Igbos to vote one side who are the problem of the Igbo. So, our politics is not well organised, if Igbo sought advice from experienced politicians, they would not vote the way they did. What chances have the Igbos under an APC-led government given the way they voted? Some of them are not representing us well. Look at Rochas Okorocha, over a year ago, I told him not to put his son-in-law to succeed him, he told me he was going to think about it. But what did he do? He pumped resources into that boy and even the boy had to leave APC to run on the platform of AA. That is extreme rascality. You don’t do that in a political party and what is more, Imo was the only state APC was holding in the South East and APC lost Imo because of the carelessness of the governor. Would I support him? No. Even though Okorocha comes from my local government, I never supported that boy. When people are individualistic, they lose and we have seen it. A lot of our Igbo brothers are individualistic, they consider only what is good for them and that is why you bring your son-in-law to be a governorship candidate in a state where you were governor. That is selfishness. If you are a leader, you should jettison your self-centredness and work for the good of the people you are leading. The interest of Imo people should have been uppermost in Okorocha’s mind. If you have governed well, you should produce another who will excel over you in performance no matter the zone he comes from. That is the leadership of a God-fearing man. In July 1966, some Nigerians started beating drums of war. Now, 53 years after, some people have started invading Nigeria from other countries; there are killings everywhere.
How do we get out of these? Should we do anything that will consume Nigeria if we really love this country? Should a Nigerian do something that will consume the whole country?
That is the question we should be asking, why should Nigerians be beating drums of war after we have fought a civil war that consumed many people? Why should we be doing that if we are human beings? No wonder, they are making restrictions against Nigerians in America and other world powers. They know what is coming from Nigeria is not good.
They should not transport it to their country. That’s what they are saying and that is bad. Let us make the world see something good about Nigeria and not characteristics that destroy the nation. Suddenly, Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world. It is all because of human self-centeredness and activities, it is self-centredness that will make one man put Nigeria’s money into his account and transfer some overseas. That’s what Nigerians do. An individual will be richer than the whole country. And that was why in 2015, it played in our minds and we said, if Buhari is going to fight corruption, let us support him, that was the genesis of supporting Buhari. I didn’t know there was an Islamic agenda. I have been in politics for over 40 years and I am a Christian. That is why I cannot become a minister because they know my Christian views. I love my Christianity more than any ministerial appointment. So, in these insecurities and skirmishes, how do we save Nigeria? Nigerians should go back to God. If you are a human being you will not do certain things. It is because people’s relationships with God have broken down, that is why they think of killing other
people and the devil now controls their thinking. Some people’s mind is controlled by the devil because go and kill are not from God, it is from the devil. So, Nigerians should examine themselves
Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/07/hatred-in-nigeria-today-worse-than-in-1966-izuogu/
ASAKING
The then Head of State, General Sani Abacha, set up a 12 man panel made up of professionals to ascertain the roadworthiness and authenticity of the car and after several days of probing, the committee gave Dr Izuogu’s car a clean bill of health. General Sani Abacha, represented by the Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen Oladipo Diya, at a well-organised unveiling ceremony which had over 20 foreign ambassadors and thousands of people in attendance promised a grant of N235 million to Dr Izuogu but he never got the money. In 2006, the government of South Africa invited Dr Izuogu to a presentation about the car in the presence of several world-class engineers. They invited him to set up a plant in South Africa and begin the production of the car and he reluctantly agreed, though he wasn’t happy that the benefits of employment generation will be lost on the locals of Naze and the Nigerian human resources environment.
But on Saturday, March 11 2006, no fewer than 12 heavily armed men broke into Dr. Izuogu’s factory in Naze and carted away various machines and tools including the design history notebook of Z-600, the design file Z-MASS, containing the design history for mass production of Z-600 car, and the moulds for various parts of the car. In this encounter with Vanguard, Dr Ezekiel Izuogu talks about his dream for an indigenous Nigerian car, the Igbo question and why Nigeria is the way it is. You seemed to have faded off the scene since you launched your Z-600 Car in 1997, what are you doing currently? I am engaged in the international research of emagnetodynamics, a car engine that works with nothing. It produces its own energy and if you put it in your car, you can drive the car for 50 to 100 years. The engine works without petrol and if you have emagnetodynamics engine in your car, you can drive your car without petrol. It is not an electric car but a car in its category. It is being perfected in 130 countries across the world. That engages me completely. A car engine that works without fuel, is it possible? It has been done. The prototype has been produced and the world is surprised that the black race can do this. Russia, South Africa, New Zealand have perfected it. Europe has perfected it, so, that is what has been engaging my attention and I also didn’t like the way politics is going in Nigeria.
I’m in the All Progressives Congress, APC, but I don’t like the way things are going in Nigeria. Also read: The evil of unitarisation, by Patrick Obahiagbon What happened to the Z-600 car you produced? It was the first car we produced in Africa. We finished it and the government at that time, the government of General Sani Abacha supported it after he saw it in Owerri. In fact, the government wrote a letter that I should receive N253 million in order to smoothen the body of the car. The government was very impressed by the design and everything but no kobo came to me. Nigerians kept attacking the Z-600.
The problem in Nigeria is jealousy, there is a lot of jealousy in Nigeria, they kept attacking this product in the press and I didn’t have time to be replying them. I was more concerned with emagnetodynamics. So, that is the position. I thought the businessmen in Nigeria would take on the car and mass-produce it but they didn’t do so. And I have a more important design which is the invention of this emagnetodynamics engine or what they called the Izuogu Engine by the World International Property Organisation. So, that is what has happened. Your emagnetodynamics, is it in Nigeria now? Not yet. Is it that Nigeria did not believe in your innovations but other countries accepted you? The Izuogu machine is working in many countries of the world. Some people are even producing it illegally. They are going to pay us damages. They are producing it in Pakistan, they are producing it in America and few other places in 139 countries, but we are the owners of the franchise. Those who are producing it will pay us for it and if we want to produce it in Nigeria, we will do so. Nigeria is not technology-minded, otherwise, they would have embarked on it.
There’s this automobile company that says it wants to manufacture electric cars but ours is better than electric cars which need recharging twice or three times a day. We are far ahead. This does not need recharge or fuel and you can use this engine for about 50 years. The other day, Leyland Motors was in the Sun and they said they were going to produce the electric car and all that. It was exciting but electric cars are far below what I have invented.
They should be producing this car with our engine, that is what Leyland should do. They should enter an agreement with us and buy the rights to produce it. Did you market this idea in Nigeria? No, it has not been marketed at all. Many people don’t even believe that it is achievable because it is against the law of science, it is against the law of conservation of energy. So, virtually all engineers and scientists don’t believe it can be produced but it has been produced.
That means the problem is not Nigerians not buying into it but you not introducing the engine to Nigerians The problem is not Nigerians in this case even though Nigeria didn’t encourage me. President Muhammadu Buhari administration gave us only N10 million three years ago. Perhaps, you didn’t ask for more… I did. It was in the papers, it was the Minister of Science and Technology that presented the money to us and they had the media cover it. I thank the government for the gesture but I told them that it was most inadequate for this kind of invention. I made it clear to the press. But like you said, the product should be marketed. Even Europe that is producing it asked that it be marketed to other places. You didn’t market the Z-600 car after such much hype was made about it in the past. What really happened to it? The point is when you make a design and the design is successful, it now lies with those who are holding cash to promote it. If people had put in N5bn into the Z-600, you would have seen the car all over Africa. That design took me 14 years to design and manufacture. I used all the cash on me to manufacture it, to try to fabricate it and all that.
And now, I have another design which is far more important, that is the Izuogu Engine, and I didn’t want to waste time arguing with pressmen and those who were hired to be writing that no Igboman can produce a car, no Igboman can do anything, this man is not a mechanical engineer, he is not an automobile engineer, how could he come from electronics to produce a car? All these arguments were in the press and I refused to reply to any of them. There was no need. But I think times are changing. Look at what Innoson is doing and he’s succeeding. If his own cars are being used even in government quarters, even by the military, I think this is the time to push yours… We have different orientations. I am an inventor and not somebody who brings the car parts together. Innoson has done tremendously well but we’re not in the same category. We’re on different levels. How? I design a car, produce it, then I design the emagnetodynamics machine and I produced it. I am an international researcher. Innoson and I are at different levels. You talked about jealousy and when I look at Innoson and his current travails, would you say jealousy is playing out in his case? Yes, there are people who attack those who go into science and technology especially from the South East. It’s a culture which should be discouraged because everything we are doing is for the good of Nigeria. This emagenetodynamics machine can remove unemployment from the whole country. So, if you are attacking it because I am an Igbo man, that is self-deceit. Any intellectual property that you do here is for the good of the whole country, Nigeria, Africa and the whole world also. Everybody is a beneficiary and so, anybody that is attacking us in Nigeria is short-sighted which should not be in the system because Nigeria should take her proper place in the world. Now that you brought the Igbo thing into it, many have been saying that the enemy of the Igbo is the Igbo. Is this true? That is very correct. I watched a programme on TV sometime where a man was saying that the best thing that can happen to Nigeria is to produce a Nigerian President of Igbo descent but that it is an Igbo man that will kill him. The man was making a statement and he is not Igbo. The truth is, the selfishness among the Igbo is too much. Now, for this emagnetodynamics machine, it was a Yoruba governor, Dr, Olusegun Mimiko who gave N65 million three years ago to support us. No Igbo governor has given us a farm. Alex Ekwueme gave me N12.5 million when he was alive and he was going to give me another N22 million before he died.
But what about the other Igbo governors? They know about it but they won’t support it. So, the endemic selfishness among the Igbo should be tackled for Nigeria to move forward. It’s unfortunate. In other words, besides the perceived hatred of the Igbo by other ethnic groups, the Igbo are their own worst enemies… Yes. There’s that personal jealousy. It beats my imagination why the Igboman will not be excited by the good thing God is doing through them. We should support ourselves, we should love ourselves first for the other Nigerians to love the ingenuity of the Igbo. Nigerians should love Nigerians. If anything good is coming to Nigeria whether, from Kaduna, Oyo, Kafanchan, Port Harcourt or Enugu, we should love it because we all are Nigerians. If the economy of Nigeria is good, everybody will enjoy it, no matter the language you speak. But when the passion for the country is not there, we will continue having problems in Nigeria. I told you how a Yoruba friend put in N65 million for the project. I didn’t sign for it. He said I should continue what I am doing. That is a Yoruba man but some people will say Yorubas don’t like Igbos. It is not always the truth. It depends on who you meet. Nigeria fought a civil war in the past, but it’s like the events in Nigeria today are worse than the events that led to the civil war in 1967… I am 70 now. I was there when the civil war started and was fought, and I can confirm to you that the hatred in Nigeria today is worse than the events of 1966 that led to the civil war. And it is the responsibility of the man we made President to correct it. When I was supporting Buhari in 2015, people were phoning me and asking me to stop but I didn’t. I believed that if he can fight corruption, we should give him a chance. I didn’t know there was an Islamic agenda in the whole thing. To propose Ruga all over Nigeria is frightening and it is the duty of the President to stop it in whatever guise it is coming. If he imposes that, he is endangering the whole country and you are telling the different parts of Nigeria to prepare for war. If you are asking Muslims to prepare for war through the introduction of Ruga, you are also asking Christians to do the same. And if there is war, there can be no progress and Nigeria has not recovered from the 1967-70 war, let alone prepare for another one. So, I appeal to President Buhari, let him stop this thing. He was elected to protect the lives of Nigerians no matter their village, no matter their tongue, it is the responsibility of the President to protect the lives of Nigerians, whether they are Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Tiv, Ijaw or from wherever.
He should not introduce any programme that will obstruct peace or endanger lives. I am appealing to him, I prayed for him in all the states in the federation to succeed in 2015, but the kind of vibes coming into Nigeria now is scary. I am speaking as a Christian. I will always make sure Christian and other peoples’ interests are protected. I cannot be a party to any conspiracy that will endanger the lives of Christians in Nigeria. Neither will I be a party to a conspiracy that endangers the lives of any Nigerian, whether he is a Muslim, a pagan or a Christian or whatever. I cannot be a party to that conspiracy. Everything should be done to avoid it. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo wrote a good letter to Buhari. That letter should be skillfully studied. Those who are attacking OBJ are not patriotic at all, they are anti-Nigeria. Obasanjo spoke as an elder statesman and he has been there. He has been President of Nigeria on many occasions and it was out of the burden of his heart that he wrote the letter.
Strangely, the people attacking Obasanjo were happy when he supported Buhari during his first term. If he is now writing him letters, we should take it seriously in the interest of Nigeria. Obasanjo saw an increase in ethnicism, structural imbalance, and religious intimidation, why do we have so much distrust now? The policies of the government are not helping issues. If government policies are good, Nigerians will not be kicking. Let us stop the discrimination. All those in government should stop the discrimination against other tribes. Some people are calling for restructuring, some are calling for the national conference. Many feel marginalised in the scheme of things, what is your take, restructuring or another confab? I have attended two national conferences. I attended the one that was held five years ago and the one before it. We are done with conferences. In the last national conference, Nigerians bared their minds and it was a northerner that chaired the conference. We did our best. The resolutions of that conference should be implemented. All the recommendations of the last conference should be implemented. You can only implement it if you want Nigeria to move forward because the resolutions are equivalent to restructuring. Nobody will have an undue advantage, Nigerians will strive on an equal basis and if we’ re striving on equality, the best candidate will emerge. But if you want to structure it one side against the other, it will only lead to confrontations, fighting and threats of war and that is not good. You’re a member of the APC, many have said the Igbo play bad politics and they put their eggs in one basket and in the process, are losing out in the scheme of things. There is no Igbo among security chiefs and in key government positions That is why President Buhari should make the changes. He is the father of the nation and the number one citizen of Nigeria. He should make changes in his policies. The security chiefs cannot come from one side, it has never happened in Nigeria since independence.
These positions are normally scattered among the tribes. So, if he now wants to pick them from one tribe in the country, there will be problems. How do you asses our elders in Nigeria, Northern elders, Afenifere, Ohanaeze and many others? Are they guiding us in the way we should go? The leadership of these elders are not behaving well and their misbehaviour goes back to selfishness. When people said the Igbos voted one side, it is because of the orientation they got from the leadership. In Yorubaland, some of their leaders said, vote 50-50. If two people are vying for the presidency, chances are that one of them will win. If you vote only one side and the other side wins, it means you are technically out of government. So, in a mature political understanding, you don’t really rule against anybody, let the people be guided by their consciences. If people are guided by their consciences and they vote according to the leading of their consciences, no section of the country will vote only one side, they will vote both ways. It is those who are calling on the Igbos to vote one side who are the problem of the Igbo. So, our politics is not well organised, if Igbo sought advice from experienced politicians, they would not vote the way they did. What chances have the Igbos under an APC-led government given the way they voted? Some of them are not representing us well. Look at Rochas Okorocha, over a year ago, I told him not to put his son-in-law to succeed him, he told me he was going to think about it. But what did he do? He pumped resources into that boy and even the boy had to leave APC to run on the platform of AA. That is extreme rascality. You don’t do that in a political party and what is more, Imo was the only state APC was holding in the South East and APC lost Imo because of the carelessness of the governor. Would I support him? No. Even though Okorocha comes from my local government, I never supported that boy. When people are individualistic, they lose and we have seen it. A lot of our Igbo brothers are individualistic, they consider only what is good for them and that is why you bring your son-in-law to be a governorship candidate in a state where you were governor. That is selfishness. If you are a leader, you should jettison your self-centredness and work for the good of the people you are leading. The interest of Imo people should have been uppermost in Okorocha’s mind. If you have governed well, you should produce another who will excel over you in performance no matter the zone he comes from. That is the leadership of a God-fearing man. In July 1966, some Nigerians started beating drums of war. Now, 53 years after, some people have started invading Nigeria from other countries; there are killings everywhere.
How do we get out of these? Should we do anything that will consume Nigeria if we really love this country? Should a Nigerian do something that will consume the whole country?
That is the question we should be asking, why should Nigerians be beating drums of war after we have fought a civil war that consumed many people? Why should we be doing that if we are human beings? No wonder, they are making restrictions against Nigerians in America and other world powers. They know what is coming from Nigeria is not good.
They should not transport it to their country. That’s what they are saying and that is bad. Let us make the world see something good about Nigeria and not characteristics that destroy the nation. Suddenly, Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world. It is all because of human self-centeredness and activities, it is self-centredness that will make one man put Nigeria’s money into his account and transfer some overseas. That’s what Nigerians do. An individual will be richer than the whole country. And that was why in 2015, it played in our minds and we said, if Buhari is going to fight corruption, let us support him, that was the genesis of supporting Buhari. I didn’t know there was an Islamic agenda. I have been in politics for over 40 years and I am a Christian. That is why I cannot become a minister because they know my Christian views. I love my Christianity more than any ministerial appointment. So, in these insecurities and skirmishes, how do we save Nigeria? Nigerians should go back to God. If you are a human being you will not do certain things. It is because people’s relationships with God have broken down, that is why they think of killing other
people and the devil now controls their thinking. Some people’s mind is controlled by the devil because go and kill are not from God, it is from the devil. So, Nigerians should examine themselves
Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/07/hatred-in-nigeria-today-worse-than-in-1966-izuogu/
ASAKING
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