By Ikeazor Akaraiwe, SAN
1: At a time like this, with threats of violence and actual violence against the Igbo over electoral choices, I have said it before and will say it again, that:
2: The Yoruba as a people are not enemies of the Igbo. And vice versa.
3: It is persons who are ignorant of history, and desperadoes who want to create a schism between the Yoruba and the Igbo, and between the Igbo and God-knows-who-else.
4: It remains an interesting reference point that during and after the civil war (1967-70), not one Igbo-owned property was confiscated by the Yoruba in the entire west under the title ‘abandoned property,’ unlike some other parts of Nigeria.
5: Stories abound of Yoruba charity during that war of which the most famous was Otunba Subomi Balogun [FCMB] who collected rent and kept an eye on the house owned by a certain young architect, Alex Ekwueme, who fled Lagos in the wake of the civil war.
6: When Ekwueme returned after the war, there was his house and his rents, collected by his conscientious neighbour, waiting for him.
7: It is also said (but I cannot confirm) that Otunba Balogun’s banking career received substantial boost in the form of a scarce banking license when that neighbour became vice-president of Nigeria, 9 years after that war.
8: This is one of several stories of Yoruba magnanimity during a very difficult time for the Igbo, and I would urge my fellow Ibos not to fall prey to a persecution complex propelled by social deviants, miscreants, and a microscopic minority of demented souls.
9: I urge all Nigerians to rather look at better examples of angelic behaviour of our neighbours, east, west, south and north, and then seek to understand one another better. As Steven Covey says in his epic work, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,’ “Seek First To Understand and Then Be Understood.”
IA Akaraiwe, SAN
9th March, 2023.
