Time For Ndigbo To Protect Their Dignity, Right To Live & Do Business Anywhere By Charles Ogbu

I find it gravely unsettling, confusing, even, whenever we resort to preaching “Aku Ruo Uno” (Invest In AlaIgbo) as a response to hate-induced business policies targeted at Igbo businesses in either the North or the West.

To be clear, Charles Ogbu remains an ardent apostle of the “Think Home” campaign. Anyone who has been reading me here knows I have never stopped celebrating Igbo business owners who defied all odds to locate their business headquarters or cite reasonable percent of their investment in Alaigbo. Names of companies like Tiger Foods, Innoson Motors and so many others have always been on my lips for this reason.

But…

As commonsensically expedient as the “Aku Ruo Uno” campaign is, it is self-defeatist when we deploy it as the answer to economic Leeches and political Brigands hiding behind government to brazenly violate our fundamental human rights.

It is as counter-productive and dispiriting as when a victim of an UNJUST attack turns around to start blaming himself or making excuses for the Aggressor with pathetic lines such as, “ah, I shouldn’t have taken this route ooo” “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone out today at all”

You were not attacked for going out or taking a particular route. You were attacked because your Aggressor believes he can attack you and get away with it. The day you stop trying to run into your mother’s womb and face your Bully, that is the day the bullying will come to an end.

Even if we were to have an independent Biafra Nation this very night, it is still impossible for every Igbo person to relocate their business back home to the point that you won’t find Ndigbo living and doing business in other part of Nigeria.

Aside the logical impossibility of this, it is not in our nature as a person to be confined to one place even if that one place is flowing with milk and honey. We like to explore. In terms of business, we are adventurous.

Our Natural Entrepreneurs drive is not territorially limited. Even in the coffin, an Igbo man doesn’t rest. If he is not thinking of what to do to make money in heaven, he is thinking of how to convince Uncle Lucifer to allow him arrange some Air-conditioning system in hell.

This is why you will go to the far end of war-ravaged Yobe with no electricity, no road and poor or no access to ordinary TeleCom network and right there, doing business, is one Igbo man or woman.

This is not foolishness. It is not even a suicide act. It is simply our nature. Man is but a prisoner to his own nature.


So the notion that we should all relocate our investment home as a solution to anti-Igbo business policies or attack by some political thugs or their gangster sponsors is a very wrong notion.

The Jews with whom we share some cultural and historical affinity don’t all live in their homeland neither are their businesses all located at home.

After being forced into a bitter war simply for trying to leave this thing masquerading as a Nation, the time has come for every Igbo person to come together and device means of standing their ground and fighting to defend their right to live and do business in a “Nation” they were forced to remain part of by dishonest folks who mouth off “One-Nigeria” this minute only to demonstrate the exact opposite by their actions the next minute.

Be it in Lagos, Kano or Kaduna, be it legal or illegal means, Ndigbo must find a way to protect their dignity of human person and right to live and do business in any part of the country as enshrined in that book they call the Constitution.

We will not do this because we are Igbos. We will do this because we are humans and citizens of a free world.

The best way to stop a bully is by confronting him.

Nigeria cannot be resisting Biafra and restructuring and still be using unholy means to treat Ndigbo like the children of a lesser god.

Mmadu o na aju ibu uzo, jukwa i no n’azu?

We have agonized for far too long. Time has come when we must organize to protect ourselves anywhere we find ourselves.

Nwanyi na atu amu egwu, ginidi ka o ga eji tulu ime?