On the 15th of August 1945,
the axis nations fighting in the Pacific theater defeated imperial Japan and
two weeks later, Japan formally surrendered to allied forces led by the U.S.
General, Douglas McArthur, who formally accepted the signed articles of
surrender.
Igbo Chiefs
But though the U.S.
defeated Japan, they never decimated Japan’s great technological and industrial
complex. They were visionary enough to distinguish these from Japan’s military
industrial complex, which they scrapped.
Realizing that Japan was
decades ahead of the West in many technologies, the allied powers, led by the
US, allowed those industries to remain as
a going concern and took the unique step of enacting legislation and policies
to enable them flourish.
What they did in Japan,
they also did in Europe. In Europe, the US, acting unilaterally, even went a
step further by introducing the Marshall Plan through which America sent
financial and other types of aid to help Europe (and especially Germany)
recover from the ravages of the Second World War.
The point of the allied and
American actions in Japan and Europe is that technological advancement belongs to
the human race and should not be allowed to suffer because of a quarrel or war
amongst humans.
This lesson was thoroughly
established in 642 AD when the Library of Alexandria was burnt to the ground
during the Muslim conquest of Egypt.
It has been argued that
that act set the world several centuries back in technological advancement and
has become something to watch out for during the prosecution of a war.
A war is a quarrel between
or amongst people that is settled by means of violence. It is not a quarrel
between or amongst technology, so civilized nations have pursued the policy of
fighting wars while preserving technology.
Gone should be the days of
the scorched earth policy which is why despite the bestiality of the apartheid
regime, President Nelson Mandela did not do a Mugabe, but rather left intact
White owned farms, industry and universities and only insisted that they be
opened to Blacks and other races.
This brings me to Nigeria.
I would like to state a fact that will be argued against, but still a fact that
even those who would argue against it know to be true.
The Igbo (or Ibo) ethnic
nationality of Nigeria are the most technologically advanced Black race on
planet earth, bar none!
This is a fact. A fact that
was proven to be true for 30 months while they were landlocked in their
constantly shrinking enclave known as Biafra.
Cut off from the rest of
the world, the ingenuity of the Igbo came to the fore during the civil war as
they constructed the Uli airstrip and when that airstrip was bombed, they
repaired it in record time and under the most trying circumstances. They would
go on to repair Uli not once and not twice.
The Igbos refined petrol
from a variety of non fossil fuels, including from but not limited to palm
products (from which they also produced diesel) and manufactured surface to air
missiles which they also adapted to surface to surface missiles (theOgbunigwe).
They converted commercial
planes to fighter jets and weaponized them. That was no mean feat in 1967.
In fact, when in 2012, the
Nigerian Army rolled out the igirigi and promoted it as the first indigenous
armored personnel carrier, they were wrong. I am not a Biafran. I am proudly
Nigerian. And beyond that, I am a proud dark skinned Black African yet I make
bold to say that the igirigi is not the first indigenous APC.
In fact, the first
indigenous armored personnel carrier in Black Africa is the Red Devil, built by
the Igbos during the Nigerian Civil War.
The Nigerian Civil War
ended in January 1970 and the Nigerian Army unveiled theigirigi in July of
2012. If they had converted the Red Devil to their own use, they would probably
be talking about a greater feat in the year 2012.
My question is what
happened in the intervening 42 years between 1970 and 2012? Why didn’t the
Nigerian Army integrate the military industrial complex of Biafra into its
Defence Industry Corporation of Nigeria, DICON?
Why did we have to reinvent
the wheel at great cost in terms of time and money?
The Nigerian Civil War
ended on a note of ‘no victor no vanquished’. That was a watershed moment
inspired by the Christlike mind of General Yakubu Gowon. That gesture is to be
applauded.
But why did we as a nation
not go the whole hog and take advantage of Biafra’s technological advances and
integrate her scientists into our Research and Development sector much like the
US did with German and Japanese scientists?
That is where we failed as
a nation.
I remember growing up as a
child and how other Nigerians scoffed at ‘Igbo made’ electronic products. There
was hardly anything including electronics, pharmaceuticals, spirits and wines
that the Igbos could not counterfeit.
And rather than our leaders
seeing the potential in those products, we all scoffed at them. Igbo made
products were a pariah.
Did it ever occur to any of
our leaders that if government had supported these technological advancement,
Nigeria could have become an industrialized nation today and Igbo made products
would have been exported abroad as made in Nigeria products?
It would surprise many that
a number of the greatest technological advancement and products that came out
of America after the Second World War were the work of German or Japanese
scientists!
In an operation code named
Operation Paperclip, 1500 German scientists, engineers and technicians were
airlifted to the United States and given US permanent US residency and
citizenship immediately after the defeat of Germany in 1945. The primary aim of
Operation Paperclip was to prevent these skilled men and women from falling
into Soviet Russian hands.
Hans Erich (Eric) Hollmann
who was one of the fathers of radar technology was one of such scientists
airlifted to America.
Kurt Lehovec the pioneer of
the integrated circuit systems in electrical engineering is another. He was
airlifted to America in 1945 where he became a Professor at the University of
Southern California and passed on his knowledge to America’s next generation of
scientists.
The allies had been having
issues with the jet engine and were not able to develop planes like the German
Messerschmitt Me 262. But after the defeat of Germany, US forces gave safe
passage to Rudi Beichel who went to the US and became an adviser to the US army
on liquid propulsion. Other German scientists such as Magnus “Mac” Freiherr von
Braun and his brother, Wernher Von Braun helped reverse engineer German jets
which led to the development of the US American F-86 Sabres, a plane that
helped the US dominate the air during the Korean War.
More importantly, Wernher
Von Braun provided much of the know how that helped America build the Apollo
spacecraft which allowed America beat Russia as the first nation to get to the
moon.
Methamphetamine was
invented by Japanese a Japanese chemist, Nagai Nagayoshi and the drug was
shared with their German allies and helped their soldiers stay awake and focus.
After the war, German scientists helped American scientist synthesize the drug
which revolutionized the US health industry.
Why can’t we do the same in
Nigeria? Can you imagine what our technological base would have been if we as a
nation had a policy of patronizing the so called Igbo made products right from
the end of the war till today? What if we had absorbed the the Research and
Production Organisation of Biafra (RAP as it was then known) into the Nigerian
Army Corps of Engineers?
By now, we may have been
manufacturing jets and we would not be dependent on foreign nations for weapons
to fight terrorists.
This is why I was so
disgusted with the minister of science and technology, Ogbonnaya Onu for
aspiring, on Nigeria’s behalf, to produce pencils by 2018!
I mean this man is the
first civilian governor of the old Abia state which today encompasses both Abia
and Ebonyi states.
Right there, under his own
nose, Nigerians of Igbo extraction, without ANY governmental support, are
manufacturing electronics and heavy machinery components and Onu is caught up
on pencils!
Onu should visit Nnewi if
he knows where it is. Right there he would see a city that does not wait for
government. Nnewi people are so industrious that after years of waiting
endlessly for government to provide basic amenities, they have built their own
roads, have their own power stations and their own water works.
Just like Japan, Nnewi has
manufacturers of such things like batteries, pistons, automobiles and other
products. These Nnewi manufacturers have built schools for the kids of their
workers on site, just like in Japan.
You just need to visit
Nnewi or Aba to see what is going on in Nigeria. These guys are Nigeria’s most
guarded secret because even the federal government is not aware of them.
And the reason why this is
so is because these people are Igbos!
It is time for Nigeria to
forgive the Igbos for being Igbo and accept them as full partners and equal
partners in the Nigerian project and use the entire strength of the Nigerian
federal government to provide them the support to fulfill their destiny as the
Black African people that are nucleus of the technological advancement of
Africa.
Notice I say Africa, not
just Nigeria. I don’t say this lightly. All over West and Central Africa,
Nigerians of Igbo extraction are the backbone of the commercial and
technological sectors.
I can say what I have said
above without any accusation of self or group interest promotion because I am
not Igbo neither am I married to one. I have said the truth as my conscience
sees it because I am committed to advancement of the Black Race because as a
proud Black man, I know that no black African tribe is as great as the Black
Race when it is united.
Article By Reno Okri
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