The economy of the former Eastern Region was planned from ground up by the US consulting firm Arthur D. Little

The economy of the former Eastern Region was planned from ground up by the US consulting firm Arthur D. Little

Dr. Azikiwe brought them and they worked with M I Okpara at first, then with Sam Otti and later Eluwa who headed the Civil Service and later with Sir Louis Phillip Odumegwu Ojukwu who at the time was the Chairman of the Eastern Nigerian Development Corporation (ENDC) and also the Chairman of the Eastern Nigeria Commodities Board (ENCB)

Louis Phillip  Odumegwu Ojukwu also sat as Chairman of 15 multinational companies at the time - John Holt, PZ, Michelin, Costain, Thomas Wyatt, Guinness, GB Ollivant etc

He was so rich that he single handedly funded the establishment of the Lagos Stock Exchange but refused to list his company there for fear of losing control

His photo still hangs proudly on the floor of that exchange as its first chairman

Arthur D Little also worked with a coterie of young Eastern Nigerian economists at the time - Pius Okigbo (PhD Northwestern), Ukwu I. Ukwu (PhD Cambridge), Chukwu Sunday Okongwu (PhD Harvard). These young men in their early twenties worked with Arthur D Little to plan our economy from scratch

I know this because Ukwu I Ukwu taught me at Nsukka and I also worked in Dr Chu SP Okongwu's economic planning firm right during and after grad school in Nigeria.

Arthur D. Little recommended the setting up of a university in the East to produce key skills needed to drive economic growth as most of those skills were not being taught in Ibadan at the time

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THE IGBO DELTA STORY

#igbohistory3000bc

According to Dennis Osadebey in the book, Building A Nation, Nnebisi was the

son of a Nteje woman, Diana, who had gotten pregnant to an Igala man, Ojobo
 

Nnebisi grew up in Nteje thinking he was of the kindred, but one day, after a quarrel, he was told that his father was not from there, so he could not take part in land sharing. 

He thus left Nteje with his followers and followed a route which brought him to the great river. If you look at a map of those areas, it is quite easy to trace the route taken by Nnebisi, which must have taken him through Nsugbe, and then along the Anambra River (Ọma Mbala), and then t the point where the Anambra River joins the Niger River.
 
That precise point where the Anambra River joins the Niger Rivers coincidental, the precise point where you can take an eight-minute boat ride and land at Cable Point in Asaba. Nnebisi and his people crossed landed at Ikpele Nmili and decided to plant their crops there for the year. A year later, after a great harvest was (of course the area is rich in alluvial soils brought from upstream by the river), they decided to settle there. 

Nnebisi called the place Ani Ahaba (We have settled in this land), and four hundred years later, some white chap hearing the name that the natives called their land, wrote Asaba in his map, and not Ahaba. That man was Carlo Zappa, an Italian priest who was appointed Prefect of the Upper Niger by the Catholic Church.

Zappa spent a lot of time converting the natives in both Asaba and Onitsha, and to Ojoto, East of the Niger, and Agbor, West of the Niger.
A look through Catholic records during the Ekumeku resistance will show that at the turn of the century, most of the Catholic priests in what is now the Diocese of Issele Uku in Delta State, came from the Onitsha area, as they were all under the same ecclesiastical province
 
A look at the roll call of the dead from the Aba Women’s affair of 1929, shows that the wife of the Sanitary headman in Opobo was from Asaba, which kind of tells you the direction in which people went before the split of Southern Nigeria into East and West in 1954.
Up until that point in 1954, many from the Igbo speaking areas just west of the Niger River, found it easier to cross the river to do their business.
And why not? 
The distance between Asaba and Owerri is just 102km.
Asaba to Enugu is 125km, while Asaba to Umuahia is 142km.

All of these places are closer to Asaba than Warri, which in modern Nigerian geopolitics is in the same state as Asaba. Warri is 176km from Asaba.
The Asaba man, when he arrives in either Enugu, Owerri or Umuahia, speaks the same language as the people in those places, barring the normal dialectal differences that occur in languages that are spread over large geographical areas.
This same Asaba man would arrive in Warri, and would be at a complete loss as to what the native in Warri is saying…

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY BRETHREN IN THE "SOUTH-SOUTH"

By Donald Ekpo, Akwa Ibom State

"For as long as the Old Eastern region remain in disarray and not united, self-determination of the region will remain impossible." ~ An anonymous retired Nigerian Army Chief
The word “South-South,” even though it may sound absurd, is a name we have come to accept as a people. We can’t say exactly how we came about to be identified with the name neither can we say exactly when we were given the name, but we just know it is our name. While growing up back in the days, geography taught us about “the North,” “the South,” “The East” and “The West.” For proper definition of locations, we were also told about “The Northwest, NorthEast, Southwest and SouthEast” I can’t remember anything like the “NorthNorth”, “SouthSouth”, “EastEast” or Westwest , but here I am today, writing a letter to my South-South brethren. That is what happens to a people that are not in control of their Cultural Development or the Political and Economic Future.

That is what happens to a people that are just there for their numbers, that is what happens to people that are just kept for their services, that is what happens to people that are just custodians of wealth for a supposedly superior people, and finally, that is what happens to peoples that are slaves. Any name is suitable for them, they can only get whatever is given to them even if it is originally theirs. If in doubt, please remind me of the meaning of KUNTA KINTE.

I write this letter not because it is frustrating to see how we allowed a defrauded propaganda to position our people as the pawns in the Political Chess called Nigeria, but rather, I write this letter in an effort to request that we free ourselves from these propaganda that has lingered for too long. If our grandfathers and fathers did not ask questions, is there any divine law that says we cannot ask? We know we all belonged to the old Eastern Region of Nigeria before the Northern Protectorate took back their power after the gruesome murder of General Aguiyi Ironsi.

Just for the records, let me do us a bit of history here; Major General Ironsi as Head of State was cornered and arrested somewhere in western Nigeria on July 29th of 1966, his hands and feet were tied together, then tied to a Land Rover with a little space in between, and driven on a tarred road, face down for several kilometers. The then highest ranking Northern officer, an acting (Unconfirmed) Lieutenant Colonel was chosen to be the next Head of State ahead of serving Brigadiers, Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels of the Southern Nigeria, followed by the dreadful killings of officers and soldiers of Eastern Nigeria including our so called South South soldiers and officers.

The genocide that followed is what is recorded as the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 – 1970. As if that was not enough, the Eastern region was broken apart with the sudden creation of the then South Eastern State (today’s Cross Rivers and Akwa Ibom), Rivers State (Today’s Rivers State and Bayelsa). It was during that war that propagandas were designed, created and generated to separate us from the old Eastern Region and make the average Igbo man our potential enemy in an effort to reduce their own presumed enemies. In as much as it is a bitter history, but I find it necessary to do you this preamble.

I write this letter to remind us that our region, known as the South-South today was a creation of the North for the sake of creating the disunity we face today. And moreso, it was not just for the disunity for them to win the war, but to also take away our resources, our manpower and our economic future. In 2014 when President Jonathan, a son of the so called South-South decided to re-contest the 2015 elections, Sheik Junaid Mohammed in an engagement on behalf the Northern Protectorate, reminded us that the so called South-South was a creation of the North for effective management of the Northern interest in Eastern Nigeria. How bad could this be? Can we imagine that? So while we are busy reminding ourselves that we are a different people or that the Igbos are wicked and are trying to kill us, the North is joyously taking over and owning 85% of our oil wells while the West takes over the left overs.