...says the Chinese business dominance conflict, a reflection of colonial interference
By Chris Onuoha
President of ASHE foundation, Prince Justice Faloye has taken a swipe on the recent protest by Igbo businessmen in Lagos over an alleged Chinese dominance in some businesses in the country.
The ASHE president, who is also the National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere in a statement, made it clear that China, globally known as manufacturers would not ordinarily chose to displace a sizeable group of business community, and also, mentioned that the insinuation that ethnic rivalry between Yoruba and Igbo led credence to the alleged dominance. He stressed that the ensuing conflicts stems from colonial ideological invasion into an existing affinity among the original African tribes.
He stated: “The current online colonially induced ethno-centered rivalry between the Yoruba and Igbo is a disheartening manifestation of a psycho-culturally damaged original African civilization, balkanized into tribes.
It could be insane to think or believe that the Yoruba invited the Chinese to destroy the Igbo electronics business monopoly in Lagos, knowing well that the Chinese manufacture and dominate the manufacturing businesses across the world.”
Foloye noted that while some Nigerian elites work together with known political gladiators; Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and President Tinubu, who have backups from certain elder Statesmen in the country, the common man is divided along superficial tribal lines, ready to blindly fight for their prebendalist leaders.
“Recall that those now called Igbo used to be the Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa civilizational industrialists before coloniality turned them into present day spare parts dealers of other civilizations. While the iron rich region between Ajaokuta and Awka used to be the industrial center that produced most of the iron tools of the Original African civilization, the Lejja Nsukka is the oldest known iron mine dated 2000 BC, four thousand years ago, at least a good 1000 years before other world civilizations.
“Indigenous Africans armed with Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa knowledge systems migrated out of the origin of humanity Ife, while those later named Ijaw migrated along the mangrove coastal waterways to their present location, majority migrated further north to Ajaokuta/Lokoja into Idah, where some migrated north were later named Nupe and Gwari, while those that spread southward were later called Igbo. With the continuous migration, some migrated further afield to populate the world, while those that stayed behind in the iron region became the Original African industrialists,” stated Faloye.
Arguing over the alleged business dominance on the land by foreign influence, Faloye made reference to European incursion in the slave trade era.
According to him, “European transatlantic slavery disrupted the Lower Niger area civilization sociopolitically and economically. The attack on the Nri civilization disrupted the sociopolitical evolution from Eze theocracy to Obi dynastic monarchy that spread from Ife via Benin into Onitsha/Awka heartland. The slavery raids from the Niger River dispersed Igbo of the Nri civilization living across the present Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi States, pushing them southwards into Imo and Abia States and the coast where they also joined the slave trade.
“However, Igbo retained their core iron industrial capabilities, even when slavery evolved into colonization, and our means of exchange like cowries were sabotaged, Igbo were known to use Iron as money which they hung around their necks like money. Colonization balkanized the Original African civilization by turning the continuum of dialects into rival tribes. The tribal social constructs like Yoruba and Igbo lost their unifying civilizational identities, and their civilizational roles were derailed.
“Yoruba, the genetic and cultural source of the Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa Original African civilization, became the greatest purveyors of the Christian Abrahamic civilization, due to the colonial miseducation that mislabeled Esu the messenger of the Ifa civilization as Satan. Igbo the Original African civilizational industrialists became the salesmen of the produce of other civilizations as Ekwensu the patron saint of industry became Satan. Thereby the two largest indigenous African groups instead of uplifting their civilization, became its agents of arrested sociopolitical and economic development.
“The British colonists engaged in institutional violence to break up the Original African civilization into Middlebelt, West and Eastern regions, which imbued tribal exceptionalism and prebendalist elites that shared the crumbs from foreign governance among friends and family, which led to intense tribal rivalry and hatred in the civil service, politics and middlemen businesses.
“Cosmic scientists state that if you fail to fulfill your manifest destiny, the universal will force you against your will to thread the right path. This is what is unfolding with the Chinese setting up shop in Lagos to cutoff the Igbo middlemen of Chinese manufactures. This is an unstoppable trend because even if Chinese physical presence is challenged, they will sell directly to consumers through the online digital market and delivery systems.
“The only way Igbos can compete is to go back to their civilizational role to produce Original African industrial goods at a lower cost and better quality. It has long been predicted that Nigeria with its low cost of labour, natural resources and huge local markets is the world’s next manufacturing center after China, so this is an indirect push to rise to the challenge which Igbo are naturally capable. Instead of ethnic baiting, pressure government to protect and patronize local manufacturing by mandating all government tiers to only buy Nigerian cars and electronics.”
The Afenifere scribe laments that the old era mentality that still dwells in the psyche of the indigenous people has caused lots of damage, creating ethnic division and rivalry among brothers unless it is purged out with social democratic ideology.
“Until the majority of Yoruba and Igbo are weaned off coloniality of knowledge and power sources and economics, the Black Race will remain economically and sociopolitical arrested. Without decoloniality, they will continue to be slaves distracted by colonial social constructs and aimless online ethnic baiting. Instead of ethnic rivalry in politics and economics, the two largest indigenous African groups should unite against neoliberalism, and fight for social democracy.”
