Dear Igbos,
The past may either make you bitter or better. I spoke at my home town in Aba over the weekend at an event in front of my father for the first time and my message was simple, “We need to create a better homeland here and you don’t need Buhari or anyone to do that. It starts from us. The solution can come from here and not Abuja. Yes, the present government is replacing old type of corruption with a new type called nepotism but my Dear Igbo Brothers, haven’t you noticed you’re a genius. It doesn’t make you superior than others but you are special at least.”So what?” is my attitude to life. So what if you are not given a chance. Look at your classmates or your family and you’d notice that equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcome.
You need no validation, not even by politics. You survive anywhere that is why you are everywhere. Pick that up and be creative. Face Your Work. Stop Selling To Our kids the same old National Bitterness. Black Americans did that from slavery and that’s why they are the most backward in America. Blacks in South Africa have the same challenge after apartheid. If you don’t forgive, forget and overwrite with a better strategy, you can’t move on. Look at things with an unbiased and clear mind and you’ll participate better. Your own leaders haven’t represented you well. Ask them questions back home before you look up Abuja. It took an Obama to be in the White House because he had parent who didn’t sell that same old black power bitterness of being black (maybe because he was raised majorly by white people). He was also excellent that he flawed any discrimination to emerge. Excellence is the best weapon for discrimination, shout out to Kachikwu of NNPC, Dora of NAFDAC, Peter Obi of Anambra, Soludo of CBN (the difference is clear isn’t it). A time will come where this country will look up to excellence and not association.
You may be politically irrelevant, but if we took out any atom of bitterness and faced what we have, our economic brilliance, creativity, wisdom and entrepreneurial spirit, we can collaborate more, we can buy back everything we lost and more, including power and that freedom if we still need it. This for me is how tribalism and race can be fought. Let’s build something tangible like the Jews have done, other things like power will align. It is just the principles of life. So face your work, at least you have one.
Things can either drain or inspire you.
I wrote 5 steps to fight discrimination.
Step 1 of 5,
1.NO ONE REALLY RESPECTS YOU IF THEY DON’T THINK YOU HAVE A BACK UP.
The Chinese, Indian and Italian gangs are more bloody than black gangsters (which is even exaggerated in movies and Hip Hop), however no one touches them because they know if they do, there are people who will fight for them. It may even become an international issue as they come from a community that is powerful. This is one of the most powerful concept. But let’s be real, there’s no real power without unity and progress. this means finance also.
For number 2 to 5, visit Nigeria’s most powerful business community:
https://hbc.org.ng/2016/07/
