BusinessDay 22 Oct 2017

C002D5556
24 BD SUNDAY
SundayInterview
Sunday 22 October 2017
‘I don’t believe Buhari was equipped
to run a country like Nigeria’
Professor Mark Odu, popularly known as M.A.C. Odu, is a real estate professional and charismatic intellectual. He is an acclaimed realtor
and appraiser in the real estate and building construction field, with extensive experience in Oil Valuations, Urban Real Estate Development
Studies and Farm Valuations. Odu is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers and a leading proponent of the
“Cooperative Paradigm for Rural Development.” He has taught in many institutions of higher learning, such as the University of Lagos
(senior lecturer and acting head of department), the University of Nigeria Nsukka (as visiting lecturer), and Imo State University (adjunct
pioneer establishment faculty). Today, he is a traditional ruler from Amaohuru Nguru in Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State.
He spoke to SABY ELEMBA, tracing the cause and origin of the alleged hatred for Igbo by other ethnic groups in Nigeria, including the
fever of fear of domination by the Igbo which, according to him, has gripped the Hausa-Fulani; the disunity among Nigerians, among other
issues. The monarch said that that Nigeria may implode if the process of restructuring was not started now and that it would be like an ill
wind that blows no one good. Excerpts:
My interactions with many
Nigerians show that a good
number of them are of the
opinion that the country is
drifting in many respects.
May we have your perspective on the current
state of the nation?
Alright, I am Eze, Professor Mark Odu. I
was born in this village (town) Amaohuru
Nguru in the year 1944 and we moved to
Lafia in the Southern Plateau then but now
Nassarawa State four days after I was born.
So, I was technically born here but where I
got my certificate was in Lafia; that is, I grew
up in Hausa land. I have travelled along
the road and rail lines through secondary
schools but I am thoroughly Nigerian. I
schooled for secondary school in Lagos in
St. Finbars. I speak Yoruba; I speak Hausa,
English and Igbo. There is no plural for Igbo
“the Igbos”, I do not like it, it is not correct,
but “the Igbo”, the plural or singular is Igbo.
So with that background, the first thing
you asked was the current state of the nation.
You know, to have lamentations at
my 73 years on earth is not so nice because
I saw when this country was moving up. I
saw Ndigbo spread out so evenly through
railway through transportation, through
education throughout Nigeria. And Ndigbo
held sway in most parts of governance that
people were frightened of us because we
held up for one another. When a fellow got
to the position of power he brought his own
people to help them more, unfortunately
through this historic war experience and
so on we fragmented our unity and it is no
longer comfortable with our neighbours.
One of our serious errors is not to have
developed the North when we were there;
we did not give education to the Hausa
down-trodden; had we given education to
the Hausa people they would have been
doing their fighting by now themselves.
There is a class feeling over the heads of
their majority preventing them from rising.
Why should a community have people
whose job is to beg for food around in the
villages and towns where there are big
people? These were the people who have
grown up to become the Boko Harams of
our time. Our problem is lack of love for
one another even within each ethnic group
there is no love.
The Hausa believe in the fragmentation
of the society, the elite must not be touched
then the down-trodden, there is no middle
class. But the problem they have now is that
Mark Odu
the middle class is claiming their space and
it has to be turbulent.
The East, the war made us atomic, the
point that held us together is no longer
there. Property and possession have taken
the frontal brain of all Igbo people; our
neighbours, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers
even up to Delta and so on and so forth
they are frightened of us because we did not
love them enough to spread resources when
we were in charge in the Eastern Nigerian.
I am sure that you know that the war
was fought on the basis of the importance
of the Igbo man in the Nigerian geo-politics.
Ojukwu was hasty with that war, we
were not prepared. He gave the impression
that no power in black Africa could subdue
Biafra, it was wrong. To start with, he was
Quarter Master General in Nigerian Army;
he ought to have known the massive nature
of the armament in Nigeria as Quarter master-general.
He ought not to have chosen to
even go to war because with that knowledge
he knew we did not stand a chance.
He also had an opportunity to revisit Aburi,
consent to going back even when Gowon
denied the agreement reached over there.
It was the greatest error of the past century.
This century is a difficult kettle of fish.
Now that war led to our losing the bond
that held Ndigbo together. As soon as it
ended, everybody to himself, all the structures
collapsed. I am a witness that before
that war we could send a message over night
through Amel transport or other transports
like We-We, Wahehe, etc throughout this
country to North, South East and West of
this country and tell Igbo how to react to
political situation but after the war, it is ‘to
your tents O Israel’.
To worsen matters, after the war we
recovered so fast that Nigerians hated us
so much. The Hausa people who came first
after the war went back to report to their
people that these men, the Igbo have started
a new civilisation and that they (Hausa)
were in trouble, the hatred worsened. We
rebuilt our place, the scars of war did not last
ten years, I saw because I was in maximum
security prison as a prisoner of war.
I saw when I came back the damage of
war, buildings blown down, holes in almost
all the properties in major centres and war
theatres. But we did not have love as bond
anymore; people were ready to sell one
another. The Hausa people knew that and
that is what they have been capitalising to
create distance between various elements
of the Nigerian polity to have elements of
the majority entrenched.
The other factor is of course the English
man, who left us angrily, favoured the
Hausa in allocation of population.
They gave them 33 percent more people
than they had in order to put population
over to them to control the Houses of
legislature, the Westminster system of
Government.
The man who did this, wrote it in a book
called ‘White Collar Law Man’, the name is
Harold Wilson; he was a senior personnel
of the British government, Lagos. He wrote
this book as a confession of what Britain did
to rule Nigeria and made certain that they
kept to that margin of population. And that
is why till today counting of population is
difficult in the North, they just write what
they want but it is dishonesty and dishonesty
must have its reward or punishment
later in history of the people.
I have driven through this country to
every local government in various services
including my profession and having served
as a member of the commission on review
of Higher Education in Nigeria. But beyond
that, I have been president of University of
Nigeria alumni association for four years
and we had meetings all over the country.
I have been an estate surveyor, I have travelled
round down jobs in all the parts of the
country, and the Hausas do not have the
people they claim to have. Their ability to
bear children is not as high as in the South,
they make fewer children even though
they marry up to four, and the Koran allows
them to marry. But I am not angry with the
North even with all they have done, they
fear domination and this fear brings their
aggression in their own psyche. Their elites
fear domination so all they do is to protect
their access to power. And that is why they
have wrong people in the parastatals running
this country. In the ministries, departments
and agencies, they want to nominate
people to be there whether they qualify or
not because the technically qualified people
are in the south.
Now what is your opinion on the current
state of the nation?
We must restructure. And we must
restructure to give each state or zone the
power to develop at its own pace. If that is
not done the country will implode. The Yoruba
have accommodated this in the Yoruba
Agenda; I read it page to page. I have written
Igbo Agenda in Nigeria project, nobody has
cared about it, it is on the internet. I have
done what I can do in the life time. I have
also written eight books about the Nigeria
experience; whoever wants can read it.