Written by Reno Omokri
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.
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 (the Ogbunigwe).
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 the igirigi 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.
nnedoc@wordpress.com 