SOWING SEEDS OF PROGRESS: The Igbo imperative to embrace City Boy Movement

BY IKECHUKWU ONYEJI, ABUJA

The success of every civilisation we know to be today is built on the back of industrialists who managed to create a symbiotic relationship between capital and State power to bring about massive development for their country. From Carnegie to Rockefeller, history is replete with men who, despite the huge capital they’ve acquired over time, were thoughtful and idealistic enough to leverage political power, not just to grow their wealth but to build civilizations, that in the process, lifted millions out of poverty, improving the outlook of mankind at the same time.

Early British merchants from Liverpool, Bristol, London, and Edinburgh recognized that for them and Britain to prosper, there must be a fusion and formal understanding between men of capital and the State. It was this understanding that saw the British monarchy back British merchants with trading charters, which bestowed upon the merchants themselves confidence and power to explore far beyond the British Isles, conquering lands and bringing them under the authority of the Monarchy. The merchants made wealth, established universities, and industries that poured exorbitant success into Britain to build the United Kingdom as we know it today.

Even in China, a society that is traditionally communist in political behavior, has realized this important synergy and has changed a lot over the past 50 years. Industrialists like Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei Technologies Co., the world’s largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, have a fantastic relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. Laws are made in China to protect Huawei’s interests abroad, and also Huawei, in turn, represents an important part of Chinese foreign policy and industrial dominance of the 21st century.

Why am I reeling out all this history?

It is to tell Ndị Igbo and Nigerians at large that no society can thrive in this 21st-century age of technology and assertive geopolitics by excluding their industrialists in conversations regarding their development.

The City Boy movement, spearheaded by our brother High Chief Obinna Iyiegbu, (Ife Igbo ji ka mba) the CEO of Cubana group and our most esteemed in-law Seyi Tinubu, falls in the category of that important, fruitful synergy between powerful capital and executive power that guarantees development, as referenced earlier on in this article. We must be wise to back such synergy. We must encourage it, and we must nurture and support that success to ensure that we are not left behind while the rest of the country continues to advance and progress.

It was industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, working hand in glove with American politicians of his day, that ignited the Steel Revolution in the USA, that saw America become a leading industrialized nation. With his company, The Keystone Bridge Company, he pioneered and sponsored groundbreaking discoveries in the construction industry, making sure that the America of the 1860s, in which he lived, became a leading global power in railroad development and bridge construction.

Let’s assume that he was, for example, playing the kind of isolationist politics that characterizes the Igbo political behavior of today; he wouldn’t have partnered with the federal government of his time to bring about his dream of an industrialized America. Which leads me to my point, that Ndị Igbo must stop chastising Chief Obinna Iyiegbu (Obi Cubana) and his grand intervention into the City Boy Movement. Instead, his vision must be backed by all and sundry because when men of capital like him move, like Carnegie, they move with a powerful vision. Visions that may not be clear from the beginning but, given time, will prove itself true and wise.

The City Boy Movement is like an empty rice field that has just been ploughed and fed with seedlings; a little rainfall and a little sunshine, and boom! The City Boy Movement needs our support, and we must water that rice seed to grow so that when the harvest comes, we can be amongst the folks who can lay claim to its bountiful harvest. And by that time, we’ll be entitled to it.

The days of isolationist politics, sedition, and secessionist rabble-rousing are over. This is a new dawn. This is an era for men with vision to arise and chart a new path for Ndị Igbo. Every Igbo person who can, must, as a matter of duty, join this movement and lend their support. We must follow our men of capital and allow them to lead us into charting this new path, because a Tinubu reelection will be a huge win for the region and will spell a reconciliation, healing wounds that have long festered.