NIGERIA | Northern Oppression Truth or Myth?

Northern Oppression: Truth or Myth?

Nigeria’s history is a cycle of shifting dominance 

Igbo in the civil service of the 1960s,

Yoruba in corporate power,

 and the North in federal bureaucracy

yet only Northern influence is consistently treated as immoral or oppressive.

 

Don Kenobi, in inviting a healthy debate, poses a simple but uncomfortable question:
why are Igbo and Yoruba dominance framed as competence or advantage,
while Northern dominance alone is condemned, often through the lens of religion?

#dk
#BigAgendaAfrica

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Unbelievable Condescension

All I got from the article was this smug undertone:
“We would never treat others this way — even if we were placed in the same situation. Because we are better men and women. Superior — culturally and otherwise.”

Which is anything but true.

I would like to read more about the experiences of non-Igbo civil servants during the heyday of Eastern Nigeria’s dominance — just so I can form a balanced opinion.

Why?
Because the complaints against the dominant Easterners of that era sound no different from today’s complaints against the “dominant” North.

I’ve been in oil and gas for the last four decades — the dominant tribe there is Yoruba. Simple. They determine who gets promoted and who doesn’t. That’s all there is to it.

It is also said that the pre-eminence of Yorubas in corporate Nigeria stems directly from the fact that Chief Awolowo was Finance Minister and de-facto Vice President under General Gowon… and favoured his own such that, when the Indigenization Decree came, the Yorubas were in pole position to take advantage.

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Patterns of Dominance — Not a Northern Monopoly

So in these scenarios:

• Igbo civil service dominance (1960s)
• Northern civil service dominance (1966–date)
• Yoruba dominance in corporate Nigeria

Why is it only the Northern civil service dominance that is singled out for moral condemnation?
Is it because they are Muslims?

It is sad that we refuse to humanise any problem — real or imagined — that we appear to have with Northern Muslims, preferring instead to approach everything Northern with the resentment of vassals before their arrogant lords… even though no one has actually made us vassals.

We behave like that famous horse tied to a flimsy plastic chair — held down not by force, but by its own mindset.

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The Southern Excuse Machinery

Me: Oya, as e don hard too much, restructure!
Them: “They won’t let us restructure.”

Me: Who exactly?
Them: “You don’t know?”

Me: Oya, secede then! If the federation discriminates against you, secede!
Them: “They won’t let us secede.”

Me: Who??

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A Final Word

I don’t entertain such posts.
What is, is. We cannot turn the clock backwards — but we can stop looking for scapegoats, put our shoulders to the wheel, and build a better tomorrow for our beautiful Southern and Northern children.

They are all beautiful, and they all deserve a better country than the one we inherited.

I rest.

#dk

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