What is your view on the current controversy over the Land Use Act at the National Conference?
My view is very clear and has the support of majority of delegates at the National Conference. I believe that majority of Nigerians who have been affected by the Land Use Act also support our position on what is happening in Nigeria today.
What is your reaction to the position of delegates from the South-West that the region must have regional autonomy or nothing from the confab?
I totally support their position. If you recall what I said earlier, I had advocated for return to the 1963 Constitution with regions as federating units.
Some people have advocated that the criteria for creating states or local governments should be population and land mass, but what about economic viability?
It is ridiculous for some people to say that the Igbo nation has only 15 million people in Nigeria. Everybody knows that all over Nigeria, the population of Igbos is second only to that of the indigenous population.
Indigenous population
For instance, in 2006 Lagos State conducted an independent census and discovered that Igbos alone constituted 43 percent of the population of that state. So, if Igbos in Lagos alone constitute 43 percent of the population of that state, it is an insult to say that the population of Igbos is 15 million.
Secondly, if you recall the confession of one Harold Smith, a British colonial officer who served in Nigeria during the colonial era; he revealed that the British manipulated census figures in favour of the North.
In Kano which also has a huge population like Lagos, the Igbo population there is only second to that of the indigenous Hausa people. I believe that the population of Igbos in Kano State can’t be anything less than 30 percent.
Can you comment on the claims, demands and general content of some documents presented by some groups to the conference?
It is bad when such documents are used to denigrate and insult other component ethnic nationalities in the country. The position of the North on the South-East zone is insulting. In that document, it was claimed that the North possessed 80 percent of the nation’s land mass. They declared that before any additional state could be created for the South-East, the South-West should have a minimum of nine states based on their land mass and population.
It was also argued in that document that the North deserved to even get more states.
Although, it is agreed that the North has a larger land mass than the South-East but definitely they don’t have a larger population. This is because the Igbos were identified as the single largest ethnic nationality in Africa by 1960.
What is the source of that information?
This information was provided by Europeans at the beginning of colonial rule. We know there was a civil war that was fought in this country. It is very clear that the Northern position paper was produced to insult the sensibility of the Igbo nation. I totally reject the submissions made in that document. The claim that the North has more population than the South is fake.
