Money Matters!

A very rich man once said, "If you took all the money in the world and divided it equally among everybody, it would soon be back in the same pockets it was before [you started]." This is only true because our knack for finances vary. While most are extravagant even in the midst of poverty, a few are prudent and know just how to carry on living counting their pennies.

My entire outlook in life was molded by the wise thoughts of my late Father Chief Seth Okachi Eleonu. Like most kids, I thought he was being too hard on me at the time, but I have recognized the fact that he was preparing me for the difficult task of leading an honest life and earning enough to take care of my family. He went about his life lessons in odd ways. Impacting knowledge by making me watch & practice what I had seen, teaching me by instructions and most of all allowing me to play.

Watching and Practice

I learned to watch and practice the hard way. As a young school boy, I spent most of my mid term breaks working as an artisan – as a carpenter one day, an electrician next break, helping out with a Welder one holiday and working with a Mechanic next one. This early exposure to professional handiwork resulted in the “Techie Guy” most of you know today. (see what my friends think of me http://www.tantiblo.blogspot.com/2012/10/jack-of-all-trade-master-of-non.html) This post however, is not about technical stuff though, it is about another hard lesson my Father taught me – Money Matters! 

Teaching Money Matters by Play
My Father is the most prudent man who ever lived. I often thought he was been stingy to himself as he did not care about the "Jones". He bought things based on function, price and durability rather than form or trend as most people would. He taught me to make a note of what I wanted and think around the issue contemplating other possible more cost effective options. He insisted on comparing prices and never to rush into the market. Most importantly, he taught me that it is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development and hard work. According to him, "everything has a law controlling it. The car functions because of the law of combustion. The aircraft fly because of lift aerofoil and boats would not float with the law of dispersion. Money also has its own rule" – as he would put it “Easy come, Easy go!” 

These are sound advice I have imbibed and practiced throughout my life, to the ridicule of my friends and acquaintances.  In University (just as today), I was always the one friends ran to for a small loan when times where hard. I was usually the one with change when most would have squandered their pocket money. My friends would often say I am financially disciplined, but what I never told them was that I learned it through play. It is a known fact that most of us are not disciplined when it comes to finances. We are unable to resist the urge to SPEND, PAY, BUY. Little wonder why it is often difficult pay for ______ (type in your usual monthly head ache) subscription, let alone pay the children school fees. 

Abundant literature exists on how to make money and keep it, but theory is often very difficult to put to practice. Some clever guys have even devised bogus opportunities that gradually impoverish the uncanny – “Make $5000 from you house over the internet”. Others have opened up workshops to teach housewives how to make money by trading forex online, but they fall short to tell them that they will have to part with a lot of money in the process and end up broke (see https://www.google.com.ng/search?q=Make+money+online&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=cr&ei=xaRNUrqiI-jX0QX7p4DADg). Others less risk-averse folks have resorted to class rooms to learn the art. 

The Central Bank of Nigeria has drawn an inference with the financial literacy and the high exclusion rate in Nigeria. The Bank has commenced on a new initiative to include financial literacy in the educational system. Only recently, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi recently picked up chalk to teach school children about financial literacy (see all the photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/78609336@N02/sets/72157636108988423/). He noted that most children nowadays struggle with ‘peer pressure’, which he said always pushes them to making unjustifiable demands from their parents, who also have needs and responsibilities to take care of. I am sure that many of them will miss the mark. What they will get is the sound advice. They however still need to practice what they have heard. As they say practice makes perfect and there is no better time to start practicing than as a youg school child.So, I have decided to let the secret out on how I practiced to be prudent. I believe it is a better and more effective way to learn prudence. – wait for it….

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Play Monopoly! 

Yes, play the board game Monopoly™. Charles Darrow, the inventor of Monopoly couldn’t have evolved a better way to teach most economic principles in a tidy small board. As a child I played it at every passing spare time. We had protracted games involving all the kids in the neighborhood. Some would act as Bankers, others as advisers to players. We spurned a “Naija flavor” to it (there is now a Lagos edition), and changed some rules to make it even more interesting. We even encouraged teaming up to win and Yes, some people preferred to steal money houses, rub the bank when no one was watching, sell black market money and deeds to get rich. Monopoly taught me the following hard lessons in life;

• all the financial terms and concepts I know without ever studying commerce or economics (two subjects I hated with a passion) terms like, Mortgage, Tax, Liquidation, Bankrupt, Rent, Title Deed, Remortgage, Utility Bill, Assets, Liquid, Float, Salary, etc.
• we all start out equal but certain decisions will impact on ones ability to “Monopolize”
• you can only spend what you have
• you have to guard my business – no need to let the neighbors know what I have until…
• bluffing is an art and it have saved many a lives
• spending all you have to look good is not the aim of the game of life ultimate aim is to stay on and buy important deeds or deal out your opponents
• Salary may not come at the end of a run (month)
• you have to make provisions for Chance and falling fowl of the law
•  that making the right “friends” is important
• buying what you don’t need is like slashing your wrist and then taking a shower
•  Its all about strategy -buying “Old Kent Road” can win the game and mortgaging “Mayfair” could be a life saver.

As a parent, I am now struggling to impact the same values on my children – Chisom (9) Oma (3) and Chime (well lets say for now he play the bank robber as he is only 1yr old and does not speak any English). You may argue that it will be difficult since the days when families gather around the TV in the sitting room are long gone. Hand held computer games, including mobile phones and the internet have taken over the minds of the youths, but I have painstakingly reintroduced Monopoly to my family and insisted that Sundays is game night and everyone must play educational games. I intend to keep it up until Chisom understands the concepts. I trust it will work for you too if you try. The CBN Governor warned that “people could become poor when they spend more than they earn, and would conversely, become wealthy when they spend less than they earn”. A stitch in time saves nine. Unless You Change How You Are, You'll Always Have What You've Got.

10 Questions for Igbo’s Seeking Ikwerre Citizenship & Acknowledgement

If you are Ikwerre, or know someone that is, then you must have heard this at one point or the other. "Ikwerres are Igbos!" You might have witnessed one argument or fight that stern from this seemingly innocent statement that rub us the wrong way. I narrowly avoided lynching one old woman in Abuja who had the effrontery to tell me I don't know anything about my roots... I promised myself that I would never argue about this topic with anyone else, but I could not resist my brothers recent post on the issue, I have taken the liberty to publish it here...

Chuks Eleonu wrote...........

It appears our Igbo friends and in-laws are doing everything in their capacity to acquire Ikwerre citizenship. After all, what else are they looking to gain in constantly raising an issue that begs for disagreement when the underlying issues are completely examined end-to-end? Let's pretend for a moment that the Ikwerre's consent to Igbo hegemony; then WHAT? What does it buy the Igbo’s that they do not already have or potentially could get?

 If 2 + 3 = 5, by mathematical and scientific deductions, then 3 + 2 must also = 5, right? In other words, if Ikwerre’s are Igbo's, then Igbo’s are Ikwerre’s, hence why the un-ending clamor for recognition and acceptance – right? Only those who flunked arithmetic would proceed to argue the contrary.

In fact, the very essences of the word “Ikwerre,” implicitly and explicitly embody the notion that I have to FIRST agree. I and my people DO NOT and NEVER WILL AGREE on a strategic deliberate attempt to foist falsehood upon an innocent society ...you can go and bring anyone with any titles pre-fixed or suffixed to their names, they will remain ignorant of the facts, until they stop the presuppositions and conjectures without in-depth empirical scholastic research that is objective in intent. We will always respect our Igbo friends and in-laws; but that cannot become synonymous to bowing to the flippant claims and ulterior-motives of the Igbo’s.

Another fact to consider is, when was the last time anyone saw titled Professors from Western or Northern Nigeria or even elsewhere around the world, listing the ethnicities of their surrounding neighbors as evidence of their scholastic aptitude? So, why would learned and intelligent Igbo’s continue to waste time in academic exercises, always asking the meaning of one's name or citing proximity of one’s village to their own boundaries? To me, I would like to respect those of us who have acquired university education, hoping of course, they can carry out and demonstrate beyond the shadow of doubt, basic empirical and sound scholastic research, beyond fanning the embers of discord inherited from their fore-parents and Nigeria's ethno-centric gridlock politics of Win/Lose.

Since our so called learned and intelligent friends like to insist that the British people should stop advancing the course of their nation until Americans begin to call themselves “British,” or the Jews should hold off fighting for their own survival until everyone else living in the “ghettos” of the world acknowledge them, let me pose the following then questions, all of which have the very same answer and GOES TO THE VERY HEART of the Ikwerre vs. Igbo debates:

1. Who was the very first person ever named Miss Nigeria, and why did she not become a Nigerian, post independence?

2. Who remembers those that played the roles of “courtima” (if you don’t know this term, you should probably never get involved in the Ikwerre-Igbo debates) and why did their Western & Northern Nigerian counterparts not pervert history and justice in their respective regions of Nigeria?

3. If Ikwerre’s were Igbo’s, why did part of the Biafra military strategy include the extermination and genocide of the Ikwerre’s? Please note that there were more saboteurs within and amongst ndi Igbo, than elsewhere in Nigeria – even till the present day.

4. If Igbo’s were so magnanimous to ameliorate their excesses in pre-historic Nigeria, dating back to the early stages of both the “white man’s & ottoman’s” slave trades, how come they are yet to resolve their osu caste system – even until the present day? Let’s go one step further to truly see how much they know of the Ikwerre, can our Igbo learned and intelligent friends account for the Igbo’s direct profiteering, racketeering, and shenanigans during the slave trade periods, as it pertains to its surrounding neighbors, including the Ikwerre's?

5. If Ikwerre’s were Igbo’s, why were they not consulted like the other Igbo clans on the eve of Ahiara War Declarations by Odumegwu Ojukwu? If our learned friends claim that Ikwerre’s were consulted, please provide name(s) of the Ikwerre representatives.

6. Why did southern Cameroon vote to not become part of Nigeria at independence – even though they knew their Hausa/Fulani dominated northern Cameroon were an evil empire? Really, you would rather associate with an evil empire than align with your next door neighbors – if we go by the theory of Igbo’s about the Ikwerre’s?

7. Speaking about Cameroonians, what was the real underlying issue about Bakassi and (like the Ikwerre’s), the peace loving peoples of Ambazonia? Why would they not want to become part of a vibrant and thriving nation like Nigeria – even till this day? What really happened?

8. Going further, who remembers pre-historic Nigeria and Cameroon showing Igbo influences stretching past the Calabar river banks, as Far East, as Mamfe and Bamenda in the Cameroons – why did it shrink back to the present day Igbo boundaries? Better yet, just like Cameroon dragged Nigeria to court over Bakassi, why have the Igbo’s not dragged their case to court, if they know the anthropological, sociological, and ethno-linguistic genesis of the Ikwerre’s?

9. The word “Biafra” is not an Igbo word – at least, am hoping they have not also started claiming it is – so, where/what is Biafra, from which the Gulf/Bight of Biafra was originally named on every world map prior to 1969? Hint: Ojukwu could not and did not coin the word !!! Since most Igbo’s immediately from birth, seem to know more about the history and origin of Ikwerre people, it is assumed this question is also a piece of cake for them

10. Last, but more importantly:

a. When were the original Ogbakor Ikwerre (excluding the ones in diaspora) and Ohaneze ndi Igbo organizations created?

b. If Ikwerre’s are seating on the high tables at Ohaneze ndi Igbo, how come the Igbo’s have never allowed these so called Ikwerre members of Ohaneze to speak by themselves to their own Ikwerre people and in a language the Ikwerre’s would understand – why are Igbo’s always the only ones doing the talking and claiming? Egyptians were not busy advertising Moses as justification for the Jews to remain in Egypt, considering the Jews never forgot their homelands, but may have adopted Egyptian and Roman names to survive the times; a good percentage of people from Sierra Leone in West Africa all have similar names and features like the Yoruba’s of Nigeria – one wonders why Nigeria’s Yoruba states are not wasting resources and time running around telling other Yoruba’s of West Africa they must claim Nigerian origin and ancestry; Native Americans of the present generation might have blue eyes, some blonde, and cannot speak a word of Apache, Cherokee, Hopi, Navajos (I know because I’ve lived among them), yet the Igbo’s would have you believe they are Igbo’s too, if given the chance; and, these same Igbo’s would be the first to tell you not to call them African Americans – since there are no Igbo racial categories in any American ethno-demographic profiles.

c. Is it true that because Igbo’s outnumber every other ethnic group by a margin of 10:1 in pre-war Sabon Gari district of Kano, therefore, everyone within that environment is Igbo – was that what Igbo’s were claiming to spark the pogroms that ignited the Biafra war? (see this citation). Is it also true that because Tiv’s in Nigeria speak Hausa and share common names and traditions, they are Hausa people? How about our friends in Ghana, is it true that because the word Twi is pronounced Chi, it has the same Igbo meaning, therefore, of Igbo origin?

d. Giving a speech recently, during a meeting of South East elders held in Owerri, Imo State, on March 5, 2010 the honorable Odumegwu Ojukwu, asked Igbo’s: “Howbeit, it is a well known fact that in every State in Nigeria outside Igbo land, Ndigbo always constitutes the second largest population next to the indigenous population” – why is that? How come no other ethnic population in Nigeria can come close to, much less boast of, being always the 2nd largest population outside of their own ethnic enclaves, wherever they go?

e. Has anyone heard of/about “Hausa Elele”? Yes, these are true Hausa’s from Elele, in Ikwerre Nigeria – are they Igbo’s too? Could it be that Ikwerre’s had learned their lesson with Igbo’s that they did not allow this strategic political expansion to continue with impunity? Perhaps, we would be arguing today of how Ikwerre’s are Hausa’s, if we had also kept silent in this regard.

f. For the longest time, even before the creation of Rivers State, who consistently prevented, and orchestrated the eccentricities that thwarted, the creation of Port Harcourt state, if Ikwerre’s were Igbo’s?

As I have indicated on past occasions, our Igbo friends and in-laws are restless, hardworking, resourceful, and have hegemonous tendencies. I have many Igbo friends and love them for what they bring to the table – provided it is not un-substantiated claims and frivolous arguments about Ikwerre people or the Rivers State. Our present generation of Igbo’s and Ikwerre’s would not be serving posterity right, if we don’t seriously focus on how to re-align development of the Nigerian ethos to leverage real talents and skill sets, irrespective of ethnicity. In other words, if the only time an Igbo is willing to dialogue and engage in nation building is when s/he can work side-by-side with only those who agree with him/her on ethnicity and speaks his/her dialect, then there should be no question as to why it will continue to take a very, very, very long time before the Igbo’s can produce another Nigerian President, post Azikiwe. You can quote me! I’m sure an Igbo would dare not say that, right?

Just like well read Nigerians will challenge the white-man’s perversion of African history (e.g., there are more people in Northern Nigeria than in the South – true or false?), I will continue to challenge anyone who thinks they can call Ikwerre’s anything other than Ikwerre. Only those who have ulterior motives continue to argue the Ikwerre-Igbo issue blindly, as if it all started yesterday or after the war. No, there are precedents and that have been set prior to the Biafran war, even before slavery and colonialism. Furthermore, my ignorant Ikwerre fore-fathers who could neither read, nor write, are not entirely blameless here! But to unilaterally assume that Ikwerre founding fathers were unable to transmit or hand-down history through generations of Ikwerre sons and daughters, is the height of arrogance, pride, and prejudice for anyone seeking to solve the puzzle that is Nigeria.

Notwithstanding, I have given you food-for-thought, some of which pre-dates Lord Luggard. But only a certain element would continue to arrogate themselves to a history and people that are not theirs to claim. For extra credit, here’s one last question: from whom did the Rivers State learn the concept of “abandoned property”? Perhaps, therein lies the real reason why Igbo’s never go after other parts of Rivers State and elsewhere in Nigeria where “Igbo” is actually spoken as a language and historically preserved, but would rather focus on poor Ikwerre people whose relationship with them have been anything, but. Yes, the Igbo religious missionaries arrived and said to the Ikwerre man “let us pray,” and when the Ikwerre’s opened their eyes, the Igbo’s had their lands, their local economies, and the Bible!!!

In closing, I have asked ten simple questions whose answers leads to the VERY CORE of the issue on the Ikwerre vs. Igbo dichotomy – especially for those of you who, without knowing the genesis, assume that the person called John from New York City is related to another John from Yorkshire, UK -- because some white-man's anthropological formulae said so; therefore, someone named Okala from Ikwerre must be related to the former Rangers Goalkeeper named Okala. Since we have a lot of anthropologists, sociologists, gerontologists, ethno-linguists, Engineers, Apostles, Chiefs, war Generals, including aimless key-punching cyber-pundits in the house, I am hoping that they will apply the same brevity, objectivity, and vocal variety in acknowledging the truths that constitute the collective answers to the above ten questions, so we ignorant folks from Ikwerre, who do not know our origins, ancestry, and history can also, learn. Better yet, perhaps our learned friends, who can only write about Rivers State local government areas or Ikwerre villages and names as the evidence of their scholastic aptitudes, now have a real homework to do, so we can finally attest to their empirical and journalistic research assessment methods.

For those who will try to guess the answer, without in-depth research, please pay attention to the common denominator in your findings, and report back, so inquiring minds would know. Very truly yours,

By:
Chuks D. Eleonu
Defender of Ikwerre civil rights and God-given civil liberties

Long Time No Write! Okay!

Its time to break the silence. Its been over 10 months since my last post here, and I am sure everyone is wondering what was happening to me.

For the past year and a half, we (Titi and I) have been running helter-skelter! Lagos, The UK, and India. Chisaa our little baby girl was diagnosed with a brain tumor and we fought long and hard to save her life, but as faith would have it – she passed on in May at a mere 2 years old. Life can be so cruel at times, make one wonder…

May her gentle soul rest in perfect peace.

I took a well deserved break from work to be with Titi and Chisom. Before long, I was bored and needed to keep my hands busy on another project. The first thing that came to my mind was….. Wait for it….. Electric Power!

Well you won’t believe it, but I have been trying to solve one of Nigeria’s oldest and perhaps most lingering problem – Electric Power generation.