THE GOVERNOR

“In God’s Own State, where the rising sun lifts the Elephant, hunger bows, and destiny shall rises”
The Elephant State stood like a colossus at the heart of Igbo civilization and enterprise— creative, dedicated, restless, even as they were viciously set upon yet unbroken by the brickbats and ferocity of the wars of genocide against them and their place. The war of 1967-1970 had left not only scars but hunger, graves, and the bitter taste of betrayal. It was more than a place; it was the epicenter of a people’s ingenuity and resilience.
In this place, creative ingenuity was not a gift but a duty, hard work a creed, and competition a song that sharpened every mind and brought its high rewards.
The realization of the malignant and, evidently, worst postwar economic injustices in Nigerian and recent African history offered major challenges to the people of the Elephant State. Consequently, in this city, indolence was unacceptable, docility an unforgivable sin.
After the (civil?) War ended, officially, in 1970, the Federal
Government announced that all bank accounts belonging to Eastern Nigerians (primarily, the Igbo) frozen during the conflict would be settled with a flat £20 (twenty pounds) value, regardless of the actual pre-war balance. This infamous “twenty pounds” policy settlement had reduced millionaires to beggars overnight, stripping them of the capacity to invest in the punitively timed and hurried federal government “indigenization policy” toward foreign multinational corporations. Hundreds of thousands of mainly Igbo properties were seized, businesses marked as