Methodology and methods

groups is the Scripture Union. According to Burgess (2004), as Igbo urban centres fell to federal troops, these revivalists migrated to rural areas where they reported a favourable response to their message. By the end of the war, many villages and refugee camps had become centres of renewal and Pentecostalism.

In addition to concentrating attacks on civilian targets, the Nigerian soldiers were accused of indiscriminate destruction of their targets, rape and dehumanization of women, and maltreatment of war prisoners. The Oha-na-eze Ndi Igbo cited in Orji, Iwuamadi and Ibeanu (2016) stated that:

One of the factors that compelled Nigeria to draw a Code of Conduct for her soldiers was international outcry against the reckless killings. Before proclamation of the Code of Conduct, the International Red Cross had lodged protests with the Federal Military Authority in January 1968 and March 1968, with regard to the inhuman excesses of its army concerning treatment of Biafran prisoners of war and civilian population.

Because the establishment of a Code of Conduct for Nigerian soldiers was essentially aimed at easing the pressure by the international human rights community, the Code did not largely alter the methods of the Nigerian troops on the ground as communities continued to report violation of international conventions on war by the soldiers.

(p.39).

The Igbo suffered the most severe losses during the civil war as a result of mass starvation and death following the enclosure of Biafra by the Nigerian troops between 1968 and 1969. With the dislocations caused by the 1966 pogrom and the war, the Igbo lost their food producing areas. The situation of the Igbo population was made worse by Nigeria’s wartime policy which holds that starvation is a legitimate instrument of warfare. The policy ensured that foreign aid, particularly food donations, was prevented from reaching Biafra.

With deliberate denial of food to Biafra, the area was then confronted by food shortages, hunger, malnutrition, disease and death of between 2.5 to 3 millions of people, especially children. This remarkable war experience incised in the hearts of many Igbo a deep sense of communal suffering and collective victimization.

Loss of Wealth

According to Nafziger (1972), “the adverse impact of the conflict on the level of living in Biafra was greater than in Nigeria, and reached all segments of the population” (p.

229). The economy was geared almost entirely to mobilisation for the war and the production of bare necessities. Biafra received virtually no civilian goods from abroad, except food and other essentials from relief organisations, and badly needed capital goods.

Nafziger (1972) also observed that, real output per annum undoubtedly decreased substantially in a secessionist Eastern Nigeria during the war. Despite the fact that wages remained relatively constant, prices of basic items of food, clothing, and tools increased by 5-50 times between the immediate pre-war period and May 1969, according to a report by agricultural consultants to the Red Cross. The scarcity of food, which approached famine conditions, resulted from war damage and lack of trade with the outside world. The little published data available suggests that Biafra had relatively substantial financial reserves at the time of secession. These had been obtained by converting funds - from revenues collected in the East on behalf of the Federal and Regional Governments, from the reserves of the African Continental Bank, and from the money of the N.C.N.C., an Eastern-based party - to foreign exchange which was deposited in banks overseas prior to secession. Biafra was able to finance the purchase of armaments and supplies to fight the initial campaign in what it expected to be a short war of independence. But by April 1968 Biafra's foreign-exchange reserves were virtually exhausted.

An item of top priority is the reconstruction of war-time damage to the economy. This implies more than relief for the hungry and destitute, and the replacement or repair of destroyed equipment; it involves the restoration of production and trade flows disrupted by the war, and the reinstatement of transport, communications, power, financial, health, medical, and educational services. However, Akresh, Bhalotra, Leone and Osili (2011) argued that the recovery of the war affected areas in Eastern Nigeria does not entail a return

to its pre-war configuration but a readjustment towards a Federal economy which has experienced widespread structural change. This has resulted from the mobilisation and displacement concomitant with the conflict, and from the adaptation of production patterns, exchange networks, and resource employment to the loss of a Region - in addition to normal changes in production resulting from growth over time.

A primary part of reconstruction is the reintegration of the Igbo people and other Eastern people into the economy. Akresh et al (2011) also noted that, despite the decline in population during the war, the East is still overpopulated - especially in the Igbo-speaking areas. During the political crises a number of Easterners employed in government positions outside the Region were replaced. In addition, much of the vacuum from the exodus of self-employed Easterners in trade and transport to their ethnic homelands was filled by other Nigerians during the war.' Furthermore, since then, autarkic policies have limited the return of Igbo traders and workers to areas outside of Igboland, especially to the neighbouring Rivers State. Finally, a military decree of August 1970 gave the Federal and State Governments the power to dismiss civil servants who participated in the Biafran rebellion.

The lack of economic opportunities outside the East-Central State is resulting in higher rates of unemployment and underutilisation of Igbo manpower than in the pre-war period. This was further compounded by the fact that the Igbos virtually lost all their properties located in other parts of the country, including Rivers States, where such properties were termed

“abandoned properties”. The Federal government of Nigeria denied the Igbo people access to all the hard currencies such as pound sterling they had saved in Nigeria banks before the civil war, and only allowed them a minuscule compensation of £20 per adult bank account holder.

For example, a man who had over £450,000.00 savings in one or several bank accounts could only receive £20.00 following this policy. In reaction to this ugly development, Achebe (1983) observed that the marginalization against the Igbo may have started in 1968, when Nigeria changed her currency. This made Ndi Igbo to lose over 50,000,000 million pounds in

foreign exchange. In is account, Achebe (1983) stated that a banking policy was evolved which nullifies any bank account, which had been operated during the civil-war, this had the immediate result of pauperizing the Igbo middle class and earning a profit of 4.5 million pounds for the government treasury.

Loss of Image

After the Nigerian Civil War, Igboland had been severely devastated. Many hospitals, schools, and homes had been completely destroyed in the brutal war. According to Uduma (2015), in addition to the loss of their savings and properties located elsewhere in Nigeria, many Igbo people found themselves discriminated against by other ethnic groups and the new non-Igbo federal government. Due to the discrimination of employers, many of the Igbo people had trouble finding employment, and the Igbo people became one of the poorest ethnic groups in Nigeria during the early 1970s. As an even greater insult, in Port Harcourt, their control was handed over to their Ijaw neighbours and the Ikwerre (an Igbo subgroup who have separated and claimed no Igbo origin). Igboland was gradually rebuilt over a period of twenty years and the economy was again prospering due to the rise of the Niger Delta petroleum industry, which led to new factories being set up in southern Nigeria. This recovery, from the depths of the Biafran War, is an example of the uncanny resilience and resourcefulness of the Igbo. Many Igbo people eventually regained government positions.

Nevertheless, the Igbo still face the same discrimination, problems and challenges up till now. The Igbo people have sometimes continued to face discrimination from other ethnic groups. But because the traditional Igbo homeland was becoming too small for its growing population, many Igbo continue to emigrate out of Igboland. This discrimination may probably be one of the reasons, why several Igbo-speaking areas of Delta and Rivers States have continued to deny their Igbo identity.

Injustice/Marginalization

Marginalization is without doubt a recurring phenomenon prevalent in the socio-political life of the Igbo in Nigeria. It is not as if there are no complaints about marginalization by other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. But the present predicament of Ndigbo can be traced to the Nigeria – Biafra war of 1967-1970. The war which ended since 1970 left the Igbo devastated and disorganized in unimaginable proportion. The Igbo people, according to Uwalaka (2003), have particularly been made to feel vanquished. Even though the physical formal war has been ended, yet there appears to have been more insidious, more perfidious, more destructive and dangerous war against the Igbo. Commenting on the issue, Nwankwo (2000) insists that marginalization has become an Igbo bed mate. In fact, it is now a State alienation and exclusion. This phenomenon has brewed an inherent alienation of the Igbo in Nigeria, resulting in resentment and fear. Nwabueze (2001) said that the marginalization of Ndi Igbo is so intense that no Igbo person, however good his credentials are, can today expect to command nationwide acceptance as a leader in the government and politics of Nigeria. Rather, a deliberate policy of casting over board the price-less colonial heritage of meritocracy in an insidious bid to stem the tide of competition, and largely succeed in emasculating the enterprising, competitive and geographically mobile Igbo is now in vogue. The progressive principles of merit and competition are now supplemented by such nebulous and retrogressive policies as ‘federal character’, ‘quota system,’ and State of origin’. This concept believes that the take-off point for understanding the formation with interaction that goes on in a society is by first of all understanding and analyzing the relationship that exists between the various classes and means of production.

By the end of the civil war in January, 1970, the control of power and distribution of economic resources at the centre had fallen absolutely into the hands of the war victors. The discrimination in the sitting of major federal government projects in Igbo land coupled with the abandoning of many of them, also attests to this syndrome of marginalization. Again,

Achebe (1983) affirmed that: “Many have tried, but nobody has quite succeeded in explaining why the sitting of five steel mills worth N4.5 million on final completion, with estimated employment capacity of 100,000 by 1990; only in the North and West of Nigeria”

(p. 49). A further, confirmation of the post civil- war Igbo marginalization, was seen in the sitting of projects like major industries, huge irrigation schemes and agricultural projects to other parts of Nigeria, deliberately excluding the Igbo heart land. It was therefore, evident that the cumulative consequences of these wide ranging marginalization were quite pronounced in the economic sector, which has sentenced Ndigbo to economic penury and strangulation. In laying credence to this ugly trend, Nwakanma (2000) got it right when he states that: …economic and political policies of the federal government which limited access to political power of easterners, especially the Igbo, has led not only to economic haemorrhaging, but also to an economic wasteland. It is a well-known fact that right from the Yakubu Gowon’s administration through to the Murtala/Obasanjo era of 1975-1979, to the Shagari presidency of 1979-1983 and to the dictatorship of Buhari/Idiagbon of 1983-1985, up to the Babangida and Abacha regimes of 1985-1998, culminating into the Abdulsalami Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration of 1998-1999, 1999-2007 and 1999-2007-2010 respectively, Ndigbo have suffered an unbelievable discrimination in every sphere of Nigeria’s socio-political and economic life. The only exception to this ugly trend is the Jonathan administration of 2010 to 2015.

Marginalization does not take an automatic form of disempowerment of ethnic group or territory by those who control the centre of power, authority and resources. In practice, it appears subtle and hidden yet, marginalization is real. Going by experience, public policies are not formulated from the stand point of objectivity and overall national interest or on the basis of justice, fair play and equity. Rather, it is from the point of parochial ethnic considerations such that the ethnic groups whose members dominated the federal government since independence and especially since the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war has persistently

swung the political pendulum to their favour. Without mincing words, Ndigbo have suffered tremendous marginalization through clearly designed and well-crafted state policies all of which have left them emasculated, psychologically battered, drained and unsure, socially harassed, economically and materially dispossessed and pauperized.

CHAPTER FIVE

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF PENTECOSTAL GROWTH IN IGBOLAND

In this chapter, the emphasis will be on a historical survey on the origin of Pentecostalism world-wide, the emergency of Pentecostalism in Nigeria, origins of Pentecostalism in Igboland, growth and development of Pentecostalism in Igboland. The insight offered by these analyses will sharpen the growth and development of Pentecostalism in Igboland.