Igbophobia: Obasanjo speaks on the hatred of Igbos in Nigeria

Former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, has decried the “persistent” prejudice against the Igbos, which he calls “Igbophobia”. Obasanjo made this known while speaking at an event in Anambra State, held to mark the one year in office of Governor Chukwuma Soludo.

In Obasanjo’s administration, Charles Soludo served as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, while Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is currently the Director-General of the World Bank, was the Minister of Finance. During his speech, Obasanjo stated that Soludo worked closely with him as an economic adviser and never gave him wrong advice, and his impressive performance led to his appointment as CBN Governor.

Obasanjo narrated how he faced opposition to the appointment of Okonjo-Iweala and Soludo. According to him, someone approached him and said, “Wow! You have ruined the economy of Nigeria. An Igbo woman, Minister of Finance; an Igbo man, Governor of the Central Bank? Then you have clearly completed the task of ruining the economy of Nigeria.”

The former President described this as an example of Igbophobia, which he does not take lightly. He added that such prejudice still persists in the country. He noted that the solution to this problem is to conquer evil with good, and those who are being feared must make themselves friendly to those who fear them and earn their friendship by being good to them.

Obasanjo further described the appointments of Okonjo-Iweala and Soludo as “probably the best of the appointments that I made when I was president”.