Nigeria and the wise men from the East, By Sunday Ogidigbo
As the good book reminds us, a house divided against itself cannot stand. The time has come for Nigeria to stand. And to stand, we must rise together — North and South, East and West. The East holds wisdom. The East carries gifts. And until Nigeria embraces those gifts, our national greatness will remain postponed.
The Nigerian Civil War ended more than five decades ago, yet the echoes of that conflict still reverberate in our national story. We rarely speak of it openly, but the wounds are there — in our politics, in our policies, in our silences. The South-East, in particular, has borne the lingering weight of suspicion and marginalisation. It is as if a lid was placed over the region, suppressing its potential and muting its voice. But the truth is simple: No nation can rise while holding down any part of itself. We only ascend when we rise together.
It is not an accident that the story of redemption in Scripture begins with wise men coming from the East. They bring gifts — gold, frankincense, and myrrh — that symbolise provision, worship, and sacrifice, and these gifts shape the destiny of nations. This image is instructive for Nigeria. Within the East of our country lies a wisdom, an energy, and an entrepreneurial fire that this nation desperately needs. To lift the lid from the South-East is not just to heal an old wound; it is to tap into a fountain of possibilities that can power Nigeria’s renewal.
The Igbo apprenticeship model is one of the most remarkable wealth-creation systems in the world. Built on trust, mentorship, and reinvestment, it takes young men and women through years of training, entrusts them with capital, and then empowers them to become entrepreneurs in their own right. This system has produced generations of wealth-builders, market leaders, and innovators, without the backing of formal institutions. Today, top business schools across the world are studying this model, but it has been quietly practiced in our streets and markets for decades.
To embrace this system at a national scale is to unlock a grassroots-driven path to industrialisation and prosperity. Nigeria often talks about job creation; the Igbo system has been creating jobs organically for decades. Imagine what could happen if we supported it intentionally with infrastructure, policy, and investment. What some nations are still theorising, we already have in our hands.
Healing requires more than rhetoric. It demands deliberate action. In this light, the current effort by the National Assembly to create an additional state in the South-East is a significant step toward equity. For too long, the imbalance in state distribution — six in every other geopolitical zone but only five in the South-East — has been a silent reminder of unfinished reconciliation.
The danger of suppressing any region is that the nation itself remains impoverished. When one arm is tied down, the whole body suffers. When one stream is blocked, the rivers cannot reach their fullness. Nigeria cannot afford to keep repeating the logic of suspicion that fuelled the Civil War. The narratives of mistrust must give way to the reality of interdependence.
History offers us lessons. Germany rose from the ashes of war because it refused to remain divided. Rwanda turned tragedy into transformation by choosing reconciliation after genocide. South Africa confronted the wounds of apartheid through truth and reconciliation. Nigeria cannot be the exception. We must move beyond the hostilities of the past and embrace the truth that diversity is not a curse but a blessing. What happened at Babel scattered tongues, but what happened at Pentecost united them into one force for transformation. Nigeria must choose Pentecost over Babel.
Healing requires more than rhetoric. It demands deliberate action. In this light, the current effort by the National Assembly to create an additional state in the South-East is a significant step toward equity. For too long, the imbalance in state distribution — six in every other geopolitical zone but only five in the South-East — has been a silent reminder of unfinished reconciliation. By taking up this bill, the President and the leadership of the National Assembly are beginning to address the masquerade in the room — the unspoken inequities that have lingered since the war. This move, if completed with sincerity, will not merely redraw maps; it will redraw trust. It will send a message that Nigeria is finally ready to match rhetoric with justice, and symbolism with substance. This is how nations heal — not by pretending away their past, but by confronting it with courage and fairness.
To lift the lid from the South-East, government must go beyond token appointments or symbolic gestures. We must intentionally invest in infrastructure — roads that connect markets, rail lines that open trade corridors, power hubs that fuel industry, technology parks that harness innovation. Imagine an industrial corridor stretching from Onitsha through Aba to Port Harcourt, fully powered and connected to global markets. That vision is not beyond us; it is within reach if we have the political will.
Nations that flourish are those that reconcile their past and release the potential of all their people. Nigeria has delayed this reckoning for too long. If we continue to live as though the Civil War is a closed chapter, while its wounds still bleed beneath the surface, we risk repeating history in cycles of suspicion and unrest.
When Nigeria builds without the East, it is like building on one leg. We wobble when we should stride. We limp when we should soar. The South-East does not ask for pity; it asks for partnership. And in partnering with the East, Nigeria will discover that what it needs to leap forward has been here all along.
Nations that flourish are those that reconcile their past and release the potential of all their people. Nigeria has delayed this reckoning for too long. If we continue to live as though the Civil War is a closed chapter, while its wounds still bleed beneath the surface, we risk repeating history in cycles of suspicion and unrest.
But if we lift the lid — if we embrace the wisdom, resilience, and enterprise of the East — we can turn a painful past into a powerful future. The wise men came from the East, bearing gifts. Today, Nigeria’s East also bears gifts — the gift of enterprise, of creativity, of unbreakable resilience. Those gifts are waiting to be received, not rejected.
As the good book reminds us, a house divided against itself cannot stand. The time has come for Nigeria to stand. And to stand, we must rise together — North and South, East and West. The East holds wisdom. The East carries gifts. And until Nigeria embraces those gifts, our national greatness will remain postponed.
Sunday Ogidigbo is Senior Pastor of Holyhill Church, Abuja. He writes on faith, leadership, and the intersection of spirituality and culture. X/Instagram/Facebook: @SOgidigbo. Email: [email protected]