Welcome • Sponsors • Conference Schedule •Panelist Handbook • Abstracts and Bios • Contact Us

Abstracts and Bios

Infrastructural Neglect and Economic Imperatives in the Post-War Igbo Migration to the Northern and Western Parts of Nigeria

Ihediwa N. Chimee, Dept. of History & International Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
chimee@justice.com

The Igbo speaking people are located in the southeastern portion of Nigeria. Of all the groups in Nigeria, they are the most dispersed ethnic group within Nigeria. This is as a result of their circumstance,their striving spirit and their receptivity to change.Equally too,the absence of enabling environment and their drive for economic survival have all contributed to their migrating out of their homeland to other parts of the country where they work and trade. The Nigerian Civil War dislocated them the more, and with increasing hostilities by their host communities in the Northern and western parts of Nigeria,they returned home at the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war.At the end of the war,and without much changing to enhance their economic opportunities,migration back to the once hostile territories became the option of lots of them as the post-war rehabilitation and reconstruction slogans of the Federal Government were mere lip service.The objectives of this paper is therefore to provide a synthesis on the interrelationship between infrastructural neglect and economic imperatives in the population movement from Igboland to the Northern and western parts of Nigeria after the civil war,and to draw out the factors necessitating this shift and its implications for the overall development of Igboland in Nigeria.