The Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has said that the Igbo need to interrogate their claims of marginalisation, to know whether the clamour for secession is right or wrong.
Soludo made the remark Tuesday while delivering the 6th Biennial Adada Lecture organised by the Association of Nsukka Professors at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).
The ivory tower no longer interrogates issues, as it used to, he said, which was surprising. Universities, he insisted, have generally lowered the bar of critical thinking.
“The declaration of the Nigeria-Biafra war was made from this hall (UNN) and the justification or otherwise of that declaration should have been questioned by the university community.
“We are creating thousands of papers that never leave the shelves, while the country is struggling for real solutions.
“Nigeria is drowning in more noise, less light. We must condemn the widening gap between classroom ideas and government action. Knowledge that does not feed into policy is no knowledge at all.
“The future of the Igbo is in a united Nigeria. Igbo intellectuals should lead the debate, not street rhetoric.
“Don’t stand there with your hands on your hips while the nation drifts, the silence from the intellectual class could cost Africa dearly. Talent is not enough, if you don’t act, you are part of the problem,” the governor said.
Soludo told the scholars that history favoured doers and not writers and cited global icons like Isaac Newton, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah.
Soludo challenged the lecturers to look inward and said that intellectualism without action is sterile.
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