World on Fire - Brownstein, Michael [58]
P: Guys, calling each other names IS NOT going to resolve anything. I suggest you respect each others opinions or positions, and stick with ONLY THE FACTS.
M: It is as simple as having self-determination and being afraid of poverty. To be poor means being hopeless to a Kikuyu. You are not accorded respect by other men. They can even swindle your wife, they regard you like garbage. These are some of the reasons that make Kikuyus economically strong. It is like part of a culture of the people. But not anymore, not under Moi.
However contested the reasons, at least one basic fact is not: Among black Kenyans, deservedly or not, the Kikuyu have for generations been disproportionately wealthy. Even today under President Moi, who has openly pursued pro-Kalenjin policies, the Kikuyu continue to have an unusually solid business and middle class. Kikuyu elite remain the owners of large tracts of valuable land, much of it handed to them under Kenyatta. Of the few black members of the Muthaiga Club, almost all are Kikuyu, who are fighting tooth and nail to keep out the emerging new Kalenjin elite.
The Market-Dominant Ibo of Nigeria
The Kikuyu are by no means an exceptional case. Disproportionately successful African minorities can be found in virtually every corner of the African continent. The Ibo, known as the “Jews of Nigeria,” for example, are famous the world over for being an unusually driven and enterprising “trader” minority. Within Nigeria, Ibo subcommunities dominate key economic sectors. Ibo in Nnewi overwhelmingly control Nigeria’s auto parts industry. Ibo operating out of Aba specialize in shoes and textiles. Ibo in Onitsha have long operated the country’s long distance transportation sector. (The Onitsha Market is the largest open market in Africa, perhaps in the world. Dominated by Ibo, it has even inspired its own literature, the so-called Onitsha Market Literature: folk comedies, romances, poems, and plays, written by dozens of Nigerian writers living and working in Onitsha and published by printing houses in the marketplace.)
16 Despite explicitly anti-Ibo economic policies in recent years, there is virtually no commercial sector in Nigeria without a strong Ibo contingent. “The Ibo are merchants,” a Nigerian lawyer explained to me. “They sell practically anything—electronics, clothing, tires, mattresses, you name it.”
As with the Kikuyu, there are different theories about the reasons for Ibo economic success. Non-Ibo groups in Nigeria will sometimes attribute Ibo success to corruption or crime. It is a fact that Ibos are disproportionately represented not only in legitimate trade but also in fraud and drug trafficking in Nigeria—although in part this might be because the Ibo have in recent years been shut out from legitimate economic sectors. (Ibos are thought to be at the center of the international advance-fee-fraud scams, more popularly known as 419, which bilk Americans out of about $100 million a year.) On the other hand, many Nigerians, especially Ibo, believe the explanation is genetic. Some have suggested that the Ibo are a lost tribe of Israel; this theory appears to have been discredited.
Other theories emphasize the unusually open and “achievement-oriented” character of Ibo society; similar arguments have been made for the Kikuyu.
17 In addition, like the Chinese or Koreans, the Ibo have sophisticated social networks that are almost impenetrable by outsiders. Moreover, the Ibo are in a sense immigrants even in Nigeria, and according to some this experience has contributed to a stronger “work ethic.” Because of overpopulation and infertile soil in Iboland, which is located in the southeast, many Ibo migrated to the urban centers of northern and western Nigeria. Like the Chinese