There is a question that every Ebira son and daughter who has ever left home in search of education, employment, wealth, influence or professional accomplishment must one day ask: What will become of the land that produced me if I succeed but never return?
It is a simple question, but behind it lies a profound responsibility. Every generation inherits something from those who came before it, and every generation is judged by what it does with that inheritance. Our fathers and mothers inherited a homeland with limited resources but abundant courage, resilience, communal spirit and determination. They struggled, sacrificed and sent their children to school. They encouraged them to travel, to acquire knowledge, to seek opportunities and to become something greater than themselves.
Many of those children have now become doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, bankers, entrepreneurs, politicians, civil servants, military officers, technologists, architects, journalists, academics and business leaders. Some have become influential figures in Nigeria; others have built successful careers in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and other parts of Africa.
Their achievements are a source of enormous pride to every anebira and the rest of the world. But success creates an obligation, a great one at that. The higher we climb, the more clearly, we should be able to see the community that helped us climb, this remains a great and divine word for ever anebira at home and in the diaspora. That is why we must ask ourselves a more uncomfortable question: How much of our success is finding its way back home?
Imagine what would happen if every successful Ebira professional decided that personal achievement should not be the end of the journey but an avenue to inspire and enlarge the ebira agenda. Imagine the doctor who has built a successful practice deciding to help establish a medical centre at home, either in Okengwen or Ogaminana. Imagine the professor establishing a scholarship or research fellowship to advance further empowerment of our people. Imagine the banker helping young entrepreneurs access financial knowledge and capital to turn Okene into the financial and billionaire hub of the country. Imagine the technology executive establishing a digital skills centre that will later attract the attention and funding of billionaire tech entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and the rest. Just take a moment to Imagine the lawyer who would be offering mentorship to young law students for the betterment of our people, again imagine the entrepreneur building a factory that employs hundreds of young people, either Anebira or the rest of the people from all walks of life.
Imagine, above all, if thousands of Ebira professionals-at home and in the diaspora-made the same decision at roughly the same time: “I will not merely build a house in my village at Kuroko. I will rather help build a homeland.” What then would Ebiraland look like ten years from now?
The answer is inspiring because the transformation would go far beyond buildings and roads for our vehicles. It would be a transformation of the mind making it powerful for global empowerment and relevance. It would be the emergence of a people who have discovered how to convert individual brilliance into collective power and a people of value that will be much sought after all over the world.
Ebiraland could then become a place where education is treated as an inheritance, healthcare as a basic necessity, roads as economic arteries, technology as an engine of opportunity, businesses as instruments of employment and community development as a responsibility shared by everyone.
It would be a place where parents would no longer have to watch brilliant children abandon their dreams because they could not afford school fees; where patients would not have to travel hundreds of kilometres for medical attention that ought to be available closer to home; and where young graduates would not automatically conclude that their only hope of a meaningful future lies in Abuja, Lagos, Europe or America. Such a future is not a fantasy. But it will not happen by accident. It will require vision, sacrifice, organisation, accountability and, above all, unity of purpose.
We must stop asking only, “What has Ebira given me?” and begin asking, “What am I giving ebiraland?” The first truth we must recognize is that anebira does not lack human capital, we have it in abundance. Our greatest development resource is not beneath the soil. It is in the minds of our people.
Every professional is a resource, no matter the field of huma endeavor. Even the unemployed graduate is a resource-not a burden, but a reservoir of potential waiting to be properly equipped.
Our challenge, therefore, is not simply a shortage of talented people. Our deeper challenge is that much of our intellectual, professional and financial capital remains scattered and must be harnessed and bring back home as soon as possible. We have extraordinary individuals, but we have not yet built enough extraordinary institutions capable of connecting those individuals around a common development agenda.
For decades, anebira have demonstrated individual excellence as seen all over the world. The next chapter of our history must be about collective excellence, for the betterment of our people. We must move from individual success to institutional success, from isolated philanthropy to structured development, from political mobilization to development mobilization, and from merely celebrating successful Ebira people to deliberately organizing their success for the benefit of future generations.
This is why the idea of an Ebira Development and Future Fund deserves serious consideration. From 2027 to 2037, Ebira professionals, entrepreneurs, traditional institutions, communities and other stakeholders could establish a transparent and professionally managed development fund. Participation would be voluntary and based on capacity. Nobody should be forced to give what he or she cannot afford.
We should deliberately encourage young Ebira people to pursue fields that will determine the future of society, The effect would be profound. Within ten years, we could produce a generation of young Ebira people who are not merely searching for jobs but are creating solutions. We could produce young people who think beyond survival and begin to think in terms of innovation, enterprise, leadership and global competitiveness.
The objective should not simply be to produce graduates. The objective should be to produce builders. Healthcare must be another major pillar of our collective vision.
No community can claim to be prosperous when families lose loved ones because adequate healthcare is too far away, too expensive or simply unavailable. The professional community must step forward as soon as possible.
The greatest opportunity of the coming decade, however, may be technology. The Ebira child of 2037 should not grow up believing that greatness requires leaving home. We should create an environment where a young person can sit in Okene, Adavi, Okehi, Ajaokuta or another Ebira community and work for a company anywhere in the world.
Imagine Ebira Digital Innovation Hubs where young people learn artificial intelligence, software development, cybersecurity, data science, robotics, digital marketing, animation, cloud computing, agricultural technology and fintech. Imagine Ebira professionals working in Silicon Valley, London, Toronto, Dubai, Lagos and Abuja mentoring these young people remotely. Imagine them connecting young entrepreneurs to international investors, companies and markets.
The implications are enormous. A young person would no longer have to abandon home to participate in the global economy. Technology could allow talent to remain connected to the homeland even when opportunities are global.
Our cultural heritage must also enter this technological revolution. Our language, history, oral traditions, music, literature, traditional knowledge and cultural practices should be documented and preserved digitally. We must ensure that future generations can access their heritage through digital archives, educational platforms, documentaries, mobile applications and other technologies.
Our children should not merely inherit our culture. They should digitize it, preserve it and introduce it to the world. But education, healthcare, infrastructure and technology will not be enough without a strong economic foundation.
We must stop measuring prosperity primarily by the number of houses we build or the number of expensive vehicles parked in our compounds. Houses are important, but houses alone do not constitute an economy.
A prosperous homeland needs factories. It needs modern farms. It needs agricultural-processing plants. It needs logistics companies, technology firms, financial institutions, construction companies, hotels, creative enterprises and export-oriented businesses.
Every successful Ebira entrepreneur should begin asking a different question: “What business can I establish that will employ ten, fifty, one hundred or one thousand of my people?” The real wealth of a people is not the number of luxury cars parked in their compounds. It is the number of productive hands earning dignified incomes. This vision also requires us to acknowledge the role that political leadership has played and must continue to play. History must be honest enough to recognize achievements without turning recognition into political worship.
The greatest tribute we can pay any leader is to build institutions that survive the leader.No governor can. No senator can. No traditional ruler can. No billionaire can. The future must become a collective project.
And that brings us to the most uncomfortable question: What happens if we refuse to come together?If Ebira’s intellectuals remain fragmented, our individual successes may eventually become monuments to collective failure. Clannish and political divisions may become stronger than our collective identity. Professional associations may continue holding meetings without building institutions capable of changing lives. The diaspora may remain a collection of successful individuals instead of becoming a coordinated development network.
And ten years from now, we may still be asking the same question: “Why are we not where we ought to be?” The answer could be painfully simple: because we had the people, but we failed to organize them. That must not be our story. We must not allow our individual brilliance to become our collective weakness.
There is something particularly tragic about a community whose sons and daughters are successful everywhere but whose homeland remains unable to harness the combined strength of those successes. We must therefore build a culture in which success carries responsibility. Success should not terminate with the successful individual. Success should multiply.
Ebira professionals must lead the intellectual revolution, -not into competing factions, but into one broad intellectual development network capable of thinking strategically, mobilizing resources and executing projects. The diaspora must become more than a source of remittances. It must become a development bridge. They can return home periodically, establish businesses, train young people and create institutions connecting Ebiraland to the global economy.
That is the choice before us. And placed enormous responsibility on us as a people We can continue as individuals, or we can become a people with a strategy. We can continue celebrating individual millionaires, or we can build institutions that create thousands of them. We can continue sending our children away, or we can build a homeland worth returning to. We can continue arguing over yesterday, or we can design tomorrow. We can allow politics to divide our intellectuals, or we can make development bigger than politics. We can continue asking who is responsible, or we can accept that we are all responsible.
There is an Ebira proverb that says, “Ozi ma vẹyi”-a person does not become strong by standing alone. A single person may possess brilliance, wealth or influence, but a people become powerful when their individual gifts are deliberately combined. This is the great challenge before the Ebira intellectual class.
We must stop seeing one another merely as competitors for positions, contracts, political appointments or recognition. We must begin seeing one another as pieces of the same development puzzle. That is how nations are built-not by isolated heroes, but by organized citizens.
The transformation will not be measured only by kilometers of roads constructed, buildings erected or scholarships awarded. It will be measured by something deeper: whether a generation has acquired the confidence to believe that its homeland can become a place of opportunity rather than merely a place of origin.
Let us therefore stop asking what our homeland owes us. Let us begin asking what history will say we gave our homeland. Let it be said that we gave our children not merely stories about what Ebira could become, but institutions that proved what Ebira could become.
The future of anebira cannot be outsourced and should never be. The development of our homeland cannot be left to politicians alone, for the state of our villages are precarious. The responsibility is ours. The time to begin is not tomorrow. It is now. The next ten years must not merely pass over us. The next ten years must belong to the builders.anebira Avo!
– Madiba Ibrahim Lapinni
09011364063
