Before August 9, 1965, the Singaporeans were seen as an irritation in Malaysia. Then Singapore was one of the 14 states of Malaysia. Singaporeans were viewed as arrogant, stubborn, and domineering. While the United Malays National Organisation wanted affirmative action or “quota system” for the Malays, the People’s Action Party of the Singaporeans insisted that the best thing for the country was a merit-based policy on all issues, so as to bring out the best in the nation and create a spirit of excellence.
This constant disagreement and tension resulted in race riots. It got to a point where the Malays could take it no more. So on August 9, 1965 they convened the parliament, with no Singaporean parliamentarian present. At that sitting, the legislators voted unanimously (126 – 0) to expel Singapore from Malaysia.
When the Singaporeans heard that they had been expelled from the nation, at first they were devastated. But they took their fate in their hands and started building a new nation. And, indeed, by applying merit and the pursuit of excellence, Singaporeans built a country that moved from the Third World to First World in record time, overtaking Malaysia in all ramifications.
Interestingly, despite this sad way of parting, Malaysia and Singapore have remained good neighbours. In spite of the success that the latter has recorded, it has not made Malaysia not to record its own success.
There are many similarities between the story of Singapore and Malaysia and the Igbo and Nigeria. The Igbo are not happy with the quota system policy used in the admission into federal schools and federal positions. They want competitiveness in every sector, which will lead to the best being selected, for the sake of excellence.
The Igbo are seen as arrogant, noisy, domineering, greedy, over-ambitious, to mention but a few. Many Nigerians see them as irritants. They get killed frequently, especially in the North, at the least misunderstanding. Sometimes the cause of the provocation is someone from Denmark, Cameroon or another part of Nigeria.
The six states that scored above 50 per cent in the 2015 West African Senior School Certificate of Education were: Abia (63.94%), Anambra (61.18%), Edo (61.05%), Rivers (55.69%), and Imo (52.49%). The states that scored below 13 percent in the same examination were Kebbi (12.08%), Katsina (10.81%), Gombe (7.41%), Jigawa (6.37%), Zamfara (6.23%), Yobe (4.37%).
These are verifiable results that have remained virtually the same for decades. And they give an idea of the number of candidates that are involved in education from each state and zone, as well as their academic performance.
The point of this essay is not that it is only the Igbo that excel in many sectors. Other ethnic groups, especially from the South, also excel. But the focus of this essay is the Igbo. From the attitude of other ethnic groups, it seems that they are comfortable with the status quo. If not, they should not be focusing on the Igbo as their problem.
Compare that with the academic performance of the different zones of Nigeria. The Unified Tertiary Matriculation Education of 2016 produced the following number of applicants from the six zones:
South-East (five states) = 335,883;
South-West (six states) = 320,691;
South-South (six states) = (299,632);
North-Central (six states plus the FCT) = 259,846;
North-West (seven states) = 163,240;
North-East (six states) = 96,220.
The six states that produced the highest number of candidates were:
Imo – 104,383Delta – 78,854Anambra – 77,694Osun – 72,752Oyo – 72,298Enugu – 69,381.
The six states that produced the least

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