Denial of Admission by Reason of Tribe

My story of Admission Denial in Nigeria

By  Ronald Nzimora

When I was 10, I wrote the NMS (Nigerian Military School), Zaria exams. I had the 3rd highest score and I was denied admission because… take a guess… I had an Igbo name and my State of Origin was Anambra.

The next year, at age 11, I did the same for the Military school in Sokoto, Army Day Secondary School; I had the top score and didn’t get an admission letter because… well the same reason.

For this second one, I was really pained, because one of the requirements was you couldn’t write the exams if you were above a certain weight.

Yet, the then Sultan of Sokoto, Dasuki’s son, wrote that exam, despite being grossly overweight, and he FAILED that exam, because when we went to check our scores I saw his, and he still got admitted into that school.

Imagine being a young child, getting 3rd highest and highest scores for a national exam, two years in a row, and having no idea why you still didn’t get an admission letter, while someone who failed to meet ALL requirements for an admission gets one.

It was an unwritten rule then, (possibly even now still is) that Igbos were as much as possible, to be kept out of the Military.

This same shit happens across the country in non-Igbo States, where Igbo students write exams.

This shit has been happening to Igbo people for donkey years.

These are the stark, pertinent issues. Your country is flawed. Your country hates a particular tribe and that hate is the reason your country will never move forward.

It feeds on this hate and sustains it against good judgement and the overall good of all, classic “cut your nose to spite your face”.

The discrimination and outright blatant bias against Igbo people is glaring, and only a stark idiot will deny it’s existence.

At least the Hausas try to hide it. These lot who stole power in 2023, are brazen and couldn’t care less, yet tomorrow they expect you to be in solidarity with them because we are all “Southerners”.

So when Igbo people complain about marginalization, and exclusion, before you try to blame us or say we’re “acting like victims”, sit down and hear our stories.

Once we start telling them, better be ready to hear it all because I assure you, it will take far longer time than the 1,001 nights, Queen Scheherazade spent telling King Shahryar her stories.

There’s a ton of them, and each new one is more painful, more vexing and more perplexing than the one before it