Photo credit: Ben Iwara
The Biafran War left behind sorrow, agonizing pain, the loss of families and property, and a desire for a home that may never come. However, it also left behind an idea that has since become a driving force for the Igbo community in Nigeria: the Nwa Boi System.
In the 2024 research gate publication, The Igbo Apprenticeship Model and Practice: A Legal Examination of the Contractual Status of the “Nwa Boyi” in South-East Nigeria by Godswill Owoche Antai and co-authors cites a Vanguard report highlighting the scale of Igbo business participation across Nigeria’s commercial hubs. In Lagos alone, Igbo investments are estimated at over ₦300 trillion ($189.1 billion). That figure is said to double in Abuja, reaching approximately ₦600 trillion ($378.2 billion). In northern cities like Kano and Kaduna, investments reportedly exceed ₦10 trillion each ($6.3 billion). Meanwhile, in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, the combined estimate is around ₦5 trillion ($3.2 billion), and in Plateau State, about ₦15 trillion (approximately $9.5 billion).
Complementing this picture of economic influence, Robert Neuwirth, in his 2017 TED Talk, describes Lagos’ Alaba International Market as home to over 10,000 merchants, with an estimated annual turnover of $4 billion. He calls it the largest business incubator in the world.
In 1971, just a year after the guns had fallen silent, a group of Igbo people came together in Aba. They had a straightforward but revolutionary idea: they would create their own system since the existing one had failed them. Thus, The People’s Club came into being. Its purpose? To help the Igbo people claw their way out of the economic abyss left by the war. From this seed grew one of the most remarkable engines of communal success in modern Nigeria, the Igbo Apprenticeship System, known in Igbo as Igba Boi (or Nwa Boi, as it is now widely known).
The foundation of the system was trust rather than contracts. The plan was simple: those whose businesses had survived the war took in the sons of those who had lost everything. These young men, Nwa Boi, entered into informal agreements to learn a trade under the guidance of a master, or Oga. Although the apprentice was not paid, they were provided with housing, food, and clothing as part of a highly communal arrangement. In return, he learned discipline, honesty, and strategy, just as he learned the trade.
For some, the apprenticeship lasted seven years; for others, more or less. The duration depended on the business and the Oga. But the goal was always the same: to empower the apprentice to stand on his own. And when the time came, the Oga would settle the Nwa Boi with startup capital, goods, and/or client referrals, enabling him to launch his own business and, someday, pay it forward.
Over time, this model of knowledge transfer and economic support transcended its initial purpose, survival and became a system for building generational wealth. One successful Nwa Boi could establish a thriving business, support extended families, take on new apprentices, and, in so doing, create a ripple effect of creating wealth and opportunities that outlived him.
More than fifty years have passed, and Nwa Boi remains a pillar in the Igbo ethos. It is living proof of what happens when a people, even at their lowest, remember that a brother’s burden is not his to carry alone, which, when said in Igbo, translates to Onye Aghala Nwanne Ya—do not leave your brother behind.
As a result, the war endures in both memory and legacy. Not in ruins, but in the bustling marketplaces, the growing companies, and the determined eyes of all the Nwa Boi who had nothing at one point but were never left behind.
