The Igbo-African Strategies for Wealth Creation, Building Business Ecosystems, and Human Capital Development for Community Sustenance

Despite the structural violence against the Igbo people since the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, they have achieved notable prosperity. The Igbo people leveraged the Igba-boyi socioeconomic production scheme, popularly known as the Igbo apprenticeship system (IAS), to create and redistribute wealth through cultural intelligence and resilience in building business ecosystems. This helped to usher in development in Igbo land, and reduced unemployment, poverty, and youthful exuberances, thereby bringing relative peace and social progress to Southeast, Nigeria. The theoretical framework adopted in the analysis was Max Weber’s social action theory. This article, which draws on literature to make its point, argues that the lessons learnt from the success of the IAS should be adopted as a conventional business template in building modern economies. This system operates through entrepreneurship training, skill acquisition, and learning a trade. It could be taken up by any individual or group of people who want to build wealth and thrive independently, irrespective of government support.