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Nigeria and Ndigbo: Broken promises
NNAMDI IJEAKU
A lot has
been said and written about the place of Ndigbo in the Nigerian project,
particularly since the end of Biafra-Nigeria war in 1970. At the end of that
war, Nigeria enthusiastically declared to Biafrans in a nationwide broadcast
that there was "no victor and no vanquished" and promised to religiously
implement a programme of the 3Rs — Reconciliation, Reconstruction and
Rehabilitation, designed to reintegrate the people of Biafra-Igbos, Annangs,
Efiks, Ibibios, Ijaws, Ogonis, Ogojas and others — into Nigeria and to rebuild
the infrastructure systematically destroyed by the Nigerian government through
uncontrolled bombing and vandalism during the war. Nigeria, through its various
leaders since the end of that war, promised to establish a society based on
honesty, justice, freedom, equity and fair play for all. She also promised all
Nigerians, including the now reintegrated Biafrans, the right to safety and
security of life and property. Above all, the Nigerian government promised to
respect and protect the fundamental rights of all citizens to freedom of
movement, residence, speech, religion, association and lawful ownership of
property, and the right to aspire and occupy the highest office in the land.
Thirty-four years after these promises
were made by General Yakubu Gowon and successive heads of state of Nigeria to
the Igbo and other Easterners, the scorecard in terms of implementation and
performance reads below 30 per cent. The worst roads in Nigeria are in the East.
It is a nightmare to travel in these parts particularly on federal government’s
roads, e.g. the Onitsha/Owerri/Port Harcourt road, the Owerri/Umuahia/Ikot
Ekpene road; the Umuahia/Bende/Ohafia/Arochukwu road; the Enugu/Okigwe/Umuahia/Port
Harcourt road; the Nnewi/Orlu/Mbano/Umuahia road, etc. etc. Electricity supply
is so poor and erratic that Easterners may have the largest number of private
electric generators per user in the world. No doubt, this has affected the level
of industrialisation in the East. State governments there are, therefore,
compelled to invest huge sums of money in power generation and distribution in
order to make up for federal government’s deficiencies. Lives of Ndigbo
and other Easterners in the North are constantly under attack on flimsy grounds
of religious riots. Eastern youths have the highest rate of unemployment in
Nigeria today, which given rise to deprivation and poverty. More than 90 per
cent of these youths who graduated from universities and other tertiary
institutions in the past 10 years are still unemployed and have no means of
livelihood. It is a shame that parents who spend their life savings, and some
who starve in order to pay their children’s fees through these institutions
still have to provide food clothing, housing and pocket money to them 10 years
after graduation. These youths are thus driven into avoidable crimes by the
inability of government to provide for them. Some of them have resorted to mass
insurrection and banditry in order to back at government.
The list of failures by the Nigeria state
to keep its promises to the east, particularly to Ndigbo, is endless. As
Governor Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State put it in his address to Abians in Owerri
on November 17, 2001: "The state of affairs in Igboland today is rather dismal.
We have the least number of local government — 87 of all the six zones, the
least number of federal appointees, the least number of senior military and
police officers, the least number of federal industries and the worst network of
roads." However, it is not the purpose of this write up to dwell just on the
failings of Nigeria on its citizens of the East, particularly, the Igbo, but to
discern the Why of Nigeria’s actions. The important question is, therefore: Is
non-performance by Nigeria over these 34 years on matters concerning Ndigbo
and other Easterners a deliberate policy by Nigerian leadership or mere
coincidence?
For most of the Igbo and their brothers in
the East, the incidences of marginalisation, deprivation and exclusion being
meted to them by successive Nigerian government have been so constant, so
meticulous and so systemic that they can only be institutionalised. For this
majority, therefore, the actions are a result of a laid-down policy. They are
neither happenstance, nor coincidence, but deliberate "enemy action" (Goldfinger,
Ian Fleming). These people believe that an understanding was reached and an
agreement made where it was approved at the end of the civil war that no Igboman
will be allowed to rule Nigeria, and that no Igbo man will occupy any sensitive
post in Nigeria. Some Igbo leaders claim to have seen such a document. Reacting
to the stand of Governor Markafi and other Northern governors that the Igbo
should drop their bid for the 2007 presidency, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike in a
recent interview (The Week magazine, May 24, 2004) retorted: "He (Markafi)
is revealing the agenda of Nigeria, not only that of the North. No Igbo man will
be president of Nigeria. Only the Igbo are deceiving themselves". He is merely
saying the obvious, stating an agreement they reached after civil war...It’s an
agreement signed by Obasanjo and Gowon and others." These people point to what
happened to Dr. Alex Ekwueme in 1998/99 as proof of their belief. The facts:
Thirty-four prominent Nigerians (G.34) got together in 1998 and decided to
oppose General Sani Abacha on his self-succession plan at the risk of losing
their lives. These men saw it fit and proper to select Dr. Alex Ekwueme as their
leader and chairman. He performed creditably. Abacha eventually died, and
democracy was set in motion. The G.34 transformed into a political party, the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Dr. Ekwueme was, therefore, almost certainly
captured the party’s ticket to run as its candidates for president in 1999.
Nigeria’s power brokers had other plans. Whereas this man had the courage, the
intellect and the capacity for leadership of prominent Nigerians who had
gathered for the fatherland in its most trying period, it was adjudged by some
unseen hands that he was not fit to lead Nigeria. Obasanjo was pulled out of
prison and made the president. The question is; Why? Is Ekwueme less endowed? Is
he less capable than the winner, or is it part of the anti-Igbo agenda? The Igbo
see no credible reason for rejecting their son other than his Igboness.
They are, therefore, angry. The youths are even more angry. Igbo rejection for
presidency, and the subsequent exclusion of Ndigbo from President
Obasanjo’s National Security Council in 1999, and from other good things of life
in Nigeria drove some of them into the formation of the Movement for the
Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) in 1999. (National
Post, February 24, 2001). The movement appears to be gaining in membership,
as Nigeria keeps reminding the peoples of the East through her attitude,
commissions or omissions, that full citizenship is not for them. That the
Presidency, for instance, will remain a mirage to them. The events of 1999
appear to be on a slow-motion replay again. The North is threatening hell rather
than concede the Presidency to the Igbo nationality in 2007. Some of our major
political parties are now engaged in semantics on the issue of power shift.
People are watching!
As Senator Suleiman Salawu, the Kwara
State Co-ordinator of Egbe Agba Omo Yoruba has noted, "in the spirit of
Sharia which they (North) preach, the presidency should not go to the North
again after 35 years of monopolising it" (Daily Sun, July 21, 2004).
Equity, justice and fairplay demand that the presidency be zoned to the Igbo
nation come 2007. Nigeria was founded by three regions, East, North and West and
not South and North. These three regions were the basis of the Nigeria
Federation. They got together and formed the Nigerian nation. If any of them had
said ‘no’ to independence, Nigeria as a nation, would not have been independent.
On this basis, the West and the East had to wait for the North two years,
1957-1959, to come on board before independence was granted to Nigeria by the
British in 1960. Based on this, therefore, the rule in the federating body is
that power moves from one unit to the other. Between 1960 and 2007, the North
has held power for 35 years, the West for 12 years, and the East six months.
Haba! Has fairplay and equity no place or meaning in Nigeria. Must a region and
its people be perpetually marginalised and excluded from the dividends of
federalism because it/they fought a war against genocide?
Nigerian leadership should give its
support to the doves in Igbo leadership lest the hawks win the minds and souls
of the angry youths. The doves want to assuage the anger of the youths and
reassure them that Nigeria is not just a land of empty promises to Ndigbo
but a home where their full potentials and rights, including the presidency, are
guaranteed and realisable. The year 2007 appears to be the barometer.
•Ijeaku wrote from Owerri
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