WHEN Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declined the invitation of the State Security Services with some justifications, we knew the last had not been heard of the story. We expected the SSS to follow the wise counsel of the Afenifere, which urged it to allay the natural and legitimate misgivings Ojukwu and his supporters had expressed, to enable him pay them the visit they lawfully desired. But instead of that, some of its officials decided to adopt the typical street tactics that have come to be identified with the leadership of this regime and their hirelings. They resorted to the use of foul and insulting words.
In effect, they described Ojukwu’s press statement as a “public drama” and portrayed him as a coward for “taking fright”, a trait they said he had been associated with “over the years”. This was a veiled reference to the former Biafran leader’s self-exile after the civil war. They went on to boast that if they had reason to arrest Ojukwu they would have done it (and perhaps nothing would happen). The SSS statement did not help matters, just as President Olusegun Obasanjo’s typical reaction to sensitive situations tend to exacerbate, rather than solve problems. Pray, what did Ojukwu’s exile have to do with his fears for his safety in SSS custody? Why make allusions to history in a manner liable to inflame ethnic passions, if indeed the Services were squarely after the health and well being of the security of the Nigerian State?
The present crop of public office holders, all the way from the President to most of his hirelings, has continued to offend the Nigerian public’s sensibilities with their un-stately utterances and conducts. If the President is not calling someone an “idiot”, his ex-minister, Ojo Maduekwe will be describing people’s legitimate political aspiration as “idiotic”, or a serving minister, Nasir El Rufai will be describing the members of the Nigerian Senate as “fools” for raising a legitimate query. This pattern of unsavoury public conduct, unfitting of high public servants, becomes apparent.
THE one consolation, however, is that in less than three years from now, this regime and its host of ill-mannered servants would have been constitutionally flushed out of the hallowed recesses of our public establishments, and Nigeria would be left in peace to savour a bit of civilised atmosphere.
Just like the Afenifere, and the American government has advised the Federal Government to avoid arousing ethnic passion in dealing with the problem at hand viz: Ojukwu’s association with the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB’s) leadership, especially the Movement’s apparent growing capacity to influence the minds of the Igbo people. Solving the problem means studying its roots. This was what we started doing last Thursday by asking ourselves why the Biafra idea, which was “buried” 34 years ago, should suddenly become attractive, once again, to the Igbo, who bore the brunt of a failed secession bid between 1967 and 1970? It is either that the Igbo people are fanatically committed to leaving Nigeria or the Nigerian State has failed to accommodate them and restore their full rights within the federation as promised by the post-war declaration of “No Victor, No Vanquished” and “Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation”.
IN the first part of this write-up, I chronicled the thrust of Igbo political engagement with the Nigerian State as not just pro-Nigeria, but in fact, pro-Africa. I mentioned how it was actually the other two legs of the Nigerian tripod – the north and the west – that were strongly regional in their attitude to Nigeria and which have continued to impose their regional bias agenda upon the federation whenever they had the opportunity to be at the top. Ojukwu’s eternal politics has always been that unless the Nigerian political establishment that came into power after the war, is willing to enact a truly credible reunification of the former Biafrans with the rest of their countrymen, with equal opportunities restored and no more taking of “pound of flesh”, then they should let his people go. What, pray, is wrong with this political stand? Is this not the reaffirmation of the enunciated policies that were supposed to end the war for good?
My own understanding of MASSOB is that it is an expression of the impatience of the present generation of the Igbo with the Nigerian establishment’s refusal to accord them their full political rights under the laws of the land more than 30 years after the war. You do not have to put on magnifying glasses to see evidence of the relegation of the former Biafrans by successive administrations to a position of permanent irrelevance in the Nigerian scheme of things.
For instance, many people have held the view that the coup of 1983 was staged to prevent the emergence of Dr. Alex Ekwueme as the President of Nigeria in 1987, a prospect that seemed imminent. Again, in 1998/99, the G.34/People’s Democratic Party, a political platform built and nurtured by Dr. Ekwueme to put an end to military rule and usher in democracy, was hijacked by the military and handed over to fresh-from-jail Obasanjo, who played no role in the demilitarisation processes.
And in 2003, when the Igbo nation decided to rebuild their political fortunes from the grassroots (or regionalize like other Nigerians) through the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) led by Ojukwu, the ruling PDP used agents of the Nigerian State’s instruments of coercion and the Electoral Commission to deny the Igbo a political base controlled by their own people. The East was abolished as a power bloc of Nigeria at the end of the war. The former tripod was reduced to two legs – north and south, with the Yoruba representing face of the south.
In other words, all efforts by the Igbo people to assert themselves within Nigeria as free citizens under the Constitution, have been rebuffed by the Nigerian establishment that came to power at the end of the war.
Today, the core Igbo zone, known as the South-East has the smallest number of electoral wards, local governments and federal constituencies compared with other zones. These are the units constitutionally employed to share federal revenue and federal power (representational constituencies). In addition, the South-East has the smallest number of states. In fact, the status of glorified minority, which was purposed for Igboland in 1967 through the creation of 12 states, has been consecrated. To add insult to injury, the federal establishment, especially under the Obasanjo dispensation, has continued to deny the Anambra people in particular, the right to produce their state machinery and federal representatives through the electoral processes.
Instead, Abuja continues to sponsor some ill-educated local agents as political “godfathers” in the state. These, in a nutshell, are Nigeria’s post-war agenda for Igbo people which Igbo people reject through Ojukwu’s various political platforms.
If the federal establishment is genuine in its proclamations of building “one united Nigeria” and aversion to secession or separatism, it must address the issues once and for all. For almost 20 years now, well meaning Nigerians from all corners, including the former reluctant north, have been calling for a national conference. Incidentally, the national conference idea is originally Ojukwu’s brainchild. The Nigerian state has not only rebuffed these calls but in fact, prefers to push agitators to the wall so as to unleash state violence on them. Terror tactics have been found to be more convenient than political settlement.
Here is the word of caution. Ojukwu is the heart of the Igbo race, politically. He is to the Igbo what the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was to the Yoruba in the prime of his politics. No Igbo will encourage Ojukwu, Ralph Uwazuruike or anyone to disobey the laws of the land or create security problems. To the best of the knowledge of most people, Ojukwu has remained law abiding. But for its “Biafra” content, MASSOB is still a very law-abiding outfit. It is still “reformable”, especially as it has not yet taken up arms and we hope it will never do that. Where any member of MASSOB runs foul of the law, he should be brought to book according to the law.
But we must do our best to avoid pushing any alienated Nigerian group to take up arms. Once that happens, it becomes a dirty game, quite unlike the 1966 – 70 scenario when there was a shift of population and drawn battle lines, which enabled the two sides to know where their enemies were. That is outdated.
We should learn from the experiences of Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, the Middle East and even Ireland. It is better to solve political problems through the political processes. Nobody associated the Arabs with suicide mentality until they felt it was their last option. Violence as a political solution, is a road to nowhere.
Let us be warned and be wise.
