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The Igbo and One Nigeria
CHUKWUEMEKA P. EZEIFE
I
MAY be foolish. Perhaps, I have always been, especially, in today’s dog-eat-dog
politics of Nigeria. Yet, please lend me your eyes and mind. Let us consider
this thing that I see as a serious problem, a serious threat to One Nigeria. The
Igbo feel they are being pushed out of Nigeria.
The Movement for the Actualisation of the
Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) ordered the Igbo to stay at home on August
26, 2004. The order was obeyed in rural and urban Igboland. Rural "Nkwo"
markets, whose antiquity no living can tell, were deserted and quiet, for the
first time, in peace time. It was the same with modern urban markets at Onitsha,
Aba, Umuahia, Enugu, Owerri, Abakaliki, Awka, and Port Harcourt etc. Market
places in Igboland were quiet, dead quiet. The order was obeyed, in part, also
in many towns outside Igboland. Not even Ohanaeze can achieve that level of
compliance. And the order was obeyed in spite of all the threats and cajolings
by the state governments and the police, and in spite of the put-downs and
sneers by the bulk of Igbo political, academic and business elite.
The message is clear and definite! The
ordinary Igbo identify more with MASSOB than with Igbo leadership and elite. We
must assume that these grassroots Igbo know where MASSOB is going and want to
follow it.
I was stunned. On getting to the South
East the next day (August 27), I spent time sounding the views of a
cross-section of Igbo publics: Rural people, urban people; those who live
inside Igboland, those who live outside; those who appear to be politically
aware, those who do not, etc. This exercise made real, some of my vogue fears;
it exposed my misconceptions and yielded more information than I had possessed
or assumed.
I should assert the following truths. No
ties or links exist between the MASSOB and Igbo leadership. Most Igbo elite had
never taken the MASSOB seriously. They do not support the MASSOB overtly; they
do not support the MASSOB covertly. They do not understand the MASSOB. Between
the Igbo leadership and the MASSOB there is not that tacit understanding or
subterranean co-operation which exists between the Yoruba Leadership and the
Odua Peoples Congress (OPC). The Igbo leadership fear MASSOB! MASSOB is a
spoiler. MASSOB will scuttle the quest for President of Eastern origin in 2007.
MASSOB will endanger Igbo property outside Igboland. MASSOB will worsen the
marginalisation of the Igbo. Members of MASSOB are young men who did not know
the civil war and want to repeat it.
On their part, the MASSOB see the Igbo
leadership and elite as tired people, spent forces, who, having lost their Igbo
guts, have sold out and cheapened the imagine of the Igbo. Igbo leadership and
elite have lost the sense of discernment, they are now hoping against hopes,
engaged in wishful thinking. They are lying flat on their stomachs begging
favour from their more politically sagacious neighbours who see them as
vanquished and finished, dispirited and permanent slaves. Igbo leaders and elite
live in illusions, embarking on missions as possible as squeezing water out of
hard dry rocks! They know the futility of what they do; they hope their
followers are deceived.
For the MASSOB, there is no half way
house. It is Biafra, at all costs, however long it takes. No compromise! What if
the rest of Nigeria concedes the presidency to the east, even to the Southeast,
in 2007? No! Biafra is the unchanging goal. What if the concession on the
presidency follows a National Conference at which reasonable and realistic
changes are made for Nigeria to work? No! It must be Biafra! MASSOB is building
on a very strong principle buried deep in the psyche of the Igbo. That principle
or maxim says: One rejected, does not reject oneself. Deep down,
the Igbo believe that Nigerians have rejected them.
I stated in my paper, "The Strategy for
President of Eastern Origin,: that the MASSOB will start dealing with us,
the One-Nigeria-singing elders of the east, before facing Nigeria. It was then a
vague fear. It has been confirmed. But I also thought (it was a misconception)
that yielding the presidency to the east is sure-banker for appeasing MASSOB. I
wrote, "Anybody, any group, opposed to president of eastern origin for 2007, may
be paying only lip service to the idea of Nigeria permanence... The youths of
the east mince no words: either a fair Nigeria, where things work, or a
federated eastern republic, by whatever name (some say Biafra).... We, their
elders who are sworn to one Nigeria, may be eliminated first." I went on to
justify the youths as follows: "And can you blame them? Should they accept to be
slaves in the country of their birth?" Their case is clear and cannot be flawed.
One leg of the tripod has ruled for more than three decades, another leg is
approaching a dozen years at the helm, the third leg? By happenstance, six
miserable months, and the man was killed by other Nigerians!
Certainly, if I believe that the MASSOB,
and the Igbo masses who want to identify with, and follow it, have reached the
point of Biafra-and-nothing-else and are headed inexorably to Biafra, this note,
to you, would have been pointless and would never have been written. Being out
of power for a long time creates disunity among a people. It gives the populace
the notion that their leaders are impotent. A central force or rallying point is
not there. Natural, or people who ordinarily will be, followers begin to want to
lead. The Igbo have been out of power for many decades. That is in addition to
the damages from the civil war, which was forced upon them. In the section on
the "Delegation to the Deep North" (Strategy for President...) I wrote, "The
delegation should let the northern leaders appreciated that the dominance of
centrifugal forces in the east results from the east being out of power for so
many decades; northern leaders are in a position to know that the east has not
always been this way, in disarray."
The truth is that eastern elders need the
rest of Nigeria to help them persuade the eastern youths on the need for
Nigeria’s permanence. We need all the rest of Nigeria to help, but we need the
north more. The west may not yet feel so fully assuaged as to join to dissuade
anyone from leaving Nigeria. There may still be elements, in the west, who pray
for an opportunity for a near-peaceful disengagement from Nigeria. The north has
the greater responsibility to help. For the easterners have long cooperated with
the north. And any problems (old or new) between the two peoples derive from
British imperial propaganda against Zik and his eastern peoples whom the British
saw as obstacles to prolonged imperial domination of Nigeria. This is the root
of the problems. It was the British manipulation of northern opinion, which
caused every problem between the northern and southern, especially the eastern,
peoples, including the civil war. I believe that one Nigeria is in the long-term
interest of every group in Nigeria, including the northern groups. Nigerians
should also appreciate that one Nigeria is in the long-term interest of all
Black and African peoples. For, it is the manifest destiny of Nigeria, to
develop into a super power, thereby to restore the dignity and prestige of Black
and African peoples. Of course, northern peoples remain the best judge of the
north’s long-term interest. It is my hope that the judgement leads to actions to
sustain one Nigeria.
It is important, whatever we think or do,
to realise the basic truth of the situation. What is happening in the east is
not a case of cleverness or different groups playing different strategies for
the same objective. Igbo politicians are not using, cannot use, and are not
disposed to using MASSOB, as a pressure group for the achievement of president
of eastern origin in 2007. MASSOB does not have "presidency of eastern origin"
in its agenda. The left hand is not working with the right hand; it does not
know what the right hand is doing.
I believe that a president of eastern
origin in 2007, following a reasonable and realistic outcome of a National
Conference, can scatter MASSOB forever. As noted above, the MASSOB, itself,
accepts that such development may delay their march to Biafra. Indeed, such
delay is all that is necessary to re-appraise the situation and the long-term
opportunities therein. The Igbo, including members of the MASSOB, will see and
embrace their superior interest in a Nigeria where things are made to work and
fairness is installed. Being universalistic, they will also appreciate the great
importance of one Nigeria, which works, to all Black and African Peoples.
Of course, I may be wrong. But, on such
serious national issues, I have not usually been. That is why I (the Gakuwan
Fika,the Akintolugboye of Egbaland, the Okwadike Nd’Igbo), humbly
appeal to you to digest well the above, and judge your interest in pushing the
Igbo out of Nigeria! For that is the real issue!
•Dr. Ezeife, is a former governor of
Anambra State.
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