It is really absurd and shameful that people, especially among them, intellectuals cry about the ‘Igbo Presidency’ as if it is a hereditary title. If the Igbos want the presidency with desperation, they have to jettison their attitudes of ethnic bigotry and sinister motives and work well with other ethnic groups in the country to build the trust that would eventually land them the number one position in the country. The Hausas and Yorubas have done it and have seen the results. This continued notion that there is a plan to keep the Igbos down within the nation’s scheme of things is a mirage or figment of imagination.
Pebbles with Igbotako Nowinta
Recent authorized publications and comments about behind the scenes political maneuvers in 1966 have clearly stated that late General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigeria’s first military head of state was a victim of circumstance.
General Aguiyi-Ironsi never took part in the first military coup on January 15, 1966 that violently terminated the First Republic.
He even helped to quell the military mutiny in Lagos, where he was operating as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Nigerian Army.
That is to say that the Igbo-born late army officer did not allow the coupists to succeed in Lagos.
As the coup plotters failed miserably in Lagos, late Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, an Igbo man and mastermind of the coup triumphed in Kaduna beyond his wildest imagination, and went on to declare in the much publicized radio broadcast ‘why we struck.’
General Aguiyi-Ironsi and other top military brass succeeded in brow beating the then acting President of Nigeria, Dr. Okafor Orisu, equally an Ibo man and the tattered Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa civilian government then into submission, to begin the first military regime in Nigeria.
Ironsi did all he was able to do as Head of State not as a dictator, but the then Supreme Military Council took collective decisions that eventually led to his bloody overthrow on July 29th 1967, paving the way for a new and young officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon as Head of state.
When Gowon emerged at the age of 32, those who facilitated his ascension to the highest position in the land claimed that General Ironsi was acting an ‘Igbo’ script to pocket and dominate the rest tribes in Nigeria, a claim which was untrue.
Enters Col. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, who as Military Administrator of the then Eastern Region under General Ironsi refused to bow to the authority of General Gowon for obvious reasons.
Ojukwu (an Igbo man) went on to prosecute one of the bloodiest civil wars (Nigerian Civil War) in Africa.
When the war ended in January 1970 after millions of innocent fellow citizens died on both the Biafra and the Nigeria sides, the genuine reasons that propelled Odumegwu Ojukwu to start the war were never addressed, neither have those reasons being tackled till date.
Today, one Nnamdi Kanu is making waves as the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), after one Chief Nwazuruike has danced, sang and compromised with plenty of personal fortunes, but without much success with the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) in Nigeria.
It is a fact that Nwazuruike’s MASSOB succeeded massively to act the selfish and greedy script of some Igbo politicians while his noise attracted the ears of those holding sway in Aso Rock Presidential Palace.
It was therefore not surprising when Kanu started making waves with his pet project (Radio Biafra) – the supposed voice of his revolution because we knew it was another set of demented Igbo politicians at work, eager to make their presence felt and known.
Let’s face it! There is no doubt that the Biafran question has expired and is no longer relevant within the Nigerian context. Nigeria fought a war to keep as one, a nation that was hurriedly, selfishly and fraudulently put together by the British Imperialists.
Biafra or whatever its sponsors and foot soldiers call or paint it died in 1970 with the defeat of Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu at the end of the civil war.
Kanu and his cabal of disgruntled so-called revolutionists have a moral obligation to join forces with other progressive Nigerians to build a united Nigeria where peace, harmony and justice will reign.
He should be made to answer to those Nigerian laws he has broken in the name of Biafra struggle. Who says the Igbos are marginalized in the present scheme of things?
The Igbos were placed in vantage positions during Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Former Finance Minister and Coordinating chief whip of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is unequivocally a great example of high profile Igbo presence in that dispensation.
Let’s go back a little bit. During the second republic when Alhaji Shehu Shagari was president, an Igbo man in the name of Dr. Alex Ekweme was the Vice President and then if our memory serves us right, Senator Joseph Wayas, from Cross Rivers State, also from the South East of the country was the President of Senate at the same time.
Then what do Daniel Kanu and his supporters want, may be an assured ‘presidential’ space as has been continuously echoed by some Igbo leaders?
It is really absurd and shameful that people, especially among them, intellectuals cry about the ‘Igbo Presidency’ as if it is a hereditary title.
If the Igbos want the presidency with desperation, they have to jettison their attitudes of ethnic bigotry and sinister motives and work well with other ethnic groups in the country to build the trust that would eventually land them the number one position in the country.
The Hausas and Yorubas have done it and have seen the results. This continued notion that there is a plan to keep the Igbos down within the nation’s scheme of things is a mirage or figment of imagination.
It is unfortunate that they just missed the chance to join the bandwagon when the wind of change stared everyone in the face in Nigeria before the presidential election that brought Buhari to office as president last year.
Those who had the vision went with the popular cause, but Ndigbo turned a blind eye in an attempt to maintain the status-quo.
Igbo leaders should stop worshipping titles which has continued to drive them into installing Eze Ndibgos in other people’s lands, thereby attracting the resentment and wrath of their host communities.
They should be faithful to their people (downtrodden masses) who heavily invest electorally on the political class only to receive betrayals as rewards.
To become a president takes hard work and collective efforts of all sections of the nation, even though in the case of Goodluck Jonathan it was by anointment by his master, Olusegun Obasanjo, who first handed him over to Shehu Musa Y’ Ardua as a running mate in 2007 in an election that the ruling People’s Democratic Party was highly programmed to win at the expense of other contestants and political parties.
In reality, the Igbos have never been neglected even by President Muhammadu Buhari in the present Dispensation despite lack of support towards the actualization of his presidential ambition by the majority of them.
Any one who saw the horrors and senseless slaughters that became tragic reality during the Nigerian civil war will spit at Kanu and his band of suicide gamblers.
We know too perfectly well that the problem with Nigeria is the elite who have succeeded in grabbing for themselves and their cronies about 90% of our collective patrimony while the masses are gasping to hold only 10%.
The way out of our present problem is for us to hold government and public office holders accountable for their stewardship to the people.
Also we must consider the practice of true fiscal federalism so that every state can develop on its own pace, not the present system or ever centralized approach that has turned every state in the federation into beggars and paupers.
There is no way Biafra can be carved out of the present state of Nigeria. The Nigerian problem today is not with the geographical expression but with the few greedy and wicked crooks who do not want the system to benefit the masses.
Nnamdi Kanu and Biafra, my foot!
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A Call for Democratic Revolution in Nigeria
