There is no doubt that the only way the Igbos apart from political accident can produce the president in the country is by zoning. If not for the sudden demise of President Umaru Musa Yar Adua in office, and President Goodluck Jonathan’s contest of 2011 Presidency against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) zoning arrangement, PDP would have fielded a Southeast presidential candidate, and a North Central running mate in this forthcoming presidential poll. There is no argument about this because even the founding fathers of the party know this. That was why the then PDP national chairman, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor was very frank and courageous at the peak of the late president Yar Adua health saga when he publicly declared that PDP would abide by its presidency zoning arrangement.
But immediately Jonathan assumed office as president, the presidency and its hawks ousted Ogbulafor from office and roped him in, in alleged corrupt practice to silence him. Some prominent Igbo politicians in the PDP and their Northern counterparts which include Senator Ken Nnamani, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Senator Ben Obi, Prof ABC Nwosu, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, Prof. Ango Abdullahi and others met severally then and even signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) that they would work together as a people to ensure that their political interest and aspiration would be met. Indirectly, they were against Jonathan’s ambition to contest 2011 presidential poll knowing full well the long-term political implication of such on PDP zoning principles that has been driving the party’s success in the poll since 1999. But before one could bat an eyelid, the Igbo political leaders in the PDP have capitulated and sold out to the Jonathan’s ambition in 2011. Typical of an Igbo man who is always handy to be used to betray his people, many of the Igbo political leaders jumped into the Jonathan’s campaign train to the disappointment of their Northern counterparts. There were settled with contracts, appointments, and cash in exchange for their political opportunity and by the extension right to produce the presidency in 2015.
Ahead of the 2015 polls, they saw the political trend with the formation of All Progressives Congress (APC), the alignment between the North and the Southwest which has become the possible game change, they stuck with the Jonathan’s ambition even when it is obvious that Jonathan’s government in the last five years plus has failed the Igbos woefully. In the last five years of Jonathan administration in Igbo Land, It has been more of political promise less action. From the Second Niger Bridge, Enugu-Onitsha road, Enugu-Port Harcourt road, Onitsha port to the refusal to commission Prof. Barth Nnaji’s Geometric power plant in Aba that was ready for almost two years now. The list is endless. But some few Igbo treacherous leaders who are beneficiaries of the President Jonathan’s government and the massive corruption that has characterized it in the last five years have continued to shamelessly campaign for his re-election in Igbo land with nothing concrete for the Igbos. They are busy spreading cheap propaganda and hate message against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, General Muhammed Buhari.
These categories of Igbo leaders include former governors, incumbent governors, serving ministers, former ministers, leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and several others. So much public funds have been made available to them by the Presidency, and they are busy justifying their loots by engaging in all kinds of hatchet political jobs. They are everywhere on the pages of newspaper, in the churches, communities, on the streets sponsoring pro-Jonathan rallies with looted public money, casting Buhari and APC. They are deluding the people that Buhari will islamise Nigeria if he is elected President, but failed to tell them why President Jonathan has not Christianise the country in the last five years, if it is easy. They are telling them that Hausas are Boko Haram and not good people, but did not tell them why Boko Haram insurgents have been killing and displacing the Muslims in the last five years. If truly Hausas are not good as these elite want us to believe why have they be able co-habit peacefully in the Igbo land for decades. One hard truth these set of Igbo political mercenaries have refused to disclose to their people or wouldn’t want them to know is that the votes of the Southeast and South-South which is about 16.8 million cannot return Jonathan for second term, even if he gets all of them which is not possible. That the votes of these two geo-political zones are not up to the vote of the Northwest zone with 19,800 million votes.
In this their hatchet job, none of these so-called Igbo political leaders in the PDP is talking or negotiating anything better for the political future of the Southeast in power equation of the country. What matters most to them is the immediacy which is their private pockets, business interests, and that of their families, and relations. Others can go the hell. That is why majority of them have remained with the tag “Any Government In Power” (AGIP).
It is for this reason that some Nigerians such a many of yesterday and the Director of Media and Publicity of the President Jonathan campaign organisation, Chief Femi-Fani-Kayode could summon courage to insult the sensibilities of the Igbos in the name of campaigning for President Jonathan by re-writing the civil war history.
Addressing journalists in Umuahia Abia State recently, Fani-Kayode, said there had been “mind boggling allegations” against Buhari over his roles in the massacre of Igbos in the ‘60s and should therefore not be allowed to continue to run from his shadows.
He said Buhari’s hands reek of the blood of innocent Igbo civilians massacred in cold blood hence such atrocities could not qualify him as a presidential candidate but a candidate for the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
Citing the horrendous massacre of Igbo civilians, including women and children in the North, and the killing of Igbo men and young boys at Asaba after the town was “liberated” by federal forces, Fani-Kayode insisted that Buhari’s name had always popped up in connection with those heinous \crimes against humanity.
“It is important for us to remember that day because one of the allegations against Buhari that was to be put to him at the Oputa Panel was that he was among the division that took part in the massacre and that ordered those killings,” he said, adding that Buhari should speak up and explain if he was in Asaba on that fateful day and if so apologise to Igbos and Nigerians in general before atoning for his sins.
It had been expected that some Igbo leaders would have call Fani-Kayode to order over the unguarded utterances especially concerning the Igbos and the civil war, but as we know the fear of incurring the Presidency’s wrath appears to be their handicaps because they lack integrity. If not, what did Fani-Kayode know about Igbos and the civil war experiences. If Buhari was serving in a military division where Igbos were killed during the civil war does that mean that Buhari killed them? Of what effects are such utterances on Igbos’ fortune in Jonathan presidency? Why such comments now?
Why was Fani-Kayode trying to re-write history of civil war for the Igbos, and when has he become the Spokesman of the Igbos or Ohanaeze? Lest we may forget that the worst thing that happened to the Igbos after the war was the issue of abandoned property in Rivers. Bayelsa was part of Rivers then and President Jonathan was from there. So we can conveniently ask President Jonathan and his people to explain their roles in the abandoned property saga in Rivers. This is because most of the properties in the present Rivers and Bayelsa and by extension Cross River belong to Igbos before the war but could not recover them after the war. The old Rivers people seized everything Igbos worked for and refused to give them back anything after the war.
Whereas those in the North whom people like Fani- Kayode tagged enemies of the Igbos did not only protect Igbos property in the region, they returned them to the Igbos immediately after the civil war. People like the late Biafra warlord Chief Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu reclaimed his father’s house in Kano after the war and willed it to one of her daughters at death. That is why it was easy for Igbos in the North to start life quickly after the war. Before the Boko Haram insurgency 80 per cent of Igbos are earning their living in the remote areas of the North where you hardly find an Ijaw man. This is because Ijaw men are not good at adventures. So who is trying to pitch Igbos against the North ahead of the rescheduled polls? When has Igbos become cheap products for sale to the highest bidder? Ahead of the rescheduled presidential poll, the political atmosphere is very clear. The direction is change and the Igbos should not be behind because immediately the change occurs, these political hypocrites called Igbos leaders in the PDP that have been hoodwinking the Igbos with Greek gift from President Jonathan will be the first to shift base. They are not truly Igbo political leaders, but political harlots who are specialists in the elitist conspiracy, and divide and rule method to remain politically relevant. Igbos must shine their eyes.
Jacob Nwaezeorah, a retired civil servant wrote from Nsukka, Enugu State
This is one of the most enlightened, objective and devoid of ethnic and religious sentiments articles I have ever read of recent time from an Igbo contributor.
I try with open mind read articles and contributions from the Igbo people in various media and in most cases share most of the views expressed by Mr. Jacob Nwaezeorah in this article; and often come to a “conclusion” that the Igbo race is traumatizing itself with a defeatist-mentality of the self-inflicted Biafra War experience, the prejudiced and ethnocentric belief that other ethnic zones; especially the North and the West are their perceived and perpetual haters and enemies; and a people who lacks the belief they can ever produce a president of this country!
Yet, same Igbo people are accepted and allowed to flourish in their businesses, by the same people perceived to be their haters and enemies, even in their lands! I think there is a need for a proper study of the “Psychology of the Igbo People”, before it is already too late for the Igbo race nailing their own political coffin of ever producing or becoming politically relevant people to aspire to be president in Nigeria.
God bless Mr. Jacob Nwaezeorah, an enlightened, objective and I want to believe a detribalised Igbo elite himself, for sharing this article, because woe betide the writer if he has been from any of the “hater and enemy zones” of the Igbo, as there would have been flurry of abuses, curses, name-callings etc by our Ndigbo brothers and sisters.