Motivation Power

The Nigerian civil war ended officially in 1970 with the capitulation of Biafra.

The then Nigerian Head of State,Gen Yakubu Gowon,in a rare display of magnanimity, declared a state of no victor no vanquished to put a healing balm on the wounds of the war and welcome our eastern folks back to Nigeria.

Sadly, Gowon’s successors didn’t continue his nation healing process; some of these post war leaders actually began to quietly penalize the Ibos for the war,in word and deeds.

The leaders after Gowon didn’t pursue full integration of the eastern brethren into the Nigerian nation, rather they began a systematic ostracization of the Ibos by denying them choice federal positions, location of federal projects, and justice in the abandoned properties case.

This reopened the scars of the civil war, despite isolated attempts by the Shehu Shagari government (1979-83), which made Igbo son,Alex Ekwueme Vice President.Largely, this was perceived as a mere symbolic gesture, like other political appointments given to Ibo folks at certain times.

Ndigbo enjoyed the best of times in the Goodluck Jonathan administration where they held strategic positions.It was this gesture that made Ibos adopt Jonathan as their own.

The defeat of Jonathan by Mohammadu Buhari’s APC in 2015, inspired by Bola Tinubu’s strong political engineering, upset the apple cart and dislodged the Ibos from federal power, which the Buhari administration now wield, some say, to detriment of the easterners because they opposed the emergence of the Kastina-born General as president.

Tinubu is widely despised today by the Ibos because of his role in bringing Buhari to power. The Jagaban’s sin in sending Jonathan, the adopted Igbo son to political wilderness means that the civil war has not ended.

It’s no coincidence that the agitations for the actualization of Biafra has become loudest during this period of Buhari administration.

This is not without reasons. Buhari’s appointments are skewed in favour of his Hausa-Fulani people, because, according to him, it’s from their zone he got the votes that brought him to the presidency. Buhari’s himself had said since he got about 5 per cent from the east, the Ibos could not justifiably expect to get much from his government in terms of the spoils from the hard fought election.

Although, Buhari tries to implement the federal character policy in his appointments,Ibos are obviously ignored. Out of the 17 or so appointments into strategic security positions, Ibos have none. That looks like vendetta.That looks like continuation of punishment of the Ibos for choosing to follow a different path in their political journey and preferences. That translates to punishment for the Biafrans. That is what has continued to drive the Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB agitations and the Igbo-based Obi-dient movement that is the core of the Peter Obi quest for the presidency in 2023.

The Igbo portrayal of Obi as their candidate is truly not a bad idea, because the Yoruba did the same when they put forward Olu Falae as their candidate in the 1999 Presidential election. However, the sentiment at the time was built around the imperatives of power shift to the Yoruba to assuage the tribe for the north’s sabotage of the election that M.K.O. Abiola,a Yoruba son won in 1993.

That’s not the Obi scenario. If you ask me, Obi is the best of the pack. He is,to me and many truly liberated Nigerians, the best presidential material in the present race.

However, because the Ibos have queued behind him in a reckless, and aggressive manner that insults the candidates from the other ethnic groups, they are reducing Obi ‘s chances by making the whole process look like a tribal war.This is not Obi’s message or desire. Obi is running a national, not ethnic or sectional race; he is not doing this for Biafrans as some mischievous rabble rousers are insinuating. Obi has set a standard in mass mobilization. Ibos should present him as a national leader,not an ethnic warlord who is attempting to do what Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB could not achieve. That, certainly is not Peter Obi’s agenda,I am sure of that and nobody can sway me from the position that Obi is in this race to deliver Nigeria.

For Obi and many Ibos, the civil war is over; only people like Uju Anya and her ilk who have chosen to live in the past, think that because some Nigerian leaders after Gowon, failed to continue the integration of the Igbo in national affairs, the entire Nigerian project should be destroyed. That’s throwing away the baby with the water.

Let me point out an important fact. The fact that Obi becomes president in 2023 doesn’t necessarily mean that he would singlehandedly integrate the Igbo or heal all their frustrations. None of the Nigerian Leaders was able to solve all the existential problems peculiar to their ethnic groups.

Shagari didn’t solve the Almajiri menace; Olusegun Obasanjo didn’t develope the south west. None of the military rulers was able to lift their ethnic groups above the others.

The best a leader could do is to appointment friends,relatives and cronies from his ethnic group, which doesn’t really give any serious advantage to his tribe over the others.

What Nigerian leaders do is fan the embers of religious and tribal sentiments to gain political power for their own personal aggrandizement.

How much of the Sanni Abacha loot was used to develop the north? His loots were stashed away in foreign banks to secure his own family, including those yet unborn.

Igbo youth today are enjoined to look beyond their shoulders and reach out peacefully, with humility and love to other ethnic groups across the nation. Igbo have continued to prosper across the country and around the world without let or hindrance. That’s one reason to be grateful.

All this Igbo grandstanding about the superior intelligence and financial acumen of their people is a complex they should jettison. Igbo talent in commercial enterprises is sufficiently known; they should not denigrate others for this, especially since people in the places where this prosperity is being achieved do not stop Igbo from doing their business. To continue to insult people on whose land Igbo are prospering is to punish them for allowing you prosper and live peacefully; that’s like continuation of the bad manners that stoke hatred for the Ibos in the first instance.

Back to Uju Anya. Her needles outburst against the late Queen Elizabeth 11, for allegedly supporting the Nigerian side during the civic war is predicted on the false premise that the Queen had a direct role in the exercise of executive functions in the British bureaucracy.

The Queen was a ceremonial leader and did not exercise executive functions. Uju,a scholar ought to understand that. Her outburst is just a continuation of the sentiment of the Biafran war.

It’s the responsibility of all Nigerians to compel our government to fully and fairly integrate the Igbo into national affairs; give them their due in political appointments and location of federal projects and what have you. 2023 is another opportunity to start a new beginning in the promotion of national integration of all aggrieved ethnic groups, including the Igbo.Anything short rest of this would amount to a continuation of the civil war and it’s divisive sentiments that we see daily manifest in IPOB,Uju Anya,etc.