– By Igbonekwu Ogazimorah–
The last time Erwin Okere, whom I mistook for Uwen, called and I published his views, it was like the hell had to come down. Members of Ohanaeze and their sympathisers were really upset. And they did not hide it.
The issue then was the fawning and genuflection of Ohanaeze Ndigbo over the possibility or otherwise of Mr. President getting Igbo support in the now concluded convention of the PDP.
Erwin had raged that Ohanaeze had no right to claim to speak for the individual Igbo voter when, in all its dealings and pretensions, it had only revealed itself as lacking in any form of clout and abilities to get the confidence of the people.
Ohanaeze had quickly followed this admonition with siding with governors of the South East, whose students in the various state universities had done over 30 weeks at home over lecturers’ strike. It was like further conferring on itself the status of perpetually serving interests other than those of Ndigbo.
Well, this time, somebody else, a non-Igbo, called. Let us call him Muktar, ferocious Kaduna-based lawyer. I actually volunteered to keep his other names off since it could take savage ethnic hits for no reason.
But he did not talk of Ohanaeze. He actually believed that Ohanaeze was sacrosanct and should not be “disparaged.” Yet, he would not exhibit the same reverence to Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). He actually thinks ACF is not in a position to represent the interest of the North. Yet, again, he strangely, but very strongly, objected to my own position that Ohanaeze should be scrapped for good and the men sent into retirement for well-deserved rest.
That is by the way! The actual reason for his call, last Tuesday, was the well publicised hollering of Igbo governors, who almost bit off their tongues trying to force it on all that they were going to bring down hills and fill up valleys to cause electoral victory for President Jonathan.
I told Muktar that I heard the announcement coming of what looked like a communiqué released after a meeting in Asaba.
Muktar was impatient. He dismissed whatever might have caused me to impress it on him that it was a meeting held in Asaba, Niger Delta zone. “What is the difference?” he growled.
“Well, it was like an inter-regional thing – South East and South-South,” I wanted to offer.He almost lost his cool friendliness. “Igbo,” he boomed. “That was the dressing. Your Igbo governors never knew when they became servile to such other groups that should bow and tremble at the mention of Igbo or Ndigbo.”
I wanted to object that it must have been one of these PDP meetings, but he cut me short… “What was Peter Obi doing there? Is he PDP?”
I had no answer, as I did not even know that, APGA governor, Obi of Anambra State, was there.
“Yes, he was,” Muktar said and further reeled out the possible scenario leading to the well-rehearsed declaration. “Your people, victims of all actions tending to failure of various administrations, were summoned to the Niger Delta and instructed to be more vociferous about Igbo votes coming to Goodluck Jonathan so as to close the region against other contenders, including the firm and focused Muhammadu Buhari.”
“No,” I protested, “it may be true that they were summoned and directed to say what they said, yet, it could not have been as a master-servant thing.”
“Oh, my God,” Muktar moaned. “How else could a political superior ask a subordinate over for instruction? And for purposes of getting them to say the right kind of things, they were moved over to Asaba, conferring the media control on the host region.”
I decided to take the offensive. “Do not forget that your people, the North, actually pauperised the Igbo, making them political subordinates to minority groups and ensuring that such other groups that were ordinarily positive in relations with Ndigbo suddenly turned hostile, so that the isolation of the people was completed in just one decade after the war?”
That threw Muktar’s tongue open and almost hostile. He nearly lost his niceties and began to vibrate. “No, you got it wrong! How on earth can a people reduce their political strategy to the immediacy and play with the dangers of being ever present in the battlefield? There is no indication of a ready plan for the future,” he was furious now. “And is anybody in doubt about what the progressive Yoruba intelligentsias are doing, trying to carve a niche, trying to be seen in their difference, trying to attain the footing to be reckoned with and fighting tooth and nail to ensure a corporate oneness of feeling and patriotic thought in the region, within Nigeria?”
At this stage, I believed he entered my trap and I shot back: “So, you now promote inner texture of regional feeling against global Nigeria, which should be the end goal of everybody?”
He hesitated and returned with some force. “Have you ever heard the Yoruba elite challenge the authority or suzerainty of the Federal Government outside the law? They are only struggling to achieve the kind of monolithic North of the years gone by, but this time, woven around an ideology of progressivism. In other words, the immediate interest is in holding the region to a form of uniformity of purpose before they can begin to look for powers outside their base. By the time they complete their encircling of the region, they will begin to export their brand of progressivism, which would have become a force. They are not shy; they are not blushing; they are not timid, like the Igbo governors; and they are not as selfish as such governors who mortgage the interest of their people to interests in personal reelection.”
“Are the Igbo governors timid and selfish?” I hissed.
Muktar must have thought he hurt me. “Let me explain,” he pleaded. “Those governors have reduced themselves to a laughing stock. What makes them think that political acceptance is in doing what appeals to elements outside their region. Have you forgotten our adage: ‘The coward praises to high heavens the belligerent man he fears, thinking it is the way to remove himself from possible calamity of an attack.’
“Ogazi, does it not worry you that the Igbo governor, who seeks acceptance and reckoning offloads his normal Federation Account Allocation at the homes and warehouses of ‘so called’ powerful Emirs in the North? Of course, it couldn’t have been the like of the late Chuba Okadigbo; not Arthur Nwankwo; not Nwankwo’s late brother, Victor, etc. How many northern governors rush to the South East to seek out the leveraging of a gladiator or better still, which South West governor will ever carry one Naira to any part of the North to be noted for approval? What about hoodwinking over 40 million people with the pretension that an Ijaw name ‘Ebele, meaning junior,’ has become the Igbo word ‘Ebere/Ebele, meaning mercy? Then, you talk of this issue of quickly taking up the name of Nigeria’s first president, to finally bawl over the leaders and their underlings.”
Muktar went on and on. “Ogazi,” he called, “pardon me, but your governors bring up the rear!”
“Yes,” I said, “I now see how they are timid!”
