Ndigbo - A vanishing nation
By
THE party primaries have come and gone, throwing up winners and losers. Some winners were graceful and gentle in victory, others were simply coarse. Some losers were gallant in defeat, others were grotesquely forlorn, yet others were arithmetically brash and garrulous. In all of these, Ndigbo, as always, handled the short end of the stick!
I see Dr. Reuben Abati as an Igbo-watcher, if not Igbo-lover. Way back in 1999, he wrote that Ndigbo were yet to fashion out what they wanted politically. He stated that this was their major problem. Just recently again, he wrote a most illuminating piece, as usual, on Friday, January 10, 2003, under the caption: "Obasanjo's Strange Luck". No need attempting to paraphrase it; every Igbo should make a photocopy of the article for meditation. We are a sorry people indeed! Abati wrote inter alia, "What is dangerously becoming the definite feature of Igbo politics is a table-tennis approach to power, which may serve the limited individual interests,...where now is the Igbo Presidency? Where is Orji Kalu, its most strident proponent?" He touched on the brazen political immaturity displayed by our very own Dr. Alex Ekwueme, how he fell with a loud thud from grace to grass, as most ably assisted by the same group of characters he thought would shore him up with all their available sundry resources as they had promised to do.
Whenever I feel like enjoying myself, I engage my brothers in Aba in some political discourse. You cannot imagine the shallowness of our political pundits. The same people, who a few months ago were busy yelling on top of their coarse voices: "Igbo Presidency or nothing", have been cowed into a pitiable sight with an unenviable refrain: "half bread is better than none", referring strangely to an Okadigbo Vice Presidency. It is strange how Ndigbo will let the Hausa/Fulani continue to use and dump them at will. It is strange how Ndigbo easily sell out over a mess of political pottage. It is strange how the mercantilistic wizardry of Ndigbo cannot translate into a clear political vision. It is laughable that Ndigbo will keep feeling that they are better off under the obvious political subjugation and suffocation of the North instead of the competitive freedom offered by the South.
The North is used to treating Ndigbo with utter disdain in all things, which is why the Minna cabal systematically, decidedly, and without apologies destroyed our own dear Ekwueme permanently! Listen to Gen. Buhari's caustic, unpresidential, unreconciliatory and grossly derogatory speech, spurning his Southern colleagues at Abuja. He was literally saying, "let the idiots go, they will come back if we need them; it's a matter of cash." Even our Dr. Chuba Okadigbo corroborated this in his famed political arithmetic and triple decision speech. He selfishly, and without any form of consultation, settled to playing the second fiddle. To him, this was smartness; this was political "fastness". Again half bread...Can you shut your eyes for a minute and visualise a Buhari/Okadigbo administration?
Tom and Jerry will be the child's play it sure is when compared with this contraption. Okadigbo showed so much disdain for Obasanjo whom he considered less educated than himself. Now imagine his patience with an even much lesser read and very poorly spoken Buhari! The latter, on the other hand, will be much less accommodating of Okadigbo's shenanigans, given his STRONG Sharia advocacy and orientation. The ship is wrecked before it set sail. Again, this is by design by the North. In Aba, the change of dance steps away from the PDP, towards ANPP and the other parties based on Presidential candidacy is a clear indication that the Igbo political leadership and especially that of the PDP at that level are grossly insincere. The Governor has always sat on the fence, always repositioning. Now that his embattled deputy has beaten him to the ANPP, securing their governorship ticket, I hear the other parties are still leaving the vacancy for him, since February 10th is still a long way from home. This valve needs to be open just in case the result of the ultrasound by INEC is negative. That is good politics. With an INEC negative report, sadly all escape routes are blocked.
Going back to Ndigbo as a nation, one cannot but shudder at the low level of intelligence of our leaders. Check out the Chekwas Okorie outburst that Ojukwu is being drafted to the APGA Presidency to counter-balance the array of Generals marshalled out by the other tribes. What a criterion! Aren't we lucky, we are parading two of them: remember Omar Sanda, he is one of us, though he claims to be a bridge. So by the time all our few Generals are thoroughly rubbished in April 2003, there will be no reserve call-up list. That's hardly the way to fight and win a strategic warfare. Ndigbo will prefer to play sentimental politics instead of robust negotiations. They are willing to split their few votes among the many Igbo Presidential candidates, thereby wasting them, instead of taking a hard frank look at the polity and negotiating their votes to the most likely candidate. For the avoidance of doubt, No Igbo presidential candidate stands a chance today; no, not one! Sentiments do not win elections. Numbers, planning, strategic alignment, resources and goodwill do, and we are grossly lacking in all of these!
Ndigbo should beat a tactical retreat now and address more fundamental issues plaguing her. We should strive to revive education in Igboland. We should train our teeming youths in different relevant skills and take over the strategic jugular of the economy. We should produce food and create wealth in concrete terms, beyond rhetoric. We should repopulate the villages and make them viable. We should shelve the Presidency project for now and learn just how to build real friendly bridges with our immediate Southern neighbours. We should stop this silly syndrome of playing second fiddle to the Hausa/Fulani. We should critically examine ourselves, for the fault could be, in fact, is within us. We are too acerbic to be friendly; too cocky to be trusted; too self-conceited to be partnered with. We should realise that we are the real minority in the current deliberate geo-political set-up.
The likes of Okadigbo should be a lesson on what Ndigbo should not be - turncoats. The uninformed and suicidal political calculations of Ekwueme is a lesson on what we should never do - depending on "them" to manufacture us! The motley crowd of Igbo Presidential candidates is a lesson on how not to go about the Presidency project. Did the AD not state that they are not really keen on the Presidency for now? It's time for Ndigbo to return to the drawing board and develop a realistic long-term political re-emergence programme. Meanwhile, let's embark on a massive education of our youths; let's get productive and self-sufficient in food production. That is the way to the future. Anything short of this will spell extinction for the Igbo Nation, just as our language and dialects have slowly but surely become.
April 2003