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Omo Omoruyi Vs Ndiigbo (II) Exploring "Ethnic Suicide" and Other Fascist Themes in Omo Omoruyi's Essays. In our previous contribution to the ongoing exchange between Omo Omoruyi and Ndiigbo, we proposed that Omo Omoruyi in order to believe himself would need to satisfy four pre-requisites: stupidity, moral bankruptcy, racist inclination and ignorance. In this essay, we further develop these themes even as we add a fifth condition -insanity.
The rationale for including the insanity criterion is the realisation that every act so far committed by Omo Omoruyi in his crusade against Igbo people has been done in a state of delusion or at least intoxication. His essays are therefore stripped of intellectual depth and cohesion, which render them insane as in the case of schizophrenic loosening of association. We shall conclude this instalment by defining a critical new phase in the Igbo collective struggle against this bigoted dinosaur called Omo Omoruyi.
Before we proceed in the task of deconstructing Mr Omoruyi, lets add a caveat: this is not an Igbo-Edo confrontation. So the likes of Igbinosa Evobayiro, Ikhariale etc. should better keep out of it. All the would-be Edo entrants into this analytical duel are reminded that Omo Omoruyi out of his own volition decided to incite hatred against Ndiigbo as a whole with no apparent provocation. Ndiigbo around the globe have therefore resolved to tattoo him with his racist views and rein him in by tying those views around his neck like a talisman.
We may well reach a stage where it will become necessary to launch a mass civil rights protest involving the picketing of any institution whose equipment and other facilities are used to create and disseminate anti-Igbo literature. By the time Ndiigbo are done with him, every Igboman woman or child anywhere in the world should be able to identify the name Omo Omoruyi as a rabid Igbo-hater, the Nigerian equivalent of France's neo-fascist leader- Jean Marie Le Pen. One clear option for Mr Omoruyi is to completely abandon his unsolicited intervention in Igbo affairs and let Ndiigbo carry their own cross in Nigeria.
Now, if Omo Omoruyi is chagrined by being identified as an Igbo hater, he should have exercised more restraint and judgement in his so-called essays, which single out Igbo people for caricature and scapegoating. Clearly, it is Omo Omoruyi's fascist impulse which has driven him to zealously pursue his mission of promoting a failed dictator while denying the right of Igbo people to pursue a valid alternative mission of their own. It is even doubtful whether obasanjo understands the enormity of Omoruyi's intemperate rant or endorses this brand of addled theorising being carried out in his name.
Since our reposte to Omoruyi's articles, we have received private mails from Edo warriors apparently angered by the way we have responded to their kinsman. We have of course not bothered to dignify them with any response. No sensible Igbo would dignify the Edo warriors and defenders of Omoruyi's blunder by engaging in any bellicose exchanges. Such an exercise will be futile and pointless. It would be probably as worthless as the USA, Japan, Russia or any serious state engaging the Republics of Tahiti, Sao-Tome and Fiji in some national duel. Let us be reminded that the entire Edo population which is no bigger than the size of Aboh Mbaise LGA in Imo state has some of the most deprived elements in the Nigerian failed state. Any Edo man who is spoiling for a fight should nip down to the back streets of Milan and southern Italy where the grand battle for the dignity of Edo humanity is raging as we speak. Better still, such people should make haste to raise funds to alleviate the sufferings of hapless victims of kerosene explosions in Nigeria, Omoruyi's paradise on earth. Those Igbo who are responding to Omoruyi's unwarranted provocation are therefore well advised to focus on the main butt of our effort in analytical de-construction - Omo Omoruyi.
Now back to Omo Omoruyi. The main theme to be interogated in Omoruyi's violent propaganda against Ndiigbo is racism and its corollary- fascism. Omoruyi had earlier indicated that he would not fight for universal justice even though he is reaping the benefits of civil right sacrifices in America. This is racism. Omoruyi engages in an activist brand of politics with the fanatical character of a religious crusader and demonises the out-group. This is fascism. What makes Omoruyi's brand of racism especially risky is the violent language and imagery he deploys against Igbo people the principal targets of his fascist doctrine. One such representation is the concept of "ethnic suicide", a term used by Omoruyi to describe the fate of the Igbo if they failed to comply with his prescribed pathway to glory in his idealised Nigeria. The term itself is a misnomer since no ethnic group has ever committed suicide anywhere in the world. We challenge Omo Omoruyi to name one case that he knows about where ethnic suicide occurred simply by a group showing a particular voting behaviour.
Contrary to Omoruyi's drunken assertion, studies across the world have shown religion, ethnicity etc. to be the main social basis for political parties, but then evidence-based analysis is beyond Omoruyi's grasp in his present state of mind. There is therefore nothing like ethnic suicide both in the figurative and literary sense. Omoruyi 's concept of ethnic suicide is a mere ploy designed to mask his threat of ethnic cleansing, a concept which has a more immediate and robust empirical basis in failed states. Every Igbo is again called upon to note this threat and hold Omo Omoruyi responsible for his views and the sort of extremism that can arise from them.
Related to the notion of ethnic suicide is the idea of Igbo de-linkage from the centre of power in Nigeria. Omo Omoruyi wrote that Igbo voting pattern would isolate them from the centre and then he went on to raise the question of Igbo survival. "How would the Igbo survive", he asked.
We are not entirely sure about how the question of Igbo survival comes into all this, except in the context of Omoruyi's new theory of evil. Pray, survival in what sense? Transferred to the volatile Nigerian scene, the ideas of ethnic suicide and national survival can only mean one thing: ethnic cleansing. The extremism fostered by the theory of ethnic suicide as propounded by Omo Omoruyi and his doubts about Igbo survival therefore raise the spectre of ethnic cleansing to a higher level. This disquieting fact is more vivid to those who witnessed the pogrom of 1966 and those survivors and their offspring who have sworn that it will never happen again. We insist on the right of Igbo people to make their own political choices without Omo Omoruyi threatening them with extermination. This is the ethical basis for our impending civil rights protests against this vile man.
The confused reasoning by which Igbo survival in the biologic sense is linked to partisan politics, in particular, the brand prescribed by Omoruyi, has another implication. Little ingenuity is now required to deploy Omoruyi's idea to legitimate group punishment by a victorious faction in Nigeria. In essence, Omo Omoruyi has illegally and single-handedly committed the question of Igbo national survival into the hands of an emergent dictatorship in Nigeria. And within Omoruyi's fascist ideological framework, the question of Igbo survival now becomes a party political issue. This form of extremism created by Omoruyi's new doctrine should worry any thinking Igbo indeed.
It is also necessary to note how Omo Omoruyi's redefinition of survival has converted the Nigerian election from a mere expression of voters choice to an exercise replete with violence and ethnic warfare with attendant social dislocation. It is hard to see how an individual who adopts this posture would pay attention to the civil rights of Ndiigbo, especially if those rights threaten what he considers the essential requirements for success in his idealised corrupt state, unless, of course, he is forced to do so by mass civil rights action. It is at this point that we intend to enter a new phase in our interaction with Omo Omoruyi by making a transition from theoretical analysis to active civil right campaigns. Omo Omoruyi can never be allowed to circumscribe Igbo civil rights. Igbo civic rights, including the right to vote for candidates of their choice, must and will be exercised free from genocidal threats and strictures, which Omo Omoruyi seeks to impose.
The themes of ethnic suicide and Igbo survival in Omo Omoruyi's vile propaganda are integral to the mentality of a fanatical activist inspired by fascism. Far more bizarre is his dogmatic insistence on a single powerful centre in a situation where national identities and distinct languages abound, a prescription for permanent instability.
Omoruyi is free to identify with such a state and seek to prosper within it as an individual despite the debilitating impact on his own people. He has no right to impose that same amoral prescription to anyone else, especially Ndiigbo.
With respect to the Igbo, the question of centralisation of power and the relationship between the centre and the regions is at the very core of Igbo historical struggles in Nigeria from the days of Aburi conference till today. The idea of an imperial president to whom everyone grovels is anathema to the Igbo political culture. The Igbo perspective sees the domination of Nigeria by a single powerful centre as the primary reason for decay. This interpretation is what makes Omo Omoruyi and other advocates of such an arrangement messengers of decay. Nor are the Igbo the only such group in the world. The relationship between central and regional power bases is at the centre of nation building and maintenance in states such as Canada (Quebec) and even Britain (Wales, Scotland). Over-centralisation of power will never lead to any stable order in Nigeria. This is the core Igbo position on the nature of power distribution in Nigeria and it will never be jettisoned.
It may not fetch Igbo people Nigerian presidency soon, but then Nigeria is not going anywhere either, without a robust Igbo involvement and on the terms defined above.
Having propounded the theory of ethnic suicide, Omo Omoruyi would not wait for Ndiigbo to commit it before trying to push them over the cliff, on paper at least. Omoruyi sought to achieve this by reducing Igbo people into nonentities by mere strokes of his pen or keyboard. Omoruyi 's characterisation of Igbo people in Delta state and elsewhere is closely allied with his explicitly stated goal of inducing Igbo ethnic suicide. For example, Delta state has 25 LGAs distributed as follows: Anioma Igbo (9), Urhobo (8) Ijaw, Itsekiri, Isoko (8). What then is the rationale for devaluing the Igbo presence in a state in which they constitute the majority? In the Rivers State, two Igbo - Peter Odili and Sergeant Chidi Awuse are set to resume or assume power. Omoruyi must snap out of his delusional thinking and accept that Ndiigbo are forces to reckon with in areas other than his clichéd Southeast.
And quite frankly, aside from the neo-fascist thrust of Omoruyi' arguments, we are not convinced that Omo Omoruyi even understands the functions of competitive elections in terms of choice, legitimacy, competing political parties and policy alternatives.
The final irony in Omoruyi's ranting deliveries is the tendency to destroy the same democratic values, which he purports to uphold. Quite often Omo Omoruyi titles his essays deceptively by wheeling out the democratic concept: advancing democracy in Africa and all that crap. At the same time Omoruyi destroys democracy in Nigeria and he does this in two ways. First, by creating the theoretical foundation for extremism and violence against Igbo people in Nigeria in order to pre-empt or manipulate their democratic choices. Secondly, Omoruyi destroys democracy by creating a dichotomy between friend and foe among Nigeria's major collectivites.
The notion of friend and foe has long fascinated fascist thinkers from Mazzini to Schmitt and beyond precisely because the foe presents an absolute threat, which must be totally exterminated. Omo Omoruyi's apparent adoption of the fascist notion of the existential foe fit only for total elimination may be the reasoning behind his theory of ethnic suicide, a threat of ethnic mass murder against Ndiigbo. Would any Igbo now entertain any doubts about the practical implications of Omoruyi's theory of ethnic suicide?
Most Igbo do not share the sense of great urgency which Omoruyi exudes on the Nigerian question. We recognise that Omo Omoruyi may have passed his use-by date. Mr Omoruyi may have one foot in the grave but the Igbo perspective on the organisation of the Nigerian state will ultimately prevail however long it takes. Meanwhile Omoruyi can endorse whosoever he wants to endorse, he may go further than that and bring home one of the pimps from Milan to rule his corrupt state. It won't solve anything, rather his people more than anyone else will continue to be pauperised and stripped of their basic dignity. Ndiigbo can afford to wait, so the radar watchers may well fold up and go home. Whether Mr Obasanjo wins or loses, by this time in 2007, we shall still be here discussing the Nigerian mess, except that by then, the unfortunate state would have slipped further below Burkina Faso, Somaliland and Western Sahara in the scale of human development. This downward slippery and decay will continue unabated until Omo Omoruyi and his ilk are consigned to the dustbin of history where they naturally belong.
Mazi K. O. Ani (Executive Director) CIVIL RIGHTS LEAGUE-NG ----------------------------------------- Meet the Reluctant Saint, Palm Sunday, April 13, 7pm ET/PT, on Hallmark Channel. http://www.reluctantsaint.tv During the Lenten Season, please help support the mission of Catholic Online by purchasing goods and services from our sponsors at http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent
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April 2003
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