By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Ahead of 2023, if they meet the conditions of President Muhammadu Buhari that is to give him their votes to the minimum of 25 percent in next month Presidential election, the Igbo people of Nigeria should start from that point to work on themselves.
Human beings, beyond Igbo race, are very difficult people generally. Not even the satanic among creatures do not realise that good things of life are not only desirable but must be embraced. But, because of difficult (or do I say the complex nature of man?) those things which make life good for them, they, by their own wilful act, work against it.
This, I foresee in the Igbo Project 2023 being conditionally sanctioned by the Apostle of Change Regime in President Buhari and it is the reason I am calling unto them at this moment (if they meet the expectations of the President) to begin to work on themselves from now. The attitude of one Igbo not coming down for another, where they therefore come in scores contesting for one seat, never, was not, is not and will never take them to the promised land talking of being able to access, this time, active occupation of Nigeria’s Presidency once again in the history of Nigeria.
I consciously choose my word of “once again” because, Igbo ruled before though in kaaki as military head of state which took us as a nation from true federalism to unitary and which made the worst for it. It will be doing the Igbo and other races of Nigeria disservice if we begin to pretend as if we do not know that the First Military Coup cum the eventual abracadabra manner by which Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi took over power by deceit in 1976 founded the very basis for the Civil War. It therefore pains many of us the upcoming Nigerian youths to read Twist of History like that as contained in “There was a country” by Prof. Chinua Achebe, our respected Baba and great repository of knowledge and the rest. That is now history but Igbo should endeavour to let bygone be and this time do the needful: Shun hate and embrace patriotism.
Secondly, and that is to emphasise hate and I will say hate for people other races must be flushed out from the blood stream of the Igbo, either by drip or transfusion. The Igbo man should have – by now – learned from history to know that the Hausa/Fulani that they so much hate, which pushed them to events leading to the occurrence of Nigerian Civil War are not the problem that they have. The problem they have (and some members of Yoruba tribe also have the same problem) is premised on their wrong perception that Hausa/Fulani imposed themselves on Nigeria as “Born to Rule” but it is not true. I insist that it is nothing near fact but just a mere twist of fate.
Yes, the Hausa/Fulani may seem to now sound to have the attitude of “Born to Rule” in their veins and arteries, but what we should consider is the foundation not the surface. Those people now properly called the core Northerners of the amalgamated protectorates and colonies called Nigeria earned the opportunity to be handed the custodianship of Nigeria at the point of exit of the British because of certain qualities. Those qualities other races should find out and imbibe. I may sound controversial to state this but it is a statement of fact that self contentment and loyalty to constituted authorities cum fearfulness and consciousness about Godliness at all times without the hypocrisies of denying other people their rights of particularly religious practice are some of the reasons the North became trusted by the British. Attitude of going into agitations at all times by races outside the North and at the end of the day only to find out that the agitations are baseless can be of great concern.
By now, whether directly or indirectly, no saner Nigerian would still deny not knowing why the British chose to TRUST the Hausa/Fulani particularly the Fulani of Northern Nigeria with POWER. I argued with somebody recently that “If the British or West would want to support a tribe in fight against another in Nigeria today, that tribe will be the Hausa/Fulani tribe”. The guy was profoundly unsettled for the time the argument lasted but in the end he turned out later to agree. I leave details of that to individual effort on research.
But we, as collective stakeholders in the Nigeria Project, should first and foremost realise and agree that distancing Igbo from leadership of Nigeria for this long through what Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife told me in one of my media interview meetings with him at his Asokoro home in Abuja was an “unwritten policy” is justified. The former Governor of Old Anambra State, Ezeife himself, who loves me for coming from a town (Akure) where his daughter got attached by matrimony, admitted this justification when he said “well, but they say that such a people who took arms against their own country leading to a war situation cannot be allowed to rule the country until after 50 years”. This interview I had with him was at the instance of Vanguard Newspaper and it was published without anybody disputing it till the time of putting this article together.
Civil War to this time isn’t up to 50 years. I had that interview with Chief Ezeife, who was Special Adviser on Political Matters to the President during the eight years civilian administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in the build up to 2015 general elections. It was therefore surprising to me when the moment President Muhammadu Buhari came to power I heard “my father from Igbo Land” begin to talk hard and tough in support of the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) despite knowing that IPOB was not justified in its activities against the President it calls to arms conflict against. And it is worse when the Kanu’s activities were simply because he hates President Buhari for being of Hausa/Fulani race. That was just 45 years in 2015 counting from the End of the War.
This year 2019, it is going to be 49 years to the End of the Civil War and from next year, 2020, it will be exactly 50 years that General Yakubu Gowon stamped and flushed out the spirits of bloodiness brought to the lives in Nigeria and he said “No victor, no vanquished”. That was great.
I was not born during the Civil War but in my journalism sojourn in life I have interviewed not only actors of the Nigerian Civil War but also some of the co-partakers with founding fathers of Nigeria during the First Republic and they include Alhaji Usman Aliyu Shehu Shagari (GCFR), who rose to become President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria after he had served as Minister in the cabinet where Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was President and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Prime Minister. I have met with Chief Richard Akinjide. I met with Dan Masanin Kano, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Sule. I met with Chief Mbazuilike Amaechi who was First Republic Minister of Aviation and, above all, one of two major actors of Nigeria’s Civil War, His Excellency General Yakubu Jack Gowon GCFR. The one I failed to meet was Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and it was due to “inconclusive” appointment arrangement – Baba was being planned to travel abroad for medicals.
The point I try to make here is that, I have been briefed about what happened that led to the Civil War and the good part of it is that Igbo leaders gave me the briefs. Papa Herbert Unegbu, who was Director General of the Radio and Television Corporation of the Republic of Biafra, hosted me in his hinterland home in Onitsha and calmly told me that “the Civil War we should not have embarked upon”.
I also had privilege to meet with other Igbo leaders who returned from Lagos to the East to fight on the side of Biafra but are today excellent members of the Nigeria’s Federal Republic. They include Justice Paul Nwokedi, a former Chief Judge of old and new Anambra State, retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, and pioneer Chairman, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), who served as Lieutenant Colonel in the Army of Biafra during the war. He is late now and Herbert Unegbu are late now.
I have met, also, with Igwe Alex Nwokedi, OON, who served as Counter Intelligence chief on the side of the Biafran security but later returned to Nigerianism. I have met with Engr. Edmund Kaine, who built most of the bombs and other explosives that were used in Republic of Biafra during the war and who later became the Director General of PRODA, a parastatal of the Nigeria Ministry of Science and Technology. All of these leaders told me that going into WAR against Nigeria was regrettable. It will be recalled that “General” Ojukwu later at the early stage of the ongoing Fourth Republic in the country had been visitor of President Muhammadu Buhari in Daura during which he made some expressions suggesting that his love of Nigerianism was of no parallel.
Now, 2023 that President Buhari has promised to take power to Igbo (IF) will begin to count from 2020 when the 50 years after Civil War in the unwritten policy, according to Chief Ezeife, will have elapsed for them to buckle up for occupation of Nigeria’s Presidency, which they must remember, is not meant for the untrustworthy. They should start at this time to work on themselves because the issue of trust matters most in who to be allowed into the office of President of Nigeria.
What the Five Majors did to the First Republic politicians killing very revered leaders of the Hausa/Fulani leaders of the North signifying that the Igbo were up against the Hausa/Fulani must CHANGE. What happened by Major Gideon Okar Coup of 1991 when, immediately after thinking that he had succeeded in overthrowing President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, he began to cut the Land of Hausa/Fulani off the Territorial Occupation of Nigeria showed that Igbo would never want Nigeria to remain as ONE if they are given the chance to rule. It must CHANGE and STOP. You cannot continue to have this in your blood stream and you are agitating for not being able to rule the country that “belongs” to all of us. What is generally believed to be the domineering spirit of Igbo even in Land which do not belong to them should change.
The Igbo should begin to think like Nigerian Stakeholders in the Nigeria Project. They should begin to know that, if they could be led by Presidents of their Southern part for 14 of 16 years in the early period of Fourth Republic without development or Federal Government’s presence in their region, even when President Azikiwe Ebele Goodluck Jonathan ruled Nigeria as President fully calling himself Igbo son and Senate Presidency was occupied many times by men of Igbo extractions and yet Onitsha-Enugu Road turned death trap, East West Road turned killer route, then they have got to CHANGE their attitude when the change that has come to those narratives is now the product of the same Hausa/Fulani man they have passionately hated.
Finally, after successfully working on their mindset regarding other tribes in the Nigeria Project, the Igbo should be able to arrive on one consensus candidate that they will present to the rest of Nigeria and who will be trustworthy enough to be left with the controlling power of the country beginning from 2023. It should however be noted that if they continue their usual way of hate and Yoruba race puts head, there will be no blaming anybody for what happens next because President Muhammadu Buhari is only a one-vote in the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the North and entire Nigeria. He has told us that he wanted to handover this power to Igbo in 2023 if they vote for him in 2019 and he is not demanding for too much but 25 percent minimum. We agree with him because we believe and trust him. But if the Igbo turn around against him, other Nigerians say they will be so disdainful towards them that Yoruba will be asked to produce the next Nigeria’s President in 2023.
*WAKE UP is strictly the opinion article of Prince Bashir Adefaka, a media practitioner and media proprietor based in Lagos. Reach him via omope72@gmail.com and send him a text vial 08163323906.
