THE ”NDIGBO QUESTION IN NIGERIAN POLITICS” IS
REAL; -IT IS NOT FOR OBASANJO OR ANYBODY
BUT IGBO LEADERS TO HANDLE - PART 2
continued from:
http://www.dawodu.com/omoruyi7.htm
By
Professor Omo Omoruyi
africandemocracy@hotmail.com
The Ndi Igbo Question in Nigerian Politics is
real and should have been addressed since 1970 after the Civil War. Who should
have addressed the Question? Should it have been the military government or
the Igbo leaders? My view is that the Igbo leaders should have engaged in
internal inquiry among the Igbo intellectuals and politicians at home and in
Diaspora on what should be the Igbo Permanent Interest in Nigeria after the
Civil War. This was never done then and at later juncture in Nigerian politics
since then. It is not late today instead of blaming others like Chief Obasanjo
or Omo Omoruyi.
It should be noted that after the Civil
War, the Igboland and people were promised the three RS (rehabilitation,
reconstruction and reconciliation) by the Federal Government. Unfortunately
the Igbo leaders took Gowons 3 RS as a substitute for an internal debate among
the Igbo on the issue of an Igbo Permanent Interest in Nigeria that some call
Vision. Mr. Olisa Adigwe in Nigeriaworld.com of march 21, 2003 and CO should
appreciate the Biblical injunction as to what happens to a people without a
Vision.
The commencement of the post-military
transition programs between 1975 and 1999 saw the Igbo political leaders at a
disadvantage, no defined permanent interest. There were obvious problems
arising from this. Let me deal with this briefly.
With the use of States as the unit of
representation and distribution of federal facilities, the Igbo as a majority
ethnic nationality only had two units (Anambra and Imo) compared with the number
available to the Yoruba (4) and the Hausa/Fulani (5) in 1977-79. The Igbo were
denied their rightful place in the armed forces that focuses on States as the
basis of recruitment into the armed forces.
Since power lies in the barrel of the gun,
the Igbo did not compare with other majority groups in Nigeria and consequently
suffered a lot of disadvantage during the past military misrule of Nigeria.
The foregoing issues were fundamental issues
in the “Igbo Question in Nigerian Politics” since 1970. How to resolve these
issues was beyond the power of an elected President (Obasanjo) since 1999. It
will be uncharitable to accuse President Obasanjo for not addressing these
fundamental issues since 1999. It is unfair on the part of some Igbo
commentators to accuse me that I did not like the Igbo people.
The choice facing the Igbo in 2003 is one
of the following options:
1.
Would President Obasanjo be able to lead Nigerians from the north,
southeast and west to address these and other issues between 2003 and 2007? I
would say yes on the basis of the way he handled the function of “bridge’
between the past military misrule of Nigeria and today.
2.
Would the Igbo playing the role of a Stalematist in 2003 solve the “Igbo
Question in Nigerian Politics”? I would say NO because it is based on a
negative approach to politics and not based on interest.
The Igbo Question in Nigerian Politics
still remains one of the lingering and unresolved political issues since then.
This question should have been one issue that Nigerian politicians should have
been talking about since 1999. Unfortunately instead of the Igbo leaders
talking about it, they take the Yoruba as their permanent enemy and the
Hausa/Fulani as their permanent friend. They fail up till today to identify
the “Igbo Permanent Interest”.
It is a pity and unfortunate that anyone
like me because of what I know who dare to say “wait a minute” with the advice
that the issue of Igbo Permanent Interest is what the Igbo leaders should pursue
is easily called all sorts of names. I have no reason to hate
or love the Igbo or any other
ethnic nationalities for that matter. This is a strong accusation. It is
arrant nonsense and ludicrous for Adigwe to liken me to the American racist who
when accused of being a bigot would point to his African-American friends.
IGBO DID NOT FOUND
NPP
To correct some commentators with a scanty
knowledge of the origin of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), the Igbo did not
admit me into that party. It was the other way round; I was one of the
founders and no Igbo politician dead or alive took precedence over me in that
party. This is meant to correct someone like Adigwe who is very ignorant of
the genesis of NPP and my role in it.
As a matter of historical fact, the Igbo
political leaders of 1979 did not found the NPP; the Igbo leaders as we saw them
in 1979 were “joiners” of the NPP and they were not “founders” of the NPP.
That fact did not make them second-class citizens in the party.
To further correct Adigwe I did not join
the NPP in order to use it to run for the gubernatorial election in Bendel State
in 1983. Mr. Adigwe, get your facts right. I did not pitch tent with the NPP
so that I could use it for election. I did not join the NPP because of the
love I had for the Ndi Igbo. There was no Ndi Igbo when the nucleus of the
Club that later became the NPP was put together.
The account of the founding of the NPP
drawn from the minutes of the meetings at various stages is in my book,
Beyond the Tripod in Nigerian Politics
published since 2001.
NEED FOR A NEW
APPROACH BY OHANEZE
At the risk of being further misunderstood
and called names by some Igbo political commentators in search of “enemies of
the Igbo”, I will not stop challenging my Igbo friends to take a new approach to
the resolution of the Igbo Question in Nigerian Politics. The relative
impotence of the Igbo in Nigerian politics is further complicated by the role of
the Ohaneze Ndi Igbo.
My criticism of the Ohaneze arose from what
I knew of the genesis and leadership of Ohaneze. The behavior of the leaders
today further strengthens my criticism of the role of Ohaneze since 1999.
For the interest of readers, the Ohaneze
was formed during the period of the transition to civil rule in the late
1970s. Those who founded it erroneously thought it could be made to take the
place of the former Ibo State Union. How this could happen when those who
founded it were political jobbers in search of a second-class role with the
north. How political impotence could be resolved by a group in an atmosphere
of a permanent enemy for a vital sector of the Nigerian society beats my
imagination.
One would recall certain facts in 1979:
1.
That the leadership of the Ohaneze was prone to the National Party of
Nigeria (NPN). In fact it was the Igbo wing of the NPN by another name.
2.
That the leadership of Ohaneze for reason that it today should be
regretting strongly opposed the emergence of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the later
the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) in the politics of transition and after in
1979-83.
3.
That the leadership of Ohaneze thought then that the emergence of Dr.
Ekwueme was a solution to the leaderlessness in Igboland; In fact the campaign
then was that Dr. Azikiwe and those in the NPP should accord recognition to Dr.
Ekweme being the highest elected person from Igboland.
4.
That the then emerged Dim Ojukwu from exile who refused to accept the
preeminent leadership of Dr. Azikiwe and new leadership of Dr. Ekwueme. He in
fact refused to accept the Ohaneze’s political agenda.
5.
That the emergence of Dim Ojukwu who saw himself as the undisputed
political leader of the Igbo thought that he should reenact his leadership
through the ballot box.
6.
That some elements of the Igbo leadership actually wanted Dim Ojukwu to
seek election to the Senate and challenge the leadership of Dr. Ekwueme from
there.
One only needs to read Alhaji Shehu
Shagari’s autobiography to know how close the present Secretary General of
Ohaneze was to him. I recall how we in the NPP dismissed the Ohaneze and its
leaders the same way we dealt with the Vice President Ekwueme and the NPN in
Igbo land. I recall the part I played then regrettably today
in frustrating the quest for leadership of the Igbo by Dr. Ekwueme through my
column; “Every Wednesday with Omo Omoruyi” in the Nigerian Satellite published
by the Jupiter Publishers owned by Chief Jim Nwobodo.
OHANEZE SHOULD
FREE IGBO PEOPLE AND ALLOW FOR REALIGNMENT
Ohaneze should stop making the Igbo voters
to adopt a strict adherence of the idea of a permanent friend or permanent enemy
to one ethnic nationality or the other in Nigeria. Ohaneze should allow the
Igbo participate freely in the politics of realignment of political forces based
on interest and not on fixed notion of permanent friend or permanent enemy.
One would recall that the mission of Ohaneze
leaders in 1970s was to oppose any realignment of political forces that Chief
Jim Nwobodo and Dr. Sam Mbakwe were pursuing in the country. For this the Igbo
today would have been fully reintegrated into the political mainstream of
Nigeria.
One would recall ones role in the process as
the representative of the party in two key four-party Committees, Committee on
Realignment and Committee on Power-Sharing that involved the NPP, the UPN and
two factions from the PRP and the GNPP. One recalls the meetings in all the
State Capitals of the 12 States controlled by the four parties in the north,
east and west. One recalls how that effort involved the Igbo leadership from
the NPP led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe working with the Yoruba of the Unity Party of
Nigeria led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. One still recalls how the realignment of
political forces was being pursued under either through the Progressive Party
Alliance (PPA) or through the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP).
One still recalls how the two Igbo Governors
(Anambra and Imo) spent the resources of their two states to promote the
realignment of political forces in Nigeria between 1979 and 1983. They wanted
to link the progressive elements in Igboland with the progressive elements in
Yoruba land on the one hand and with the progressive elements in the Fourth
Dimension on the other. I saw this effort as a genuine attempt to promote an
alternative political party to the NPN after the 1979 election.
One still recalls that the two Governors were
on the left of the Igbo politics that vowed to challenge the myth of permanent
rule of the north and the permanent second class status for the Igbo in the post
Civil War Nigeria. One could ask where are these Igbo leaders with this belief
today?
TWO POLITICAL
TENDENCIES PANACEA TO PLURAL SOCIETY
What was gradually developing in Nigeria in
1983 was a two-party tendency in Igboland and in the various ethnic
nationalities in Nigeria. That system would have cut the various groups in
Nigeria into two camps of the right and left or of the conservatives and the
progressives. But for the coup in December 1983, Ndi Igbo would have become
the President of Nigeria through the new political formation that united the
Igbo and the Yoruba as equals much faster than through the NPN spearheaded in
Igbo land by Ohaneze.
When one had a position to advise, one pushed
for the two party system as natural to the Nigerian plural society. This was
the basis of the introduction of the two party system in 1989 by decree, which
to me was actually a response to the political tendencies in Nigerian politics
since independence reenacted in 1964 and again in 1983. It is my view that
under the two party system introduced in 1989, an Igbo would have stood the
chance of succeeding Chief MKO Abiola in 2001. Of course, this would have
occurred, if and only big if some elements in Igboland had not made themselves
available as the instrument of annulment of the June 12 under General Babangida
and of sustaining the annulment during the period of General Abacha.
It is unfortunate that the real reason why
some Igbo leaders made them instrument in the hand of the annullist still
dominates the thinking of someone like the Secretary General of Ohaneze,
Professor Ben Nwabueze who is making the case for an Igbo President. From
what I knew about his anti-Yoruba feelings in whatever he did in the past, the
use of Professor Nwabueze as the theoretician and messenger was a disaster for
the Igbo quest for the resolution of the “Igbo question in Nigerian Politics”.
PRO-NIGERIAN IGBO
LEADERS SHOULD STEP FORWARD
Whither the pro-Nigerian Igbo leaders!
They should step forward. One still recalls that the two Igbo leaders who were
with MKO Abiola when he announced his decision to demand his democratic rights
at the famous Epetedo Declaration were Chief Bobo Nwosisi and Chief Raph Obioha.
One still recalls the role of Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu in the pro-democracy
movement. I have never seen when and where people recall the antecedents of
these illustrious Igbo-Nigerians.
One knew Bobo and Ralph from ones role in the
NPP that they were members of the progressive wing in Igboland; they were key
members of the NPP in the Second Republic and of the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
in the Third Republic. They were members of the Igbo leadership that was
dreaded and in fact, rejected by the Ohaneze. One of the tragedies of Igbo
politics was the complete eclipse of this wing in Igboland. It would appear
that the conservative element swallowed them unfortunately.
I was not surprised that in the presentation
of the Igbo Presidency Project, Professor Ben Nwabueze never alluded to his
opposition to the June 12 that was supported by the progressive elements led by
Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Chief Sam Mbakwe, Dr. ChukwuEmeka Ezeife, the late Pius
Okigbo in Igbo land, Bobo Nwosisi, Ralph Obioha and Raph Uwechue to name a few.
When I saw Professor Nwabueze meeting with the Yorubas under the auspices of the
Frontiers and Patriots, I called a friend’s attention to his antecedents. How
could a pathological Yoruba hater work with the Yoruba leaders, like Chief FRA
Williams and Senator Abraham Adesanyan? Wonders will never end in Africa!
One saw the action of the Frontiers/Patriots as an exercise in mutual
self-deceit. One was right.
IGBO PRESIDENCY ON
ANTI-YORUBA PLATFORM IS DOOMED
One could pose some questions for the Igbo
leaders in the Ohaneze.
1.
Does the Ohaneze Secretary-General, Professor Ben Nwabueze still believe
in the anti-Yoruba platform as the basis of the Igbo Presidency Project?
2.
How does he feel about the idea of multiple Igbo standard bearers?
3.
How does he feel about taking Dim Ojukwu to the Nigerian people as the
standard bearer of Igbo in fulfillment of the Igbo Presidency Project?
Professor Ben Nwabueze should recall the
highly contentious statement in all the national newspapers on the N’Igbo
Presidency Project within the context of wanting to stop President Obasanjo.
One recalls that he spoke of the irrevocable commitment of the Ndi Igbo to
produce the President in 2003. He should have stopped there. But Professor
Nwabueze betrayed his penchant for hatred for the Yoruba when he advocated the
pursuit of the Igbo Presidency Project on the anti-Yoruba agenda. One wonders
how an Igbo or any group in Nigeria would succeed without the Yoruba support in
today’s Nigeria? The way the Ohaneze is promoting the Igbo Presidency Project
and the way Dim Ojukwu is going about rallying the Igbo votes on the anti-Obasanjo
platform would work against the Igbo plan in the future. The reality on the
ground in Nigeria today is that Nigeria could only be governed with the support
of the Yoruba who dominate the economy and are in a position to be critical to
the polity. The Igbo may not like this as their coequal competitor in the
past. But the Hausa appreciate this and are concerned since 1993 as to what
the Yoruba wants.
When one read the case Professor Ben
Nwabueze made for the Igbo Presidency Project in the name of the Ohaneze, one
could not help but recall what he, maybe in the name of the Ohaneze wrote about
the Yorubas after the annulment in 1994. He wrote a book called Nigeria
’93: The Political Crisis and Solutions (Ibadan
Spectrum 1994).
One still recalls when he personally came to my
house at Abuja to invite me to the public presentation of the book or book
launching. I was still in crutches then and I could not attend. I was very
anxious to read what he had to say about what I knew he masterminded as the
drafter of most of the anti-Abiola’s decrees after the annulment. I finally
got a copy of the book. The book was full of many untruths, assertions and
claims that I would not like to go into here. What made me recall this book
today in the context of the Igbo Presidency Project on the platform of the
anti-Yoruba was what he said about the Yoruba in that book. He said at page
134 as follows:
Nice
and friendly as they, the Yorubas
have no sense of fraternity with other
ethnic groups in Nigeria when it comes
to federal appointments.
They see nothing wrong in monopolizing
all positions in a federal establishment,
from messenger to chief executive.
To them, that is how it should be,
the natural order of things.
Any other Nigerian in their midst
in such establishment is resented
as an unwanted intruder.
In a Yoruba dominated federal establishment,
Yoruba becomes the medium of communication
in which government business is conducted.
Professor Nwabueze then made the highly
contentious statement on why the Igbo opposed the Yoruba becoming the President
in 1993 that had a possibility of becoming a two-term Yoruba presidency. The
way he presented the argument then has implications for President Obasanjo’s bid
for a second term and the Igbo Presidency Project. In the book referred to
above at page 134, Professor Ben Nwabueze wrote;
It is for the reasons that a serious fear
is created in the minds of other Nigerians
that two successive
terms of eight years of a Yoruba
president, many
federal establishments
would have been thoroughly Yorubanised.
HARM DONE TO IGBO
POLITICAL AGENDA IN 2003
My grouse against the message and the
messenger is obvious. One would recall the case for an Igbo Presidency made by
the same person as the spokesman of the Ohaneze who has never hidden his disgust
for the Yoruba as President of Nigeria. One would further recall how he was a
tool in the hands of the military to frustrate a Yoruba becoming President in
the past. One wonders as to what message Professor Ben Nwabueze in his new
role as the Chief Scribe of Ohaneze is communicating to the Nigerian people.
DON’T BLAME OTHERS
FOR THE POLITICAL IMPOTENCE OF IGBO
Why blame others, especially the Yoruba
or President Obasanjo himself for the failure of the messenger and the death of
the message in 2003? Why the Igbo Presidency Project collapsed was because of
the messenger and the method and not the message. The message is good but
wonders if it should have been delivered the way it was done. What one would
have liked to read from the eminent Constitutional Lawyer was how the Ohaneze
was going to implement the Igbo Presidency Project. He dodged this simple
question of political tactics.
One was shocked that he instead devoted
most of the essay on the Igbo Presidency Project not on the anti-Yoruba diatribe
but on running down the person I repeat the person of President Obasanjo as if
that is the Agenda of the Ohaneze. As if that was not enough, it is sad that
the three front runners from the southeast, Chief Jim Nwobodo and General Ike
Nwachukwu left the PDP and sought a new platform to commence their ambition
because of Chief Obasanjo.
IGBO PRESIDENCY
PROJECT THROUGH STALEMATE STRATEGY
Of course, Dim Ojukwu who had never hidden
his anti-Yoruba feelings quickly bought the anti-Obasanjo rhetoric of Professor
Nwabueze and the Ohaneze as a political platform to rally all the Igbo votes in
the country to himself. Does Dim Ojukwu see this as a sound method of
realizing the Igbo Presidency Project? Dim Ojukwu’s concept of winning is he
can frustrate the ambition of Obasanjo. The way to do this is to deny Chief
Obasanjo the success on April 19. This means that he and General Buhari being
the two credible candidates will be forced to run-off. This is where the full
weight of the Igbo political leaders under the Igbo Presidency Project through
the Stalemate Strategy will be brought to bear on the Igbo voters on behalf of
General Buhari. This is what I call the Igbo Presidency Project through the
“Stalemate Strategy”. One hopes the Igbo voters will be wise enough and I
know they are to quickly see beyond this anti-Nigeria plan as a ploy for the
Buhari election in 2993.
Professor Nwabueze gave ammunition to
Alhaji Wada Nas. In fact, one finds some similarities in the anti-Yoruba
argument in his book and in the anti-Obasanjo campaign by these two eminent
Nigerians. Just read the last paragraph of Professor Ben Nwabueze’s essay and
compare the expression here with some of the anti-Obasanjo diatribe in Wada Nas
essays. According to Professor Nwabueze,
In the past two
years or so, the supreme object
and motive for
all the manipulations, and abuses of power,
all the
confounding shifts, all the destabilizing realignment
of forces, all
the divide and rule tactics employed to foster
trouble and
unrest in some states or areas of the country
and all the
sponsored or inspired crisis in various
institutions and
organizations has been the consuming
passion and
ambition for a second term.
He then concluded his warning about 2003
If our
experience of Obasanjo’s rule during this period
teaches
anything, it is that, in the circumstances of Nigeria,
a second term
is a positive evil, which must therefore be
exorcised from
the Constitution-for the Presidency and
as well as for
the State Governors.
(See Ben Nwabueze, “Igbo Have Right
to Presidency” in This Day July 26, 2002).
HOW THE IGBO
PEOPLE WERE MISLED BY PROFESSOR NWABUEZE IN 2003
What
Professor Nwabueze could not tell his Igbo people and Nigerians at large was
whether the Ohaneze Igbo Presidency Project” would advise the Igbo political
leaders all over the country to pursue their ambition through the PDP. He did
not tell the Igbo politicians that they should seek the political ambition
through another political party. One would have thought that such a Project
would have resolved these two basis questions of political life in 2003. On
this ground, the leaders of the Ohaneze misled the Igbo people in 2003.
At the
crucial moment having failed the Igbo people in 2003, the Igbo politicians were
left with no guideline as to how the Igbo Presidency Project would be realized
after 2003. This was why the late entry of Dr. Alex Ekwueme into the race, the
emergence of three Igbo candidates (Nwobodo, Nwachukwu and Ojukwu) and the
frustration of other Igbo in the ANPP completely rendered the Igbo Presidency
Project in 2003 a nullity and counter-productive.
STALEMATE
STRATEGY DOOMED TO FAIL
Just as
the attempt to push for a consensus candidate in Igboland was too late for 2003,
so too one would say that the plan to support Buhari through the Stalemate
Strategy in 2003 would be too late. Just as the President Project failed in
2003, the end of the Stalemate Strategy is also doomed to fail in 2003.
One would
recall how Professor Nwabueze told the Igbo to vote against Obasanjo in 1999
after the Jos Convention of the PDP that did not support the favorite son of
Ohaneze, Dr. Alex Ekwueme and how that failed. The use of Ojukwu/Nwobodo/Nwachukwu
as a ploy to support Buhari is like what Professor Nwabueze wanted the Igbo to
do in 1999 and the Igbo said no. The Igbo voters are likely to say no to the
trio of the Stalemate. Just as they supported Chief Obasanjo in 1999, they are
likely to support Obasanjo in 2003 because it is in the best interest of the
Igbo people in the long run.
IGBO NEED A
POLITICAL AGENDA
What is an issue is the lack of an Igbo
Agenda. One discovered this in the Constituent Assembly in 1977 and saw how
the Igbo political leaders had to live through this during the period of the
Second Republic. Those who pursued the anti-Yoruba agenda during the period of
the annulment and during the Abacha period never sat down to map out what the
Igbo, as an ethnic nationality wants in Nigeria. This is still the problem
today.
At the moment, there are over ten Igbo
political tendencies in Igboland manifesting themselves in all political
parties. We are yet to know how these Igbo political tendencies are going to
sort themselves out within the PDP and between the PDP and other parties. The
Ohaneze is yet to tell the country how they would build a consensus around one
political tendency within the two dominant political parties, PDP and ANPP.
The Ohaneze could not convince the
Nigerian people that the need for an Igbo President has actually arrived. It
failed because it was pursued within the anti-Yoruba platform. It should be a
Nigerian platform. Nigeria wants a President
who just happens to be
an Igbo and not an Igbo who just wants the office because it is the turn of Igbo.
There is nothing called turn by turn in politics where voters are concerned.
The Igbo leaders must think of how to form
a Political Action Committee (PAC) that would develop an Agenda. This Agenda
would have to be negotiated with others with the purpose of searching for a
common ground. Nobody will make any Igbo man a President of Nigeria on the
argument of Professor Ben Nwabueze.
SOUTH-SOUTH ONLY
RECOGNIZE TWO CREDIBLE CANDIDATES
I wish the people of the South-South would
read Professor Ben Nwabueze’s argument on why the Igbo should take precedence
over the South-South. This is arrant nonsense. Let me remind the learned
Professor that the game in the politics of plural society like Nigeria is not
based on spurious census figures of each ethnic groups in Nigeria. It is
based on the capacity of each group to form a coalition of ethnic
nationalities. Here the south-south is superior to the Igbo of southeastern
Nigeria. Here again the Igbo have not done well since 1970. The reason could
be because of the relative impotence of the Igbo after the Civil War. Agreed!
But how do we explain the Igbo leaders’ preoccupation with those who wronged
them in the past and with the Igbo leaders’ determination to find out what the
“north” would like in Nigeria? This cannot be an approach to Agenda Setting in
a Plural Society.
MINORITIES: NORTH
AND SOUTH TOO SOPHISTICATED FOR OHANEZE
Professor Ben Nwabueze, a fellow member of
the Constituent Assembly would recall how we, the so-called minorities from the
south and from the north dealt with the majorities from the north, southeast and
southwest who paraded the flags of the tripod in 1977. He would recall that
some of us in the famed Club 19 vowed to destroy the tripod; we succeeded in the
Constituent Assembly in 1977. In the absence of an agenda from the military
government, the minority caucus set the agenda of the Constituent Assembly when
it came to the mode of governance (Presidential System) and religion in politics
(Sharia).
My view is that politics of the tripod did
not serve the country well in the past and presently and it will not serve the
country well in the future. This Ohaneze’s argument of Hausa had it for over 30
years and the Yoruba for about 8 years and it is the turn of the Igbo being the
third leg in the tripod is anti-democratic. I fought against this argument in
the past and I made sure that the two party system made irrelevant the idea of
the tripod in 1989-1993 when I had opportunity to make policy.
IGBO YET TO ACCEPT
THE 36-STATE FEDERAL SYSTEM
I am a firm believer in a federal system
that has the States as the units of representation and not the ethnic groups
whose number we do not know. I am against the idea of zone that has no basis in
the Constitution. Professor Nwabueze and co forced the zones on General Abacha
in 1994.
Professor Ben Nwabueze would still recall
how the idea of the Eastern Bloc died in 1977 because it was conceived in bad
faith as an attempt to undermine the new states created from the old Eastern
Region in 1967. It is sad that up till today Dim Ojukwu and some Igbo leaders
still harbor some misgivings about the fact of new homes for the minorities in
the old Eastern Region. Unlike the attitude of the some Igbo leaders to the
new states in the old east, the Yoruba leaders have since 1963/4 learnt to live
with the fact of Midwest/Bendel/Edo/Delta. One would hope the traditional
northern leaders would reconcile themselves with the fact of states in the old
North. Politicians should accept the fact that what one could call the
colonial Regions of North, West and East are gone forever. Like a broken
mirror, you cannot put the pieces back to form a whole. Anyway, we in Edo in
particular and in the south-south in general do not believe that any group in
Nigeria should take precedence over us on the basis of census figures. This is
the view of the political leaders in the south-south and of the middle-belt.
I have raised and
addressed many questions as they bear on the Igbo Question in Nigerian
Politics. I hope the Ohaneze and other Igbo leaders would consider them for
future action. This cannot be done from the position of negativism.
May I also advise Olisa Adigwe to read this
along with the earlier essay that addressed the rationale for the classification
of the presidential candidates into four categories.
Professor Omo Omoruyi
March , 24, 2003
|
