Introduction
In view of the latest outpourings
of political distress in Nigeria, the subterranean Igbo Question has risen to
the surface once again of course as a continuum rather than a new thrust. Sadly
this question is competing for attention in a state noxiously bedevilled with
regression, inter-generational poverty of leadership and distinct evisceration
of history. It is the view of this piece to focus attention on the features
that concentrated post Nigeria-Biafra War. It includes features with economic,
sociological, political and geopolitical imports.
Geography
Ndigbo originate and concentrate
in Southern Nigeria. There is no other origin outside the territory of Nigeria.
Within the territory of Nigeria the nearest proximity to international boundary
is over 100km and there is no other competing Igbo concentration found in
Cameroun. The geopolitical implication is that Nigeria is spared the grief of
irredentism which usually emerges with the support of the neighbouring state in
the form of military logistics, communication controls, and economic sabotage
as part of destabilisation of internal affairs. There is no evidence that
Ndigbo in the post Nigeria-Biafra War have seriously exploited the possibility
of seeking the support of Cameroun towards a larger political footprint in
Nigeria.
Population-wise Ndigbo have been
secure within their borders and have refrained from engaging in conflicts with
neighbours and apparatus of the State in pursuit of their grievances. The
nucleus of Igbo nation remains a bastion of ‘stability’ despite the congruency
of economic, social and political deficit of nearly 50 years at both state and
federal levels. Of course the absence of conflict doesn’t imply peace, nevertheless
organised deployment of violence is lacking in Ndigbo agitations post Nigeria-Biafra
War. This is significant those ignored by Nigeria State!
Non-Homogeneity
It is important to stress that
media distorted attention on the issue focusing on opinion of elites who
naturally are non-Nigerians a la
Shugaba (i.e. they were born outside or in pre-independent Nigeria) is erroneous. The
current crop of political elite including their Igbo interlocking section are
morally reprehensible, lack merit and are dishonestly to discuss or categorise
events in Nigeria. This sociological gap exists in Igboland where a dichotomy
is apparent between elite and non-elites, pre-Nigerians and post-Nigerians.
Most of Ndigbo consist of post Nigeria-Biafra
War young men and young women who never observed, received and confirmed any
positive feature or benefit from state i.e. Nigeria. This group have read, analysed,
contested and contrasted their observations with expectations only to find
Nigeria wanting. Though true Nigerians, they have never felt truly Nigerians
since they haven’t received a kobo of Nigeria excess endowment and profits.
The result is the emergence of
new leadership class and underclass citizens from among the commons who are in
touch with the people. These leaders despite their flaws do not have rented
crowds and among the crowds are significant numbers of young women. These men
and women have watched their lives reduced in value, observed humiliation of
their parents who invested everything to raise them with minimal support of the
state. These young people are not harking back to the past rather are fed by
the fusion of evident past neglect and humiliations into the present while the
elite in their superlative ignorant continue to rant on the indivisibility of Nigeria.
Most if not all of the young Igbo
people never received free medical care, never attended education with state
support, never observed or used viable public infrastructure and cannot testify
to invitation to benefit from state policy. All their lives have been struggle,
their parents’ salaries remain unpaid or payments delayed which matured into
unpaid/delayed pensions. The pre-Nigerian leaders lack legitimacy, are devoid of
trust and are apparently foreign to Ndigbo. The generation gap is
unquestionable!
Absence of Nuance
One of the main problems with
both elite and the new Igbo leaders is the absence of nuance in poor arguments.
The elite concentrate in limited and restricted language of colonial mentality
and tired cold war recycled mantra focused on state uniqueness as if a state
can exist without a people. Their focus is divinisation of an irresponsible and
unaccountable state. They decline responsibility and apparent hate the word responsibility. For them the victim is the
cause of his/her victimhood. Blame a stolen item for being stolen!
Their limited diatribes and cheap
talks have no room for debate and contextual analyses; they are almost
anti-history and allergic to sociology. Surprisingly they are disconnected from
emerging languages of positive change and are deft in their refusal to create,
invent and discover to sustain their status. The elites are locked insecurely in
their own contradictions and in the past. They are allergic to the future, a future
where their privileges are challenged and if need be lost.
On the contrary the new emerging
leadership in the face of rich resources for agitation seem ‘lite’ on details
and almost irrelevant to population segmentation even in the age of network
communication. Yes, there is a case for marginalisation; yes, there is a case
for injustice; yes, there is a case for discrimination. Firewood and oxygen
remain in abundance but there is poverty of clear articulation of purpose,
absence of thought-out context and lack of strategic initiative. However and credit
to them, the new leadership have burst the bubble of contradiction imposed by the
elite and have appropriated it in the present towards a future that empowers and
benefits the underclass.
To cap it all there is no respect
or appreciation for the written word, no publications, no documents and no
references. On cannot seek the dividend of
history and its implication without the written word especially when everyone
has mobile phones. There is no evidence that IPOB and MASSOB among others have
insightful content and publications on their portals. How do they enlighten
their members and attract new members to their cause? How will members be
sustained intellectually towards strategic renewal of underpinning ideas? You
cannot fight a war of ideas without the written word.
This state of affairs allows the
elite and their media to appropriate the argument and mislabel agitation as
regressive, miscreants, low-life, misguided, anti-state and counter-productive.
They use language that dismiss, diminish, dehumanise and disembody protesters/agitators
in the attempt to rob them of their existence, their dignity and their message.
This is taking place where the state (with evidence) drags its feet in
arraigning suspected elites for allegedly stealing billions of Naira.
Organisational Disarray
It is quite bizarre for Ndigbo to
focus their minds on making political headway in their case without solid
organisation. While it is historically factual that so far Ndigbo’s political
evolution never reached the level of consolidation toward an empire or strong
political collective, it is not beyond the current initiative to rethink. There
is a dominant intellectual error that refuses to dig deeper for centralisation,
that refused to see convergence between tendency towards individualism and
centralisation. Contemporary Ndigbo celebrate fragmentation!
No people can reach the level of
political seriousness without unity backed by centralisation. No state even
Switzerland with her pastiche of cantons can be powerful without
centralisation. States among comity of nations in the world with voice beyond
their horizon are united, centralised, viable, strategically inclined and
resourceful regardless of size, population, location and endowed resources. Review
empires from Egypt through United States; their strengths come from among other
points centralised political organisation. Edo Empire reached her zenith including
geopolitical exploits with Portuguese Empire in the 15th century.
Yoruba Empire, Ghana, Mali and Songhai Empire flourished with centralised
political structures.
The Igbo political history since
Nigeria-Biafra War is dominated by this existential struggle against the
benefits of centralisation. Ndigbo cannot get their due in Nigeria without
internal cohesion, without viable single-voiced political structure and without
a formidable and respectable organisation speaking with one voice.
The strain of disorganisation and
fragmentation rather than de-centralisation is preponderant from the village
level. Many Igbo villages/towns lack viable political leadership rather may
contain competing platforms. Many so-called family meetings abroad or in Diasporas
suffer from the same malaise. There is lack of vision, lack of patience, lack
of knowledge and lack of strategic depth and at the core there is a lack of
identity. Since the erosion of military rule and four-yearly selection of satraps,
Igbo State governors continue to lack viable forum for serious engagement on internal
issues but will be the first to appropriate ‘marginalisation’ despite their
deliberate regressive leaderships.
No matter how smart,
intellectual, economic and industrious a person or people are; without
translating these qualities as a collective into formidable political capital
through a viable organisation all is waste. This is the plain truth with Ndigbo
who for the most part refuse to acknowledge it to their peril. No serious
political contender is without a viable, strategic and long-term machine
sustained by committed men and women. No political position and concession is gained
or extracted without a struggle and the vehicle is formidable, cohesive and unity
political platform.
No amount of greed, short-term
vision, stolen resources, cunning and intellectual prowess can succeed without
clear cohesion of ideas and minds, united to the cause and run professionally over
time for a strategic objective. On this point Ndigbo have continuously
displayed stupidity and regressive blindness and the impact is apparent at all
levels. Politics maybe war by other means, those who want to fight it
successfully must start with accepting that a viable, sustainable and strategic
political organisation is inevitable.
Lack of Diplomatic Touch
Following from the previous point
some of the larger viable Igbo groups having overcome the cohesion,
organisation and structural issue still lack viable purpose. This is very
apparent in the Diasporas although one must admit that culturally most members
of these groups and some of the leadership have no grounded foundation. They
have limited social, intellectual, administrative and strategic worldviews. There
is strong inability to channel their potentials to exploit political opportunities
of host countries for strategic geopolitical benefits. There is poverty of geopolitics and international relations.
As a result of this development
among others, most of these ethnic pressure groups remain disconnected from the
political currents of their host countries despite holding their passports/citizenship.
There is no evidence that US based World Igbo Congress (WIC) has any serious
lobby or presence in Washington DC. There is no evidence of its efforts to
influence US policy or strategy implementation on Nigeria. Despite the
superlative qualities of individual members, many of them have no and do not seek
viable relationship with senior members of US regime at least for advance of Igbo
cause in Nigeria.
These groups have no serious
political and geopolitical capital; hence they are lightweight and irrelevant.
The same counts for similar groups in London, Brussels, Moscow and Beijing. A
multi-pronged approach requires formidable internal offensive complemented with
foreign operations focused on the main global geopolitical contenders in their
capitals as listed above. Non-state and extra-state diplomacy is a feature of geopolitics and
international political reality. This is the reason no serious analyst or
observer will consider the purported search for independence by sections of Ndigbo
as credible. The time new countries emerge from the body of existing ones have
gone. Current and emerging geopolitical realities are unfavourable as South
Sudan is exemplified.
Summary
The few notes above crystallise
fundamental sign posts in the existent struggle for agitators and also
for the Nigeria State. The issue is a battle of ideas of which both parties
seem to be poorly trained or are deliberately misguided in pursuit of what they
deem just. The battle of ideas cannot be won on decapitation of reason, or
freezing of idealistic/ideological outflow or even regressing to the past. The
present calls for revaluation and re-contextualisation and reframing of the
issue including articulating new framework and inventing new accessible language
disseminated in the written word.
