Elliott Ugochukwu-Uko
I had to make certain timely intervention in the month of May 2021, through my Facebook 155 point, 20 series post titled “MY PEOPLE ARE DESTROYED FOR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE”. In that expose, I laboured carefully to present certain facts within the public domain without creating problems for a lot of people who played all kinds of roles they may not like revealed to the public.
On the 13th of May 2021, a ranking senator visited me in Enugu. According to him, he wanted me to travel overseas with him, to go meet Nnamdi. He said they believed I would be of immense help and great value in the meetings he hoped would resolve the crisis in the region.
He was shocked when I turned down his offer and rather gave him names of a nonegerian first Republic minister from Ukpor, two bishops and one elderly lady, as people who could reason with Nnamdi through a zoom conference. I told him I hadn’t related with Nnamdi and his people since January 2019, just before the last general elections, and that I had no interest in getting involved any longer. I didn’t think it was important sharing with him the vicious blackmail I had been subjected to.
He was shocked to learn that I walked away almost three years ago and warned all of them to quit calling me, and even blocked them all from accessing me through calls or chats, since several weeks before last general elections, almost three years ago.
I also told him that I knew that he and other politicians were in touch with Nnamdi and that I remain surprised that he didn’t tell them that I disagreed with him weeks before the elections over delay in calling off the boycott of the election and that I went ahead to ask our people to come out enmass and vote in the elections.
I wondered why they didn’t know that I turned my back and walked away since then, asking everyone of them to leave me alone. I pleaded with him to engage these apolitical elders and clerics and beg them to talk with and try to reach an understanding with Nnamdi.
I explained to him how I laboured along the advice and guidance of Dr. Alex Ekwueme to approach the little flame of fire burning in the kitchen with a bowl of water and try extinguishing the fire and some people used operation python dance to forcefully collect the bowl of water from me, poured it away and chased me away. I told him how the same flame of fire turned into a huge inferno four years later and you are asking the same Elliot you guys have been blackmailing all the while, to now come and put out the fire. I told him he only wanted the fire to consume me.
I told him to try the elders I suggested to him. He thanked me and left. 24 hours later, I learnt from certain sources that he and those who sent him were shocked to learn that I extricated myself from the whole saga three years ago and that those who were busy desperately working on how to incriminate and rope me in to the mess by all means, had no idea I removed myself from the whole thing even before the 2019 elections. The new realisation shocked them.
His unholy visit inspired me to present for the first time to the world, certain facts of the matter. I made those posts in May amidst fears that a military operation was being planned for the East. I was hoping my revelations would enlighten the public and help correct many trending false narratives.
Six weeks after the Senator’s visit, Nnamdi’s arrest in Kenya was made public. This same Senator who traveled from Abuja to Enugu to plead with me to come help them, suddenly had Nnamdi in the same Abuja and hadn’t seen the wisdom to engage him in the same manner he had wanted me to help him travel in search of the same Nnamdi. Strange.
He also hasn’t intimated any of the prominent non-partisan leaders I had advised him to engage, an indication that his visit to my home may not have been a friendly visit after all. Sad.
Now, the public may not know these facts :
1 Six years ago, at the peak of the huge demonstrations in the East calling for Nnamdi’s release from DSS custody, a team of intelligence and military officers from Abuja, went round the East speaking with politicians, organisations, elders, traditional rulers, professionals, opinion leaders and various groups, sounding them out, I led a team of the leadership of the prominent agitating groups and addressed this team from Abuja.
I told them the truth as I know it, how reconstruction of the polity and engaging the agitators in a dialogue was the way to go. They promised to get back to us. They never did. It may be safe to assume that the response of the central government, could have been informed by suggestions the team received from very many other stakeholders they also met in the East during their tour.
2 About the same time, British diplomats held meetings with Igbo leaders at the Nike Lake hotel Enugu. The leaders dutifully excluded the agitators and youth groups (as is customary with them), discussed for two full days with the visiting Europeans and told them what they thought inspired the agitation.
It is possible the leaders gave the enquiring diplomats a false narrative, as events can attest to now. Response from the government since then, has confirmed a misapplication of strategy. The leaders’ decision to shut out the agitators and any one who does not belong to their cabal, only ensured misdiagnosis of the crises. The cost of arrogance.
3 Again, still about the same time, late 2015, Governor Dave Umahi, at my suggestion, agreed to meet with the leadership of the agitators. I brought them together and took them all to him.
He suggested taking them to Abuja to meet with certain military chiefs, whom he said would want to have a chat with them. Uchenna Madu of MASSOB and others agreed to make the trip with Gov Umahi to Abuja, if I’ll be part of the trip, but Chidiebere Onwudiwe and Emma Powerful of IPOB said they suspected foul play. They said Gov Umahi cannot be trusted.
Two senior members of their group, Rowland Udogu and Onyebuchi “Alhaji Mustafa” visited me in Enugu and advised me to abort the trip with Gov Umahi as only the Governor will return home alive.
Uchenna “Omiomio” Asiegbu from Spain and Chinasa Nworu from Qatar, both called me and insisted that Gov Umahi was about to set the agitators up for arrest. Emma Nmezu called from London and pleaded with me to cancel the journey to Abuja, he said they had credible information that the Abuja trip was a well planned plot to round up all the leaders of the boys and detain them all. Till date, I do not know what to believe.
4 Within the same period and amidst all the confusion, Dr Alex Ekwueme assured me that he would do everything possible to arrange an opportunity for the authorities to engage the boys here in the East and extract from them, their grievances for onward presentation to Abuja, and in that connection pleaded that I still stay close to the boys as I remain the link to engaging them. Chief Emeka Anyaoku, a very wise elder statesman also advised me along similar line, to remain close to the boys so they don’t go off the fringe.
It is important to state here, that every attempt within that period, to convince regional Governors to engage the agitators themselves, yielded no positive result. I met both Gov Ugwuanyi and Gov Umahi over a dozen times with the same message and on the same plea: Engaging these boys will save our region a lot of headache in the near future. Maybe I didn’t sound convincing enough.
5 Earlier in 2014, I had put up a determined effort to convince the Igbo Leaders of Thought, led by Prof Ben Nwabueze, that failure to engage the agitators and establish a close relationship with them, will certainly lead, over time, to a situation where the agitators would build their own power base, their own values and their own agenda, separate, if not conflicting with the values and agenda of the leaders and elders, and we’ll all be in deep trouble.
I pleaded we invite and engage them, at least knowing that the elders have time for them could mellow and temper their radical excesses. I was mandated, as the Deputy Secretary of the ILT, to invite the leadership of the agitators to the next ILT meeting. I did. I brought every agitating group to the meeting, all 23 of them.
To my great surprise and disappointment, the elders and leaders at the meeting, bluntly refused to talk to them. I was advised to “take them away”. They did not agree with my suggestion that engaging them will save us from the uncertainties of tomorrow. They just couldn’t see that.
6 I also pleaded with Dr Chris Ngige and Dr Ogbonnaya Onu separately, both serving Government ministers and impressed upon them the need to help set up a committee that would quietly engage the agitators in talks so they don’t become loose cannon in the near future, Dr Ngige rather wanted to find out from me if a certain billionaire from his state was funding the agitators, according to information he got elsewhere. I quickly exonerated the fellow whose name he mentioned and explained to him that the agitators had an internal fund raising mechanism engineered by contributions from the diaspora population, who were fed up with the humiliation Ndigbo were subjected to in Nigeria, he promised to think over my suggestion. Dr Ogbonnaya Onu on his part, told me it was a Security affair and that he wouldn’t know where to begin to engage the agitators. Nobody understood that ignoring and shunning these boys whilst they are consistently shot at, will invariably lead to provoking them to thinking of defending themselves.
My very fears. I didn’t know everyone else was waiting to see it happen.
7 Again, I pleaded with certain Eastern politicians in Abuja, to kindly organise a meeting of Igbo National Assembly members so that I would explain to them dangers ahead and how to avert it by engaging the agitators early enough before things get out of hand. They promised to get back to me. But never did. In desperation, I pleaded with another friend of mine in Abuja, Sam Nwaobasi and patiently explained to him on the need to talk to certain South East senators on the importance of scheduling a meeting where I’ll be invited to explain to them the direction I envisaged the agitation was heading and why the agitators must be engaged early enough. Again he promised to get back to me and didn’t. But in his own case, he later explained to me few months ago when he visited me in Enugu that he tried convincing some of them, but they didn’t seem interested.
8 I ran to several elders in the land, traditional rulers and the coterie of ex Governors, ex ministers, ex senators and ex this and ex that in Igbo land, regrettably, no one was interested. They probably believed the agitation would never amount to anything. Some of them told me I worried too much. I even travelled to Owerri and Awka to visit Archbishop Anthony Obinna and Archbishop Maxwell Anikwenwa respectively. I wrote memos to the authorities on why the agitators should be engaged to avoid unpleasant consequences.
Nobody could see what I foresaw clearly.
I mentioned names as I present this inside story, so that the people whose names I mentioned could confirm the veracity of my story, when people tell them I mentioned them in my post.
I kept quiet in order not to rock the boat, but the delay in engaging the agitators convinced me it is time to present to the public just a little bit of the inside story of what occurred within the last six years.
Those who made certain erroneous decisions that brought us where we are today, should kindly correct their mistakes. Thanks.
To be CONTINUED.
