Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko
Leaders are political, cultural and religious guides, who give directions and leading to the community. When they do well, the land benefits. When they make mistakes, it resonates all over the land. They influence and inspire the trajectory, a people evolve, attain and achieve. Development and progress of any land, is usually attributed to the leadership of the era.
Political leaders, particularly, dictate the direction, tempo and general growth of the people. They are usually credited with infrastructural progress, economic development and sociocultural habits of the land.
For instance, first time visitor to big Eastern cities of Beijing, Tokyo or Seoul, can’t miss noticing that the crowd at Tube stations, Subways the bus terminals, walk briskly as if everyone is running late, that the attitude at Train stations denote seriously, and that everyone’s in a hurry. That people work fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and that the entire society runs on a clock work attitude of commitment, dedication and modesty. Nobody has time to waste.
This culture of hardwork, and intense management of time, must have been instilled in the people, by leaders who drove their people hard on ethos of discipline and dignity of labour. As you envy their work ethics from your hotel window, you secretly wish, our people back home could transform into this admirable crowd. Leadership inspired the political, economic and social culture of every land you know.
Leaders inspire the destiny of a people.
Chairman Mao Tse Tsung had a dream over seventy years ago, innunciated it in the people’s little book. Nobody took him seriously, the West mocked him, today nobody mocks his people any more. Leadership is everything.
I will be sixty years old by my next birthday. I made up my mind, very early in life, to challenge the status quo, strive for positive change and impact my generation. I knew it was risky, dangerous venture. It’s no secret that I have remained an avid critic of the leadership of my region. Everyone knows I advocate restructuring our polity and to give the agitators a listening ear.
It’s public knowledge that I disagree with the way and manner, the authorities have handled the agitation for 22 years.
Here are my reasons:
If the regional leaders, under the inspiration of the Governors, bring together the clerics, leadership of the umbrella sociocultural organisation, traditional rulers, National Assembly members from the region and Government Ministers from the region, and approached the central government with the truth, which is: That, we have interviewed our children agitating to leave the country and they have complained bitterly over several injustices and ill treatment that have inspired frustration and fear of the future; That these anomalies which include but not limited to a suffocating structure that enables nepotism and impunity; That reports of several National Conferences held in the past, should be revisited. Exclusion and isolation, that gives the impression of a superior class and an inferior class. Toleration of the excesses of armed herdsmen, whose unbriddled brigandage suggests they are sacred cows.
Disparate school admission cut off marks, strange census figures, sickening sectionalism in federal appointments and lack of infrastructure in our region.
That we, as the leaders of the region are of the view that, since all the strategies deployed all these years to contain the agitation failed, that engagement and dialogue, should be explored now.
THERE’S NO WAY ANY GOVERNMENT ON EARTH WILL IGNORE THEM.
I do not understand why the leaders of my region, find it difficult to do this for 22 years. That is the reason I call them and why they are not fond of me. No problem. Be it known to them and those supporting their attitude, that I, Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko, will continue to present the truth, until the right thing is done. There’s no way they will fail to force the hand of the central government if they involve the Niger Delta, the South West, the Middle Belt and the Southern Governors Forum. Their refusal and inability to stand up and present the truth all these years, is the reason I disagree with them.
I have no apologies.
Other reasons are:
1. Failure to articulate the grievances of the agitators and engaging people who are passionate and knowledgeable on the issues involved and get to the root of the crises and resolve it once and for all.
2. Refusal to establish a regional economic development organ that will harness potentials and strengthen areas of strength of cities and clusters in the region. For example, there’s no reason a functional export free zone would not have been established in the 9th mile corner, Enugu, long before now. A functional sea port operational in the region, before now. A busy international airport with cargo wing servicing the zone before now. An East/West railway linking Port Harcourt, Aba, Nnewi, Onitsha with Benin, Lagos and possibly connecting with Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’voire, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Aba, Nnewi and Onitsha would have been long transformed into the Dubai, Hong Kong and Shanghai of Africa.
3. With visionary leadership and coordinating enabling policies, shoemakers, bag designers, wonderful tailors and other talented crafts men in Aba, the foundry and engineering genuises of Tinker, Coal camp Enugu and the gifted importers and distributors of commodities of Nnewi and Onitsha, would have used both the international airport and sea port in the region, to transform Ala Igbo into the economic power house of Africa.
4. By now, trade and commerce would have opened up the region to the world, awakening tourism potentials and growing industrialisation and hospitality sector, as visitors from East, Central and Southern Africa will be trooping in to trade with our people. Articulating and inspiring all these, isn’t rocket science. It is called leadership.
5. Totally dependent on disbursement of monthly allocation and advertising payment of salaries as a great achievement, is uninspiring.
6. Completely allowing the central government to take sensitive decision over agitation inspired by mistreatment and humiliation of a people, smacks of insensitivity and abdication of responsibility. Regional leaders should be the ones advising and guarding the central government, because regional leaders understand the sensitivity and the realities of the issues involved. They know all too well, that the republican world view of the agitators, who have never lived under emperors nor submitted to powerful monarchies all their lives, will definitely clash with the views of a central government dominated by folks with a feudal culture and world view.
7. Resentment of activists who present the truth and resorting to blackmail, hounding and targeting any one with different viewpoint, belittles people in power really.
8. Most importantly failing to point out to the authorities that mistakes were made in destroying the peace process of 2017 and ignoring warnings that if the agitators aren’t engaged, that the situation may spiral out of control and become difficult to contain. Waiting for 22 years was wrong.
9 Their commitment and desperation to bury the fact that they were told time and again, to kindly engage the angry youngsters, but they consistently refused to do the right thing, until things got very messy, isn’t morally proper.
They probably thought the activist pleading with them to engage the agitators, had personal interest.
10. Finally, the lack of interest in seeking resolution and closure was unhelpful and helped deepen the crisis. Running away from or exploiting the agitators wont ever resolve thd issue, especially sickening, was the fact that politicos were only interested in using the agitators to drive their political fortunes, without caring what happens after that. A culture established with the first leader of the agitation.
There are my reasons for standing on the truth, regardless of the serial blackmail to discredit me and rope me in by all means.
Truth should and must be told. At a cost though.
Leadership made mistakes. Leadership should correct the earlier mistakes. Praise singing and its opposite, presenting the truth, are different sides to a coin. That coin is leadership. Leadership, decides the present, but impacts and shapes the future. Leaders from my region should wake up.
They should jointly present the truth to the world and the central government; that the suffocating unitary structure, the nauseating nepotism and sectionalism, the impunity of armed herdsmen and the refusal to engage the agitators for 22 years, brought us where we are today.
Presenting the truth, is the duty of leaders. Leaders, leadership, what are they waiting for.
