Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko
Last week, I asked a former Federal Minister in his mid-seventies to ask his aides to print out an email I sent him seven years ago. He got back to me in consternation, after reading the mail I sent him seven years ago, on the 29th of October 2014, to be precise.
In the mail, I lamented about the lack of interest from political leaders when I informed them to urgently engage the agitators because I suspect they will grow stronger and become difficult to contain in the years ahead. I suggested that skill acquisition schemes be urgently rolled out to keep them busy. I even pleaded they’d be involved in political campaigns in order to carry them along. I warned of the dire consequences of isolating, shunning and completely ignoring them. I even volunteered to play a role in pleading with the youngsters to flow with any programme initiated to engage them. Most importantly, I reiterated that if they are not engaged and their grievances collated for necessary action, that the gulf between the angry youngsters and the leaders will widen dangerously over time.
I informed him in that mail, seven years ago, that political leaders snubbed me and thought I was seeking attention or relevance. I told him the East was sitting on a keg of gun powder.
After reading the mail, he was speechless. He wanted to know how I was able to predict accurately that the agitators would overwhelm my region if nothing was done to engage them. I told him it had absolutely nothing to do with being smart or very discerning. rather it simply happened that I worked with the youths closely and earned their trust over time. That’s all.
I explained to him that I had been organising IYM seminars for Igbo youths all through the 1980s and the 1990s and that I discovered that the younger generation Ndigbo had other ideas about their condition in Nigeria.
I told him that long before Ralph dreamt of MASSOB, I presented a booklet titled Igbo Code of Conduct to Igbo youths across the country, targeting mainly students, traders, artisans and even unemployed youngsters, tutoring them on the need to be conscious of their attitudes to other Nigerians, because the image we present, inspires how others perceive and react to us.
I preached tolerance and patriotism, respect towards other cultures and the need for peaceful coexistence in the pamphlet I distributed freely. My resource persons were usually elderly persons, whose experience and advice enriched my monthly seminars.
I shared with him, how during the question and answer sessions usually at the end of the talk, the youngsters will be asking to know when Ndigbo will be treated right and justly, lamenting loudly, how they are exasperated with the dichotomy and marginalisation they experience every day. And how they wished a level playing field and the merit-based system would someday replace the nepotism and impunity in the land.
I told him how gradually, the question and answer sessions became the most interesting part of the talk shops. The youngsters were only interested in how to regain their dignity and receive the same treatment other Nigerians enjoyed.
Slowly, they brought the attention of the resource persons to their plight in their day to day experiences and wondered if the war truly ended in 1970. I know for certain that people who should have handled the agitation properly from the initial stage, all refused to take it seriously. They just didn’t believe me that the thing will grow. They thought I was merely trying to get some attention.
My persistence even made them suspicious I stand to gain something, hence my insistence the agitators be engaged early enough. A clear case of people judging someone else by their standards. They were so sure that I was begging them to engage the agitators for some personal benefit.
I told him that I watched Ralph from very close quarters and met and chatted with him every other week as he visited Dim Odimegwu Ojukwu in Enugu. I also watched Nnamdi emerge as the new arrowhead.
I informed him that I knew from the popularity Nnamdi’s broadcasts from London enjoyed amongst certain categories of persons in the East, that I knew that their ranks will only grow exponentially with time.
I told him, as I mentioned in the mail, that the invasion of Enugu Government House and the State Radio Station, both at midnight, a few months earlier, signalled tough times ahead.
I concluded by sharing with him, my sad experience at the Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT) meeting, June 2014 in Enugu, how the elders wanted to jump out of the window and run for their dear lives when I brought the leadership of all the agitators to a meeting, they had earlier, through the chairman, Prof Ben Nwabueze, agreed with me, made a lot of sense. Why and how they believed that running away from their children would solve the problem, beats me.
He asked me how these numerous earlier mistakes could be corrected and I told him I still believe engaging the agitators would tear and crack the ice.
I told him though I hadn’t spoken to Nnamdi and any of his people in almost three years, since before the last general elections, that I believed that engaging them in a dialogue, will definitely usher in a new hope for peace and understanding.
My reasons remain, that I believe that engaging them will thaw the ice and open the door to a better understanding. Moreover, the agitators and their leaders always asked me “Oga Elliot, how come they have never invited us to present our grievances, can’t you see they look down on us with contempt”
I know that political leaders, until very recently when they saw that “water don pass garri”, didn’t want to even talk to them. A few years ago, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi state took me to the site where he was constructing a giant shopping mall in Abakaliki and asked me to bring my company so he’ll give me a job to “empower” me. According to him, “Elliot you have really suffered for Ndigbo, you should be empowered”. I declined his offer.
I politely and calmly explained to him that I made a vow, as a young man, never to join a political party, accept any appointment whatsoever, run for office, even campaign openly for any candidate, accept a contract of any kind from local government, state government or federal government, all the days of my life. Accept chieftaincy titles of any sort, wear gold or diamond jewellery, fly first class, own a V8 SUV etc. He was shocked and muttered, “That is serious”. It was the same day he told me he listened to my Youth mentoring Radio programme, Uncle Elliot Youth Club. Now spiked my powerful forces.
Immediately after I finished responding to the Governor, Nnamdi called me to get a response to his certain request from Dr Alex Ekwueme.
I told the Governor Nnamdi was on the line and pleaded with him to speak with Nnamdi to thaw the ice, he vehemently refused. When I asked him how they hoped to resolve the issues by avoiding Nnamdi, he told me I wouldn’t understand.
The Governor can confirm everything I said here.
Throughout 2017, political leaders were reluctant to engage and talk with the agitators. I do not know exactly why. I do not know if Abuja would frown if they engaged the agitators. They must know certain things I do not know.
Aside, Bishops, traditional rulers and certain elders who agreed with me to meet and advise Nnamdi, people in office carefully avoided him and his group. They didn’t agree with me that engaging them, hearing from them, and collating their grievances was the way to go.
The error of running away from them, avoiding them in order to avoid trouble with Abuja, deepened the divide.
Now that everyone can see signs of a change of heart, may God grant our leaders the heart to choose peaceful engagement.
I plead for shelving of any intended military action. I plead with the agitators to let peace reign. I maintain my plea that engaging them will better help arrive at a resolution.
To be CONTINUED.
