Enebruwa Omena
In that Buhari’s interview where he declared Igbos a dot in the circle, he destroyed whatever unity the Southern governors achieved with the Asaba Accord.
Buhari’s managers are not fools. They have continued to rule by regularly throwing a wedge between the Igbos and the Niger Delta on one hand, and then the Igbos and the South West on the other hand. It’s a simple rule of breaking friendships who know that you are their enemy by pretending to like one friend better than the other.
Despite having some of the smartest political analysts on social media, all it took was that “dot comment” and access to the sea for South-East and South-South social media analysts to start swimming in the mud again.
There are some things that I should not explain to IPOB members and their antagonists from the Niger Delta because I don’t have the energy and time to. There are also things I should not explain to Niger Delta youths and their antagonists from across the Niger for the same reason. It is also why I have continued to engage in the Biafran discussion with the optimism of not leaving it entirely to charlatans who only regurgitate that which they are old, swimming in the ocean of emotionalism devoid of workability.
The majority of people driving the current Biafra narratives on social media lack the requisite task of due diligence in digging out the truth upon which they base their arguments. The same tragedy befalls most of the persons who chose to counter them. The aftereffect is the pollution of the environment with the black smoke of raw hate.
The inability/failure of the Igbo elites and intelligentsia to drive the Biafra narrative from the alter of facts and figures, not conjectures has compounded the problems. History is there to teach but few people have the patience of studying it.
In essence, we’re not having the true discussions we should be having: how do we drive economic development in Ala Igbo despite the current predicaments.
The notion of the talented tenth posits that a society’s elites should be responsible stewards of their environment’s development. Southeastern elites are disconnected from the masses in the same way that other regions are disconnected from our reality. There would have been no Israel without Herzel and his group of intellectuals. There could be no Israel without operations of Irgun & Lehi.
“A small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has” – Magret Mead
In the South-East, low-quality elites and intelligentsia make up the majority of our professional elites. They only pull out the Eldership card when demanding respect. But respect is earned not given; case in point – Enyinnaya Abaribe. An environment is robbed of its greatness when the intellectuals refuse to engage in important discussions.
The first task of the intelligentsia is to explain in clear terms that breaking up a country is not a walk in the park. It is a torturous task that most of the time takes years, even decades, consumes lives and destabilise economic activities.
Each time I see comments about referendum being the ultimate decider, I am always inclined to interject that such a process not limited to the 5 South East states will be disastrous. The intellectuals should be able to continuously explain these raging concepts to the youths, it does and don’t, pros and cons.
The second task for the intelligentsia is the explanation that Biafra if it comes, will not be an El Dorado like the champions of the agitation are wont to believe. If they can’t, at least, ruffle the feathers of the current regional political leadership, then such disdain for political participation will likely become the norm if and when a new country emerges. Our attitude towards elections are terrible, that’s why the governors will proudly go against your quest for self-determination because they know you don’t have PVCs and don’t vote. If you do vote, they will use their words carefully.
Without mincing words, IPOB loyalists in the South East are more than half of the total population of residents of the region. It is a huge base, even if it is just for the sole purpose of disrupting the current regional political order. The argument which they make, very valid anyway, is that votes do not count as Abuja is the ultimate decider no matter how you voted ala Hope Uzodimma. I have always countered that Uzodimma’s case is a small fraction of the equation.
The third task is the issue of political education as an alternative approach. There is no one way to self-determination. Rather, it travels through so many rugged hills and valleys. The Igbo intelligentsia and elites have failed to provide proper tutorials on political galvanization, that will help the youths to understand our strengths and weaknesses and provide alternatives to nagging questions.
The vacuum and information gap created by the Igbo intelligentsia is the very reason they’re despised by the youths. When they speak, they often do so with disdain, ridicule and showing a lack of understanding of the pains of the man on the street. Other times when they speak, it is through the prism of the party be it PDP, or the APC which has Igbo hatred as official policy; “97/5 per cent dichotomy, Biafran boys, spare parts boys and dot in a circle” ala senior Ex-Jam Ugo Egbujo.
One thing that has been lost on the traducers of Kanu is his ability to unite the Igbos balkanized into other zones for political expediency into a united force under one umbrella. There are resumed calls for the Anioma state formerly proposed by Osadebe. The Igbanke people of Edo State have equally written to the Nigeria Boundaries Commission, seeking to be excised into Delta state. On a whole, the agitators for Anioma State wants it to become the 6th South East state with Onicha as part of it.
The events of the past months have shown that Nigeria lacks what it takes to curtail full-blown violence against it in the South-East. It is why security agencies resorted to killing innocent people in order to strike fear. Reports abound on the mass abduction, killings, extortion and torture of innocent people when the hoodlums had perpetrated their crime against the state and left.
Those APC clowns who wished for a full-blown military action on South East soil were actually playing into the hands of the agitators. Such action would have broken up the country along economic lines. Again, Buhari understands that Nigeria lacks the funds to put boots on the ground in the South East and wouldn’t have risked it. He understands that the North relies on the South to exist. Any disruption of the current equilibrium will portend great economic danger for the North in the face of banditry, Boko Haram and poverty and diseases. He understands that there are over 20 million Igbos living in the diaspora who remit up to 15 billion dollars annually and if such money is channelled into the acquisition of arms, it will be a fight to the finish.
Putting boots on the ground might have escalated the crisis where there might be open confrontation on the streets, probably closing the markets in Onicha and Aba. No bank in Nigeria can survive without the liquidity that Onicha, Aba and Nnewi bring. Putting boots on the ground would have, first of all, collapsed the banking sector, putting thousands out of jobs.
More than 50 per cent of the containers that come to Nigeria find their way to Onicha and Aba. In essence, half of the billions that Customs yap about getting monthly come from businesses in the East. Imagine if such funds dry up, the financial implications on a crumbling economy.
The APC goons who desired a collapsed South East don’t know that if South-East collapses, South-South states like Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers might collapse too.
We know that the current administration relies on rabid Igbo hate for legitimacy but they have not imagined 1 million refugees from Imo and Abia flowing into Rivers State; another one million from Anambra flowing into Delta and another 500k from Abia going into Akwa Ibom. There will be an escalation of crime coupled with the ravaging poverty. Attacks on oil installations will increase as people become more daring in their quest to survive. Nigeria will collapse economically.
These scenarios are why Buhari couldn’t have gone beyond the current abduction of innocent people in dealing with violence against the state in the South East. It is why they tried to rally other regions against the Igbo nation and guilt-trip the region with “dot in a circle. They have properties everywhere” etc.
Separate North and Southern Nigeria today and in the next 10 years, even Britain will be asking the South for loans.
Buhari does not want to include us in the scheming of things because he thinks we have money.
