By SKC Ogbonnia
Houston, Texas
June 28, 2017
The recent quit notice issued by the Arewa Youths to the Igbo (or rather
the “South-Easterners”) residing in Northern Nigeria has provoked
peppering opinions. But there is a cogent reason to take it easy on the
innocent youths. They are plainly the victims of gross distortion of
national history that began during the civil war but is today causing more
harm than any good intended.
First and foremost, the provocative quit notice would not have come to
pass if the Arewa youths had any clue that the South-South zone, the thin
thread that currently holds Nigeria together, boasts of many parts of
Igboland, including such big cities as Asaba and Port-Harcourt (formerly
Iguocha). The gullible youths were basically acting the script of the
government of the day that is crudely attempting to re-write the history
to decree the Igbo nation merely as the “landlocked” Southeast political
zone—as if the Hausa-Fulani people are limited to the Northwest political
zone.
Instead of inundating the polity with bogus threats of arrests, the
government might as well make hay of the ignorant proclamation by the
Arewa Youths to educate the younger generation the true Nigerian history.
The true history will teach them that, besides the Southeast, there is a
large natural Igbo settlement in the North Central and South-South zones.
The gained knowledge can help them to come to terms with the objective
fact that Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural group in Nigeria,
for example, is historically constituted and led by the native Igbo from
seven states, including Delta and Rivers States.
The most nauseating duplicity, however, is that the Igbo political
leadership aids and abets the federal plot to marginalize the Igbo nation
squarely to the Southeast. Notice, for instance, how they succumbed to
ensure that all consultations with the federal government since the quit
notice were limited to the ‘red caps’ from the Southeast. But the raison
d’être is not difficult to fathom. Such errant politicians are the prime
beneficiaries of the Nigerian corrupt enterprise and thus afraid that
perceived opposition to the federal conspiracy could draw the ire of the
anti-corruption agency against them. The following but dizzying claim by
the Igbo governor of Delta State, Ifeanyichukwu Okowa, adequately tells
this story:
“Biafra agitation, we criticize it. Anioma land as it is said, was part of
Bendel State; we were part of the Midwest State, we have not been part of
the South East. So obviously, we cannot be said to be part of them
(Biafra). We may speak a similar language, but we are not part of the
South East. We were part of the Mid-West, now we are Deltans.” Hmmm…
Okowa’s statement is not only furiously spacious but also grossly
grotesque. This explains why it is imperative to educate the governor
along with the Arewa youths by exhuming here the tragic history that
Chukwuma Nzeogwu, the leader of the coup cited by the Arewa youths as the
ringing reason for the deep hatred on the Igbo, and the very man most
closely linked with the death of the political totem of the North in
Ahmadu Bello, is not from the Igbo Southeast—but from the Igbo South-South
in the present Delta State where Okowa himself is the governor. Needless
to remind the moronic governor that the “Midwest” location of his “Anioma
land” did not prevent the federal side from inflicting the most gruesome
genocide of the war in the area. The Igbo was the Igbo then and still
today. Thus, the long-standing scape-goating of the Southeast Igbo based
on the Biafran experience is a paradox.
All these go without saying that the ongoing propaganda by the federal
authorities to isolate the current Biafran agitation to the Southeast is a
serious security gamble. The truth is that the Biafran struggle has never
been a solely Southeast affair. Besides millions of Igbo South-South
people, including Nzeogwu, the non-Igbo from the South-South zone
naturally played or have continued to play important roles. The government
must recognize that mere lies are not sufficient to dampen the stake of
millions of ordinary South-South people who subscribe to the Biafran
cause, including the likes of the spunky Ijaw High Chief Asari Dokubo.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the Coalition of Niger Delta Agitators
swiftly responded to the quit notice given to the Igbo by issuing their
own quit notice to the Northerners living in the South-South zone.
Although the government is, interestingly, doing its best to undercut the
Niger Delta threat, such counter ultimatum from the Niger Delta youths is
whistling reminder that the attempt to separate the Igbo Southeast from
their kith and kin in the South-South in the current crisis is gibberish.
Vladimir Lenin famously said that, “A lie told often enough becomes the
truth”, which is sadly true. But a nation built on a cacophony of lies is
a sizzling time bomb. Perhaps one can grasp the idea of implementing a
divide and conquer policy—glossed with false history—to end the civil war.
But to continue to peddle such fallacy as facts in the present-day Nigeria
is a poisoned chalice.
Often said is that the younger generation from the East did not experience
the war and thus ought to shut up. But that admonition is mistaken. The
harsh economic condition and the obvious lack of equity in the land, which
is attributed to the Biafra, have combined to push the Eastern youths to
dig deeper in their research on the war. They are finding the bitter
truth. They have found a pattern of state conspiracy to obliterate their
history, which has become synonymous with Biafra. They are angry and
rightly so.
They are angry at the mean-spirited strategies adopted by successive
governments to undermine development and job opportunities in the
East—from the Abandoned Property saga, man-made landlocking of the
Southeast, and lack of viable seaports and international airports in the
region. These Eastern youths are perplexed why the tribes in the entire
South are being balkanized into hostile units while any semblance of bond
in the Northern Region is religiously guarded.
Their findings thus far are right on the nose but obliquely incomplete. A
further study will reveal to the Eastern youths that their worst enemy are
the local politicians who connive with federal authorities against the
region. Similarly, instead of targeting the Igbo who have contributed
immensely in the development of the North, the true enemy of the Arewa
youths are the Northern politicians who have for several decades hoarded
political power as well as huge individual wealth; yet their region is the
most impoverished in the country.
Clearly, both the Northern and the Eastern youths have a common enemy in
the political elites. Therefore, instead of divisive rhetoric and vile
hatred, the posterity beckons on the Nigerian masses—from east, north and
west—to unite and explore democratic ways of ousting the corrupt oligarchy
that has continued to cling onto power through mass deceit. True.
SKC Ogbonnia+ writes from Houston.
Email: SKCOgbonnia1@aol.com