Last Saturday afternoon, the internet broke with viral video of IPOB
\ncoyotes attacking former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and
\nsending him out of an event Igbo in Nuremberg Germany organized. In the
\nsaid video, Ekweremadu was thoroughly humiliated, beaten, rough handled
\nand sent out of the even by a rabble that were hooting and fretting at
\nhim as he was shielded out of the event. A crest-fallen Ekweremadu must
\nhave been wondering what possessed the very people he had bent over
\nseverally to please. It was Ekweremadu himself who confirmed the attack
\nlater in the day. He said he was at the event but was not allowed to
\nsettle as irate mob of IPOB members heckled, threw pellets at him and
\nphysically attacked him until he was ferried out of the event. He
\nlamented that he had been one Igbo that had supported the war cry of
\nIPOB and the multifarious issues it had raised against the Nigerian
\nstate and wondered how he could be so humiliated.<\/p>\n
Personally, I was also confused why IPOB should attack Ekweremadu of all
\npeople because he stands at the very epoch of the crop of Igbo
\npoliticians that have indulged IPOB, its excesses and its rabid hate
\npolitics. Ekweremadu has been at the very zenith of mostly PDP
\npoliticians in Igboland who have pampered IPOB and supported all its
\nnuances and idiosyncrasies in the feeling that they are getting back at
\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari and his Fulani kinsmen for rusticating their
\nbeloved Goodluck Jonathan from power in 2015. That feeling of hurt has
\nbeen at the root of the morbid hatred that had been cultivated against
\nPresident Buhari, the Fulani and the APC in the South East since 2015
\nand Ike Ekweremadu remains at the very center of this politics. But
\nthen, with time, IPOB has come to attract the odium and scorn its
\nvile-ridden politics provoked especially amongst other Nigerians who
\nremain solidly railed against this politics. Igbo politics has, in the
\nsequel, plummeted and gone into near-extinction in this mad predilection
\nto sow anger, bitterness and hatred and Igbo have been so badly
\nostracized and negatively profiled in Nigerian politics in such a way
\nthat navigating out of this self-imposed miasma and even staking a
\ncredible claim to the Nigerian presidency in 2023, which many feel
\nshould rightly come to the Igbo, has become a near-difficult task.<\/p>\n
But in the face of this bleary picture, Ekweremadu and his ilk have
\nflowered. They have been winning elections upon elections in Igboland
\nand at the end of the day, they have sucked the juiciest portion of the
\nhate-driven politics they have promoted in Igboland leaving Igbo with
\nthe bones. Yes, because their messages are filled with transitory
\nemotions, they easily mobilise the unthinking rabble to their sides and
\nwere wont to levy death, banishment, ostracizaation on any voice of
\ncaution that as much as ask for little caution in the war cry that
\nmarked the public face of groups like IPOB. Ekweremadu has been
\ncontesting elections in his Enugu senatorial zone for neon years and has
\nbeen winning. Not because he is the best. Not because he had no quality
\nopponents. Not because he has the interests of the masses at heart. Most
\nimportantly, not on the weight of any achievement he has wrought as
\neither a senator or a Deputy Senate President but because he harvests
\nthe fruits of the hate and bitterness he and his cohorts have made the
\nmainstay of Igbo politics and which has knocked Igbo off as a major
\nfactor in Nigerian politics today. Ekweremadu and his fellow PDP share
\nreapers cannot point to one durable, single project Igbo benefitted from
\nthe 16 years of PDP rulership of the country yet they win every election
\nin Igbo land just by pandering to the ascorbic gospel such groups like
\nIPOB preach. They win election by a deliberate effort to sound
\npolitically correct in the face of an ochestrated effort to lease the
\nIgbo political space to an unthinking mob and irascible plebian that
\npreach death and such other vicarious damage to those that preach
\ntolerance of others. They win every election in Igboland by the volume
\nof hate and abuse they heap on other constituent parts of Nigeria and on
\nPresident Buhari and his APC!<\/p>\n
So while Ekweremadu and his ilk feed fat on the choice fruits of the
\nhate-filled politics they cultivate in Igboland, Igbo as a race withers
\naway into hopelessness and pine in utter powerlessness theEkweremadus
\nprodded the race into. IPOB which they used as a convenient vehicle for
\ntheir devious trade has gotten itself proscribed, its ranks and file
\ndispersed while the Ekweremadus retain their choice political seats and
\nprospecting for higher grounds for purely selfish aggrandizement.
\nPerhaps, Ekweremadu thought naively that those that will fall prey to
\nthe poisonous teeth they sharpened for IPOB would be those that support
\nBuhari and the APC and all those they have tagged saboteurs, efulefus,
\nslaves and sell outs for advising against the insipid hate-driven
\npolitics they have promoted and not people like him. He must have
\nthought he was safe enough from the consequences of politics of
\nself-destruct which he and his confederates nourished in Igboland and
\nthat IPOB would be the guided rabid dog they want it to be; to get at
\nall those that preach against their bigotry inclination.<\/p>\n
Certainly, Ekweremadu set for Germany on another hunt for cheap, ethnic
\napplause and plaudits. He was on a regular mission of employing every
\nopportunity of professing his love for Igbo and how those that had
\nadvised Igbo to thread with caution, to liberalize their political
\nworldview, embrace others and seek for cohabitation against insularity,
\nare the Igbo enemies that must be exterminated. Without doubt,
\nEkweremadu who claimed he was invited as a Guest Speaker in the event he
\nwas disgraced out, must have prepared a speech laden with odium,
\ncontempt, scorn, incitement against President Buhari, his Igbo
\nsupporters, the Fulani, the Yoruba and in fact other ethnic
\nnationalities and prurient in praise for Igbo for being the best specie
\nof human beings God ever created. That is the message that resonates
\nwith Ekweremadu\u2019s IPOB and he relishes playing this to the hilt.\u00a0 It
\nis tragedy to him that his audience were not patient enough to hear him!
\nHe would be biting his fingers that his latest tonic to those he
\nconsiders cheap, spendable and pliable rabble, was not allowed to be
\ningested by his target audience and his political leverage in Igboland
\nextended with that effort.<\/p>\n
Since the attack on Ekweremadu, there have been a cacophony of angry
\nvoices of condemnation largely from Ekweremadu\u2019s confederates and
\nassociates in romancing evil for political interests, condemning the
\nattack. It is notable that nearly all Igbo groups and individuals that
\nhave condemned the IPOB attack on Ekweremadu were with Ekweremadu in
\ncultivating the nuisance of IPOB and their like groups. They were
\ntogether in helping IPOB build a riotous cult of brain-washed nit-wits
\nwho violently go against reason and common sense in plying their violent
\ntrades and have been trenchant in campaigning against any effort to curb
\nthe excesses of IPOB.<\/p>\n
But having said all these, there is great wisdom in the saying that
\nwhoever rides a tiger will ultimately end up in its bowels. It is
\ncertain that the Ekweremadu and his cohorts who have been cultivating
\nbitterness and hate and pandering lavishly to the nuances of such groups
\nlike IPOB believed in their unbeatable smartness. What more, this has
\nbeen an elixir to their harvesting every political opportunity in
\nIgboland since they started their devious mission. But it is a rude
\nawakening to sly, manipulative characters like Ekweremadu who deign no
\nscruples having their beloved Igbo race plummet to the very lowest depth
\nof Nigerian politics so long as they continue to maintain their suzerain
\nhold on the political space in Igboland. I believe that when Igbo engage
\nin serious thinking about their fate, they would realize the kind of
\nharm and damage people like Ekweremadu, who profess undying love for
\nIgbo at every drop of the hat, have done to the race. It is trite to say
\nthat the attack on Ekweremadu remains one of the fallout of any effort
\nto elevate and romance evil and encourage it, hoping it will go after
\nonly your enemies. Groups like IPOB have gone beyond control and their
\ntargets will remain the Ekweremadus who employ them as convenient
\nladders to their own political aggrandizement. Sad for them, their foes
\nwhom they target those groups against, know the diabolical intents of
\nsuch groups and have guarded themselves against their nuisances.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t really know what\u00a0 triggered the attack on Ekweremadu and I am
\nnot interested in knowing but those who mischievously invest in the kind
\nof politics that have flowered in Igboland since 2015, those who con
\nrich harvest from it while it leads to a great defenestration of Igbo,
\nthose who feed fat on that salad of bitterness and hate, those who have
\nmade Igbo to incur the hatred and repulsion of other people in Nigeria
\nfor their selfish ends, those who believe they will continue to milk
\nIgboland by supporting cheap, emotional vibes that pit and endanger Igbo
\namong other people in Nigeria, will certainly reap what Ekweremadu
\nreaped in Nuremberg Germany; either now or in the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
Peter Claver Oparah.<\/p>\n
Ikeja, Lagos.<\/p>\n