By Collins Ughalaa, KSC<\/p>\n
Many Igbo people believe that the next president of Nigeria should come
\nfrom amongst us. This dream has been a reoccurring decimal in the
\nNigerian polical mathematical equation. As the 2023 election year
\napproaches, politicians have begun to deploy all sorts of intrigues. On
\nTuesday, September 8, 2020, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, the Chief Whip of
\nthe Nigerian Senate, made a comment many considered to be the wrong way
\nto pursue his 2023 presidential ambition.<\/p>\n
Senators Kalu and Rochas Okorocha are the two figureheads for the 2023
\nIgbo presidency project at the moment on the platform of the All
\nProgressives Congress (APC) at the moment. Kalu, in the comment which
\nwas widely published, requested the Federal Government to permit him to
\ntravel to the United Kingdom to negotiate with the Leader of the
\nIndigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to drop the Biafra
\nagitation. While addressing the press on the sideline of the recent
\nreported clash between the IPOB and security agencies, he said: \u201cIf
\nthe Federal Government permits me, I will go to the United Kingdom and
\nnegotiate with Nnamdi Kanu to return home to Nigeria. I will convince
\nhim to drop the agitation for Biafra because our people don\u2019t need it.
\nWe need a united Nigeria that will allow different cultures and tongues
\nto live peacefully in any part of the country. A country where people
\ncan comfortably do their businesses without fear of the unknown\u201d.<\/p>\n
We view Kalu\u2019s comment on the Biafra agitation as symptomatic of the
\nIgbo problem. By his comment, Kalu creates a kind of confusion in the
\nminds of many people as to what actually the Igbo people want. Is it an
\nend to Biafra agitation or the presidency? By that comment also, Kalu
\nhas made the Biafra agitation, the IPOB and their leader, Mazi Nnamdi
\nKanu, the problems militating against the actualization of the Igbo
\npresidency project and the major problem facing the country, amidst
\nmyriad challenges seeking urgent attention.<\/p>\n
We do not see Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB or the Biafra agitation as the problem
\nmilitating against the actualization of the Igbo dream. Rather we see
\nour political elite and their disconnect with the people as the
\nstumbling blocks towards the actualization of the project. At no time
\nhas the political elite spoken in one voice. At no time have they become
\nthe people\u2019s heroes, a group the downtrodden could trust and follow.
\nAnd instead of fighting this malady, and forging a common front, the
\npolitical elite are wasting their energy on something else, playing to
\nthe gallery.<\/p>\n
Our political elite are in the habit of putting the Igbo people at the
\nmercy of others, as if we were vulnerable people. Whereas we advocate
\npeaceful coexistence in the country, we believe strongly that what is
\nsauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. In a land of
\ninequalities, fighting one\u2019s brothers could be an unproductive venture
\nand a self made distraction. Granted that not every Igbo man is a member
\nof the IPOB, most Igbo people believe in the sublime message of the IPOB
\nand its spirit. Nnamdi Kanu is not the spirit behind the Biafra
\nagitation. He did not start the Biafra agitation. The late Igbo leader,
\nEmeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, is credited with starting the Biafra agitation.
\nBut he too was not the spirit behind the agitation. Ojuwku played his
\npart and mobilized that spirit. The difference in what Ojukwu did and
\nthe spirit embodied by the modern day agitators might be that, whereas
\nthe spirit of the Biafra agitation Ojukwu mobilized was elitist, that
\nmobilized by MASSOB and IPOB are grass-rooted. Granted that Nnamdi Kanu
\nis the Leader of the IPOB, we do not think that if he decides to call it
\nquits the Biafra agitation will end. The spirit may live on if the
\nproblems are not resolved. We note as instructive the fact that despite
\nthe proscribing of the IPOB, its spirit has not died. The only thing
\nthat can kill the dream is addressing the core issues we all face as
\nNigerians, such as inequality,\u00a0 human right, justice, accountability,
\ndue process and rule of law, etcetera.<\/p>\n
We had earlier noted that what the Igbo need to realize the presidency
\nproject is for the political class to imbibe the type of spirit the
\nordinary Igbo youths carry about. We aligned with the views of the pan
\nNigeria statesman, Chief Senator Francis Arthur Nzeribe, who said in
\n2004: \u201cIn my view, all the orthodox Igbo political establishment needs
\nto do is to take advantage of the spirit of nationalism which MASSOB has
\nrekindled in Ndi Igbo in the quest for a president of Igbo extraction.
\nIn other words, I believe that it is possible to marry the MASSOB spirit
\nwith the conventional approach in the pursuit of power via the political
\nparties provided\u201d. By urging the larger Igbo population, especially
\nthe political class, to imbibe the type of spirit exhibited by the
\nMASSOB and IPOB loyalists, we mean that the Igbo establishment should
\nrally the Igbo population to the kind of belief in and support for the
\nIgbo presidency project as those agitating for Biafra.<\/p>\n
The Igbo political elite should make their objectives clear enough to
\nthe ordinary Igbo man: the farmers, traders, the okada riders, taxi and
\nbus drivers, artisans, the students and the teeming population of
\nunemployed graduates \u2013 in such a way that the Igbo traders at the Main
\nMarket, Onitsha, and elsewhere would be able to close their shops to
\nqueue up to register to vote, collect their voters cards and queue up
\nagain to cast their vote. The Igbo political class should be able to
\nsell the Igbo project in such a way that the ordinary man would make
\nhimself available to campaign for the project, similar to what we see in
\nthe North, where the ordinary person is enthusiastic about casting his
\nvotes. The Igbo political elite should be able to do this in such a way
\nas to rally even the unemployed youths to contribute their widow\u2019s
\nmite to the project, instead of being paid to turn up for rallies. They
\nshould be capable of demonstrating reasonable truthfulness and clarity
\nof purpose to the people.<\/p>\n
The Igbo are capable of laying down their life for what they believe in
\nif the right leadership shows up. In the buildup to the governorship
\nelection in Imo State in 2011, it was reported that artisans,
\napprentices, traders, farmers, students and even the unemployed
\ngraduates rallied behind Owelle Rochas Okorocha whom they saw as their
\nrescuer. It was reported that they contributed money to fund the
\ncampaigns and the election, to the point that they would collect money
\nfrom other politicians and deploy it to fund Okorocha\u2019s campaign. What
\nhappened in Imo State after Okorocha won his election in 2011 should
\nserve as a good lesson why our politicians do not engender the kind of
\nspirit the Biafra agitation engenders.<\/p>\n
The unemployed youths supporting Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB are not on his
\npayroll, yet they pay the ultimate price. Some of then are in the
\nprison. Why is that so? Nnamdi Kanu has shown the kind of leadership
\nqualities our political elite seem not to possess, to the point that
\neven when he is telling a lie, millions of supporters would rather want
\nto die for it. Put differently, the spirit of nationalism exemplified by
\nthe IPOB and MASSOB is what our political elite need to build if they
\ntruly want to achieve the Igbo presidency project.<\/p>\n
What we need now is a leader that can build, a leader that can mobilize
\nthe never-say-die spirit of the Igbo man, not a leader that can destroy
\nthat spirit. This is why we find troubling Kalu\u2019s promise to travel to
\nthe United Kingdom for the sole aim of persuading Nnamdi Kanu to drop
\nhis Biafra agitation and not for him to mobilize the Igbo people in the
\nUK towards the Igbo presidency project. We take Kalu\u2019s comment with a
\npinch of salt. We consider him as one playing to the gallery. We think
\nthat he should wear his thinking cap once more and fathom what must be
\ndone to get the deal done. He should also bear in mind that purporting
\nto possess the capacity to negotiate the abandonment of the Biafra
\nagitation will create no milestones for him in his quest to become the
\nnext president of Nigeria, instead, it could diminish whatever feats he
\nhas recorded.<\/p>\n
By Collins Ughalaa, KSC Many Igbo people believe that the next president of Nigeria should come from amongst us. This dream has been a reoccurring decimal in the Nigerian polical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n