Zik’s Anguish, Nigeria’s Failure

Nnamdi Azikiwe

BY OBI NWAKANMA

Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe was the leader of the African nationalist resistance to colonialism from 1937 to 1957. He spearheaded it. He theorized it. He catalyzed it.

In spite of the puny attempts by characters whom Azikiwe himself would have dubbed “Lilliputians” to revise the history of African nationalism in the 20th century, and diminish Azikiwe’s work, the great Zik continues to glow because he is preserved in the documents of the 20th century.

What he said; where he said it; who he fought, who fought him, why they fought him; what those who fought him said and wrote about him, and why they said and wrote what they did about him are all parts of Imperial and Post Imperial history and the struggles for Black freedom preserved in the great libraries and archives of the world. In 1943, Azikiwe issued a timeline within which he said the British must decolonize and leave Africa. He gave them fifteen years.

The independence of Ghana in 1957, and Home rule in Nigeria in that same year saw the culmination of Azikiwe’s sustained pressure using the “parliamentary” method. The African Nationalist movement was part of a global Black Freedom movement in the 20th century, which played out at key metropolitan epicenters. One part was the West Indies, and the other part was the Black Civil Rights movement in the United States.

Zik activated the African movement, working in concert with a global network of allies – George Padmore, C.L.R James, I.T. Akunna Wallace-Johnson, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Ladipo Solanke, and in the US, WEB Dubois whose 1915 essay, “The African Roots of War,” may have impressed a young Nnamdi Azikiwe very early on the question of decolonization; Alain Locke, Azikiwe’s teacher at Howard, and for whom he would be research assistant, whose path-breaking book “The New Negro” made an impression on Zik and inspired his own 1937 book, “Renascent Africa”; Leon Hansberry; Thurgood Marshall, Walter White, Rayford Logan, Ralph Bunche, and the biggest of them all, that melodic brass baritone, actor, all-round sportsman, orator, lawyer, and renaissance man, Paul Leroy Robeson, whom Zik called, “my leader.”

In 1945 Zik challenged Churchill’s interpretation of the Atlantic Charter, and vigorously called out the attempts to subvert African freedom at the newly formed United Nations meeting with his powerful essay in the West African Pilot challenging Churchill, “There is no New Deal for the Black man in San Francisco.”

He deployed the argonauts – young men he had specially recruited to go to school in America as the “advance guard” of the “new African”: Nkrumah, Ojike, Orizu, Mbadiwe, Ikejiani, Okongwu, Akpabio, K.A.B Jones-Quartey, who went round the United States giving talks on the imperative of African freedom. Mbonu Ojike relocated to San Francisco where the new United Nations was being formed, leaf-letting and canvassing for the African position.

That year, Nkrumah left the US and moved to London, with an introductory note from CLR James and Azikiwe who had talked to his friend George Padmore about him. He joined up with Padmore and organized the Secretariat of the 5th Pan-African Conference which Padmore was planning for Manchester.

In 1947, as a result of the persistent agitation of Zik in West Africa, and the “Zikists” abroad, and their contact with Eleanor Roosevelt and Ralph Bunch who worked in a very key position in the Roosevelt administration, they got the US President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to get Churchill and the UK government to concede to political independence and the rights of Britain’s African colonies, just like India.

This is the story of Nigeria’s independence that Nigerians were never told. That Nigeria’s independence and of the West African colonies were won by Azikiwe and his men in 1947. In other words, decolonization was secured in principle by the Zikists in 1947. What happened in 1960 was a formal transfer of power following a transition which allowed Britain to secure its own key interests and not leave in a hurry as they were forced to in India. It was the culmination of the work Azikiwe began to do, starting from when he arrived Ghana, or the Gold Coast, to become Editor of the West African Morning Post in Accra. Azikiwe’s arrival radicalized the press in the Gold Coast and activated the era of radical or militant nationalist discourse. Until Azikiwe arrived Ghana, there was no nationalist movement.

I’m not even sure that Ghanaians are taught this history. That is also because Nigerians have never been taught. We have been fed lies about “three nationalist founding fathers.” Ahmadu Bello was not a Nigerian nationalist leader. He, in fact, did not want independence for Nigeria and allied with the British frequently against the nationalist agitators.

Neither did Awo fight for Nigerian nationalism. He fought for a regionalist mandate – what Zik called, “Pakistanism.” Awo had an intense disdain for the North and an intense fear of the East. The facts are clear. Their writings speak for them. The tenor of their political negotiations speaks for them. The archives of their debriefings speak for them.

But in the need to maintain a false “kumbaya” and a feel-good “national history,” we have immortalized falsehood. The founding nationalist imagination of modern Nigeria is Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and his followers. Period. They sacrificed for this nation. Their ideas for a coherent, modern nation based on a secular republican idea, based on the equality of individual citizens, rather than on an ethnocentrism that bred religious and tribal bigotry were defeated by those who fought them and who took charge of this nation. The nationalists who fought for freedom were subverted and eventually sidelined. And here we are today.

Azikiwe’s idea of Nigeria was subverted and defeated. The current state of Nigeria is the clearest evidence of Azikiwe’s political failure. He dreamt of a nation welded together by the power of mutual trust. A nation built on Citizens sans Frontiers. Zikism has been described by so-called realists as utopian and built on unreconstructed idealism and naiveté.

Those who won the argument have bequeathed to us today’s Nigeria: poor, broken, divided, backward, unproductive, insecure, outlandish, and dangerous to the health and survival of the human person. To them the irreconcilable differences among Nigeria’s various peoples make it impossible for Nigeria to meld and exist as a single, coherent nation. Today, Nigerians hate themselves as never before.

The Hausa hates the Igbo; the Igbo hates the Yoruba; the Yoruba hates everybody; and the minority groups are as confused and degraded as everyone else. Here is Nigeria that still practices an esoteric kind of feudalism which it calls democracy. Here is a constitutional republic which still maintains pseudo-monarchies and mud-empires. I will give just a recent example.

Two weeks ago, the “Presidency” went around meeting with what it called regional “leaders” to discuss the security issues arising from the fall out of the ENDSARS protests. This is straight of classical Feudalism. The Feudal lord has a habit of convening a meeting of his “Tenants-in-Chief” so that they would keep the peasants quiet. It doesn’t occur to the dinosaurs in the presidency that in the 21st century, and in an increasingly urban, and digitized society, and a republican democracy, there are no “middle men.”

That a Legislature exists through which people in various constituencies elected their representatives, and empowered them to speak on their behalf. That the “kings, queens, and leaders” of the people are not exactly whom the government actually think they are. In the specific example of the South- East, anyone who claims to be “the leader(s) of the South East,” is playing dozens with the gullible presidency.

The true leaders of the Igbo are diffuse. They rise by the day and change by the night as circumstances dictate. The true leaders of the Igbo receive Congressional mandate once the Igbo gather.

Their mandates end with each Congress. That is why the Igbo themselves say, “Oha Wu EzeNdi Igbo.” That is, “The gathering of the Igbo is the King of the Igbo.” Once the Igbo gather, they constitute the “Igbo sovereign.” Everybody – irrespective of title or stature become equal, subject only to their “CHI” in that gathering. That is also why, if you press them a bit more, the Igbo will say, “NaniChukwuwuEzeNdi Igbo.” That is, “Only God is the true King of the Igbo.

That is to say, the leader of the Igbo is an idea, not a thing, or a person. The only person who ever came to near-universal acclaim as “leader of the Igbo” was Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. But even he would have said, “Come off it!” If the Igbo publicly place a crown on your head, run! They want to kill you. So those who say they are meeting with “Igbo leaders” are on their own, because when true “Igbo leadership” meets, they do not gather in obvious places.

They are selected by lot. They are emissaries. They speak in parables, and they are also sometimes, the most unlikely folk whom no one suspects to carry a scared mandate. And the point is that this is so because the Igbo have practiced an ancient form of democracy, and a republic, for so long- indeed some scholars might say, long before Athens.

The truth also is that increasingly, most Nigerians are becoming a bit more like the Igbo, driven by the desire for liberty and individual freedom, and far less than primordial allegiances. This generation is the last that will fall prey to crass ethnocentrism.

The newer generation of Nigerians are coming round to the Zikist idea that all Africans are the same and owe each other the duty of mutual-respect; that the nation in its simplest idea is the largest mutual aid society.

Nigerians are increasingly exhausted by persistent and needless rancour. They will fully come to realize that one’s greatest ally is his or her next door neighbour. People want the same things – secure streets; passable roads that are not flooded regularly; good schools for their kids; neighbourhood parks for recreation; a sense of safety; regular supply of electricity and clean water; clean, well-run public transportation; well-equipped hospitals; equal and affordable housing; good paying jobs; a regular source of income; a sense of one’s dignity; a sense of well-being that annuls the pressure of needless competition that makes one citizen detests or envies his fellow citizen, and kills to get ahead because of the very limited opportunities that casts one citizen against the other. This was Azikiwe’s dream for Nigeria: a nation where our very differences would meld into the beautiful colour of the rainbow. A prosperous and humane nation where no man is prey against the other, and man’s inhumanity to man is abolished.

Atiku’s Emergence Formally Ends The So-Called Rotational Presidency Principle...

BY ALFRED OBIORA UZOKWE

Former Nigeria Vice President Atiku Abubakar adresses the People's Democratic Party delegates during the Special convention in Abuja, Nigeria May 28, 2022 [Afolabi Sotunde/ Reuters]

Yesterday, at the PDP convention, a northerner in the person of Atiku, once again emerged as the presidential flag bearer. This is a party that once acceded to the principle of rotational presidency but still skimmed out other regions with interest in the top spot. Atiku has very strong odds of eventually becoming the president because depending on who the APC fields, the north will vote as a block. With this development, it is now official that Nigeria is a government of the people for the people by ONE region.

Unfortunately, the regions being marginalized lack the political cohesiveness that is necessary to break this hegemonic proclivity of the north. They bicker amongst themselves, gladly play the Brutus from within, readily accept crumbs in exchange for loyalty. But was it not honest Abe that said that a house divided never stands. If we keep doing what we have always done, we will keep getting the same result. Factionalization and infighting has made the south east unable to present a solid political block with a formidable common front.

In the end what is left in the south east? A people with no real say in affairs that govern every facet of their being for the past 50 years. Second Niger bridge, a project that is not only THE eastern gateway, but of national commercial import, is being done at the whims and caprices of those at the helm. The snail speed of work tells the story. Federal roads in the east are all but abandoned, only done at the whims of the helmsman. The people at the helm do projects in the south east with the mindset that they are doing them a favor, not that it is their right as part of the major tribe in Nigeria. Yet, the helmsmanship never gets to that part of Nigeria.

Now, my question is, since the idea of rotational presidency has been jettisoned, will Nigeria also do same to the quota systems in university admissions where candidates from certain regions are admitted with scores so low that one wonders how they will cope in the tertiary institutions? Will the quota system latently practiced in the employment of folks into the army, police and other parastatals now go away? No, it will not. The dominant region has become a master at having things both ways and they are not bashful about it.

While the south easterners spend most of their time pontificating in various outlets(nothing wrong with that); while we verbally joust on platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook; while we engage in the practice of “I can get to my potentials as an individual but will never get along with other south easterners for a better and bigger achievement”; while south easterners play the politics of self-immolation where those elected as governors fall our hand by leaving the states more desolate than they met them, the north has succeeded in perpetual rule of the so called giant of Africa. They have been doing it for 50 or more years and will continue. They know that he who holds power is like a piper that dictates the tune in an ensemble.

Ndi Igbo, as my mother’s people from Asaba would say, loanu ilolo – think deep. You can have all the commerce in Nigeria but without periodic political power and influence, those things that aid commerce like constant electricity to power industries, good roads to ferry goods, enabling environment like loans, etc, will continue to elude the southeast and we will never get to our full potential.

The beat goes on.

IGBO POLITICS: 2023: This House Has Fallen; To Rebuild It, We Must Break From Our Past

 

For Immediate Release May 30, 2023

By Kingsley Moghalu, ADC Presidential Aspirant

The desperation of politicians in the 2023 presidential election cycle gives cause for alarm. From N100 million presidential nomination forms to $35,000 delegate bribes and INEC’s shifting of the deadline for primaries, seemingly to accommodate the political party in power today, there are dangerous omens. 

It is up to us as Nigerians to decide if we will be fooled again in 2023. To make real progress, we must break from the past. We must now elect leaders who offer us a clear, coherent vision, competence, and a plan. 

As an aspirant for the responsibility of President of Nigeria in 2023 on the platform of the African Democratic Democratic Congress (ADC), I offer our country a clear vision and plan, articulated in my book Build, Innovate and Grow (BIG). The high Office of President of Nigeria is a job, not an entitlement based on the number of years a candidate has spent in politics or merely on personal ambition. In 2023 Nigerians should elect a candidate who has the competences, experience and performance track record that is directly relevant to the job. The core functions of the President of Nigeria are (1) Nation-building (managing diversity, building a united nation, and building strong institutions); (2) National Security; (3) Economy; and (4) Foreign Affairs and International Diplomacy.

Based on these requirements, I am the man for the job. A modern, 21st century President of Nigeria. As a United Nations official for 17 years in which I rose by dint of hard work and competence from entry level Officer to the highest career bracket of Director and served on special assignment at the political level of Under-Secretary-General, in New York, Cambodia, Croatia, Rwanda, and Switzerland, I led teams that achieved lasting results in rebuilding failed states such as our country has become today, in international security operations, and in traditional international diplomacy. 

I led resource mobilization and the building of global partnerships for the Geneva-based, $20billion Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that has made social investments to support health systems and save lives in 140 countries including Nigeria. And as the founder and CEO of a global investment advisory firm in the private sector, I have advised and guided major foreign investors into Nigeria and other African countries. 

As a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from 2009 to 2014, I led the execution of extensive reforms that saved the Nigerian financial system from collapse after the global financial crisis of 2008. Our work remains the stabilizing foundation of our financial system today. 

I also led the team that developed and introduced the Bank Verification Number (BVN) which now serves nearly 50 million Nigerians in the banking system. My team and I facilitated the introduction of Non-Interest (Islamic) Banking that advanced financial inclusion, as well as the digitalization of the payment system that made it possible for nearly 100 million Nigerians to make and receive payments on their mobile phones. As a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN, I played an active leadership role, with other colleagues, in economic policy making that successfully crashed inflation from double digits to a single digit 8% by 2014. We managed foreign exchange policy successfully, with the Naira exchanging to the dollar at a rate in the range of N150-N165 to $1 during our tenure in office. These are transformative achievements in which one played a direct, leadership role. The impact of my life’s work so far has been deep, international, national, and local, empowering millions in Nigeria and around the world. 

Having been a traditional politician in and of itself, say as a state Governor or Senator, without the knowledge of or exposure to managing complex diversity, sophisticated security operations, national economic management, or foreign affairs, does not prepare such an individual to be an effective president of Nigeria. Our failure to understand this is why we tend to make the wrong leadership choices. This is the lesson we should learn from Nigeria today as the failed state our country has become. The presidency is a unique job, not a mere political promotion or an entitlement. 

In 2023, our present national crisis needs us to elect a President of Nigeria that will fix our economy, unite our diverse peoples, secure our territory and our people, and restore our standing in the world. I pledge to build and unify our country into One Nation with a common national ambition on which we all agree. We will proactively secure our country and its people in all of our geopolitical zones. We will build an economy that creates jobs and prosperity for our youth through innovation, manufacturing and skills through education reform that ends ASUU strikes permanently in Nigeria, and access to capital to start new businesses through a state-sponsored venture capital fund that will be managed efficiently by the private sector. 

With my knowledge, experience and networks in international relations, my Government will make Nigeria influential and powerful abroad once again, based into the stability and prosperity we will create at home. 

Fellow Nigerians, this house has fallen. Together, we will rebuild it to become stronger than it has ever been. 

Lucky Were The Bodies

Armed soldiers were stationed here and there. Grannies wondered why we remained in the north. We should come home.

BY IFEANYICHUKWU EZE

I want to remember. No. I don’t want to keep remembering. But shouldn’t I? His face keeps popping up here and there, in my dreams, in my wakefulness, inciting me with his smile to come and play, as if he were here.

I want to ask him if he is fine, as we were when dawn fed us chants of cockerels, muezzins, and preachers. When our shadows grew shorter, like dots under our feet as the bright lone eye of the cloudless sky moved to the center, inviting our stomachs to cry for food. When the lone eye went to sleep, its mild colleague crept in to usher our game-tired bodies home.

On weekends we were fed with Indian films. We crowded a tiny parlor belonging to the only owner of a twelve-inch black-and-white screen. Or we huddled outside and struggled for space to look through a glint in the window. Or we passed broomsticks through the open window to part the curtains for our yearning eyes to see.

We fought wars, reenacting the Indian films we watched. Our regalia were green leaves from mango trees. Our swords — maize stalks — were sharp with playfulness. Our guns shot bullets of sound, torrents of our shrieks. We killed. We died and were resurrected with laughter.

Then we couldn’t leave our rooms. Or dream with closed eyes. For the next couple of days, the most popular phrase was “Sharia law.” Why should we stay at home because of some law? Clouds of smoke wrapped up neighboring communities, as if in reply. All of our men — fathers and boys armed with machetes, bows and arrows, sticks and spears — spread out in groups to defend the town, their faces darkened with soot. Some, including Tema, went off to the border. Mama wouldn’t allow me to go. But I had no liter of courage either. And then the army came.

Tema’s catapult always hung around his neck. When we went hunting for tswi-tswi in the fields, he was accurate with his target. I was never his match. Once, I struck and missed, scaring the bird away; despite the fury boiling in Tema’s eyes, a stream of chuckles cracked his face. They say he had a smiling face.

I saw him. He saw me. He smiled. I smiled back. The group marched away.

In February 2000, Kaduna was awakening from the rubble of religious crisis. Malali, one of its towns, was a swelling of people who had run away like an endangered species — from burnings, from lynchings common as air, escaping, if luck embraced you, from attacks by the burners and killers lusting over our end.

Everybody now belonged to a body of tribal consciousness — of identities as Christians and Muslims, southerners and northerners, natives and non-natives, pagans and believers. Words were tied like nooses around our necks.

People died. Friends, relatives, fathers, mothers, babies — dead. Families were charred to black ash. Bodies were lost. The dead were buried in graves, real or imaginary. Lucky were the bodies recovered and recognized, luckier still if given burial.

Fear hung in the air like a bad omen. Movement was regulated with a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Armed soldiers were stationed here and there. Trespassers didn’t wake up at dawn. The order was: gun them down. Vengeance for this, vengeance for that, was mused. Paranoid was the air we breathed. Relatives and friends in other parts of the country kept asking us to leave the state. Grannies wondered why we remained in the north. We should come home.

No more street play, hide-and-seek, card games, moonlight tales, aimless scampering about. No more Tema?

Like most families from the southern part of the country, we succumbed. The red sand and soft green trees of Nsukka welcomed us to the southeast. We stayed at our grandparents’ place, with a twelve-inch black-and-white TV. The wall clock still ticked, ageless. Framed photos hung on the walls. One of Grandpa’s large faces stared like it was daring you to do something silly. Seats were set around the spacious parlor — a door that led into Grandpa’s room inches away. It was always ajar. On windy days, the house howled through its roof.

Everything seemed as familiar as when I lived there years back. We had traveled home for Christmas. Grandma had requested that I be brought to stay with them. Three or four years old, I was driven in a Volkswagen by their neighbor from my own father’s house. Grandpa was lying down in a camp bed in front of the house, reading a newspaper — or was it a book? He didn’t move or say a word to me, though I was still crying.

Now, having spent much of my life growing up in the north, my Hausa was fluent. Better than my Igbo. Though we spoke Igbo at home, it was an exclusive preserve of communication with my parents, especially Papa, who would never want me to speak anything else. Igbo was my mother tongue; Hausa was not. He thought I should be a master of my mother tongue. He wanted me to be good at English too.

In the village, there was only Igbo, which limited me to just a few utterances. The words felt heavy on my lips. They sounded like I was learning the language anew. I listened more than I spoke. I didn’t want to be laughed at, let alone rebuked by Grandma, when I pronounced the words wrong. When I didn’t know which Igbo words to use — the appropriate words — I’d utter the Hausa or English equivalents. They came easily.

Once or twice, I went to Grandma for soap to wash the plates. The word had skipped me. I didn’t say ncha. Instead, I said sabulu. She said she didn’t understand. She continued stitching our torn clothes. My cousin told Grandma what I needed. I was relieved but disappointed. Grandma’s knowing smile stirred a growing feeling that had crept into me — that the whole world was staring at me, at my every deed, expecting me to be flawless, and I responded by coiling back into myself. I heard it said that I was quiet and shy.

The room I occupied was Grandpa’s. He had passed away a few years back after complaining of chest pain. There was a cupboard of books, a table by the window. From the window I could see flowers at the entrance to the front door and the wide path that met our colonial heritage, the market road whose asphalt surface had thinned away into patches here and there. One end led to the University of Nigeria, and the major town of Nsukka, while the other led to Nkwo market. On market days, Nkwo especially, the road was busy with people avoiding police checkpoints on other roads.

Across the road was the primary school where Grandpa had taught. As a teacher, he was nicknamed Masquerade. His moral strength, they said, scared away its offhand neighbor. If Grandpa had been loose, his mud house would have been a mansion, and his family would be living off the cake of his millions by now, but his pupils wouldn’t have grown into credible men and women. Mama said she was his pupil at some point. She made a face to indicate that the privilege hadn’t spared her anything. My last encounter with him was a hard thrashing I received for not feeding the goats. The night whined of their hunger.

The cupboard of books in Grandpa’s room was made of redwood. It was taller and bigger and housed more books than my father’s. If my appreciation for books and reading had so far been a hidden trait, the books in Grandpa’s cupboard baited it out. The meeting was irresistible. And the books were good company. I took solace in them. They saved me the discomfort of facing people, speaking to them, speaking Igbo to them, or being accused of avoiding them.

Some books I read willingly. Others, I felt, were very deep. I left these to read later. When I read Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind, I didn’t understand anything. But I read it anyway. When I became a philosophy major at the University of Nigeria years later, I was intrigued by his famous “ghost in the machine” metaphor — a critique of Cartesian dualism. But I liked Descartes’s dualism, not so much because of his subtle approval of modern science but because of his style of writing. And the famous “cogito, ergo sum” was a dictum I personalized in other ways. I sleep, therefore I am. I read, therefore I am. I write, therefore I am.

The cupboard was dusty for lack of use since its owner had gone. I would take out the books and beat off the dust or blow it away. I liked the smell — their musty perfume. When I flipped through their pages, the buzzing rustle tickled my ears. Sometimes I would hold a book in my hand just to enjoy the feel of its weight.

The ones that tickled me were The River Between and Weep Not, Child by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Mission to Kala by Mongo Beti, The White Man of God by Kenjo Jumbam, Chike and the River by Chinua Achebe, The African Child by Camara Laye, Zambia Shall Be Free by Kenneth Kaunda, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwe Armah, Toads for Supper by Chukwuemeka Ike, A Fresh Start by Helen Ovbiagele, Sammy Going South by W. H. Canaway, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The Dignity of Man by Russell W. Davenport, Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot, and Remove the Heart of Stone by Donal Dorr. Most of the books presented me with a world similar to the one I lived in — dirt roads, cornrowed hair, black skins, and straw beds.

I was hungry for more books. I would strip the cupboard of all the books just to find something new to read. Some books had lost pages or even covers. I read them like that. A copy of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was falling apart. There was James Hadley Chase’s Tiger by the Tail and, under the pen name Raymond Marshall, You Find Him, I’ll Fix Him. I read Grandpa’s lesson notes and letters and marveled at his handwriting, at the old black-and-white photos of his not-quite-younger years.

I learned new words and expressions, which I wrote down on sheets of paper and later transferred into a notebook. I became obsessed with the dictionary. An old Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary was handy. I wanted to know every word. I thought I could. But there was always something new. One new word. Two more. A dozen more. In senior secondary, my classmates would call me Dictionary. I was at ease with words and their meanings, and it was an honor to be looked up to in class or approached to explain the meanings of new or unfamiliar words.

Chores kept me briefly away from reading. Every day after morning prayers, I swept the compound with a broom made of palm fronds and washed the plates before and after meals. We went to the farm on Saturdays. It was a new experience: tilling the soil, weeding, making ridges. Afterward, we gathered firewood and brought it home.

In the fields, I looked forward to reading, so much that I remained locked up within myself, digesting words, sounds, and voices, replaying them in my mind, rolling over new words — Igbo words too — in quiet dialogue with myself.

While Grandpa’s books fed me, the news from Kaduna was that life was getting back to normal. Business was beginning to bubble. People who had left now returned, Christians among Christians, Muslims among Muslims. But I was excited. I hoped Tema had returned — from wherever. I wanted to go back, to be with my friend, to laugh, to play on the streets, to hold hands, to behold the city again, to bask under her sky without fear. We would make traps. We would go hunting. My trap would catch nothing. His would catch a dozen bush rats. We would make kites and fly them. They would take our dreams to the sky. His would fly higher than mine. We would slice empty tins and make miniatures of our dream cars.

And I would tell him of the books I had read, of the new words I had learned. I would show him my notebook with many words. He would nod at my accomplishment.

I wondered what he could have been up to. Reading like me, perhaps, or going to the farm. Hunting? When our teacher, Mr. John, had asked us what we wanted to be in the future, Tema had always said he wanted to play. I didn’t know what I wanted either. Playing seemed the most feasible thing to do.

“Happy birthday,” Mama said. It was November 23.

But it was immaterial. Tema didn’t return. He was never found.

ABOUT IFEANYICHUKWU EZE:

Ifeanyichukwu Eze studied philosophy at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He explores survival as it reveals layers of being, the utopia of place, and the intersections between faith, identity, mental health, and death. His work has appeared in Adda, The Offing, The Temz, The Dark, Agbowo, Akuko, and a few other places. A fellow of the Ebedi International Writers Residency, Eze was longlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and won second prize in the inaugural Akuko Writers’ Prize, 2020.

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Pastor Tunde Bakare And The Lies Of A Failed State

BY CHUKS ILOEGBUNAM

Image via The Biafra Telegraph

Pastor Tunde Bakare of The Citadel Global Community Church recently spoke through his hat while preaching a sermon. He told his congregation that, during the January 15, 1966 military action that toppled the First Republic, the soldiers that took Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa removed his turban, poured wine on his head and force-fed him with the alcohol. For abominating him, Balewa, just before he was shot, pronounced a cause on Ndigbo, to the effect that no one from the ethnic group will ever bear rule over Nigeria. Mr. Bakare’s story, fanciful as it sounds, is a pack of lies. This article, therefore, is to educate Mr. Bakare and others of his misguided persuasion with the truth, of which Jesus, the Christ said in John 8: 32: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

On the mundane level, no one removed any turban from Sir Abubakar’s head. The turban is a headdress. Soldiers invaded the Prime Minister’s official residence at around 3am, when the man was in bed. Did he sleep turbaned? Do people sleep in their headdresses? Apart from that picture in which presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari appeared in suit and tie, wearing a wan smile and looking almost comical with his receding hairline, there hardly is another photograph of the man in which a cap does not adorn his head. Would his traditional fondness for full dressing gear ever mean that he went to bed in a hat? Do women sleep with all those accessories they routinely assembled on their heads for public events? Tafawa Balewa’s turban was not removed because he wasn’t wearing one when his adversaries closed in on him.

Muslims are by injunction forbidden to consume alcoholic beverages. The story that the Prime Minister was bathed in wine and inebriated with it is aimed at sustaining the opprobrium first established by revisionists in 1966. Also his recovered body showed clearly that he hadn’t been shot. The lies spewed by Mr. Bakare have one source. They always had a single objective: the monopoly of political power by the geo-political north. There are many such lies still enjoying vibrancy in the country. Three of them should suffice for our argument. One, when General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s regime was toppled, Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon, who succeeded him, was going to sunder the country by announcing the Republic of Northern Nigeria, for the simple reason that political power had left the region. Gowon is still denying this fact, despite incontrovertible evidence to its certitude. (See the document marked CAB/128/41 at the British Public Records Office at Kew Gardens, London. It contained the minutes of the British Cabinet meeting of August 2, 1966 that was declassified after a 30-year moratorium. It incontrovertibly shows Gowon’s secessionist tendency after they assassinated General Aguiyi-Ironsi.) Two, Gowon said in his maiden speech as Head of State that there was no basis for Nigerian unity. He denies the statement to this day. As a matter of fact, his government disingenuously published a misleading version of his speech, claiming that he had only discounted national unity in a unitary dispensation. But, the BBC Monitoring Service recorded Gowon’s broadcast live, and the transcript is forever available. It has Gowon saying, “Suffice it to say that putting all considerations to the test, political, economic as well as social, the basis of unity is not there…” Three. Nigeria’s military leaders met in Aburi, Ghana, on January 4 & 5, 1967, for a conference to avert the contingency of civil war. They reached an agreement. Back in Nigeria, Gowon reneged on the agreement, an infamy he denies to this day, even though the Aburi proceedings were audio-recorded from start to finish. Had the agreement been implemented, the civil war might well have never occurred.

The military action of January 1966 was called and is still called an Igbo coup. How could a putsch intended to install the Yoruba Chief Obafemi Awolowo, as Prime Minister be an Igbo coup? Here’s Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu: “Neither myself nor any other lads was in the least interested in governing the country. We were soldiers and not politicians. We had earmarked from the list known to every soldier in this operation who would be what. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was, for example, to be released from jail immediately and to be made the Executive President of Nigeria.” See West Africa magazine of July 29, 1967, page 981. And here’s Major Adewale Ademoyega: “At the end of the first week of January, Major Anuforo and I arranged to meet Captain Udeaja, a young engineering graduate from the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, UK. We met in Major Chukwuka’s house at the Ikeja Cantonment but Chukwuka himself was not there. Having briefed Udeaja generally and got his consent, we gave him his task. He was to fly a special plane provided for the purpose to Calabar on the morning of D-Day, to effect the release of Chief Awolowo and bring him to Lagos on the plane. We had already arranged for a plane of the Nigeria Air Force to be made available that morning. This was done through Major Nzegwu (not Nzeogwu) of the Air Force.” See Adewale Ademoyega: Why We Struck: The Story of the First Nigerian Coup, Evans Brothers Limited, Ibadan, 1981; pp 68-69.

The Nzeogwu and Ademoyega stories were corroborated by no less a person than Chief Awolowo, thusly: “It was learnt after the January coup that the authors had planned to release me from Calabar, fly me to Lagos, and install me as Head of State whether I liked it or not. If I refused the offer, they were prepared to govern in my name until I was persuaded to accept the offer. The authors of the coup had no plan to govern the country under a military administration.” See Obafemi Awolowo, My March Through Prison, Macmillan Nigeria Publishers Limited, Ilupeju Lagos, 1985; page 297.

In spite of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, the myth of the Igbo coup has been sustained to this day. According to Ademoyega, the innermost circle of the coup plot was composed of three Majors: Adewale Ademoyega from Ode Remo in today’s Ogun State, a History graduate of the University of London; Emmanuel Ifeajuna from Onitsha, a University of Ibadan Science graduate; and Chukwuma Nzeogwu from Okpanam, a town bordering Asaba in present day Delta State. Besides these facts, there were 50 Majors in the Nigerian Army on the morning of the coup; 24 of them were Igbo. About 20 of these knew nothing of the coup and never participated in its execution. The coup cost the life of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, the Quarter-Master General of the Nigerian Army. Chinyelu Unegbe was Igbo from Ozubulu in today’s Anambra State. General Aguiyi-Ironsi put down the coup; he was Igbo from Umuana Ndume in Umuhia in the present Abia State. These facts have never constituted extenuating circumstances. The coup must forever be labelled an Igbo coup, a lie from the pit of hell that continues to be used as a basis for the sporadic massacring of Ndigbo and their consignment to fourth-class citizenship in their own country.

All these lies are the reason Nigeria is a failed state. And unless these lies and countless others are finally and permanently abrogated, Nigeria’s chances of resurrection are unequivocally non-existent. In a sense Pastor Bakare is a tool in the hands of forces he scarcely recognises. The fibs he told his church members were as old as 1966. The precursors are from the top echelons of Northern Nigerian hegemony, but their lies first surfaced in book form when the Hudahuda Publishing Company of Zaria published John M. Paden’s Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto in 1986. This is Professor Omo Omoruyi in The Tale of June 12; The Betrayal of the Democratic Rights of Nigerians (1993) (Press Alliance Network Limited; 1999.) “President Babangida ruled out any Yoruba person if Chief Abiola who had been with the military and the North in various capacities could not win the support of the ethno-military clique. He ruled out the Igbo on the argument that the country and definitely the North would not buy an Igbo then or in the near future. More seriously, he argued that the Yoruba and the Igbo did not have strong representation in the Armed Forces to provide them with the kind of protection they would need. This is still at the heart of democratisation today” (page 253).

Professor Omoruyi, who was the Director-General of the Centre for Democratic Studies and, more importantly, Babangida’s closest confidant, sought clarification from the military President. “This was when (General Babangida) called my attention to the feeling in the North about an Igbo as President. He thought that it would violate the curse placed on the Igbo by the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa before he was executed on January 15, 1966. Sir Abubakar was quoted to have said: ‘I know you are going to kill me; you will never get a Prime Minister like me. The Igbo will suffer for twenty-five years.’” (Page 262.)

Now, under Pastor Bakare, the consummate wielder of the microphone, the falsehoods got added embellishment. The curse preventing any Igbo from becoming President over a period of 25 years assumed eternal dimensions. The snippety nonsense of turban and wine got thrown in. No one seemed to underscore the impotence of the curse by General Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo being Balewa’s immediate successor. I reacted thus to this story in Ironsi: Nigeria, The Army, Power And Politics (Press Alliance 1999; and Eminent Biographies 2019): “The story that was put out claimed that Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa ‘cursed’ the Igbo, saying they will not rule Nigeria for 25 years. By the time Babangida used this fiction to discount an Igbo President in 1993, 27 years had elapsed since Sir Abubakar died. Yet, the “curse” was still potent. Babangida himself had no qualms marrying into a “cursed” ethnic group and raising four children who by extension must be half cursed. The main point here is that, apart from Sir Abubakar’s lack of locus standi to curse the Igbo, (how many million curses will the thousands of Igbo victims of the 1966 pogrom utter?), the story is patently false. Its authors lacked authenticity because their story was bereft of citation and attribution. The most detailed account of the interrogation of those that carried out the coup of January 1966 was released by the regime of General Yakubu Gowon. The details also appear in Crisis And Conflict in Nigeria: A Documentary Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, 1971) by A. H. M Kirk-Greene. Nowhere is there anything about any curse. No authority ever corroborated the story. Yet this fiction is what the Clique has held on to in the protracted subjugation of Ndigbo. That was why Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, a principled officer and gentleman, was ignominiously removed as Chief of General Staff within months of his appointment. That was why Ndigbo led the formation of the PDP and gave it their all, only for the currently acclaimed Igbo leader, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, to be given a short shrift.” (pp 242-243.)

According to Omo Omoruyi, Chief M. K. O. Abiola’s presidential election victory was nullified because it was not backed by what he called Ethno-Military Clique of Northern Nigeria. General Babangida posited in 1993 that, “the Yoruba and the Igbo did not have strong representation in the Armed Forces to provide them with the kind of protection they would need.” Yoruba and Igbo representation in the military today are for more minuscular today than ever before, due to the conscious and deliberate nepotistic policy of the man at the helm today. Besides, no one has bothered to decipher the Caliphate’s thinking on 2023. Perhaps the assumption is that its deafening silence is symptomatic of non-alignment? How could this be when Sultan Dasuki was one of the prime forces against Chief Abiola’s presidential election? All these point to the fact that, in the ultimate, even the Jagaban would discover that he washed his hands and cracked a nut for an errant fowl to carry the seed away. At that point only would the incalculable harm done to Yoruba and Southern interests by the forward-looking politics of Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu become ever so clear.

To return to phantom curses and negative repercussions! Pastor Bakare needs to ask himself this fundamental question: Why is the curse for bad behaviour unidirectional? A sensible answer to that question may assist him in coming to terms with a myriad of other questions. Those who killed General Aguiyi-Ironsi in July 1966 have the longest streets in Abuja named after them. Apart from Aguiyi-Ironsi, they also killed countless other officers, including Lieutenant Colonels Israel Okoro, Gabriel Okonweze and Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, and Majors Nzegwu, Emelifonwu, Nnamani, Ihedigbo, Obienu, Ekanem, P. C. Obi, Isong, Ogunro; and 11 Captains, and 13 Lieutenants, and 128 NCOs and Other Ranks. They went ahead with a pogrom that cost 50,000 lives of Eastern Nigerians, mostly Ndigbo. Why have the perpetrators of the nsoani never been visited by a curse? Nigeria has five functional international airports. Two of them are named after the mass murderers of July, August, September and October 1966.

They claimed that wine was poured on Tafawa Balewa, and that alcohol was forced down his throat. Compare it to the following: “Thirdly, the evidence disclosed that it was not merely a case of Northerners descending on Easterners and shooting, matcheting and clubbing them to death. They embarked on various methods of torture and humiliation. One method was described by the 72nd witness – Dick Iwebi. This punishment is one of the most dreadful ways of crucifying a person. A heavy rod is tied across the back of the chest of the victim with the hands stretched and secured firmly on the rod. While the victim may still be standing on his legs, he is as helpless as a man nailed to a cross. In this position they then proceed to torture the victim by plucking his eyes, cutting his tongue and cutting his testicles.” See The Report of the Justice G. C. M Onyiuke Tribunal on the Massacre of Ndigbo in 1966, Tollbrook Publishers Limited, Ikeja Lagos, pp 125-126. Dear Pastor Bakare, who got cursed for this atrocity?

The thoughtful must ask what informed Pastor Bakare’s timing for his peculiar sermon. But the answer is all too obvious. The presidential election is next year and people who should only be seen and never heard are bursting eardrums hectoring all-comers for an Igbo President of Nigeria. It is important that their agitation is shot down before it gets a chance of taking off and actually flying. Of course, anti-Igbo propaganda was never a spontaneous thing. Its real name is INSIDOUS. To exemplify: In 1954, Emmanuel Ifeajuna won the gold medal in the High Jump event of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Vancouver, Canada. Ifeajuna was not just the first Nigerian, but also the first Black African, to win an international sports event. Back here in Nigeria, those that must never be cursed set up a national Sports Hall of Fame, which, to this day, does not include Ifeajuna’s name. Those who recall that Chioma Ajunwa is the first Nigerian to win an Olympic gold (in the long jump in Atlanta 1996) must go check out “their” sports “Hall of Fame”. Chances are that her name is not there. Not because she committed any offence but because of “from where she from come from”! Yes, it is a capital offence to come from the Igbo country. In 1995, Gideon Akaluka, a young Igbo trader based in Kano was accused of desecrating the Koran. He was locked up. But an organised mob broke into his Police cell, dragged him out, beheaded him and danced through Kano metropolis with his bodiless head. Does Bakare know that not one person was cursed for this atrocity?

The injustice against Ndigbo is pervasive. Take the National Honours. Every head of every hamlet in the far North is an MFR or an OFR or a CFR or a CON or a GCON. Not so for Ndigbo. That is why a personage like Eze (Professor) Green Onyekaba Nwankwo, a distinguished traditional ruler, an accomplished academic who set up the Department of Finance at the University of Lagos, a former Executive Director in charge of banking and monetary policy in the Central Bank of Nigeria and the author of over 20 books has only the MON – the least of all the honours Nigeria can offer. The iniquity is most eloquent in the military. Unless they are in the Education Corps or the Medical Corps or the Physical Training Corps, hardly any Igbo gets promoted above the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Those of us campaigning for an Igbo President of Nigeria are looking at more than the spectacle of a politician from the ethnic group enjoying the tenancy of Aso Rock. That is too simple. We are demanding equal rights. We are saying that a country indexed on lies already collapsed before it got the chance to take a first step to nationhood. An Igbo President is supposed to be the antidote to nearly 60 years of a people’s subjugation. People have no business forgetting that there is a distinction between being a slave and being enslaved. Ndigbo are no slaves. That was why in 1803, 75 of them rebelled at Dunbar Creek in Georgia, USA, took control of the slave ship carrying them, drowned their captors and chose to walk into the ocean rather than be slaves to white slave masters. That was why, between 1791 and 1804 they rebelled and overthrew the French regime in Haiti to establish an independent country founded and governed by ex-slaves. That is why the Igbo, indigenous to their current geographical space for millennia, find intolerable their insolent subjugation by recent migrants from the Fouta Djalon whose numbers no credible census has put at more than 5 percent of the Nigerian population.

The systematic enslavement of Ndigbo in what is supposed to be their own country has got to be terminated. The epic Igbo struggle has taken various forms and will continue to do so. A prime example is their attempt at secession in the 1960s. Britain, and a genocidal war in which “Starvation is a legitimate instrument of warfare” thwarted them. Back inside Nigeria they are compelled to permanently stand back and keep bloody quiet forever. For any sigh, groan or moan of theirs, goons, troops, the Police and paramilitary contingents are deployed with extreme prejudice and excessive numbers against them. They are called terrorists while those that have stopped Kaduna State and wiped out innocent thousands in many parts of the country are termed bandits and treated with kid gloves. They have been branded “a spot in a circle,” a military euphemism underscoring their unenviable situation as targets for continued massacring.

There is news for the liars and the killers. Nigeria is unsustainable on the diet of lies and more lies. It is true that those that laid into Ndigbo in the 1960s and killed them in the tens of thousands got rewarded with high political offices and oil blocks and whatnot. But the kill-and-go ship of Ndigbo finally steamed into turbulent waters. Although census exercises in Nigeria are a huge joke, there are at least 40 million Ndigbo in Nigeria today. Nobody and no country can manufacture enough weapons to wipe them off the face of the country. Even in the extremely unlikely event of all Igbo in Nigeria getting killed, there are millions of them abroad today. From their number, at least a thousand will eventually pay a visit to the mother country, these question pouring from their flaming tongues: “Why did you slay my mother? Why did you massacre my father? Why did you annihilate my sister? Why did you exterminate my brother?”

For all of the above, and especially at the lectern, the microphone should never be a justification for verbal diarrhoea. So, Mr. Preacher Bakare, the next time the sound of your voice is amplified by the electronics of public address systems, you must endeavour to annexe some circumspection. On disseminating the falsehoods of those who claim the right to perpetually sit and fart on all our heads, you must do two things: DESIST and CEASE!

 Chuks Iloegbunam is the author of The Case for an Igbo President of Nigeria.

Dr. Chinelo Megafu

Dr. Chinelo Megafu

B Y OSITA CHIDOKA

I spoke to Dr Chinelo's father. We have a mutual friend. He is in pain. He told me that he did his NYSC in Kaduna in 1982. He had fond memories of KD before this descent to chaos.

He doesn't know how to get to Kaduna. Airlines are cancelling flights, train from Abuja is not an option, the road to Kaduna is under the control of bandits.

I told him Nigeria did not happen to you. Bad governance did. It was in Nigeria that Igbos who returned to the North after the war got the rents their neighbours collected on their behalf while they were away. It was in Nigeria that Umaru Altine defeated Igbos to emerge the Mayor of Enugu.

It was in Nigeria, parents sent their teenage Children to Federal government colleges by train without a minder. It was in Nigeria that I went on holiday to Maiduguri by Bus from Enugu with my sister at ages 11 and 10. We arrived at 2 am, and by 5 am, my Uncle came and picked us up from Federal Low cost. We left in the darkness of early morning.

It was not Nigeria that happened to any of us. It was our collective surrender to bad governance. It is our collective acceptance of corruption as a way of life. It is our collective enthronement of mediocrity, so pervasive that our measure of Presidential Aspirants is by how much money they have somehow acquired.

We took a wrong turn and must retrace our steps or submit to descent to anarchy.

Bad governance will happen again if we sell the Presidency in 2023. It is not Nigeria that will happen. It will be our collaboration with evil that will kill the next Dr Chinelo.

We are paying the price of divisive & clueless governance.

Hefty price.

Ehirim: The Technocrat Who Wants To Be Soludo Of Imo

BY ONYEDIKACHI NKEMJIKA

Tobechukwu Justice Ehirim

He holds a doctorate degree from the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; young, restless, angry and with huge grudge about how wrong things have gone in his home state, Imo. That may be an attempt at describing Tobechukwu Justice Ehirim, popularly known as TJ Ehirim, the intellectual and erudite don pressing to occupy the Imo State seat of power in the next election.

Ehirim had nurtured the desire more than three decades ago, which had to take on a new life and fresh desire due to the turn of events in the which he feels stultified development. He is disturbed by how bad the affairs of his lovely state have turned.

To him, the abstinence of men of quality has foisted on the state, poor thinkers and non-performers and he feels there is no better way to express his misgivings over the abhorrent state of things in the state than to throw his hat into the ring so as to implement the blueprint he has nursed for so long. He has therefore taken it as a major project, a mission driven by a passion that makes him swear like the Mandelas, Mbekis and Malemas of South Africa- no retreat, no surrender.

It was at the last edition of the Annual Igbo Heritage Lecture series, in Johannesburg, South Africa, that he unfolded his plan and regaled his audience in detail how he would devote all his time and resources to rid Imo State of the current bad government

“The Imo State of the Mbakwes cannot claim to be the heartland of Ndigbo and display such shameful and lacklustre performance in the choices of who governs them. My people must be emancipated, let the best of us lead the rest of us. Allowing the worst of us to lead the rest of us, is to deny ourselves modern freedoms, genuine growth and top quality development (not 419); a fatal error that requires marshal intervention and urgent remedy or we suffer the adverse consequences. The present governor of the state is not only grossly inadequate, he is insufficiently prepared for the job he got from the backyard and he must go,” he fumed.

The youthful administrator and technocrat with the above words, seemed to have served quit notice to present occupiers of the office; further vowing that he was ready as his warrior ancestors, to go the whole hug and ensure the change.

Waxing both historical and philosophical, he opined that his grandfather must have seen tomorrow when he named nwanagankpa, (the child that solves the hard tasks), which has since been upgraded to a chieftaincy title of nwanagankpa n’ Amazano, by his community of Umudim-Akuure, Umuele-Amazano, Umuaka of Njaba Local Government Area of Imo State. He therefore sees his quest as an ancestral command which would not be above his efforts to achieve.

“I have served Governor Hope (Uzodimma) a quit notice and he understands the seriousness that I attached to the notice. It is nothing personal. My state is in the state of emergency and all that is required is speed and urgency and I’m glad that the youths, the churches, the communities the civil society and the sons and daughters of the soil, home and abroad are unanimous in this new thinking that our destiny must only be resided in the hands of the best of us and not in the worst of us.

“I shall be the voice speaking for the millions who are disillusioned by the dismal performances of Uzodimma. It’s all about principle of nemo dat quod non habet, which simply means, you can’t give what you don’t have. Hope Uzodimma is an accidental leader, almost a disaster, who has shown that he is incapable of the high quality leadership that my state yearns”, he insisted.

Of grave concern to Ehirim is the wanton killings in Imo State which blame he on the doorstep of the governor, saying it was the consequence of entrusting people without leadership capacity with power, adding, “No leader worth his salt will supervise the systematic elimination of his fellow men and women, especially the youths and students, who are the critical workforce he requires to compete in the fourth industrial revolution, the way Uzodimma did. We can’t make a governor of men who have no conscience, who are affidavitely educated and whose pasts are not only tainted but riddled with the exact traits that our parents, teachers and Clergies warned us to avoid.

“Who does not know the occupation of our governor before his magical ascendancy into the red chambers and the catapult into the Douglas House? When people in power are those who went to kindergarten institutions, holding short term certificates and with little or no sources of reference are allowed entrance into the arena that is the preserve of the honorables and the celebrated, this is the result you get. It is this shame and hopelessness that I have come to erase and replace with the real hope. It is time to give the Imo situation the Anambra treatment.

“What we have is like a cancer eating deep into the state. The level of decay that I see in my state today cannot be viewed as ordinary. Hopelessness which has filled the air and the obstinacy of the man at the helm can be likened to that of pharaoh and how God used him to give His people freedom.

“Uzodimma is not an easy nut to crack, given the huge amount of wealth he has amassed to himself and the federal might. But I am the David, the only man in Imo State that can bring down the Goliath. He comes with a combination of incumbency power and the federal might but I come with the might of the people and the promise of God. I am the next Governor of Imo State. I have come to liberate my people and the political heavyweights in the state agree with that contention.

“I will be mobilising the greatest civil movement in history and raise a tsunami against the evil enterprise in Imo State. Because of me, the oppressed, the downtrodden and through the power of the Almighty, the courts, the riggers and even the presidency will yield to the will of the people.”

Ehirim who likens himself to former US President, Barack Obama and Chukwuma Charles Soludo, insists that the best in the society, rather than the dregs must occupy the political space and give sound leadership, adding that collaboration between him and Soludo would produce Igbo emancipation in values and development.

“It was on the crest of the same philosophy of the best must step forward and lead, wherever they are that the son of the poor Kenyan father emerged from obscurity to become the leader of the free world. It was with the same thinking that ndi-Anambra were able to dismantle the mafia network to produce the governor they deserve. We will be replicating the same in my state. Obama rose to become a doctor of law, it was not his money that made him the President, it was his quality. Soludo rose to the height of his profession.

It was not his money that made him the Governor-elect in the presence of a very fierce opposition, it was his quality. It was through the same thinking that Thabo Mbeki emerged from exile to become the wonder-working president of South Africa. I have also reached the pinnacle of my chosen career in Health and Public Service. There are lots of similarities between myself and those men. It is only fair that I be given an opportunity to serve my people,” he submitted.

On his pedigree, he said, “Everywhere I go and everything I’ve touched has turned gold. I graduated the best pupil in Umuele primary school in Umuele-Amazano and repeated the feat at St Augustine Grammar school, Nkwerre, a special model school set aside then, for the gifted children, before proceeding to University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to study pharmacy, where I also graduated with distinction. I served at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Owerri, where I left as the best graduating intern and later, State Specialist Hospital, Ekiti, where I also came out tops.

“I’m not the only one. Excellence actually runs in my family. My father, Chief Livinus Uzoma Ehirim, was a pioneer staff of the Nigerian Customs, who later fought the Nigeria Civil war on the Biafra side. My mother, lolo Adaeze Ehirim, knew that her son would one day become the leader of people. At birth, my grandfather saw the uniqueness in me and named me nwanagamkpa (the child that is destined to solve problems and resolve challenges. This is the background that influenced my past and is pushing my future. It is a tradition that hates slavery and detests the sight of people in anguish.

“In fact, I can say that my ambition to become the Governor started 32 years ago, when the Ozoigbondu, Chief Arthur Eze visited my school and the honour to decorate him with garlands fell on my little self as the brightest. Chief Arthur Eze, who lowered his frame almost to a breaking point, to facilitate the performance of the job my school gave me, told us how the future was ours to take and that the sacrifices they were making then was to prepare us to become future Governors and Presidents. I retired that day with the conviction that I was going to become a governor. Another prophesy came from a classmate back in 1991, George Ashiegbu, who later became a pastor, that I was going to become a Governor some day. Ashiegbu now leads Dunamis church in Ghana.

Indeed, spiced with a lot of philanthropic activities, his pedigree of excellence, diligence and ability to break new grounds, couple with his grip with the grassroots, may have been responsible for the huge fellowship he seems to be commanding presently, particularly amongst the youths.

“I arrived South Africa in 2003, at a time that going to school was not fashionable for our people. I was told that there is no place for people like me here, which I quickly rejected. I instantly chose the road less travelled and I assured them that I was going to break the glass ceiling. After initial difficulties, I was able to pay and write the qualifying exams that opened the doors and windows for the journey that later ensued. The South African Qualification Authority (SAQA) was swift in confirming my South African Bachelor of Pharmacy, followed by the admission into the prestigious South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC). In 2008, I topped it with a Supply Management Qualifications from the South African Development Institute and later an MBA from the world class institution, the Millark Business School in Johannesburg before crowning it with a Doctor of Philosophy.”

Narrating further, he said he later found himself in another huge medical facility, the Helen Joseph Hospital, where he held various top management positions, including the Pharmacy Manager; Coordinator, Mid-Term Strategic Plan Committee. It was here also, that he was again noticed by the Provincial Government, where he became a member, Department Special Task Force on Quality Pharmacycare and Reduction in Waiting Time for Patients at Gauteng Public Health Facility.

Other positions he held were, Operations and Warehouse Manager/Chief Pharmacist, Gauteng Medical Supplies Depot; Director, Procurement Authority, Gauteng Provincial Medical Supplies; Member, USAID/SCMS Re-engineering; Manager, Pharmaceutical Services, Gauteng Department of Health and many others.

“What is important in all these positions is the fact the South Africans didn’t have a problem handing the keys to their life into the hands of a foreigner. It didn’t matter to them that I am a Nigerian. All that mattered was my quality.”

He added: “In my first one week in office, I will declare a state of emergency on Imo State to atone for the lives of our people that were wasted, to satisfy the desperation and the ambition of one man and offer prayers for the repose of their souls. My Government will also seek compensation to the families of those who died the deaths they shouldn’t die.

“I will also declare state of emergency in health, education, hunger and basic infrastructures, like roads. These are what every responsible government should give to the governed as a matter of human right and without expecting a thank you. No human being should be allowed to suffer the pains and the indignity of the lack of basic necessities of life and that I will pursue.

“In addition, I promise to replicate what I did in the health sector in South Africa in Imo State. I will revolutionise the health sector and bring Primary Health Care to the doorsteps of every person living in Imo State at no cost to them.

“The message of the campaign, let the best of us lead the rest of us is now fast spreading across the Imo and beyond like a wild fire and the people, especially the youths are prepared to take their state back. I am the next governor. I’m the only person that has sufficient capacity to dare this lion and snatch the baton off him. I am the only person he is afraid of because he sees Ihedioha and Okorocha as people he can beat even in a sleep. Another Soludo is coming to Imo.”

How Igbo Traders Control Critical Sectors In 31 States, FCT

Traders at Aguiyi Ironsi International Market, Ladipo, Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos

Outside the five states that make up the South East geopolitical zone, traders who are of Igbo extraction are controlling critical sectors in 31 states and the Federal Capital Territory, reports by our correspondents reveal.

Reports from the South West, South South, North West, North East, North Central and the FCT, showed that investments of Igbo traders, cutting across all sectors dot the state capitals, LGAs, major towns and villages in other parts of the country.

The South East geopolitical zone is made up of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states. At a time, agitation for secession is being spearheaded by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Igbo traders enjoy peaceful, uninterrupted trading in other parts of the country.

'Igbos own 73% of Abuja property'

In Abuja, Igbo traders dominate the nerves of businesses in the city centre and the area councils.

Reports by our correspondents showed that the Igbo control housing and hospitality businesses just as they exclusively dominated spare parts and building materials trade in Deidei, Zone 5, Apo, Zuba and Mararraba.

During his tenure as minister of FCT, Malam Nasir El-Rufa'i, declared that the Igbo have acquired about 73 per cent of landed properties in Abuja.

"Sixty-eight per cent of the land allocations in the FCT belong to the 19 northern states, but in the actual land ownership, 73 per cent belongs to the Igbo with the most aggressive in land ownership belonging to the indigenes of Anambra State, while Ebonyi lags behind," El-Rufai said in 2007.

Sources in major markets in the FCT said most of the shops are owned by Igbo traders and investors.

An Abuja native in Kubwa, Mr Sunday Gazazhin, said no Nigerian would be comfortable with what Biafra agitators are doing to northerners in the South East.

Gazazhin, who is a youth leader, said Abuja indigenes have sacrificed their land willingly to Nigerians when the same right is being denied to other Nigerians in the eastern part of the country.

An Igbo trader who is a former chairman of Abuja Building Material Market in Deidei, Comrade Anthony Chukwuneke, told Daily Trust that he is in support of Biafra agitators and denied their involvement in attacking northerners in the South East.

When alerted about the Igbo's huge investment scattered in the North, in the event that they seceded, he replied, "The only thing that the Igbo trader should expect, is a special tax imposition against his business".

S/East traders dot 44 Kano LGAs

In Kano, the Igbo are going about their normal business with several investments in the commercial centre of northern Nigeria.

The spare parts and construction products market at Kofar Ruwa is one of the market areas in Kano where the Igbos dominate or play a significant role in the business of the market. While they are not the only tribe involved in the market, they control the highest volume of trade in it.

It was observed, however, that during the sit-at-home order of the IPOB recently, business activities in the market went on as normal.

Similarly, at the popular Sabon Gari Market (Abubakar Rimi Market) in Sabongari area of Kano, the Igbo and other non-indigenous tribes go about their day-to-day businesses peacefully with their hosts.

Daily Trust reports that aside from the major business interest, there is hardly any village in Kano's 44 local government areas that an Igbo man or woman would not be seen conducting his/her business and living amicably with their hosts.

Beyond the markets and other business interests, the Igbo are similarly heavily invested in the multi-billion Naira properties business across the state with a concentration in the Sabongari area of Kano metropolis.

While several individuals of Igbo extraction in Kano approached for comment declined on the basis of the sensitivity of the issues, Daily Trust recalls that the Eze Ndigbo of Kano, Igwe Boniface Ibekwe (Ide 1), had in a recent press release on behalf of the Association of Igbo Traditional Leaders in Diaspora, reaffirmed their "unalloyed support and commitment to the sustenance of a strong and virile Nigeria, where peace, unity, justice and equity prevail."

In Taraba, south-easterners dominate commerce

Igbo traders have dominated the building materials, spare parts, pharmaceuticals and other businesses in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital and other major towns in the state.

Findings revealed that 95 per cent of building materials, spare parts and pharmaceutical shops in Jalingo, Wukari, Takum, Gembu, Zing and MutumBiyu are owned by Igbos.

At Jalingo main mechanic village, almost 95 per cent of spare parts shops are owned by the Igbo. They also form over 65 per cent of the total motor mechanics in Jalingo and other towns in the state.

Similarly, most of the big pharmaceutical shops along Palace Way, Barde Way and other locations in Jalingo as well as in other towns and villages across the state are owned by the Igbo.

Bayelsa's economy under Igbo traders' control

Over 80% of businesses operated in Bayelsa State are owned by Nigerians from the South East region, our correspondent reports.

The Igbo traders see themselves as part and parcel of the state. Finding shows that many supermarkets, filling stations, eateries and clubs as well as other petty businesses are operated by Igbo people.

Checks at Swali Market, the biggest market in Bayelsa State, indicate that people from the South East are operating in the market peacefully with the people of the state.

A popular supermarket in Yenagoa, the state capital, belonging to an Igbo businessman is said to be the pioneer supermarket in the state.

Some Igbo traders' union leaders who spoke with Daily Trust said they have been operating in the state even before the creation of Bayelsa State.

Why we are leading in Akwa Ibom -- Eze Ndigbo

In Akwa Ibom, the Igbo are leading in the food market, household goods and supermarkets, electronics/electricals and auto/mechanical. They are in the majority in the automobile market called the mechanic village in Uyo, among other businesses.

They have continued to thrive even in the face of insecurity that is not just threatening Nigerians, the nation's territorial integrity but also the economy.

The Eze Ndigbo in Akwa Ibom, His Royal Highness, Eze Dr CYC Umeakuka JP, attributed the knack of the Igbo to thrive in business despite insecurity in the country to the peace they enjoy in the state and the hospitable nature of the people.

Umeakuka, who is also the President General of Eze Ndigbo in Nigeria and the Diaspora, said their risk-taking streak was a contributory factor to their success in business.

Igbo businesses thrive in Lagos

Despite the agitation led by the IPOB for an independent nation for the eastern region, businessmen from the area are thriving in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria.

A visit to major markets in the state indicated that they are doing their business without any hindrance.

Some major markets in the state, such as Alaba International, Jankara, Ladipo, Oyingbo, Computer village are dominated by people from the eastern region.

At Alaba International Market, which is the largest electronics market in Nigeria, they said there is no discrimination against them.

A visit to the Apapa ports also revealed that they are very active in clearing goods. In the hospitality business, a good number of hotels in the state are owned by Igbo businessmen.

Some of the businessmen who expressed confidence in the unity of the country claimed that the president and his men promoted the agitation in the region. They claimed that President Buhari has always shown his alleged dislike for the region through his utterances.

Collinson Oha, an electronics dealer in Alaba International Market, who has lived and traded in Lagos for over 12 years, said the people asking for separation are not happy with the way the government is handling things in the country.

Another trade, Chinozo Ebere, said the agitation in the South East has not affected his relationship with traders and customers from other regions.

However, some of them said if the agitation for Biafra succeeds, they would be willing to continue trading in Nigeria while they relocate the headquarters of their business to the new nation.

By Ismail Mudashir, Hamisu Kabir Matazu, Adamu Umar (Abuja), Clement A. Oloyede (Kano), Magaji Isa Hunkuyi (Jalingo), Bassey Willie (Yenagoa), Iniabasi Umo (Uyo) & Abiodun Alade (Lagos)

Article was first published at the Daily Trust, June 30, 2021

What, Exactly, Do Nigerians Want From Ndigbo?

BY IKECHUKWU AMAECHI

THE usual refrain on the lips of Nigerian leaders, particularly those who successfully prosecuted the brutal civil war against the breakaway Biafran Republic is the indivisibility of the country.

One of them, General Ibrahim Babangida, in an interview with Arise Television on August 7, 2021 to mark his 80th birthday anniversary, put it rather bluntly: “When we were in the military, we talked about certain issues about Nigeria: the unity of Nigeria as far as we were concerned was a settled issue.”

While it would have been good if the unity of Nigeria was a settled issue, happenings in the country tend to suggest otherwise unless the unity Babangida and his ilk talk about is the agreement by those who won the war to exclude those that lost.

Otherwise, what kind of unity is it in a country where a people that constitute a significant percentage of the population are hated and despised not for any crime committed but for simply being who they are – Igbo. Two recent events prompted this reflection.

First, was the shameful conversion of the sacred altar of God by a Catholic priest as a launch pad for his vitriol against Igbo congregants in his parish.

On Sunday, February 6, Rev. Fr. James Anelu, the priest-in-charge of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Ewu-Owa Gberigbe, Ikorodu, Lagos State, abruptly, without provocation, stopped the singing of soul-lifting Igbo choruses and songs during a service he was conducting.

In a video that went viral, the visibly angry clergy pontificated that the excesses of Ndigbo must be curtailed if they are to be kept from “dominating other people in this parish”.

And what was the crime of the Igbo parishioners? They were joyfully singing and dancing to the altar of God during the second collection.

To the embittered and resentful priest, singing Igbo songs in a Catholic church in Yoruba land is an act of domination.

He was so incensed that he uttered a heresy: The spirit of God in any place recognises only languages indigenous to that geographical location.

It is instructive that Fr. Anelu is not Yoruba. If he had enquired about the history of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, he will probably find out that over 65 per cent of the money used in building the church and running it, including feeding him, was contributed by Igbo parishioners.

Barely 24 hours later, an obviously embarrassed Alfred Adewale Martins, the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, issued a “disclaimer” directing Anelu to proceed on “an indefinite leave of absence”.

In the suspension letter which he personally signed, Archbishop Martins urged all “Catholic faithful to hold on to the faith and continue in our worship of God as one big family united in love and not separated by language, culture and race”.

I doubt if Anelu, wherever he is now, is penitent. He is simply consumed by hate. He is a victim of prejudice. And we commit a serious error of judgement if we think he is an outlier.

The second incident happened in Yola, Adamawa State. An Igbo businessman, Vincent Umeh, who lives in the state, bought a house from a willing seller, Ismail Mamman. Today, he cannot live in the property not because of any infraction of the law but simply because he is Igbo.

A Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCP, Ibrahim Baba Zango, currently serving in Lagos, says it is an insult for an Igbo to be his neighbour in Yola.

Umeh should reverse the purchase deal or face bitter consequences, including risking his life, DCP Babazango decreed. “We are a homogeneous community, I don’t want you; you can’t be my next door neighbour, I swear. What sort of insult is this? Can any Northerner move now to the South-East, say Onitsha and just bump into any neighbourhood to buy a property; just like that?” DCP Babazango asked Umeh on phone.

Such chutzpa may strike some as bizarre. But it is not. Just like Fr. Anelu, DCP Babazango is also not an outlier.

That is the humiliation Ndigbo are subjected to in their own country every day. From Lagos to Sokoto; from Bayelsa to Kebbi, they are being harassed every day for daring to invest and own properties in their own country.

Most times, some of these harassments are state-sanctioned. For instance, two weeks ago, the Kano State Sharia police, Hisbah, destroyed nearly four million bottles of beer in a crackdown on alcoholic beverages. The bottles were crushed into the ground by bulldozers in front of cheering crowds. After the bulldozers had done the job, Hisbah operatives then lit the crushed remains on fire and allowed the blaze to burn into the night.

“Kano is a sharia state and the sale, consumption and possession of alcoholic substances are prohibited,” the head of the religious police, Haruna Ibn Sina, crowed after supervising the mindless ruining of people’s lives.

Most of these businesses being destroyed are owned by Ndigbo. There is no law in Nigeria banning alcohol. Nigeria is deemed a secular state, yet Sharia law trumps the Constitution when Igbo businesses are involved. Nobody raises a whimper in defence of the right of the people to do legitimate business in their own country.

The irony is that just like Fr. Anelu who is sustained by offerings made by his Igbo parishioners, Hisbah officials are paid with money raised from the Value Added Tax, VAT, paid on the same alcoholic beverages they destroy with glee.

Those who blame Nnamdi Kalu and his Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, mentees for preaching secession ignore the asinine antics of Fr. Anelu and DCP Babazangos of this country, the same way those who blame Chukwuemeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu for declaring an independent Biafran nation in 1967 conveniently gloss over the waves of pogrom that resulted in the killing of thousands of innocent Igbo folks, patriotic Nigerians, most of them born in the North, with no other place to call home until the well-organised slaughter began in 1966.

Between May and October 1966, more than 30,000 Igbos and other Biafrans were killed in Northern Nigeria, and between October 1966 and June 1967 more than 100,000 more were massacred. In some instances pregnant women were killed, unborn babies pulled out of their wombs and murdered as well. Many of the victims were beheaded.

Those who defend that bestiality by invoking the equally condemnable killings in the January 15, 1966 coup conveniently ignore the fact that the Military Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Army, Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, and the cream of the Igbo officer corps were wiped out in the revenge coup of July 29, 1966.

They also forget that long before the January 15, 1966 coup, which was conveniently branded an Igbo putsch by those who had an extermination agenda, pogrom had been the lot of Ndigbo in the North.

A report, “Chronology of recorded killings of Biafrans in Nigeria: From June 22, 1945 to September 28, 2013”, put it this way: “The first incident in which the murder of Igbo people took place in Nigeria was in Jos on June 22, 1945. Hundreds of Ndigbo were murdered by the Hausa-Fulani during the pogrom and tens of thousands of pounds sterling worth of their property either looted or destroyed. No single person was apprehended or charged by the British regime nor an enquiry set to determine the “official” cause of this gruesome act.

“The second mass killing of Igbos and other Biafrans happened in Kano in 1953. In both cases, thousands of Igbo people with their families were brutally murdered and their property looted.”

What those who raise the spectre of Igbo domination simply because Ndigbo are everywhere forget is that the people love adventure. It did not start today and it is very unlikely to end tomorrow. Many Igbo leaders were born outside Igboland. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was born in Zungeru, a town in Niger State, on November 16, 1904, ten years before Nigeria’s birth after the amalgamation in 1914. Odumegwu-Ojukwu was born in the same Zungeru on November 4, 1933.

The fact is that Ndigbo love travelling. They enjoy it. That is who they are. Do they dominate their environments? No. Rather, they help in building up wherever they sojourn. That is a virtue not a vice, which should not call for envy and bad blood.

If all other Nigerians can imbibe that culture, the country will be better for it. Those who don’t want Ndigbo out of Nigeria and yet will not allow them to enjoy their full rights as citizens are the problems of this country, not Ndigbo.

Killings By Unknown Gunmen: Is South-East Becoming A Failed Zone?

BY STEVE OKO, VANGUARD

The resurgence of the activities of the ominous unknown gunmen in the South-East geopolitical zones in the recent weeks is becoming worrisome.

Unknown gunmen became a phenomenon in the zone in the aftermath of the #EndSARS protests in 2020, got to an alarming height up till mid-2021 but began to show a downward curve before the end of the same year.

However, with the recent incidents in some communities in the zone particularly Imo, Ebonyi, and lately Abia (a hitherto relatively peaceful state), it is no longer in doubt that the unknown gunmen are on the prowl again in the region which prided itself as the most peaceful, enterprising and resourceful in the country.

The inability of the government to unravel the mystery behind this or to unveil the real identity of the masterminds of this group has also not helped matters, and in fact, is to blame for its persistence.

There has been a blame game between security agencies and the agitators of self-determination in the zone on who is behind the octopus masquerade and whose interests it serves.

While Government continues to point accusing fingers at the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, the pro-Biafra group has not minced words in their allegation that security agents in collaboration with some “treacherous governors” in the zone are sponsoring the activities of the group to disrepute, discredit and demonise IPOB, and ultimately justify the on-going clamp down on the group especially the Eastern Security Network, ESN.

There have also been allegations that the festering insecurity in the zone is politically motivated.

The mode of operation of these unknown gunmen in some instances leaves members of the public more confused on who actually is behind the mysterious masquerade.

For instance, could security agents really be the ones killing their colleagues to create a certain impression?

But another disturbing poser is: could agitators of self-determination truly be burning down houses of fellow folks as recently witnessed in Imo communities and in the Mgbowo community of Enugu State where men in security uniforms were conspicuously observed in a viral video carrying out these atrocities with impunity?

Who are truly the people behind the mysterious unknown gunmen?

Despite the narratives of each of the sides, the fact remains that South East is burning! The fire is ragging so fast that if nothing urgent is done to extinguish the inferno, the entire zone will soon be consumed.

In less than two weeks unknown gunmen killed security agents on roadblocks in Enugu, a number of houses in Umuonyeoka Community in Ihitteafoukwu, Ahiazu Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State were burnt down by armed men suspected to be law enforcement agents.

The “unknown gunmen” reportedly razed residential houses belonging to one Sonyval and Chinonso Madu, siblings of one Mr Uche Madu, who is alleged to be a member of ESN.

According to reports, the unknown gunmen stormed the area in seven cars shooting sporadically before heading to the Uche Madu compound.

A community source, who pleaded anonymity, told newsmen that “they came to apprehend Mr Uche Madu and when they couldn’t get him, all hell was let loose and they allegedly descended on the country home of his siblings, Sonyval and Chinonso Madu, which they set ablaze without allowing even a single pin to be evacuated from the building.”

Following the magnitude of damage inflicted on innocent folks in the community, the House of Representatives had mandated the Inspector General of Police, IGP; as well as the Chief of Army Staff, COAS, to investigate the incident and ascertain the true identify of the masterminds.

Despite denials of any involvement by the security agencies in the atrocity, what doesn’t add up is how armed men in seven vehicles would storm a community, operate for about two hours unchallenged, and disappear into the thin air without a trace.

It is certainly an ominous sign of a failed state!

There have also been calls for a probe of the alleged involvement of the operatives of Ebubeagu regional security outfit in the mystery unknown gunmen.

A coalition of South-East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, has called for their arrest describing their actions as “wicked and barbaric.”

The youth group while condemning the overzealousness of the security apparatus, expressed displeasure on the alleged jungle justice being meted out to suspects.

COSEYL in a statement by its President-General, Goodluck Ibem, over last week’s incident in Imo State called for the investigation and prosecution of the group over the barbarity.

”We are not in the stone age where anyone or persons will wake up one morning, accuse someone of being a criminal and kill the said person.

“We are in the 21st century where we have the rule of law and the constitution guarding the people and government activities as regards governance. For Ebubeagu security operatives to wake up and start killing Igbo youths in whatever guise is totally unacceptable.

“Most of the houses in the affected communities have been burnt down and destroyed while the little few persons who escaped being killed have run away leaving those communities empty without anyone or animal sited anywhere. Those towns are now ghosted communities, without any living thing.

“One of the disturbing incidences in the community was a situation where a woman received matchets cuts in her head, hand and other parts of her body because of her inability to provide her husband or tell the Ebubeagu operatives where her husband went to.

“This is unbecoming of a sane society. Ndi-Imo and Ndi-Igbo must rise and condemn in its entirety this despicable act by these so-called Ebubeagu security operatives.

“The courts remain the last arbiter and no one has the constitutional right or powers to take the life of another man at will. It is unlawful and a criminal act to torture, maim or kill anyone on the premise of being a criminal.

“Houses and properties that were destroyed in those Communities, which court gave such orders? These operatives just assumed the duties of the courts and went ahead to destroy peoples homes and assets without recourse to the law of the land. Too sad.

“We warn those Ebubeagu security operatives to stop forthwith the extrajudicial killings now and we demand that those found wanting or culpable of extrajudicial killings in Imo State should be made to face the music. Enough said,” COSEYL warned.

South-East governors are yet to be forgiven by the people over the shabby way and manner they handled the inauguration of Ebubeagu contrary to the yearnings of majority folks that preferred a regionally coordinated security outfit. The governors are being accused of hijacking the Ebubeagu outfit and working in cahoots with the federal government to suppress the opposition and also use them to identify and spy on key supporters of the growing agitation for self-determination.

Unfortunately, the governors seem to be more consumed and preoccupied with their 2023 ambitions instead of genuinely and selflessly addressing the menacing security challenges in the zone.

Some of them have also not really delivered nor used their advantaged position to better the lots of their people, a sad commentary that accounts for the growing loss of confidence in the governors.

It’s only those who want to massage the truth that may still argue between the governors and promoters of self-determination agitators who truly calls the shots in the zone.

If the truth must be told, the governors have since lost the confidence of the people due to underperformance, insincerity and non-commitment to the cause of the zone.

As if those were not enough, the recent invasion of a Cattle Market in Omumauzor, Ukwa West, Abia State where about eight persons were killed and some others wounded in a midnight raid by armed bandits, are all pointers that South East is boiling.

The revelation by Gov Okezie Ikpeazu when he visited the scene where he disclosed that the yet-to-be-identified attackers did not come from the immediate community according to preliminary investigations, yet threw a challenge that much remains to be done by the intelligence community on the sources of the rising insecurity in South East.

So far, nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack just as the motive of the invaders is yet to be known.

Although Government had announced some measures including siting a military base in the area to boost security in the environment, how these measures would prefer a permanent solution to the unknown gunmen malady remains a mystery.

Kidnapping for ransom has become regular around Abia North and Okigwe axis where a number of abductions by armed bandits have been witnessed in recent times.

Students and lecturers of Abia State University Uturu, Marist Academy Uturu, as well as innocent commuters plying the Uturu Isuikwuato route, have variously fallen victims of these hoodlums suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, thus compounding the sources of the festering insecurity in South East.

Worried by the ugly development, Co-Chair of Interfaith Peace and Dialogue Forum, Bishop Sunday Onuoha has blamed the intelligence community for the persistence of the activities of unknown gunmen in the South East.

Bishop Onuoha told Saturday Vanguard that it was either the intelligence community was not alive to its responsibilities or the government was not making use of the intelligence at its disposal.

He said that the persistence of the unknown gunmen saga in the zone was suggestive that there was a leadership failure in the country.

“If the intelligence community cannot gather intelligence to unravel those behind this, it then means we don’t have a country”, the cleric lamented.

He urged Government to quickly engage those who feel aggrieved in the zone and genuinely address their grievances in the interest of national peace.

“ If there are people who are angry, what stops the Government from engaging them in a dialogue to resolve their grievances?” He queried.

Meanwhile, the police have said the force was not yet overwhelmed despite the resurgence of unknown gunmen in the zone.

Zonal Police Public Relations Officer in charge of Zone 9, Umuahia, Mr Kingsley Iredibia, told Saturday Vanguard that the force was making efforts to put the challenge under control.

He said that police were synergising with other security agencies including the Ebubeagu security outfit to contain the challenge.

The Police Spokesman expressed hope that the challenge would soon be permanently overcome.

How long shall the zone wait for the much-expected federal succour or intervention?

Should South-East governors, the political elite and other critical stakeholders sit complacently and watch the zone go on flames?