The Collapse of Igbo Politics (2) by Fred Onyeoziri (FWD)
Kevin Ani
talked about the politics of domination which deals with the struggle
for deciding who rules, what is to be shared, who should do the sharing,
and by what rules. The second is the politics of allocation which deals
with struggling to get some share of what is available for sharing. To
be able to participate effectively in either of the two types of
politics, you must develop the capacity to protect your political
autonomy. Without this, you cannot even join in the politics of
domination. Again, without it, your reward from the politics of
allocation would be minimal. You are more likely to end up only with the
crumbs from the allocation table because you would lack the bargaining
power that would force concessions from your co-competitors.
The experience of the Igbos in our recent history is that they have been
restricting themselves to the politics of allocation, and from that,
they have only been getting crumbs from the allocation table precisely
because they have lacked the capacity to protect their group solidarity
and autonomy which would have provided them with the basis for
bargaining and negotiating for a large share of the allocation exercise.
And since they cannot play this minimum effectively, joining the
politics of domination becomes too much of a tall order for them.
There are two major reasons why the Igbos have lost the capacity to
defend their autonomy. The first is their incapacity to articulate an
Igbo political interest and vision in contemporary Nigerian politics. Is
there, for instance, an Igbo political interest or vision for Nigeria.
If Igbos were the only residents of Nigeria, what kind of country,
political order, would that be, and how can concerted Igbo efforts
mobilize to achieve this vision. If there is no such vision, if there is
no articulated Igbo interest and vision, then Igbo politics is emptied
of the objective of concerting the efforts of a people to determine
their destiny.
The current poverty of Igbo politics is that it lacks an articulated
community focus inspired by the political vision of the people. It is as
if they are denied any frame of reference from which to decide how to
relate to national politics or the politics of other groups in Nigeria.
It lacks a uniform frame of reference.
The second reason the Igbos lost the capacity for political autonomy is
that they have been cursed with a post-civil war generation of narrow-
minded and self-serving political leadership. There is hardly any
current Igbo political leader who goes beyond his personal interest and
ambition for self-seeking political power to bother about Igbo
collective interest. Our political leaders are politicians of
convenience who seek power for what is in it for "me," the self. We do
not really have any genuine Igbo patriots - those who are in politics
for what they can achieve for their people or community rather than what
they can get for themselves. This is why we do not have any principled
politicians in Igboland today. A political leader who has community
empathy will show it even before he acquires political power. It is that
community empathy that qualifies him as an Igbo patriot. For him, then,
political power is to be used to advance community or collective
interest rather than as personal reward.
Our current political leaders do not play principled politics. Their
goal is power for personal aggrandisement, and they will align with
whoever can help them into that power position. And if identifying with
Igbo community empathy will make them lose power, they will be the first
to disown any hint of having Igbo community interest. They will readily
accept political sponsorship from forces or groups who would demand in
return for that sponsorship, a loyalty that betrays or undermines Igbo
solidarity and interest. It is as if our leaders have been so
psychologically defeated to the point of believing that it is a
disability to champion or express belief in Igbo political interest.
Otherwise, how do we explain a situation in which a so-called Igbo
political leaders go to a national forum in this country where English
is the official language and decides that the only way to win political
support is to address his national audience in another language (neither
English nor his)? Or how do we explain a situation where an Igbo
secretary of a major political party sits back and allows the very
secretariat he is supposed to head, suppress a document and resolution
whose content would give his brother Igbo political aspirant a duly
earned advantage? Whose interest was this secretary serving that he was
afraid to speak out when justice favoured his own kind?
Current Igbo leaders have been too much of individualist in politics.
They play the politics of personal interest. And the problem with such
politicians is that all they can achieve is what they are settled with
by hegemonists who exploit them in their course of politics of
domination. Since these Igbo leaders cannot play the politics of public
interest because this higher politics is only available to those who
dominate, they can, at least, play the politics of group solidarity.
This will enable them concert their efforts to assert their community
autonomy as the only way they can defend themselves against the
hegemonists who would use their divide-and-rule strategy to effect their
domination on others.
It is important to stress that there is virtue in the politics of group
or community interest and autonomy. That virtue is that when communities
assert their autonomy, they are able to resist the hegemonist whose goal
is domination. And community resistance to the domination of hegemonists
helps to promote democracy in the system. People who cannot dominate you
would have no other choice but to recognise your rights and sit down to
negotiate with you instead of imposing their preference and interest on
you. Therefore, the Igbo leaders, who have succumbed to the politics of
personal interest are a double disappointment to the Nigerian polity.
They cannot contribute to the political development of their people, nor
can they contribute to a democratic development of the Nigerian polity.
In return for whatever personal reward they get from politics, they can
only be used as materials for foisting the domination of other groups on
their own people and on the nation.
The point to this article is to show that the present crop of Igbo
leaders cannot be useful to their people as long as they persist in the
politics of personal or individual interest. And because it is probably
too late to convert them to a higher order politics, they deserve to be
flushed out to make way for a leadership that still has faith in Igbo
capability and willingness to mobilize that capability to defend Igbo
political autonomy as the foundational basis for propelling Igbos into
the politics of public interest. Igbo leaders would not owe anybody
apologies for beginning to do what their majority colleagues -
especially the Yorubas and the Hausa-Fulanis - are already doing.
The Igbos are said to be nationally patriotic, but the futility of their
patriotism is that it is not rooted in a solid community collective
capability.
*To be continued next week
Forwarded by Kevin Ani
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