ON THE IGBO FACTOR IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

[toyin adepoju]

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi on "Issues in Restructiring Corporate Nigeria"  at http://waado.org/NigerDelta/Essays/BalaUsman/Sanusi_Restructuring.html

"The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have conspired to keep the Igbo out of the scheme of things. In the recent transition when the Igbo solidly supported the PDP in the hope of an Ekwueme presidency, the North and South-West treated this as a Biafra agenda. Every rule set for the primaries, every gentleman’s agreement was set aside to ensure that Obasanjo, not Ekwueme emerged as the candidate. Things went as far as getting the Federal Government to hurriedly gazette a pardon. Now, with this government, the marginalistion of the Igbo is more complete than ever before. The Igbos have taken all these quietly because, they reason, they brought it upon themselves. But the nation is sitting on a time-bomb.

After the First World War, the victors treated Germany with the same contempt Nigeria is treating Igbos. Two decades later, there was a Second World War, far costlier than the first. Germany was again defeated, but this time, they won a more honourable peace. Our present political leaders have no sense of History. There is a new Igbo man, who was not born in 1966 and neither knows nor cares about Nzeogwu and Ojukwu. There are Igbo men on the street who were never Biafrans. They were born Nigerians, are Nigerians, but suffer because of actions of earlier generations. They will soon decide that
it is better to fight their own war, and may be find an honourable peace, than to remain in this contemptible state in perpetuity.

The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have exacted their pound of flesh from the Igbos. For one Sardauna, one Tafawa Balewa, one Akintola and one Okotie-Eboh, hundreds of thousands have died and suffered.

If this issue is not addressed immediately, no conference will solve Nigeria’s problems".

[Chidi Anthony Opara]

The least mentioned area of domination is in Literature, where
contemporary writers must obtain annointing from the demi-gods in the
Lagos-Ibadan-Ife literary axis to be featured in articles, reviews,
anthologies, etc. This domination is not ethnic based and so not
targeted at any particular ethnic group.

This problem is fast creeping into the Internet sphere, where most e-
publications with focus on Nigerian literature are edited/moderated by
proteges of the afore mentioned demi-gods.

Chidi Anthony Opara
www.chidiopararesume.blogspot.com

On Jun 6, 2:52 am, toyin adepoju <toyin.adep...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Sanusi Lamido Sanusi on "Issues in Restructiring Corporate Nigeria"  athttp://waado.org/NigerDelta/Essays/BalaUsman/Sanusi_Restructuring.html

> Nigeria’s problems". *
> *

[toyin adepoju]

I would expect that non proteges of these patrons should be able to set up their own internet fora.

2009/6/6 Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi...@gmail.com>

[Tony Agbali]

Sam, Thanks I thoroughly agree. That point I have raised herein elsewhere in the past. Resolving the Igbo question in Nigeria, within all spheres, especially within politics is something that all and every Nigerians must work toward. The ambience within which any person Igbo, Idoma, Ogoni, Ijaw can aspire to any office in Nigeria; without unnecessary hindrance as to their ethnicity, should be a prime efforts of our life-time, and that is not the work for politicians to do alone. We have imputed way too much power into the hands of the politicians and political class that within other spheres the issues of Igbo marginalization continues unabated, and we rarely talk about that. While, the Igbo have worked tirelessly to wield some modicum of economic power, but it is not in every place and time that even the ability to work and strive comes easy within Nigeria. In the face of religious and ethnic riots in Nigeria, especially northern Nigeria, the Igbo, both for their dominant ethnicities- Igboness and their predominant adherence to Christianity, are easy and cheap target.  I was in Jos when the 1991 Bauchi riots happened, ditto for the Kano Bonke riots, and I was still in Nigeria when the late Gideon Akaluka was brutally murdered, head severed and impaled on a stick and used as an exhibit of victory. Akaluka's death happened without justice. Even in the last Jos riots, the Igbo community in Jos endured enormous stress, destruction of lives and property. My viewpoints in reacting to Sanusi is to adduce how he mutters facts by murdering them to suit certain agenda. I mean there is massive injustice in Nigeria, but we must also recognize that in some sense we have come a long way. It is my fervent hope Nigeria and Nigerians can muster the courage to change direction and shift meaningfully along a track where every Nigerians is valued and respect based upon merit and capabilities.  We have massive problems, and until sound policies and a disposition toward change is hardwired into the fabric of our national life, we remain to sing these dirges for a long time to come.  It is my wish that at least for a while, and hopefully not for too long a time, we would continue to be a work in process and in progress. This is why I say this.  At personal level, I have nephews and nieces who are Igbo and Hausa by paternity, and also half-Igala.  We are family, they spend their holiday in multiple sites, and they possess dual ethnic heritages. But when it comes to admission to the University, even if they speak Igala and are familiar with its landscape and have relationships there, by the kind of quota system for higher education in the name of national character, they cannot easily gain admission to those universities where Kogi has quota.  Recently, someone on one mail-list displayed the catchment areas for Nigerian Federal Universities- and it dawned on me as to the lip service we, as a nation, pay to social and political integration.  This is what I mean. Almost by default folks from Kogi, Kwara, Benue (all within the middle belt) are consigned to certain universities mainly in those areas or along old regional lines in Ilorin, Jos, Zaria, etc. Therefore, those from the Middle Belt are consigned to their home areas and almost among their regional folks.  There is no consideration regarding what urban scholars call index of exposure, and that US scholars would call Index of Segregation used to rectify insular and polar communities moving them toward integration. If the people of Middle Belt are going to be facing themselves, with limited opportunity to attend universities in Nsukka, Enugu, Ibadan, Lagos, through creating an inter-mix how is integration going to happen? How are we not going to continue to perpetuate old schemes and reify old ethnic myths, about one another? To probably assuage the effects of such poor policy and planning, the government comes up with the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) (a good idea) but granted what in one years is going to happen to rewire those preconceived ideas that hinder integration among younger Nigerians. Progress we know are being made. We know for sure that different Nigerian leaders such as Babangida, Obasanjo, Abiola, and others marry outside of their immediate ethnic groups. Here, I add Oga Dr. Valentine Ojo. We also know that the rate of interethnic marital relationships and dating is increasing among Nigerians. These are in deed good. But these are mainly at the level of individual preferences, that sometimes does not diminish the negative impact of social attitude and defective policies. Finally, as we recognize the marginalization of the Igbo in Nigerian politics, and the Igbo question looms large and remains unsettled, there are also enormous ethnic groups, of whom when compared to the Igbo, their marginalization is without bound. We must make the efforts not only at reducing Nigeria to the big ethnic three alone. If anything, we know that the fall of Biafra, in spite of the fragmentations even among Ndi Igbo themselves- Wawa, Ezza, Anambra, Imo, Alla-Ngwa, etc- was greatly premised upon the disenchantment and subtle revolts among many of the southern minority groups that had initially embraced Biafran. Ultimately, for any group to be marginalized and left to their devices, while the others feel it does not concern them, will not augur well for an integrated and progressive Nigeria. If the Ogoni are been trampled upon and the Igala feels it is not their problem, they only need to wait out for a while, as tomorrow they might be the victim. Does anyone remember the way the former Army Chief, vocalized Obasanjo's sanctity regarding his genocidal onslaughts in Odi, Rivers State, until the times changed and the same Obasanjo ordered troops to carry out carnage in Zaki Biam! It is the same thing, when in 1989/90, Dr. Samuel Orji, the local government chairperson for Enugu North Local Government was received by the Babangida government, though rightfully elected, and no one sounded their disavowal, only for Babangida and his criminal coterie of doomsayers, to wax stronger in truncating the Presidency of Chief M.K.O. Abiola some years later? Maybe and maybe not, because we as a people sometimes have short circuited memories. I look forward in my life time to see a time when this injustice and imbalance would be rectified, while also envisaging that the Igbo themselves would join forces to work for their own collective advancement, and in doing that feel that it is the advancement, also of Nigeria, that they are aspiring toward. --- On Sun, 6/7/09, Samuel Amadi <sama...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Samuel Amadi <sama...@yahoo.com> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: ON THE IGBO FACTOR IN NIGERIAN POLITICS To: USAAfric...@googlegroups.com Date: Sunday, June 7, 2009, 3:19 PM Tony,   Your refutation of Sanusi's explanation of the Igbo factor in Nigerian politics succeeds in part. You are right to point out how Igbos played some role in stopping Ekwueme's campaign in 1999. Of course one should expect Igbos to act like other peoples and fend for their personal interests when they conflict with a hazy 'national' or 'regional' interests. When Yaradua was running, Ciroma and Shinkafi blocked his way. OBJ had to push off a few kinmen to win. I have always felt that the so-called Igbo problem in Nigeria- whether conceived as lack of unity amongst Igbos or hatred by other Nigerians is highly exaggerated.   But, the other point is that you have not addressed the possibility that in spite of the 'enemy within factor' it is possible that some feature of Nigerian politics and social psychology has failed to provide a framework for the Igbo to feel fully belonging and remove the complex of threat amongst the Igbos since the war. It is arguable that the sentiments and biases that fueled the 'genocide' or 'near-genocide' (I will refer those who want to inquire whether the pogrom of the 1960s was genocide to an article I did for the SSRC on the website on genoide) may still be alive in some degree. This is part of what Sanusi may be referring too. So, you may do well to also refute that possible claim   Sam   Dr. Sam Amadi Director, (Research& Programs) Ken Nnamani Center for Leadership & Development Abuja, Nigeria 234-803-329-9879 From: Tony Agbali <atta...@yahoo.com> To: USAAfric...@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, June 6, 2009 7:25:39 PM Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: ON THE IGBO FACTOR IN NIGERIAN POLITICS Why do people fabricate and complicate things, even to the point of falsifying the material facts on issues. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi seems to be playing to the gallery within the intent of a hidden agenda.  The Igbo factor or rather Igbo question in Nigerian politics is a complex one, and the mode in which the Obasanjo's presidency, given his agreement to return power to the North, refused to pass the baton, to either the South-East or South-South, leaves a lot to be desired, in the name of national integration.   However, the premise of Sanusi regarding the 1999 PDP convention is not utterly factual. It must be remembered that Alex Ekwueme, contested the primarily alongside Obasanjo, and his Igbo ethnic kin, Jim Nwobodo. Nwobodo, refused to support Ekwueme in Jos but rather turned over his support and supporters to Obasanjo in a flawlessly fluent speech made in Hausa. Is Nwobodo  an Igbo then to be considered as a pun in the hands of the Hausa and Yoruba political and social elites in their political chess?    Granted, that Nwobodo is so considered wouldn't this be an insult to Nwobodo, as an Igbo, and the collective imagination and segment of Igbo interest(s) that he represents and attempt to appease?  Would even considering Nwobodo to be so senseless not be an insult to the Igbo overall, because he is an Igbo scion? Would one need a revisited lesson in the politics of the Nigerian Second Republic to realize that in the old NPN and NPP days of 1979-1983, that Nwobodo was as astutely loyal to his NPP roots, and detested the NPN loyalists, of which Ekwueme was the arrowhead?   Would one need to be told how Nwobodo was routed by the late Christian Onoh in the 1983 elections? Would one need to learn that the NTA Channel 8, Enugu, following its control by Federal Government at the center headed by the NPN the incumbent and ruling party, was totally averse to Nwobodo and the NPP, while the Anambra Broadcasting radio and television stations controlled at the State level under the incumbent NPP Governor- Jim Nwobodo, totally routed for the NPP, Azikiwe and Nwobodo?   It seems that Nwobodo memory bored all of this and the humiliations he suffered in the hands of the NPN of whom Ekwueme was its prominent Igbo leader and arrowhead. The fights leading to "Election '83," "Transition '83" and "Inauguration '83" seemed still fresh on Nwobodo's palate, that it seems it was his own politics, rather been someone else's pun that was foremost.     The point here is both Nwobodo and Ekwueme are all Igbo politicians.  When Nwobodo was called to concede to Ekwueme he refused, else in spite of the contributions of Igbo abroad to Ekwueme's campaign, as the most focally positioned candidate, cajoling together with other Igbo groups, for Nwobodo to set aside his ambition, he remained adamant and refused to yield.  These were palpably and factual tension between two Igbos without the wriggling and back-punching of the Yoruba or Hausa elites. It was pure intra-Igbo political infighting.    As at 1999, it was lucidly clear that though Nwobodo and Ekwueme found themselves under the same party umbrella that the acrimony of the previous civilian era was still luminous. This clearly revealed itself at the Jos Primary of the PDP in 1999, where Nwobodo joined forces with anti-Ekwueme interests to truncate his ambition. It was his sweet revenge. . It is also critically noteworthy that in the general Presidential election, Obasanjo did not even win his Southwest home base, which the ANPP/AD (later joining for the Presidential election) dominated with the AD winning substantial, if not overwhelming votes. If these powerful PDP Yoruba elites were so powerful where were they when the AD routed the PDP in virtually all the elections of 1999? Did their elite power diminish, and their influence suddenly dissipate? To trivilize the Obasanjo's emergence on ethnic grounds rather than upon his riding on the military crest to power- through the agency of Theophillus Danjuma, Ibrahim Babangida, and the rest, is to offer a porous analysis of the facts that were resoundingly glaring. Obasanjo's emergence was critically predicated upon his past antecedents of handing over power to the civilians in 1979, the state of the nation (with the Abacha debacle); and his status as an elder statesman, who was also a victim of Abacha's despondent rule.   It is sad that Sanusi can easily offer an analysis that is so porously grounded upon the factors, that were then evident, and now simply reinventing or conveniently reinterpreting history in the likes of his own imagination, or agenda.  I don't think that the issues that provoke this analysis and pseudo-facts are by any means that simplistic. The Igbo factor in Nigerian politics, is part of a wider scheme related to the Igbo question, of which the truth must be told, and most Igbos have themselves vociferously voiced out, that some influential and outstanding Igbos are the Igbos worst enemies when it comes to redressing the marginalization of Igbo within the Nigerian polity. Many Igbo are ready to sell out so easily and so cheaply.   The Igbo themselves must frontally and primarily address this serious issues, while the entire Nigerian society must also work to make allowance for the Igbo and any group especially Nigerian minorities (both North and South) to be able to aspire to leadership of the Nigerian state without hindrance. Nigerians must be ready and willing to transcend the barriers and inchoate boundaries of limitations they set that minimizes their own substantial transformations. Lip service to partial structures, minimized truths, and veiled lies cannot effect true transformations. However, a determined and willed people can surmount any obstacle on their path to resiliency and focal transformations.   We must be willing to not just join the chorus but work, each one within our own limits, no matter how disconcerting and even at times discomforting, to rise above our blurred visions, bloated sense of relevance, and inane logics, to achieve these outcomes. In that sense, the Yoruba, the Hausa, the Idoma, the Ibibio, Tiv, Igbirra, Edo, Itshekiri, Etsako, Afemai, Eshan, Iyala, Igede, Igala, Etulo, Yagba (Okun), Nupe, Gwari, Bassa, Ijaw, Urhobo, Angas, Birom, Beriberi, men, women, Muslims, Traditionalists, Christians, all, must feel that working toward their own interests, also entails working for the common good and furthering the goals of the commonweal.   --- On Sat, 6/6/09, toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com> wrote: From: toyin adepoju <toyin....@googlemail.com> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ON THE IGBO FACTOR IN NIGERIAN POLITICS To: "WoleSoyinkaSociety" <WoleSoyin...@yahoogroups.com>, wolessoyi...@yahoogroups.com, ni...@yahoogroups.com, "usaafricadialogue" <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com> Cc: naijain...@googlegroups.com, naijap...@yahoogroups.com, "edo-nation" <Edo-N...@yahoogroups.com> Date: Saturday, June 6, 2009, 4:52 AM Sanusi Lamido Sanusi on "Issues in Restructiring Corporate Nigeria"  at http://waado.org/NigerDelta/Essays/BalaUsman/Sanusi_Restructuring.html

[Tony Agbali]