By Femi Aribisala
THE
Yorubas and the Igbos, two of the most resourceful, engaging and outgoing
ethnic groups in Nigeria ,
are becoming implacable enemies. Increasingly, they seem to hate one another with
pure hatred. I never appreciated the extent of their animosity until the social
media came of age in Nigeria .
Now, hardly a day passes that you will not find Yorubas and Igbos exchanging
hateful words on internet blogs.
The
Nigerian civil war ended in 1970. Nevertheless, it continues to rage today on
social media mostly by people who were not even alive during the civil war. In
blog after blog, the Yorubas and the Igbos go out of their way to abuse one
another for the most inconsequential of reasons. This hatred is becoming so
deep-seated, it needs to be addressed before it gets completely out of hand. It
is time to call a truce. A conscious effort needs to be made by opinion-leaders
on both sides of the ethnic divide to put a stop to this nonsense.
Both
the Yorubas and the Igbo stereotype one another. To the Igbo, the Yorubas are
the “ngbati ngbati” “ofemmanu” who eat too much oil. They are
masters of duplicity and deception; saying one thing while meaning another. To
the Yorubas, the Igbo are clannish and money-minded. They are Shylock traders
who specialise in selling counterfeit goods.
*Awolowo
But the
truth is that stereotypes are essentially generalisations and exaggerations. In
a lot of cases, they are unreliable and untrue. Stereotypes must be recognised
at their most effective as a joke. They are the stock-in-trade of seasoned
comedians; the garnish for side-splitting anecdotes at weddings and social
gatherings. Stereotypes should not be taken seriously. We should laugh at them
without being offended by them.
The
more Nigeria
develops as a melting pot of nations, the more we should be able to laugh at
ourselves. The greater inclination to do this denotes increasing strength of
character and self-confidence. However, with the advancement of social media,
the banter has gone way beyond the jocular and innocuous to outright malice and
unadulterated hatred. Increasingly, what you hear are abusive and pejorative
labels of “Yariba,” “Yorubastards”
and “Yorobbers;” as well as “Eboes,” “Zooafrans” and “Biafrauds.”
As the
insults fly with abandon, you begin to wonder where all this comes from. What
is the basis of all this hate? In the sixties, the Igbo were slaughtered in
pogroms in the North. However, the principal exchange of hateful words today is
not between Northerners and Easterners, but between Easterners and Westerners.
Why are these two ethnic groups so much at loggerheads? How did we get to this
pass?
Malicious stereotyping often involves denigrating
the strengths of others. The Igbo are very enterprising; a very valuable
resource in a developing country like Nigeria . But then this is
castigated as mercenary. The Yorubas take great pride in education; another
valuable asset in today’s modern world. But then they are derided as using this
to get one over on others.
*Ojukwu |
The saving grace is that the two groups live side-by-side in peace and quiet in
different parts of the country. Moreover, the animosity between them,
especially among the younger generation, has not prevented their boys and girls
and men and women from falling in love. Yoruba men marry Igbo women; and Igbo
men marry Yoruba women. Meanwhile, “aluta
continua.”
The Igbo tar the Yorubas with the brush of Awolowo,
who they label as “the father of ethnicity in Nigeria .” In that narrative, it is
conveniently overlooked that the broadmindedness of the Yorubas enabled
Azikiwe, an Igbo man, to win a regional election in the Yoruba heartland in
1954. Instead, what is harped on is the fact that Awolowo mobilised Yoruba
politicians to nullify that victory by decamping from Azikiwe’s more
nationalist camp to Awolowo’s more ethnically-focused camp.
One of the newspaper headlines that sticks in my memory from 50 years ago is the one that said: “If East Goes, West will Go —
Awo.” After a visit to Ojukwu in Enugu at the height of the
acrimony over the mass killing of the Igbo in the North in the mid-1960s,
Awolowo declared that if the East was allowed to secede as a result of acts of
omission or commission, he would also lead the West into secession.
This
flashed a green light for Igbo secession. But when the East seceded, Awolowo
failed to mobilise the West to follow suit. Not only did the West not join the
East in secession, it joined the North in fighting against the East. Awolowo
then became the Commissioner of Finance and Vice-President of the Federal
Executive Council of the Nigerian government that prosecuted the war against
Biafran secession.
The
Igbo have rightly deemed this a great betrayal. But their case against Awolowo
did not end there. As finance minister, Awolowo was the brainchild of the
strategy to blockade Biafra ; leading to mass
Igbo starvation and deaths. With the end of the war, it was also alleged that
Awolowo orchestrated the policy whereby the totality of individual holdings of
Biafran currency was converted to Nigerian legal tender at a flat maximum
amount of only 20 pounds .
*Achebe |
This
effectively pauperized the Igbo. Since it also coincided with the period when
Nigerian corporations were being privatised, it had the effect of locking out
the Igbo from strategic sectors of the Nigerian economy; gobbled up in the main
by the Hausa-Fulanis and Yorubas.
The
Igbo case against Awolowo has become the Igbo case against the Yorubas. In the
process, it is easily overlooked that prominent Yorubas, like Tai Solarin and
Wole Soyinka, defended the Igbo right to self-determination during the Biafran
War. The properties the Igbo left behind in Yorubaland during the Civil War
were not expropriated by the Yorubas, as they were in some other places. When
Odumegwu Ojukwu came back from exile in Ivory
Coast , all his father’s properties in Lagos remained intact.
Under
President Obasanjo, a Yoruba man, the Igbos were given the control of Nigeria ’s
economic and monetary policy. The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala;
Governor of the Central Bank, Charles Soludo; and Director-General of the Stock
Exchange, Ndidi Okereke-Onyuike, were all Igbos. So were the Minister of
Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili; and the Director-General of NAFDAC, Dora
Akinyuli.
Indeed,
Obasanjo favoured the Igbo more than his native Yorubas. He appointed an Igbo,
Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, as the Minister of Defense and another, Air Marshal Paul
Dike, as Nigeria ’s
first Igbo Chief of Air Staff. While the Igbo visit the transgressions of
Awolowo on the Yorubas, they do not visit the favouritism of Obasanjo on the
Yorubas.
The
sins of Awolowo were brought again to the fore in 2012 by Chinua Achebe in his
book: “There
Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra.” The blogs came alive
as blame was traded on both sides of the East-West divide. Awolowo was now cast
by the Igbos as the father of the Yorubas; and they were determined to visit
his sins on his Yoruba sons to the third and fourth generations.
Blunders
continue to be made on both sides, fanning the flames of hatred. Governor
Babatunde Fashola of Lagos
State blundered by
deporting some destitute Igbos back to the East in the dead of night in 2013.
This created uproar in the sizeable Igbo community in Lagos . Even though Fashola expressly
apologised to Ndigbo for the faux pas,
a ridiculous discussion nevertheless ensued about the rightful ownership of Lagos .
Orji
Uzor Kalu, former governor of Abia State , put his foot in it when he declared that Lagos , as a former
national capital, was “no man’s land and so belongs to all of us.”
This incensed ethnic jingoists in Yorubaland who, forgetting the traditional
hospitality of the Yorubas, asked the Igbo to leave Lagos and go back East.
But nothing quite compares to the broadside that
came from the Oba of Lagos. During the 2015 election, Oba Rilwan Akiolu
summoned Lagos Igbo leaders to his palace; only to threaten them: “If anyone of
you, I swear in the name of God, goes against my wish that Ambode will be the
next governor of Lagos
state, the person is going to die inside this water. What you people cannot do
in Onitsha , Aba or anywhere you cannot do it here. If you
do what I want, Lagos
will continue to be prosperous for you, if you go against my wish, you will
perish in the water.”
It mattered little to His Royal Highness that
Ambode’s close rival was not an Igbo but Jimi Agbaje; another Yoruba man.
The
Yorubas and Ndigbo do themselves great disservice by seeing themselves as
arch-enemies. Within the framework of Nigerian politics, this has limited the
freedom of action of both ethnic groups. If one is prominent in this political
party, the other is more likely to align itself with another party. This means
the one can always be manipulated against the other. Instead, the political
space should be opened up by the possibility that the Yoruba and the Igbo can
form an alliance. That eventuality is not implausible especially because they
actually have common interests.
Both
groups prefer a Nigeria
that practices fiscal federalism. Both want a country with a weaker centre.
Both want a Nigeria
that rewards merit, with a state-structure based on resource-control. Both
groups want a Nigeria
committed to self-determination. These are grounds for cooperation as opposed
to discord. If the North is not to continue to take the South for granted, it
must not be allowed to continue to operate in the confidence that the East and
the West will always be divided.
In
politics, there are no permanent enemies and no permanent allies. Fifty years
down the road, the politics of the Nigerian Civil War should not be allowed to
continue to cast a shadow over Yoruba-Ndigbo relations. In the Second
World War, Germany was the
arch-enemy of France ,
but now both countries are the staunchest allies. Japan
invaded the United States ;
but now both are on the same side. These turnarounds can and should be
duplicated in Southern Nigeria .
As a
first step, there is need for a grand gesture. A well-publicised meeting
between the Afenifere and the Ohaneze, where declaratory statements
should be made about burying the hatchet. Thereafter, standing committees
should be established to deal with flashpoints; such as the dismantling of
Oshodi market in Lagos .
The hatred between the Yoruba and Ndigbo
has gone on for far too long. Let there be love shared among us!
*Aribasala is a syndicated columnist
Aribisala ,
ReplyDeleteYou write a lot incive and thought-provoking articles such as this one .
If your suggestions above especially the common ground of self-determination have been taken seriously by the West, Biafra and Odua Republics would have become realities since 1953 or 1967 !
Anyway, I do not know how many of both parties read this article as this really provides another platform for a revisit of the Aburi Accord , North or no North intransigence. Again , you write from the heart and with a keen sense of history .
Jisike .
Godwin Boswell Akubue
Author, Cow Without Tail - Book 1
Thanks Mr Aribasala for the thoughtful write-up. I identify with you in so many ways. We are both progressives who view the feud between Igbo and Yoruba as a drag to any form of progress, political or economic. There is a winner in all this and he speaks neither Igbo or Yoruba.
ReplyDeleteYour write up is one of very few honest unembellished account of the relationship between the two ethnic groups. Remember " hand across the Niger" by Ojukwu in the nineties? It did not work then that does not mean that it should not work now. Time solves a lot of problems and timing is every thing as they say. A few individuals from both sides should initiate the move (grass roots) before getting Afenifere and Ohanaeze involved. As they say meaningful change usually starts from the grass roots and people at the top only react and join when they see that they have no other uptions. involved
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