By Amanze Obi
My friend and colleague, Segun Ayobolu, has joined the infamous clan of journalists and writers who are demonizing the Igbo on account of Bola Tinubu’s presidential aspiration. I find this regrettable, especially in the light of my belief that these gentlemen, as cosmopolitan as I thought they were, were incapable of this level of incivility.
But I know that Segun was conscripted and fed a lie. He must have
been taken in by the antics of those for whom Igbophobia is a pleasurable
pastime. I dare say that the views he expressed in his recent article on the
Igbo and the Peter Obi presidency are hardly original to him. They are bits and
pieces of prejudicial narratives on the Igbo hammered into shape by promoters
of hate and purveyors of falsehood.
Like many others who have mischievously tied Obi’s presidential aspiration to his Igboness rather than his personality, Segun outlined many reasons why he is scared stiff of a possible Obi presidency. None of them, strictly speaking, is about Peter Obi. All of them border on Igbo stigmatization and jaundiced perception by many a non-Igbo Nigerian.
Segun alleges that the Igbo have appropriated Peter Obi’s
candidacy and have, by so doing, poisoned his aspiration. He accuses Obi’s
supporters, who he imagined are predominantly of Igbo ethnic stock, of being
abusive and indecent in their conduct. He goes further to say that Obi’s
presidential quest will be hurt by Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB’s separatist agitation.
Then he went back in time to rehash stories about the January 1966 coup and how
the Igbo wanted to use the Aguiyi Ironsi regime to enthrone Igbo hegemony in
Nigeria.
Segun also said he is worried about a possible Obi presidency
because it will bring about another round of Igbo ascendancy as was the case
under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. According to him, the
Igbo were unduly favoured under the Jonathan presidency. That is not all. Segun
said he is also apprehensive about the disposition of the Igbo who describe
Lagos as “no man’s land”. He is worried that an Obi presidency will afford the
Igbo the opportunity to seek to realize their expansionist ambitions in Lagos.
I must say that I am stupefied by this catalogue of negative
ethnic profiling directed at the Igbo. It is much more disturbing when it is
spewing forth from non-Igbo journalists and writers who are friends with some
of us from the Igbo nation. Why do those we call our friends recklessly deride
the Igbo without qualms? It is strange that they do not care a hoot about how
their jaundiced opinions about the Igbo will affect the sensibilities of their
friends and associates from the Igbo race.
I can hardly come to terms with this disposition because I cannot
possibly write, for instance, in condemnation of the entire Yoruba, without
being mindful of how my friends and associates from that part of the country
will feel. I will not do so because no people or group can be classified as
good or bad through and through. It is always a mixed bag.
For this reason, what is sensible to do is to take on individuals
or groups and deal with them on the basis of their individual merits or lack of
it rather than lump an entire race together and sentence them to the gallows.
Should the Igbo go through this stigmatization because one of them wants to be
the President of Nigeria? I do not think so. Those who are subjecting them to
psychological warfare on account of this are being insensitive and
inconsiderate.
Regrettably, this kind of mindset is driven by familiar
prejudices. In Nigeria, a different standard of judgment is usually reserved
for the Igbo by their traducers. That is why when an Igbo sets up a newspaper,
Igbo critics will quickly dismiss it as Igbo newspaper. If an Igbo man is at
the helm of affairs in a bank, the bank is written off as Igbo bank. This derisive
tag holds true in most professions. It is usually easy and convenient to give
the Igbo a bad name. For some, it is a sport; a pleasurable game of sorts.
This long-standing prejudice is what is being visited on the Peter
Obi presidential project. Those who have an axe to grind with his quest are not
facing him directly. They are not trying to tell us about his personal
deficiencies that make him unsuitable for the office he is seeking. Rather, he
must be written off for the simple fact that he is Igbo. They are simply saying
that the Igbo have sinned and come short of the presidency and Peter, their
son, has also sinned in like manner. In other words, Obi must suffer collateral
damage for the sins of the Igbo, whatever they may be. This is silliness of the
worst order. I do not expect this level of prejudice from those who ought to be
above board.
Why must the Igbo be judged in this manner? Why are those
criticizing Tinubu not dragging the Yoruba into the fray? Tinubu is being
judged according to his own merit. In other words, Tinubu and his Yoruba ethnic
nationality are different entities. Each can carry its own cross without
infecting the other. But in the case of Obi, he is one and the same thing with
his Igbo ethnic group. This selective characterization is very unconscionable.
In fact, it has become axiomatic to say that Nigeria has Igbo
problem. That is why resentment for the Igbo has become a way of life in
Nigeria. Anything or situation that appears favourable to the Igbo is maligned
and given a bad name. We saw all of that in the run-up to the presidential
primaries of the major political parties in the country. The Igbo had demanded
then that the presidency be ceded to them in 2023 for reasons of equity,
justice and fairness.
But all manner of counter-narratives, most of them jejune and
prejudicial, were advanced to shoot that down. Not even our brothers from the
South West who were beneficiaries of that concession saw any sense in the Igbo
demand. At the end of the day, the two major political parties, the APC and
PDP, ignored the Igbo roundly and fielded candidates from outside Igboland. But
antagonists of the Igbo are not done. They are taking another step further by
transferring the aggression to the Peter Obi candidacy. It is all in the bid to
undermine the Igbo.
Rather than allow Obi to run the race freely as a free Nigerian,
detractors are trying hard to reduce the national appeal he enjoys to an Igbo
affair. If painting the Igbo black and tying Peter Obi to that stake is the
campaign tool that his detractors have fashioned against him, someone needs to
remind them that negative ethnic profiling is not a campaign strategy. Rather,
it goes to show that those who have adopted this cheap blackmail have neither a
superior argument nor a viable alternative.
The Tinubu supporters are really making a mistake by making the
Igbo and Peter Obi the focus of their campaign. They should borrow a leaf from
supporters of Atiku Abubakar who are concerned about issues of good governance,
rather than dissipate energy on negative ethnic profiling and bigotry.
*Dr. Amanze Obi is a commentator on public issues
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