No Shaking! The Igbo Spirit Lives On!

 By Dan Onwukwe 

Nigeria is very much looking like a horror movie that many people troop in to watch in a cinema. Every passing day, news about the country, and the conduct of government, its officials and some of its key institutions, could break the human spirit. This is because, things that are considered abominable and utterly wicked have become the ‘new normal’ in the country. 

A friend of mine called me last weekend from Canada. His voice was shaking. I thought he has lost someone. But it was a different kind of news. I asked him what has gone wrong. He said everything: “Even from afar there’s darkness at the edge of Nigeria”, he said, as his voice began to tremble. He added ,”if the Nigeria Police could arraign scores of hungry-protesting kids for alleged treason, the government must have lost its soul, and the leadership gone astray”.  He ended the call with this cryptic comment, “this is how autocrats begin”.  

My takeaway from my friend’s angry phone call is that no amount of Cabinet change without a good leadership will bring about any ‘renewed hope’ in the country. Even though getting down to business that people hire Presidents to do, that is, making decisions, often starts with the selection of a Cabinet of unquestionable competence, however, and unfortunately, that has not been the case since the All Progressives Congress (APC) came to power in 2015. The main reason is that, members of the cabinet feel, and to some extent right, that they are appointed, by a President who prefers to deal with problems through paperwork, a leader who enjoys the trappings of an “imperial presidency”. Their input hardly matters.            

Truth is, a good cabinet sends a strong and clear message that a country is ready to move forward.   It’s one duty any president who wants to succeed owes his country, because he has become the President for all. His selection must reflect equity, fairness and the diversity of all the geopolitical zones of the country, irrespective of party affiliation or beliefs. As Gerald R. Ford(38th President of USA)  said in his autobiography entitled, A Times To Heal, a good cabinet must comprise strong managers who can control the career bureaucrats, and not become their captives. They must also be people who have the guts to offer honest and unvarnished advice to the President and build support both in the parliament and the media. That done, the details of administration are left for them, while the President concentrates on determining national priorities and the direction he wants the country to go.

But the rule is that the president should not hesitate to rejig his cabinet and ship out those who are underperforming. Everyone had thought that Tinubu has learnt pretty good lessons in over 17 months of his beleaguered presidency and be honest with himself and the country that his administration needs a measure of oxygen in the cabinet that will chart a new course in critical sectors of the economy that beg for his urgent. 

The tempers of the time demands that he should not short-change some geopolitical zones for future, cheap political gains. That was why the much- anticipated cabinet reshuffle last month attracted great expectations. But when it came, it was an ant-climax. It was a cosmetic exercise, a glaring lack of experience. No brilliance, no depth. It breached all provisions of federal character principles, equity and fairness. With the addition of seven ministers and five sacked, the president sunk deeper into an already over bloated cabinet, the most unwieldy in the political history of the Nigeria.      

But the announcement of the so-called Cabinet reshuffle wasn’t only the bad news last month. The bad news in the meat of the coconut is the President’s shabby treatment of the South East geopolitical zone in his new cabinet. The question is: Does President Tinubu have some scores to settle with the Igbo”?. That’s the question many fair-minded people have asked. But that’s not all. The president went further by sacking Mrs Uju-Kennedy Ohanenye from Anambra, a former Minister of Women Affairs, and demoted Doris Uzoka-Anite,(from Imo state), a medical doctor and astute financial analyst, from her former portfolio as Minister of Industry Trade and Investment to a junior Minister of state, Finance. Whatever this administration does against the South East, one thing is clear: the Igbo is alive, unconquerable.         

Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe(representing Abia South) is strikingly accurate when he described the President high-handedness in his cabinet reshuffle as “renewed shege’” against the South East. Loosely translated in Hausa, ‘shege’ means to deal with or suffer someone). As Gerald Ford once said, “you don’t suspect ill motives of anyone until you  are  kicked in the balls three times”. Tinubu has kicked Ndigbo several times in the balls just because they preferred one of their own to the one the APC offered to Nigeria in the 2023 presidential election. Abaribe may have used the word  to strengthen the argument of the disdain the Tinubu administration holds against the Igbo.    

It has become part of the president’s message and that of his wife, Oluremi, right from campaigns last year. It’s a  deep-seated hatred. According to Abaribe, sacking a South East member of the cabinet and replacing her with another, doesn’t feel like progressive. Neither is making Bianca Ojukwu, wife of highly respected Igbo leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, indicate any progressive interest in the Igbo by Tinubu. Let’s be clear: Bianca will not guarantee APC any votes in the South East. Rather, her ministerial ‘gift’ can be likened to placating someone who has been ‘bounced’ from a garden party with a drink on her way out. 

I see it as a dig at Mr. Peter Obi, who by every standard, has become an iconic personality whose enormous influence goes beyond the South East geopolitical zone. Obi’s acceptance across Nigeria is beyond argument. The 2023 Presidential election result attested to that. By sidelining the Igbo in the cabinet reshuffle, Tinubu has once again, bared his fangs. He’s telling us what is on his mind, and what he intends to do,  going forward. It’s not a bluster. It’s a road map to what lies ahead.  Recall what happened during the presidential campaign last year,  the threat to the Igbo  by Sen. Oluremi Tinubu while campaigning at a popular market in Lagos.   

She spoke in Yoruba, but her vernon against Ndigbo was unambiguous. In the video that went viral in social media, she said, “The Igbos”, are very ungrateful. They are betrayers. After accommodating them in Lagos, they are not cooperating with the Yoruba. We, the Yoruba, will overcome them and inherit their property in Lagos if they refuse to vote for Asiwaju”.Can you imagine that? Perhaps a bigger threat against the Igbo may be coming if they fail to pledge their support for the President’s re-election in 2027. There are reports that all streets bearing Igbo names in Ajeromi Ifelodun Local government of Lagos state, have been changed. What a country! Again, Igbo spirit lives on.

 You see, nothing is normal in Nigeria any more in Nigeria. In both scale and scope, the ominous signs are everywhere for any discerning mind to see. If the President can learn to tolerate dissenting views and run an inclusive government and not marginalise any section of the country, he will be the biggest beneficiary. Imagine Ogun state having about four members in the federal cabinet. Buhari in his worst nepotistic drive, didn’t tread this divisive path. What leaders do while they are trying to get political power is not necessarily what they do after they have it. That, in itself, is lesson in power.   

Whatever former President Muhammadu Buhari made worse for Nigeria , the Tinubu presidency is striving to make  much worse. If care is not taken, Tinubu may be careening dangerously towards becoming, in the words of columnist, Olusegun Adeniyi, an ‘Oduduwa President’. The evidence is no longer in doubt. Didn’t we see this coming? Were we not warned? The fault lines that divide us have widened more than ever before. What is unfolding before us, using the recent cabinet reshuffle is a warning message to Ndigbo: ‘you are with me or against me. It’s your choice, but I have a horsewhip to punish whatever choice you have made’.    

All of this has revealed both the president’s real character and shortcomings. It calls for all hands on deck to save the President from himself. This has become critically important now because, as historians will tell us, without a vision beyond a leader’s own selfish agenda and advancement, a leader is almost paralyzed once the goal has been achieved. This column did warn when Buhari embarked on this cynical, self-destructive ambition, but it was not heeded. And this is where he left Nigeria – in the worst rung of leadership. In the case of Tinubu, what we are witnessing is the temperament and behaviour of the most ambitious, deft political player adept at amazing power that is at odds with federal character and unity in diversity.   

*Onwukwe is a commentator on public issues