By Femi
Aribisala
In the eight years of Obasanjo’s presidency, there was no
headline-grabbing demand for Biafra. Ditto for
the eight years of the Yar’Adua/Jonathan presidency. However, within months of
Buhari’s presidency, the Igbo demand for Biafra
has become deafening. Without a doubt, the blame for this new impetus must be laid firmly at the
doorstep of President Buhari. Moreover, rather than attenuate it, the president
and the APC have exacerbated separatist tendencies in the country.
This was part of the reason why
people like me did not support Buhari’s election as president of Nigeria. I have
written severally in Vanguard that Nigeria must remain a united nation.
In my column of 4th March, 2014 entitled: “Re-Inventing Igbo Politics In Nigeria,” I maintained that: “Nigeria cannot survive without the
Igbo.” The following week on 11th March 2014, I wrote another article
entitled: “Nigeria
Cannot Do without the North.”
I remain persuaded by both
positions. But if Nigeria
is indeed to remain united, there are certain things that must be said and
done. The problem with the Buhari administration is that it seems totally
impervious to these imperatives.
There is no question that, as
one of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Igbo have been hard
done by. Since the civil war 45 years ago, they have been treated as if they
were a minority ethnic group in Nigeria
when in fact they are one of the majorities. No Igbo has been considered worthy
of being head-of-state. The South East of Ndigbo
is the only one of the six geopolitical zones of the country with five states.
All other zones have six or more. Indeed, the number of local governments in
the North-East is virtually double that of the South-East. As a result, the
Ndigbo receive the smallest amount of revenue allocation among all the zones,
in spite of the fact that some of the South-eastern states are among the
oil-producing states.
The roads in the South-east are
notoriously bad. Government after government have simply ignored them.
Inconsequential ministerial positions are usually zoned to Ndigbo. Time was when it seemed the lackluster Ministry of
Information was their menial preserve. It is also a known fact that every so
often the Igbo are slaughtered in the North under one guise or the other. Many
are forced to abandon their homes and businesses and run for dear life. The
people who perpetrate these acts never seem to be arrested or prosecuted.
When a major tribe is treated
procedurally as second-class in their own country, there will be a demand for
self-determination sooner rather than later. When a group of people feel unsafe
in their own country, they cannot but be expected to decide to opt out. It is
not the responsibility of the government to imprison the Igbo in Nigeria. It is
the responsibility of the government to ensure and guarantee that they feel
safe and are treated with respect.
Discrimination against the
South: While these issues have been brewing under the surface for some time,
the lop-sided tendencies of President Buhari have brought them all out to
boiling-point. In his first-coming as head-of-state in 1984, Buhari antagonised
Ndigbo
by locking up Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo man, in jail in
Kirikiri; while President Shehu Shagari, a Fulani man was only placed under
house arrest. In addition, Buhari arrested and jailed Ojukwu, another Igbo icon
for no just cause.
