For Ndigbo, Time For Real Politics

By Duro Onabule

It has been the case since ancient to modern that politics in South-east Nigeria is muddled. That is if forty years ago can be considered ancient. Afterall, a former British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, is on record that a week is, in politics, a long time. It is barely a week that South-east zone behaved to type with its open display of muddled politics. Muddled in the sense of cutting its nose to spite its face.

*President Buhari and former VP Dr. Ekwueme

South-east zone invited President Muhammadu Buhari to a summit. Or at least, so the zone appeared to have done through Science and Technology Minister, Ogbonnaya Onu. Ideally, such an invitation should have been properly screened to avoid a last-minute or any clash of interests, especially on a date earlier agreed. Among such exigencies that should have been factored into final preparations is the reality that even on any agreed date, their special guest, Muhammadu Buhari, has virtually, no control over unforeseen, equally or if not more important schedule, both at home and especially abroad that might compel preferential attention.

Experienced technocrats among organisers of the summit would acknowledge such possibilities. Like the sudden political/constitutional debacle in the West African nation of The Gambia, which warranted the intervention of concerned West African countries in the ECOWAS group. Nigeria’s participation in such intervention certainly was a decisive factor.

Another unforeseen hitch, which nonetheless, should not have caught the summit organisers napping, was the rascality by a group for a showdown if Buhari ever showed up. It was not clear if that issue was partly why Buhari did not show up but noticeably, the joke was missing in Buhari’s explanation on his eventual absence.

Third on the list of hitches against Buhari’s presence was the convenient excuse that the summit was fixed for Christmas time when South-easterners would be in festive mood. Who should take the blame for that? Surely, not Buhari. Were the summit organisers ignorant of that universal fact when the date was fixed? At the end of the day, Buhari could not show up. Perhaps, there was no loser but if there was, Buhari was not the loser. And the winner? South-east notorious politics of muddle.

It is all the more disturbing because South-east is the least developed in terms of infrastructure not just by the Federal Government but also by the zone’s successive state governors.

One clear reason for the latest politics of muddle is South-east zone’s disregard for one of its own, Science and Technology Minister, Ogbonnaya Onu, moreso for his membership of the ruling APC. It is only wise that even if the man is politically ostracised, must that be along with whatever amenities that could accrue to South-east from the Federal Government through Ogbonnaya Onu? Furthermore, who is nearer to reach Buhari, Minister Ogbonnaya Onu or years of crying in the wilderness? South-east was close to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. What benefitted South-east therefrom? South-east was similarly close to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan? For what benefit, second Niger Bridge? Or federal roads in South-east?

Root Causes Of The Biafra Struggle

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.

Dele Cole’s Nonexistent ‘Igbo’ Slaves

By Ochereome Nnanna

On  Tuesday, 30th August 2016, at exactly 10.41am, I received a text from an unidentified frequent sender of messages to my platforms whenever he reads topics that agitate his mind, whether written by me or others.

He wrote: “Greetings. How can Dr. Patrick Dele Cole, in today’s Vanguard Newspaper…assert that the Igbo were slaves of the Ijaw? If, for the purpose of argument, one or two Igbo men were captured, held as slaves, or were sold into slavery in those days, how does that translate to the Igbo (an entire ethnic nationality) becoming slaves to the Ijaw…?”

Dele Cole’s article was entitled: “Nigerians And Their Origin”. He was displaying his rich knowledge of how people, not just in Nigeria but also in different parts of the world, acquired their current ethno-racial identities; how some powerful conquerors like the Jihadist Fulani, “dropped” their language and adopted those of their majority subjects, the Hausa, in order get assimilated and rule over them effectively.

Cole, at the tail end of his very interesting tapestry of sampling, however, made a conclusion I found both curious and contradictory compared to his earlier conclusion about the “Igbo” and “Ijaw” (I am putting these words in inverted commas for a reason that will be explained shortly). According to Cole: “Who are the Hausa-Fulani? The French of Normandy conquered England in 1066 and adopted their language. They were not known as French-English but English…Thus in the North of Nigeria they (Fulani) should be known as Hausa”.

Before I go on, let me correct Cole. The Fulani never dropped their language. Though they adopted the Hausa and other languages in areas they conquered (such as Nupe in Bida and Yoruba in Ilorin) they still maintained their Fulbe language and identity. In fact, former Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, a Fulani royal who hails from Bamaina in Birnin Kudu Local Government of the state, told me he did not “learn” Hausa until he went to school.

Ndigbo, Time To Think Eastwards!

By Clement Udegbe

The new plan by Governor Ambode of Lagos is to either force Igbos to go and start buying lands in Badagry, Ikorodu, Epe and other areas in the hinter lands, build houses and markets to develop those areas, or go back to the South East as Governor Fashola told them to do after the deportation of Igbos in 2013. The risk in this new plan is best captured by an Igbo proverb that says when a child starts planning to eat plenty fresh vegetable, the vegetable also plans how to give the child diarrhoea. No one, including the owners of Lagos, can say what Lagos will look like without Igbos, or what Igbos will do if they have to be forced to relocate.

 However, some Igbo traders may foolishly rush to those areas and start fresh struggles to own land and develop them, thereby repeating the same mistake they made after the civil war. These ones will always see themselves as wiser than the rest. They are the ones who often boast to themselves that they spent huge sums of money just to sand fill some deep swampy areas in Ojo, Abule Egba,Okota, Ejigbo areas, etc, before building. They forget that the cost of sand filling alone would have given them three mansions or more in their dry Igbo land. An Igbo proverb says that wisdom is like a hand bag: you pick up yours as you go about your affairs. But it appears many Igbos forget theirs in their villages with respect to Nigeria! They have this mind set, attributable to after effects of the civil war, to settle outside their state, no matter how close.

For example, Igbos strangely prefer to go and buy lands, build and live in Asaba and its environs, and commute to their markets stalls and shops in Onitsha, while neglecting all that vast good land from Ogbaru, to Aguleri and their environs. Many Igbo buy swamps from Port Harcourt, Elele, etc, in Rivers State and develop them, while neglecting the solid land around Owerri and Aba. They prefer to congregate again the same place where they lost abandoned properties after the civil war. The Imo State Governor is not ashamed of the craters that have rendered the Imo portion of the Portharcourt – Owerri Road   impassable since he came to power over five years ago. Similarly, his Anambra counterpart looks the other way as his people suffer untold hardship traversing just between Awka and Enugu, a distance of less than 80 kilometres. The governors of Enugu and Ebonyi have also failed to do the needful about the failed portions of their link roads.

Only God knows what the people of Ebonyi go through daily to link up with other parts of Igbo land, and Nigeria in general. Igbos participate and invest in huge sea port development programmes in neighbouring states, while neglecting the vast ocean front they have in Azumini area in Abia State. Indeed it is baffling why Igbos have failed or refused to develop their   own zone with the same zeal they put in other zones. While no Igbo man has made it to the list of the world richest, it is obvious that there are factors militating against them as a people. And until they wake up and address these factors, they will continue to run from pillar to post whenever their host governments sneeze! This is why the new Ambode plan against Ndigbo in Lagos is a welcome development. Perhaps it will make them to begin to think differently and to reconsider their ways in Nigeria. It will help them to rediscover that Igbo spirit that existed in the days of Zik of Africa, Dr. Michael Okpara, Dr. Akanu Ibiam and a host of other Igbo patriots who worked assiduously with other patriots from the South West and the South South to create the Nigeria that the Military and their political friends have worked equally hard to undermine since 1966, barely six years after our independence.

 It will perhaps make Igbos realise that no matter how long the crocodile remains in the water, it can never become a mangrove tree. No matter how long they may live in Yorubaland, Tivland or Hausaland, they will remain Igbo people. And until something fundamentally revolutionary happens, Nigeria, as I see it, cannot do without ethnicity and religion. I pray that a new movement that will not be polluted by these two cancers presently killing Nigeria will start someday. The Ambode plan is not fair and kind, and Igbos must take it seriously to avoid the enslavement it implies. The Holy Bible, which over 80 percent of Igbos believe in, declares that affliction shall not arise a second time against the righteous. And given the obvious religious agenda of the ruling APC, Igbos must find ways to re-engineer their own society and reduce the Pull Him Down Syndrome among themselves. The Lagos State government has not hidden its dislike for Igbos.

Buhari Regime Is A Complete Disaster - Arthur Nwankwo

Former Presidential candidate and Chancellor of the Eastern Mandate Union (EMU), Dr. Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo is not a man of many words. In this interview with LAWRENCE NJOKU, Southeast Bureau Chief, he bares his mind on some nagging issues in the country.

What is your take on President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration in the last one year?
The Muhammadu Buhari administration has been a complete disaster. I knew from the outset that his presidency was a tragedy waiting to happen. My conclusions are anchored on observable and incontrovertible facts. The first is Buhari’s penchant for religiously implementing a policy of exclusion. You possibly cannot expect anything good from a man, who expressed the desire to run a segregative administration from the very beginning, based on the voting patterns in the 2015 presidential elections.

For him to say on several occasions that his government would treat differently areas that gave his party 95 percent vote from the areas that gave only five percent indicated that he did not and still does not understand what political contest is all about. As far as I know, the beauty of democracy is located in the freedom of the electorate to make a choice from an array of political contestants. At the end of the contest, whoever emerges the winner sees himself as the leader of all and not only of those that voted for him. Buhari has failed this litmus test of democratic inclusion.

Like I have always said about the Buhari presidency, you don’t give what you don’t have. Any discerning person would have identified the ineptitude of this administration from the content of Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural address on May 29 2015. It is from such address that a focused leader hints on his vision and policy direction in governance. His inaugural speech was empty. I urge you to pick a copy of that address and go through it again. You will be shocked at how drab and uninspiring it was for such a big occasion. So much noise has been made about a line in that address, which said that, “he belonged to everybody and belonged to nobody.” While many of his apologists sought to convince Nigerians of what he meant by that statement, I warned of the deceit and dictatorial import of that comment.

Today, Buhari has taken Nigeria back by almost 40 years and has proven beyond doubt that he is an ethnic and religious irredentist. The economy has collapsed and with it our collective destiny. Insecurity has not abated and poverty rate has tripled. The picture of things to come is gloomy and frightening. Buhari is, indeed, a colossal failure and his administration is a significant threat to the continued existence of this country as a corporate entity.

Could the reasons you outlined be responsible for the heightened clamour for restructuring of the country?
It is instructive that many Nigerians have come to the realisation that the only way for the survival of the country is through restructuring. This is heartwarming. This is what I have canvassed over the past three decades at great risk to my personal safety.
CLICK HERE TO READ WHOLE INTERVIEW  

Ndigbo, Time To Reconsider Your Ways

By Clement Udegbe

A Yoruba proverb says that one does not keep silent when something bad is going on because a house does not burn and fill the eyes with sleep. I have been having sleepless nights because bad things are going on between the Igbos and their Yoruba brothers in Nigeria. And it troubles the hearts of those who love the peace and friendliness that once existed between these two tribes in Nigeria since after the civil war, which politicians for their very selfish reasons are determined to kill.

In the University of Ife (Now, Obafemi Awolowo University) in the 1970s, we did everything together with Yorubas, from football, student unionism, entertainment, etc. Of particular reference was in the Palmwine Drinkers Club, where they referred to themselves   as “carried fellows”, and non-members like me, as bearing very long tails, irrespective of tribe or circumstances of birth.

We enjoyed our differences and the unity that followed it all. They called us “Okoro”, “Aje okuta ma imu omi “, meaning: one who eats stones without drinking water. We called them “Ndi Ofe Nmanu”, meaning: people who eat too much red palm oil. Competition was healthy among us and you got what you deserved. For example, you could drive your ‘campus bus’, or ‘bush meat’ whether she is from Gbagan, Calabar, or any part of the globe, without qualms. Please get explanations from any ex-Ife around you. 

We were all simply Nigerians, and have remained largely so. I did my Operation Feed the Nation as a student in Iperu, a town in Ogun State and my National Service in Lagos. I love Yorubas, and my friends among them love me too. When I started work in 1981, two Yorubas who touched my life in an uncommon way were Chiefs Adeniran Ogunsanya and Harold Shodipo, both of blessed memory. They were completely detribalized men, proud of   their Igbo counterparts in politics.

Chief Ogunsanya proved to me how he loved Dr, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and he actually introduced me to Zik in 1984. A Yoruba Chief and Elder introduced me, an Igbo man, to Owelle Ndigbo. That was those good old days. I keep wondering what   those pan-Nigerian founding fathers of Yoruba land would have done with what is happening today between Igbos and Yorubas in the politics of Lagos State. So many things have started going wrong on between Igbos and Yorubas  that  things are now speedily falling apart. The foundation for Igbo bashing and phobia may have been laid during the tenure of Chief Bola Tinubu as the Governor of Lagos State.

That was when all Igbo core business areas began to be targeted for closure at the least provocation. Alaba International Market in Ojo LGA, the Auto Market at Berger Bus-stop near Mile 2 and the Ladipo Motor Parts Market in Mushin LGA were closed at different times and reopened after a governor from Igbo land came to plead. Former Governor Babatunde Fashola broke the pot and spilled the beans when he deported Igbos in 2013. It was a highly spiritual action which many did not understand. The message was clear –  Igbos are visitors and can be deported in spite of their investments in Lagos State. In 2014, a group of Obas and Chiefs in Ondo State denigrated the Eze Ndigbo title and called for its ban in Ondo State.

Ndigbo: Why Joe Igbokwe’s Self-Enslavement Worries Me

By Jude Ndukwe

In his well published diatribe against the Igbo people of Nigeria, Joe Igbokwe, the Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Lagos State chapter, who is also a son of Igbo, poured invectives on the Igbo nation while making spurious allegations against them. For those who know Igbokwe’s leanings and past stance on national issues, his latest scurrilous attack on the great people of the South Eastern part of Nigeria did not come as a surprise, the only surprising thing is that this latest attack seem to come somehow awkwardly late and too far apart given the man’s relentless and unrepentant penchant for always attempting to ridicule Nigeria’s most resilient and enterprising people in an essay full of contradictions, lame postulations and outright insults.

*Tinubu and Buhari 

His grouse is that, according to him, the Igbo have refused to move on since after former president Jonathan lost the last presidential election to the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari. In one fell swoop, he accused the Igbo of ethnic bigotry and still went ahead to wonder why it is that the people of the South South region have since moved on while their South Eastern brothers have refused to move on from that election. If the Igbo were ethnic bigots, how would they be so concerned about the loss of a Bayelsa man in an election to the extent that a certain Joe Igbokwe is riled by their stoic and unwavering support to such a man even more than a year after his loss?

Rather than paint the Igbo in such uncomplimentary, yet, false light, Joe should turn his focus on his principals and paymasters who are working tirelessly to continually divide Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines. When the president of a country has officially divided his nation into two political, ethnic and religious lines by the virtue of the “97% vs 5%” declaration of no person less than the president himself, the Igbo view him as one who does not mean well for the nation.

 In this light, the Igbo view Jonathan as a hero because, even though he is not Igbo, he would never have made such a divisive and unpresidential statement not to talk of acting it out. And as if to prove that declaration as an official policy of his, President Buhari’s appointments have not been federal either in character or in intent. To this extent, the Igbo view themselves as endangered species in a nation that easily preaches one Nigeria but state actors do the exact opposite. The president’s continued seclusion of certain parts of the country from State offices and projects, if there is anyone at all, is what is crippling Nigeria. The cry of the Igbo, which the likes of Igbokwe have misinterpreted to serve their own selfish purpose, is that Buhari should not crash the nation with his own hands.

 If anyone sees this as ethnic bigotry, the person has urgent need for an optician and a psychiatrist! With the level of poverty visited on us in Nigeria by the Buhari administration, it is enough to make people like Igbokwe spew nonsense in the name of criticism, and also makes it imperative for regular brain checks to be part of such people’s daily menu. When armless and harmless Igbo embark on peaceful rallies and the military shoot at them without provocation, killing many in the process, not once, not twice, and hurriedly bury them in mass shallow graves in military barracks and elsewhere in order to cover their evil, Joe Igbokwe expects Ndigbo to applaud rather than criticize state actors for their wickedness and insensitivity. Enough is enough! 

The Return Of The Bakassi Boys

By Uche Ezechukwu

The late Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, in one of his indelible songs, allud-ed to Ndigbo and their resilience, thus: “they will never tire from running if their enemies do not tire from pursuing them”. This summarises why the Igbo Nation will never stop improvising to survive and stay ahead of those who they feel, do not wish them well. That is basically the story of the Bakassi Boys, the veritable children of circumstances, which the ebullient governor of Abia State, Dr Victor Okezie Ikpeazu, announced last week, was being re-invented in his state to save the day for his state, the way they did between 1999 and 2001.

Most Nigerians only got to hear of the Bakassi Boys as from the late 2000, when it became a most unorthodox and unusual crime fighting outfit in Anambra State, especially when it became an object of great controversy and jousting between the government of Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju and that of President Olusegun Obasanjo, at the centre. Obasanjo had vowed to uproot the outfit by all means – and in fact did so eventually – after it had completely de-railed in its initial objectives, and had become a Frankenstein monster, which started gobbling the people it had set out to protect. It is significant that Dr Ikpeazu, an ‘Aba boy’, has decided to resurrect the Bakassi Boys, in what he must have seen as a last resort, just in the same way that Aba traders had decided to create the original Bakassi Boys in 1998, when they had been confronted with an unusual level of criminality, and when the constituted authority had pretended an unusual incapacity to act. The governor obviously knows how the Bakassi Boys were founded by shoe makers and other dexterous Aba artisans whose thriving businesses were being laid waste by criminal syndicates of robbers, kidnappers and cultist, broadly described as Maffs, just as the herdsmen are today laying waste the means of livelihood of the rural farmers.

 As it happened in the late 1990s, the SAP economic policy of the Ibrahim Babangida had turned out to be a great blessing in disguise for Igbo business-men and artisans, for whom it offered a wonderful opportunity to dip deep into their homebred talents to innovate and produce. Two groups of businesses – the leather workers and tailors – had benefitted most, as they systematically bettered and perfected their trades and targeted the ex-port market.

 Aba tailors and shoe makers had always been good, but they became even better when greater opportunities beckoned with the export market that existed for them all over Africa, the Middle Belt and Asia. The shoe makers would make good shoes and stamp Made in Italy or Made in Spain on them and offloaded them on Lebanese and other middlemen and women that inundated Aba to evacuate the products. Aba became the veritable Taiwan of Africa, as other Nigerian artisans, who were not doing as well elsewhere, relocated to Aba, in order to enjoy the boom that was taking place.

Many people who resided in Aba did not fully appreciate what was happening around them, as they were not enjoying the enhanced products that were being churned out around them. One young man from my village who had graduated in Biochemistry from UNN had become a tailor in Aba, and had once made a suit, gratis for me, but could no longer have the time to make more for my friends or members of my family, as his time was completely taken up with meeting-up with orders from his outlets in UAE and Europe. 

Onyeka Onwenu: Another Case Of 'That Ibo Woman'!

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Onyeka Onwenu was, on September 13, 2013, appointed the Director General of the National Center for Women Development (NCWD) by the Jonathan admin­istration. The all-changing Buhari government relieved her of the position last month.

 

*Onyeka Onwenu

On her ten­ure, she claimed thus in an open letter: “I served for two years and five months and did my best under very difficult conditions. We hard­ly had money to operate and the place was badly run down. Worst, there was low moral and lack of commitment among the staff. Most spent the day loitering and gossiping. Many would not show up for work or arrive 11 am, only to leave before 3 pm. Some were absent for months and were just collecting their salary at home. My administration changed all that. Most staff were turned around and became passionate about the work, appreciating also the changes they thought were not possible but were happening right before them.”

Is she correct? The answer would seem to be positive because, nearly two weeks after the claim, no voice has controverted her. This should cause botheration in conscientious quarters because she protests that her sterling service to the country was repaid with the objectionable coins of injustice: “There remained, though, a rem­nant who felt that the Center was their personal preserve and that the position of Director General should only go to someone from their part of the country. I was ini­tially dismissed as just a musician. When that did not work, I was tar­geted and abused for being an Igbo woman who came to give jobs to and elevate my people while side­lining them. When these detrac­tors could not provide answers to the spate of improvements we were bringing, they resorted to sabotage and blackmail. The first such salvo was fired when a Senate Commit­tee visited on an oversight mission a few months after my arrival. All three Generators at the Center were cannibalized, overnight, just hours to the visit.”

Onyeka stated in her open letter that, to begin with, she hadn’t lob­bied to be appointed DG-NCWD. Nor was she ever minded to grovel in order to retain the post. Once word arrived from above that she had had her day at the Center, she made to leave. “But some people were going to exact their pound of flesh. They organized some staff, mostly Northerners, invited the Press and set about to disgrace themselves. By mid-afternoon, while the Heads of Departments were putting together the hando­ver notes, they seized the keys to my official car, even with my per­sonal items still inside. Threats be­gan to fly. ‘That Ibo woman must’, ‘We will disgrace her.’ Their chief organizer, the Acting DG, went about whipping up ethnic senti­ments against me. Late 2015, the same officer had gone to the Cent­er’s mosque to ask for the issue of a Fatwa against me, claiming that I was working against the inter­est of the North. We nipped that in the bud by calling a town hall meeting and asking that proof be provided. The Fatwa was denied and peace reigned for a while. Po­lice was called in to the Center to escort me out and avoid bloodshed as I disengaged. Eventually, in the midst of insults and name calling, with an angry baying crowd, some of whom were brought in from outside, I entered my official car and left.” 

Multiculturalism And The Igbo Identity

By Dan Amor
I would have loved to title our column this week, 'Buhari And The Igbo Question', but in order not to reduce this very important issue to mere verbalism by those who read banal political expediency into all serious issues, I plead that we settle for the above title.

*President Buhari 

 Multiculturalism has been the subject of cover stories of most international magazines including Time and Newsweek, as well as numerous articles in newspapers and magazines across the world. It has sparked heated jeremiads by leading American columnists such as George Will, Dinesh D'Sousa, and Roger Kimball. It moved William F. Buckley to rail against Stanley Fish and Catherine Stimpson  on "Firing Line." 

It is arguably the most hotly debated topic in the civilised world today – and justly so. For whether one speaks of tensions between Hasidim and African-Americans in Crown Heights, or violent mass protests against Moscow in ethnic republics such as Armenia, or outright war between Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia, it is clear that the clash of cultures is a worldwide problem, deeply felt, passionately expressed, always on the verge of violent explosion. Problems of this magnitude inevitably frame the discussion of multiculturalism and cultural diversity even among leading intellectuals across the world. Yet, it is unfortunate that, in Nigeria, the vexed issues of racism, nationalism and cultural identity are downplayed by our commentators and analysts because some think that they and their tribes are not directly affected.

Few commentators could have predicted that one of the issues that dominated academic and popular discourse in the final decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century – concomitant with the fall of apartheid in South Africa, communism in Russia, and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union – would be the matter of cultural pluralism in our secondary school and university curricula and its relation to the "Nigerian" national identity. Repeated experience and routine violations of the rights of minorities and the Igbo nation in Nigeria attest to the urgency of the scattered, and often confused, debates over what is variously known as cultural diversity, cultural pluralism, or multiculturalism. 

The greatest threat to the string that binds us together as a nation of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds and its social intercourse is not nationalistic cultural passions but our collective failure to discuss our differences and the arrogant manifestation of messianic impudence by our rulers who think that they possess the sole authority to dictate what should be talked about and what not to discuss in our country. Increasing incidents of violence are associated with ethnic differences in very many places in the world: Koreans and African-Americans in Flatbush, Brooklyn; Zulus and Xhosas in South Africa; Poles and Gypsies in Poland; the Tutsis and Hutu in Rwanda; the Hausa/Fulani and Igbo in Nigeria; and, of course, the fate of the Jews in Ethiopia and in the old Soviet Union.

Biafra Agitation And Antics Of Divide-And-Rule

         By Nwobodo Chidiebere

“I freed a thousand slaves; I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”— Harriet Tubman

FOR weeks now, the issue of Biafra agitation has been at the front burner in the polity. The movement is being propelled by Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Movement for Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) via peaceful protests ravaging the old Eastern region. The promoters of IPOB are led by the detained Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.

Agents of divide-and-rule have gone back to their age-long work of dividing the indigenous people of Biafra. Their major target is to Igbonize this present struggle of Biafra restoration using the instrumentality of the media to tag Biafra agitation Igbo “affair”. Majority of those divide-and-rule advocates are non-Biafrans, who ordinarily should not have any say in determining the future of old Eastern region.

Why is it that Hausa and Fulani which comprise major ethnic groups especially in Northern part of Nigeria are always referred to as Hausa/Fulani – as one indivisible people, instead of Hausa and Fulani? Why do we have South-South as a geo-political zone carved out of old Eastern region, but there is nothing like North-North in the Northern Nigeria? How did the creators of this South-South mantra invent this word that is not in line with known cardinal points as enshrined in the principles of geography? How come there is Niger-Delta in the South but nothing like North-Sahara in the North? Why is there one Northern Governors Forum in the North, but coming down Southern Nigeria; we have South-East, South-West and South-South Governors Forums; all in one Southern Nigeria? Why do we always hear about Northern Elders Forum and nineteen Northern states as one socio-political block and one North, but we hardly talk of Southern Elders Forum, seventeen Southern states or one South? Someone should put on his thinking cap by now.

Junaid Mohammed’s Hate-Rhetoric

By John Otu

The interview published in the Sunday Sun newspapers of December 13, 2015, of Dr. Junaid Mohammed, convener of the Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen, rankled in its sweeping generalization about the current agitations by members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and segments of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). As I write, before me is Alvan Ewuzie’s mature rejoinder in Daily Sun of Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015 to Junaid’s tirade. Ewuzie’s thoughtful response to Junaid would have sufficed, as it addressed the highlights of Dr. Junaid’s irreverent remarks but a few more issues arising from the notorious interview need to be elaborated upon.

*Junaid Mohammed 

From his hasty conclusions and uncouth language, Junaid betrays his ignorance of Ndigbo and Nigeria’s political history. For him, Ndigbo are a conquered people who should ‘submit themselves’ to the superior race, as it were. Any action displayed by the agitators is thus adjudged by him as typical of Ndigbo. He says rather in an inductive leap, “Showing an open nepotism in what they do is their stock-in-trade. So people then say, “Look we are not going to have these Igbo people as leaders because their nepotism is absolutely intolerable.”

Our self-appointed convener is not done. He passes a peremptory judgment on the Igbo, threatening to report them to President Buhari to withdraw whatever miserable attention he has paid to them, “So if they continue to be unreasonable in this case insisting on getting some key positions or telling Buhari how to run the government, then he needs to take the right step by confronting them…”

My immediate reaction on reading Junaid was to question his claims to lofty pedigree and education.

The Biafran Truth and the Illegal Trial of Nnamdi Kanu

By ‘Remi Oyeyemi

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

  – Arthur Schopenhauer

“I’m for truth, mo matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against.”

–  Malcom X

With trepidation, I have been watching the subtle descent into dictatorship by the administration of Muhammadu Buhari. I have been watching with disgust President Buhari’s war against freedom of speech. I am very concerned about desperate attempts by President Buhari and his sentries to muzzle the voice of self determination. I am very upset that a government of All Progressive Congress that claimed to love freedom is engaged in deliberate subjugation of innocent citizens who happens to have different views about the state of the polity.

*Nnamdi Kanu

I am very concerned that an innocent man is being denied his freedom. I am scared that an innocent man is being subjected to illegal detention. I am not comfortable that an innocent man is being tried for desiring freedom for his people. I am very disturbed that a non-violent man is being inflicted with unwarranted and undeserved travails. I am worried that a lot of unwary observers who are not properly schooled in the elementary tenets of democracy are vilifying an innocent man.

Nnamdi Kanu is an innocent man. He has not committed any crime to make him deserve the kind of treatment being meted out to him. You do not have to like Nnamdi Kanu. You do not have to agree with him or his desires for his people. But no one has the right to deny him his fundamental human right to be free. No one has the right to deny him the right to self-determine his destiny as he sees it or wants it. No one has the right to shut him up because they do not like what he is saying or because they feel threatened by what he is saying.

Mr. Kanu’s exploits are known to all and sundry.  His desire is to have a homeland for his people. His desire is to free his people from the shackles of Nigeria. His desire is to see his people get to the promised land of Biafra. His dream is to see his people in control of their own destiny. His desire is to have a say in who governs him and his people. His desire is to ensure that no oligarchy or neo-oligarchic interests within the Ndigbo homeland is able to hold his people in bondage. His desire is to be able to water the tree of liberty for his people. There is nothing criminal in or about all this.

In all this, he has only employed semantics. He has only deployed sophistry. He had only appropriated the airwaves to be able to reach his people. He has not acquired arms. He has not killed anybody. He has not declared any armed war against anyone or organization. The only war he has ever declared is against the continued subjugation, enslavement and denigration of his Igbo people. It is a war of idea. A war of and for the minds of his people to see what he is seeing, to desire what he is desiring, to dream what he is dreaming. And he is doing that peacefully. He has been able to make his case to the majority of Ndigbo and the youths of that nation who are indeed the future of Biafra.

He is mobilizing his people to engage in the struggle to be free from their enslavement by the Nigerian State. He is making a clarion call for his people to stand up for their rights and self determine their destinies, or collective destiny. He has been innovative. He has been peaceful. He has been determined. He has been methodical. He has been deliberate. He has been consistent. He has persevered. And he is making sacrifices. There is nothing criminal in or about this.

Things To Appreciate And Emulate About The Igbo

By Abdu Abdullahi

The Saturday Sun, July 4th, 2015, featured an opinion column with the above caption. It was characterized by the writer’s reflective and expressive capacity for deep lamentation, protest, extolment and optimism about the Igbo State of affairs. A very careful reading of the piece offered me a clear and unbiased understanding of the writer’s primary aim of unveiling the true picture of the Igbo Nation in its giant strive to forge ahead within the league of federating units that have been engulfed into a prolonged crisis of confidence.

*Chinua Achebe Reads And Igbo Poem at 2011 

Achebe Colloquium at Brown University, in Rhode Island

Thus, the writer was able to impressively and emotionally fix significant areas of focus for the readers to digest with a view to constructing sound judgments on the critical issues raised as enshrined in the presentation. The writing was particularly outstanding because of its linguistic strength to communicate effectively with our original mind. Consequently, this impacted tremendously on my psychological make-up, empowering me with the expressive zeal of picking my pen to offer this contribution.

I particularly observed that the choice of the word “appreciate” in the title might have been informed by the writer’s resolve to renew and boost the collective image of the Igbo in the context of ethnic and political supremacy context. In fact, the word appreciate is readily endowed with the lexical power to assume the role of a persuasive agent.

In a way, the word appreciate possesses the driving force of engaging the mind in sober reflections on the Igbo. Mr. Clem Aguiyi’s opening paragraph was skillfully organized to deploy his message to the in-depth of our mind, fostering a strong cohesion from the beginning to the end of the writing.

To drive home his profound feelings and belief about the Igbo, he meticulously dwelt on historical, social, political and philosophical dimensions to carry the readers along the course of evidence based analysis, justification and verification. After scrutinizing the entire work, the central themes captured and refreshed my memory on the period that I really appreciated the beauty of Igbo land. My conviction about the productive attributes of the Igbo was consolidated.