By Ike Abonyi
“Those who lie to Mr. President that he is doing well in building
a nation are unfair to him. Since he became our President in 2015, we have not
seen much of that leverage of the personality of the President to mobilise and
unite” –Oby Ezekwesili
That is the red hot question in the
country now. Everyone in and out of government, are asking the question and
many are struggling to provide the answer. What has become very clear however
is that there is no unanimity to the answer even among the Igbo themselves. But
what really do the Igbo want in Nigeria ?
Is it possible pigeon holing their desires into one straight answer? Why is
Igbo always the issue among all ethnic groups in the country?
John Nnia Nwodo, President General, Ohaneze Ndigbo |
Why are they the issue now after
they were the issue 50 years ago? Why is everyone now talking about the Igbo
and the Nigeria
question? Why has the Igbo question dominated the nation’s political space to
the extent that the President had to make two national broadcasts under two
months on it. To effectively provide appreciable response to these whys, I
intent to use a story illustration to further give insight into the problem and
possibly reinforce and bolster the historical journey of this crisis.
Once upon a time, in one notable Kingdom, a strong King had emerged bearing in his bag grudges against a particular family in his Kingdom for causing the Kingdom to go to war against itself for which the King was an active player as a youth in the Kingdom’s army. The new leader’s relationship with this family in question has not been the best politically as the family did not support his emergence.
Because of his record as a no
gobbledygook leader there was great fear and apprehension when he emerged as
the King but he allayed the fear in his installation speech assuring the people
that his past was already a prologue as they were seeing a brand new convert
from what they use to know.