2023: May the Sun Rise from the East -By Tope Oke

Despite a variety of accounts from direct participants and observers, there is still a lack of consensus or closure on the real motive behind the events that took place on the morning of January 15, 1966. While some have claimed that the coup was motivated by patriotism, others believe it was simply an Igbo Coup – a phrase for a violent attempt to grab and perpetuate the Easterners in power. Another school describes the young Majors as naïve revolutionaries who were just brimming with youthful exuberance and had no sense of direction or purpose.

If perception is devoid of any molecule of emotion and sentiments, it looked like an Igbo coup! First off, amongst all the military and civilian casualties, only one was Igbo and among all the lynchpins of the coup, only one was non – Igbo! Of course, northern officers and politicians suffered the most. The subsequent gloating of the Easterners in the aftermath of the coup further enraged their northern counterparts. Imagine the mindset of the northern officers when they saw that famous interview where their colleague, Major Nzeogwu, described how they “got” their revered leader, the Premier, amongst his wife and children. It was therefore sacrilegious for the ultimate benefactor of the coup, who also happened to be an Igbo to defer upholding the military fraternity’s sacred laws against treason by bringing the mutineers to justice. Instead, they still received their wages while in moderate detention, and in all fairness to the northern officers, they exercised restraint for a whole six months. To naively and effectively seal his own fate, General Ironsi introduced the infamous Unification Decree 34 which sucked more power to the center, accentuating the northerners’ belief in a grand plan for the Igbos to consolidate their dominance.

His legendary crocodile-shaped staff couldn’t save him when a mutiny erupted in the peaceful town of Abeokuta on July 29, 1966. That night ushered in a new era of northern hegemony, politically and economically, and simultaneously relegated the Igbos to the backseat of Nigeria’s power and politics. Many of the actors on that night still control the power rungs today one way or the other.

Without a doubt, the perpetual subliminal bias towards the Easterners from the rest of the country is rooted in the aforementioned events. Perennially disdained by the Northerners for obvious reasons and held in cynicism by others for upturning the Nigerian political applecart. Even those around their neighborhood are quick to remind anyone who cares that they’re not Igbo. Often viewed with suspicion, many are even wary of entering into any economic relationship with an Igbo for some uncanny reasons but they somehow, have managed to become the most enterprising and some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country. This is not to say that the Igbos do not deserve some of the flak that they get. However, In the dark history of mortals, there are certainly no saints, and therefore it will be reckless to paint any nation or tribe as absolute victims or villains

It is in this preceding context that it is a welcome coincidence that for the first time since 1979, Nigeria is heading into a presidential election with the leading candidates representing the three major tribes, and even more significantly one of them is an Igbo candidate that has garnered sufficient goodwill and support to put a finger on the trigger for a shot at the highest office in the land. Whether he can win remains to be seen but Peter Obi is certainly riding on a wave of a popular, organic movement that cascaded from the EndSars protests which erupted across the country two years ago. Perhaps, it may not have been the case if the two leading parties had read the room and put a lead on the monetization of their primaries which produced two geriatric politicians in Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar for the ruling APC and the opposition PDP respectively.

While the ruling party was able to rally around to ultimately conduct a primary that produced its National Leader as its candidate, the opposition party is still enmeshed in some sort of political fratricide after an injury-time maneuver in their nocturnal primaries ultimately edged out long-time party stalwart and Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike out of any place on the ticket.

Admittedly, it is quite understandable why some are backing the Jagaban. If Awolowo was the political god, then Tinubu is the demi-god. With Lagos as his launchpad, he has capitalized on Nigeria’s peculiar politics to amass an enormous network of structures and resources and demonstrated enough strategic courage, patronage, and dexterity than anyone else for even his contemporaries to buy into his leadership style and surrender their loyalty to propel him to the presidency. If this was some years back, Tinubu would have secured bloc votes from his kinsmen but his entitled claim to the throne now comes at a time many are disgruntled and disillusioned by the misrule of his party and the candidate he sold to Nigerians seven years ago. If Nigeria wasn’t a paradox, his party the APC should be ostracized and not have the opportunity to smell power again for some time. However, for some reason, in a country so extremely bedeviled by the three core issues (Security, Corruption, and Unemployment) his party promised to fix in their campaign for power in 2015, the National Leader of that same party is the frontrunner to win the elections. It is nothing short of a diabolical spell and piercingly defines the extreme docility Nigerians are renowned for. Furthermore, and most crucially, if his controversial past is deflected, one cannot look away from his frail health. He clearly isn’t physically or mentally fit to stand the rigors of a role that his erstwhile sick predecessor could inflict on him. The controversial engagement in London at the Chatham House where he grotesquely outsourced the answers to questions thrown at him further amplifies the reservations many have about his cognitive abilities. It is gravely risky for the country to go from one unhealthy septuagenarian to another one and for those who conveniently compare Nigeria to Uncle Sam, they feign oblivion that our institutions are not as strong as the Americans, and neither do their leaders govern from a hospital bed abroad.

Like Tinubu, Atiku is cut from the same political cloth and has been dancing to similar political tunes since the third republic. If not for Atiku’s esurient thirst for power, they would have been dancing to the same music all along but his ambition to take one step further up the power rung has cast him in an image of a serial hopper who is in line to break the record for the most failed presidential attempts on the continent if and when he loses for the sixth time this year. The infinite amount of money and resources he has poured into each campaign only reveals he isn’t coming to serve. While he brands himself as a democrat and unifier, he financially maneuvered his way to his party’s candidacy, the result of which has torn his party right down the middle. A paradox. More so, early last year, the Deborah Matthew incident effectively portrayed him as a man who would do anything on the altar of political expediency to fulfill his ambition.

After the EndSars protests were quelled in the most barbaric manner by the government, stakeholders called for the young protesters to channel their frustrations at the polls. When you marry that with the sustained yearnings for a third force, the embodiment of that outgrowth is Peter Obi on the platform of the Labour Party. From being a running mate to one of his rivals on the opposition party’s platform barely 4 years ago, Obi has somehow, morphed into a symbol of a break from the establishment. His candidacy seems to have catalyzed a raise in the standard of electioneering campaigns with himself promising to lead a government of accountability, transparency, and prudence. The immense resonation of the message itself birthed a movement known as the “Obidients”. The frenzy behind the movement has shifted his potential gear of winning from being “impossible” to “possibly but improbable”. While momentum is swelling, there are still so many hurdles to cross. Apart from the armored ethnoreligious glass he has to break, he is up against two old, experienced warhorses who will go to any length to ensure the existing hegemony isn’t usurped. However, it is quite remarkable that the widespread support that critics have waved off as just being domiciled on social media is proliferating terrestrially. It is even rumored that the” gatekeepers” of Nigeria are offering him their support.

Beyond his candidacy, his election is bound to launch seismic reverberations across the polity. It will give many Nigerians renewed hope and belief that their country can still work and their voices heard. It will be a step forward in Nigeria’s political and democratic evolution. It will enthrone a government of relative transparency and accountability if we imagine the sheer amount of scrutiny, it will go through. It will dismantle the ethnoreligious chains that have strangled the country since independence and above all provide effective healing of the scars that have remained since 1970.

The kind of change Nigeria requires has to be launched from a political spectrum (and hopefully from the ballot box in February). It is where the deep roots of her problems erupt from. That kind of change will be taller than any height of illegality or legal jargon that might be employed to dwarf it. It won’t be like 20/10/20 when a call for change was suppressed with bullets or the subsequent proscribing of the use of Twitter or the incessant disobeying of court orders. It will be irreversible from a legal and electoral standpoint.
The next four years may determine if we will fall off the cliff or somehow manage to build a bridge across it.

After the harmattan season and as we spring into the elections, may the sun shine on Nigeria again. Hopefully, it’ll rise from the East.

Happy New Year Nigerians!

Tope Oke is a businessman and public affairs analyst.
@teepenn44