Ndi~Igbo -By Peter Omonua

I had wanted to write this essay awhile ago. For some reasons, I kept pushing it away. When Nnamdi Kanu was sentenced, I thought it would be a good time to do it.

First off, I need to disclose that i am not Igbo, and may not have the complete picture of the goings-on within the Igbo political and cultural circle. This article is based on my observation, in form of ‘publicly available information’. In addition to not being Igbo, I am also neither Yoruba nor Hausa.

Ndi~Igbo, at this moment, does not appear to have a leader. Those who had hitherto carried out the oversight role have been mysteriously and systematically eliminated between Buhari’s second term and the current Tinubu’s government. The manner they all died should leave no one in doubt. First, it was George Obiozor (Ex-President General – Ohaneze Ndigbo – who died Dec. 2022); Professor Ben Nwabueze (SAN), who, might be said to be advanced in age, but was one of the remaining pillars of the struggle for Igbo emancipation. He died on October 29, 2023. Then Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife (who died Dec. 2023); followed by Onyeka Onwenu (who died July 2024); Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu (Ex-President General – Ohaneze Ndigbo – who died Dec. 2024). The one other vociferous person I am afraid may be in the ‘terminator’s’ radar is Senator Enyinaya Abaribe. He needs to be protected.

The manner they all died point to something very uncanny. I observed a pattern about how they all passed and my mind told me something was not right. I had to be sure I was not being paranoid, until I stumbled on a video made by Dr. Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo, the investigative-journalist daughter of Dr. Omololu Olunloyo, former Oyo State governor. She echoed my suspicion, and told us she was sure Ndi~Igbo leaders were being taken out one at a time. It was more like “Strike the Sheppard and the sheep will scatter”, and it seems to be working. Their death has left huge vacuum in Ndi~Igbo community, which now appears totally dysfunctional, with no unified position on national issues. This vacuum in leadership, may be responsible for the disdain Ndi~Igbo have been subjected to by recent successive administrations. It would not be wrong to say the Igbos have been practically ostracized, to put it bluntly, over the last 11 years covering Buhari’s 8 years and Tinubu’s 3 years. This leads me to the recent conviction and sentencing of Nnamdi Kanu. When squared against other individuals accused of similar crimes or even more egregious offences (i.e. Boko Haram and Fulani killers), it reinforces the conclusion about the deliberate subjugation, with an intent to humiliate.

While at the national level, it may appear that Tinubu is struggling to steady the ship of state from the ‘tidal wave’ of economic and security disaster, one thing we can all agree on is that he has and continues to empower the Yoruba people. He is unabashedly and unapologetically enriching his people and creating expansive avenues for them to amass wealth. He is not only elevating his Southwest base economically, but deepening their political control. It is almost as if this is the 1970s repeating itself, where the Yorubas were empowered to dominate the economic and investment sectors to the detriment of all other ethnic groups. Unfortunately, some Igbo politicians and businessmen shamelessly lap up the droppings from the Southwest table. You see them all around, adorning APC and Tinubu Caps and chorusing “On your mandate we shall stand”. Amongst these are Orji Uzo Kalu, Benjamin Kalu (The Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives) Chief Arthur Eze and some other noveau-rich social personalities (Obi Cubana, Cubana chief priest and E-Money, Yul Edochie amongst others), all of whom are groveling to be seen as close to Tinubu or to his son Seyi. This is despite what may be described as the subjugation and humiliation to which the Ndi~Igbo have been subjected over the last 11, with a few rather colorless Igbo sons and daughter assigned to mostly inconsequential portfolios as quota candidates.

If you did not get the clear message delivered by the exclusion of Ndi~Igbo from Buhari’s government, I don’t know how else you will. If you have not gotten a message from the minuscule representation of Ndi~Igbo in Tinubu’s government, I don’t know how else you would. If you did not get any message at all, the selective treatment of Nnamdi Kanu, compared to the kid-glove treatment of other agitators like Sunday igboho, Professor Banji Akintoye, and worse still, the Boko Haram and Fulani killers, I wonder how ignominious you will like to be subjected to get the message. The humiliation is not about to end anytime soon. Except Ndi~Igbo has the latitude to continually absorb the exclusion and ostracization, they might want to consider a negotiated settlement and a deliberate exit strategy.

There were unconfirmed reports, that at a certain point, there was an offer and a concession for the Igbos to take the current 5 Igbo states to form a new nation. If that report is true and that offer is still on the table, it may be wise to consider it. Coincidentally, Senator Ned Nwoko, recently avowed that the Ika region of Delta State is, to all intent part of Igbo Nation. He even requested for the creation of an Ika State to bring the total number of Igbo States to 6. If that assertion can be pursued further and actualized, that would address a lot of the misgivings about the viability of a proposed Igbo Nation.

The ongoing feud between Igbos and Yorubas is not new. I grew up in the 70s and 80s observing it. However, the hostility deteriorated further in the run-up to the 2023 presidential election. It got to a ‘War footing’ when Tinubu was announced the winner of the elections, against the odds of what the general electorate, including some even in the camp of those who now celebrate victory had expected. That mutual animosity, which might have been a little crack on a wall, has over the past 11+ years of APC government, become a gaping hole. I watched in disbelief the treatment meted to Igbos during the Lagos gubernatorial election of 2023, and for simply wanting to exercise their electoral right as enshrined in the Constitution. It was partly the reason I wrote the articled which I titled “The Vindication of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the Biafra question”, (Sahara Reporters Op-Ed – April 04, 2023).

I was so aghast at the display of hate towards the Igbos that in the article, i had counselled that the Igbos, thenceforth, halt all future investments in Lagos and to gradually start rechanneling developmental initiatives to ‘Ala~Igbo’. It is a call which I will still now reiterate. That fractured relationship has been on a slippery slope. If you know the level of pent-up anger and resentment of the Yorubas towards the Igbos (and I suppose vice-versa), you would not even require any prodding to do what I have suggested here. I should know, because I grew up in Yoruba land, speak the language fluently, have a lot of associates who are Yoruba and know venomous comments and statements I get to read and hear concerning Igbos.

The last presidential election of 2023 was the closest I could recall that the Igbos came closest to the presidency. The INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu performed an umpire gymnastics, in the glare of the whole world. He is now being rewarded with an Ambassadorial position. (At least, that helps him to not having to walk the streets of Nigeria and be confronted with possible rewards of his travesty). It was a double jeopardy for Ndi~Igbo. In the first instance, the presidential ticket for 2023 was not supposed to be contested with the Igbos. That the Yoruba even contested, despite having only just completed 8 years of Vice-presidency and prior 8 years of Presidency was the first insult. The declaration of Yoruba as the winner, against the odds was Salt-Upon-Injury. Peter Obi wept, not for himself, not because INEC made a caricature of the electioneering process, he wept for Nigeria and on behalf of the average Nigerians. He wept because he foresaw what was to come, which is the situation we are all now dealing with. It is the situation for which the US president has lambasted Nigeria as the “NOW DISGRACED COUNTRY’, and his threat to invade.

It is important for Ndi~Igbo to realize that, no matter how glaring it might have been that an Igbo man won that election, or any future elections for that matter, there is an unspoken agreement and an understanding between the Fulani and Yoruba, to deny the Igbos Nigerian Presidency. I have been privy to discussions between Southwest individuals of reputable standing, during which they had unwittingly blurted out comments such as: “As soon as Tinubu finishes his 8 years, it would go back to the North for 8 years and it would not be coming back to us again until 2039”. When I ask about the time for the Igbos, they utter some mumbo jumbo, very incoherent explanations as to why the Igbos are not yet ready for the Presidency. Long and short, the Igbos are not in their calculations. Ndi~Igbo’s participation in the elections is to give the process a semblance of national suffrage; to portray the exercise and the process leading to it as legitimate. They need it to be seen as an all-encompassing exercise before local and international observers. Invariably, the Igbos have continued to be used as the pawn in the political cheeseboard game for the Fulani north and the Yoruba southwest. Put in another way so there are no ambiguities: the current arrangement is not designed to see the emergence of an Igbo president, in 2027 nor in 2031. It has been pre-planned for a Tinubu 2nd term and for the Fulani to take over from the Yoruba in 2031. It’s a rotation of the presidency between the Fulani and the Yoruba. However, they will continue to dangle, like a carrot, the prospect of Igbo Presidency, to lock them down in Nigeria.

The Fulani may appear to be snuggling up to the Igbos via a deceptive coalition which includes Peter Obi, who it now appears they are coaxing to accept a vice-presidential candidate slot behind Atiku. It would be shameful if he accepts. That could erode any political gains and the goodwill he has built. Any fraternization of Fulani with Igbos at this time is intended merely as a spite of the Yoruba, who have been their traditional and historical allies. We can all agree that they have much more in common, if not for the shared faith in Islam, but at least in duplicitous approach to agreements. The Yorubas would as well be more amenable to the Fulani’s sharia propagation agenda than the Igbos could ever be. It is in the best interest of both Fulani and Yoruba to not support an Igbo president and they would readily put aside any differences they may have to jointly inhibit the realization of such an eventuality. 

But let’s assume, hypothetically that Ndi~Igbo was favored by the ‘powers that be’, to become the president as a mark of northern/Fulani benevolence; what could that president possibly accomplish in 8 years? What could you possibly put in place that the next Fulani administration would not dismantle? What became of any progress that the cumulative terms of Obasanjo, Yardua and Jonathan achieved within the 8 years of Buhari? You want to become the president, to what end? If fortuitously that was to happen, on the one hand, you will be confronted with an unprecedented level of acrimony and frustration, even more vicious than Goodluck Jonathan had to live through during his presidency. Secondly, any developmental stride you might accomplish within that period would most likely be rolled back. You then have to wait another 16 years to repeat the feat, assuming the rotation between the 3 major tribes was even followed and respected. I don’t fault those who live in dreamland, hoping that with some good luck, an Igbo man may yet attain the position of Nigerian president. It is their prerogative to wish. I am a realist and the reality of the Nigeria I grew up in, in my mind forecloses that outcome.

The glory of a prosperous Igbo Nation does not lie within Nigeria. Ndi~Igbo needs to chart a course outside of Nigerian. I do not have the diplomatic expertise or political wizardry to prescribe the shape or form of what that disentanglement should look like. That should be for the deliberation and determination of the ‘council of elders’ that may yet emerge from the Igbo Nation. I would say though, that the ‘Council’ should not be afraid to negotiate, but must also not negotiate out of fear. The ‘Council’ should not include mercantilist politicians, self-serving undesirables like Orji Uzo Kalu, Hope Uzodinma, Rochas Okorocha, Chukwuma Soludo, Okezie Ikpeazu or ‘the now disgraced’ Joe Igbokwe (if I may borrow that phrase from Donald Trump). These characters’ main driving force is primitive wealth accumulation for showmanship. Their core motivation for seeking public office is to trade the people’s mandate for profit; which are clear cases of spinning their selfish desires to seem like National interest. They derive their relevance from obscene display of wealth, and would most likely opt to remain part of a debaucherous Nigeria where grand-scale larceny and kleptomaniacs are celebrated.

When that assembly of ‘Elders’ Council’ is constituted, it is my hope that altruistic, selfless Ndi-Igbo men and women, individuals that have demonstrated transparency in speaking for the Ndi~Igbo challenges will make that list. Among these, in my outsider estimation should include people like: Alex Otti, Enyinnaya Abaribe, Bob-Manuel Udokwu and importantly, Peter Obi. I would have loved to have Osita Chidoka on this list, except that he prevaricates when speaking to issues, a trait which makes him sound more like the 2 other tribes than Igbo.

There is an attempt for Ndi~Igbo to be consigned to a position of irrelevance in the Nigerian political discourse. If Tinubu has his way, he would extend that “Cultural erasure” to the realms of economic suppression. You cannot achieve greatness, as a people within Nigeria. I am writing as someone who has lived within these 3 tribes, long enough and studied enough pre- and post-colonial literature on Nigerian to understand the idiosyncrasies of each of these tribes. The dynamics of these relationships, vile and mutually destructive as it were, is not likely to change; not now, not in the foreseeable future. The consequence is that each tribe continues to see as being in their best interest for the others not to progress, in what should really have been a healthy competition between neighboring countries or regions.

The Ndi~Igbo ‘Council of Elders’ may want to resuscitate the offer previously made of the 5 states (plus Senator Ned Nwoko’s Ika Igbo). Tinubu, who himself is desirous of an independent Yoruba region or country would be glad to see those he considers his ‘Achilles heel’ go. It may pave the way for his own realization of an Oduduwa country or region, a commitment he most certainly would have made to the Sunday Igboho / Banji Akintoye group.

Do not forget, Ebitu Ukiwe was unceremoniously yanked off as Ibrahim Babangida’s deputy; heavens did not fall. Peter Obi was robbed of his presidency; heavens did not fall. It is doubtful that Nigeria (i.e. Fulani and Yoruba) would ever get to that point at which they would be comfortable with an Igbo president; each for their own self-preservation reasons – the Fulani, for fear they would not be able to control the Igbo and lose control of their hold on Nigeria as their Estate; and for the Yoruba, the fear of competition and a reversion to the pre 1967 era where Igbos dominated in all spheres.

The animosity against the Igbos in Tinubu’s Southwest, especially Lagos is intensifying. You saw it during Governor Ambode re-election campaign in 2019. You saw it during the Sanwo-Olu re-election campaign in 2023; you will see it in the 2027 gubernatorial and presidential elections. You have seen the destructions of Igbo businesses in Lagos and the demolition of multimillion naira houses belonging mostly to Igbos. Do you want to continually be an endangered species in both the North of the country and the South West, and for how long? Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Peter Omonua

pomonua@yahoo.com