By Obasi Igwe

IN the Escape from Sobibor, a man whispered to his astonished lover, “We are just pretending!”? And, so are all lovers of Nigeria as it is. If rulers had been fair to all, corruption, nepotism and killings would  not have been their allies. Gowon at least implemented his so-called three Rs, if not Aburi, instead of a Rivers ethnic cleansing to pretend to an Igbo “landlocking”; and, by 2014 the country  became an example of the black race at the very best, with no Avengers, MOSOP, MASSOB/IPOB, an OPC, and a Fulani tribal army and its Arewa, there would have been no Nnamdi Kanu? and, maybe, no expulsion of his people from the country by those nostalgic  about the pogroms and genocide.  Nigeria by now might simply have been concerned with the general issues of development, not the fundamental questions of existence

Just a reminder to Igbo expellers: When after destroying the economy, the expellers and their allies conspired to also islamise the state and, as a consequence, Gideon Orkar expelled them from the country, so that they could go enjoy life in their caliphate instead of running Nigeria as a religious orchard, he and an entire generation of mostly Middle Belt officers and men, were wiped out of the army, because of a speech by one man who saw the future. With 1976, that was the second time that Middle Belters alone paid the supreme price for attempting to bring justice to Nigeria. It was mainly Igbo military personnel who rescued the caliphate from that sahelian oblivion, despite all the atrocities and arabas associated with them, which became too much for Orkar and his group to bear.

 The sins of Nnamdi  Kanu

Almost thirty years after, the same people rescued mainly by Igbos, rose from their intrigues and conspiracies, only to issue an ultimatum for their rescuers to quit (their parts of) the North, based on sections of the Koran that granted them right to kill the Igbo and other unbelievers and seize their properties, and their pretended reason is one young man called Nnamdi Kanu, who unlike them, has never physically hurt a fly.

Why wouldn’t there be Nnamdi Kanu, after various Nigerian Evans in power and their Igbo allies used injustice and neglect to create him?  Whereas for 50 years, various Igbo elite competed with each other on who would win  most “acceptability” to Nigeria by being the greatest denier or betrayer of Igbo,  using normal dialectal peculiarities to divide, weaken and permanently enslave their people. Nnamdi Kanu, in one fell swoop, re-united the grassroots Igbo nation down to the coast, and beyond the bottled-up “Southeast Region” which, to the utter amusement of others, some Igbo political and intellectual wise acres all along sang? as their requiem mass.

Nnamdi Kanu equally re-animated the true but cruelly suppressed template of sanguinary relations that bound together peoples of the entire Eastern Region and beyond since ages. Given that Igbos have no desire for any other pogrom, genocide and ethnic cleansing against them and other Easterners, if he continues along the peaceful and non-violent course, improving on political correctness, which almost every adult is anxious of, including that not all Nigerians are bad or hate the Igbos, same way he is unrelenting in condemning evil Igbos too, his place in history is assured, in or out of Nigeria.

Many Igbo elite and intelligentsia, shamefully more interested in personal survivalism, and political and economic favours from whomsoever could offer them have, for 50 years, failed to hold Igbo office-holders to account over the stealing of development monies and siphoning of the rest to all manners of Northern godfathers who planted them to undermine their people. Nnamdi Kanu consistently filled that patriotic void, denouncing a “zoo” in which jackals and hyenas kill and do whatever else they like to other animals, with everyone cowed into submission.? Nnamdi Kanu may be Biafra-specific, but the message is for the oppressed everywhere. There is no way that Igbos would be watching how Abuja and various places in Nigeria are being hurriedly developed with monies from the East, while the latter is rendered desolate, together with multitudes of other targeted marginalisations, without an Nnamdi Kanu rising up to challenge the goings-on.

The entire North is being greened and dammed with monies from the East, and for decades, fertilizers provided almost free of charge, just like every other thing that is free up there in One Nigeria, and compare that with Ogoni, Andoni, Ijaw, Efik-Annang-central Ibibio-Ogoja, and Igbo lands, and you don’t expect an Nnamdi Kanu? Igbos, generally, have no problems with the country; it is murderous and feudal Nigeria that cannot put up with the Igbo’s quest for a level playing field for? everybody. Yet, the beneficiaries of these free meal tickets continually insult the sensibilities of other Nigerians, including the use of religion to keep their own masses in perpetual slavery, and massacres to subdue the Middle Belt tribes that attempt to emulate the Igbos in rejecting any oaths of fealty  to the feudal system. Perpetrators and agents of these crimes are suddenly frequenting the Eastern minority areas to warn them to remain with slavery, if and when the Igbos are enclaved out of the coast, and they would have neatly solved their Eastern minority and Igbo problems.

If those Igbo elite condemning Nnamdi Kanu  had all these 50 years applied similar vehemence in challenging the corruption of the post-war Igbo  political classes, there might not have been a near  romanticisation of  Biafra  by anyone.  What happened to the Igbos also happened to a few other ethnic nationalities, and some of them have their Nnamdi Kanus in waiting.

As October draws near, nothing that a man intends to do that he might not construct a justification from his Koran, or even his Bible, whether killing  the infidels or treating them as brothers; whether for love, hatred, freedom, slavery,what have you. To some non-professional interpreters, the same Koran that people rely on to declare threats from Arewa House and intrigue mayhem in Nigeria and elsewhere, cautioned (abridged):  “Do not treat men with scorn, nor walk proudly on the earth: Allah does not love the arrogant and the vain glorious. Rather let your gait be modest and your voice low”. And, there are several role models that true moslems are enjoined to emulate: “You have a good example in Abraham and those who followed him.

Truly, in those men there is a good example for everyone who puts his hopes in Allah and in the Last Day. It may well be that Allah will put good will between you and those with whom you have hitherto been at odds”. That holy book might be referring to the likes of the expellers: “Have you not seen those who, though forbidden to intrigue in secret, defiantly plot together in wickedness and enmity and disobedience to the Apostle”, warning  that “Intrigue is the work of Satan, who thereby seeks to annoy the faithful” -( the Penguin Classics edition of THE KORAN. Trans. by N.J. Dawood, 1974, pp.190, 267, 272.)

If those non-expert interpretations are correct, it then means that those who  have been killing various Nigerians and plotting further harm to  Igbos are in breach even  of their own religion, which further substantiates the view that they are not in islam to promote the work of God, but in it to pursue the ambitions of tribe. They are of the tribe of Idi  Amin Dada, not Ataturk or Nasser. This is apart from our lawyers determining the legal implications of inciting a people into the reciprocal secession that the Kaduna Declaration vowed to impose upon the Igbos,quite unlike the unilateral separation that is usually associated with the conduct.

 Revolution now or never!

The objective conditions for a people-led democratic revolution in Nigeria are complete, and the date it should break out is October 1, 2017, not only for the re-ordering of the constituent units of political administration, otherwise called restructuring to address the class question for the elite, but also as a step in solving the national question for the socio-cultural emancipation of the masses of? all nationalities.  If that day passes without  people taking their destinies into their own hands, and their oppressors, the political, war, religious, economic and other criminals running helter-skelter in search of safety, the entire citizens of this country, especially the intelligentsia, should cover their faces in shame. Whereas previous crises in Nigeria were “resolved” in favour of the self-same corrupt elite that created them and, so, could not last, this time it must be resolved in favour of the people who have suffered for far too long, otherwise let  each and everyone go their separate ways, instead of co-joined in this demonic obloquy.

Since 1966, we’ve been living a false life, with the least fit, hardened of heart and leathery of conscience, ruling everyone as they like, such that whoever believes he loves Nigeria to survive, and stem the tide of the Nnamdi Kanus, must right now sign in for the revolution. Whereas there are many centres and sub-centres of backwardness and oppression in the country, the long-pampered caliphate towers above all.

Nothing is sacrosanct in the caliphate, except that a lot of Nigerians enjoy being slaves. The caliphate had earlier been destroyed by the British, before they restored it to help in African enslavement; part-Tiv Nzeogwu and full  Tiv Orkar had risen up against it; Sani Abacha casually removed its Dasuki, and from its inside had arisen the Bala  Usmans, Haroun Adamus, and others opposed to it. The anachronism has managed for more than 200 years to stifle peace and progress; now it is time to pack and set the North and all free.

The caliphate and other purveyors of harmful primitivism nationwide must be proscribed, and leadership of the peaceful islamic community in Nigeria democratised, just like in the US, Europe, and other civilised countries of the world, as well as CAN in Nigeria, so that an Igbo, Yoruba, Kanuri, Fulani, Hausa, etc moslem can contest and become the Sarkin Musulmi, head the JNI, etc, and declare the sighting of the moon, and so on. With democratisation, the parallelism in the governance of the country will go; Nigeria will become a functional secular state under a single modern judicial system, devoid of a hypocritical sharia applied differentially to the poor, while the rich and strong hide under the civilised common law for protection against beheading and amputations.

By only looking up to the modern democratic state instead of the caliphate and its sultans and emirs for survival, the Fulani, Hausawa, etc would be liberated from feudal bondage, with a new sense that human beings are born equal and only become unequal by lawful personal efforts; their positive patriotic instincts would be awakened, and with full explosion of their economic potential suppressed for so many generations, appreciate joining their Southern counterparts in building a civilised nation-state of their dreams; due credit would be given to the Kanem  Borno  ancestors who peacefully introduced islam into Nigeria, instead of the current pretence that it came from the violent jihad; the Shiites and other sects would achieve a sense of equality with the sunni; the almajiri habit would decelerate; the one item that has been stoking the fires of hatred, violence, bloodshed, militant herding, etc in the country, must have been laid to rest; the most treacherous channel by which foreign powers, both Western and Middle-Eastern, have been using to destroy this prospective great African society, would have been plugged; and the oft-repeated level playing field that many people aspire to, instead of parasitism and god-fatherism, would have substantially drawn closer.

Fulani herdsmen or embedded armies, being subjected to equal laws, would have nowhere to run to for protection except the state, thereby curbing their murderous instincts. Igbos and other Southerners in the North would end their fears of the Hisbah police and all sorts of other illegalities applied to them by their courts. The IPOB/MASSOB, OPC, IYC, the non-expulsionist Arewa could be tolerated as peaceful organisations pursuing legitimate aspirations accountable only to the electorate, while opportunities would be created for the Okun and Oworo in Kwara, and Ibolo and Iseyin in Kogi to free   themselves from caliphate enslavement and rejoin their kind for a full Yoruba cultural emancipation, and complete unity of Igbos within a secular Nigeria, undeterred by plots of “landlocking” by anyone. With the caliphate gone, the unity of the Tiv,  Gbagyi, Hausa, Fulani, etc in the several states scattered, would be easier, all, as processes in the peaceful resolution of the national question, and  foundation for a stable class society befitting the potentials and talents of the millions of Nigerians. Total peace may not have been achieved, but that would be a significant step towards it.  The choice in Nigeria today is whether or not we remain one, and on what basis.

Prof. Igwe teaches Political Science at UNN 

Feedback

Re:Nigeria in the death throes? 

ALL that you wrote and all you have been saying is the truth. Nothing but the truth!

The undertakers will not give us what we want. I for one I am frustrated. The more we express ourselves nicely of what we want “Restructuring ” the more the enemies dig deeper i.e. their control over Nigeria! Looking around me in the south, I feel choked up by the enemy! I feel the stranglehold of the oppressor! I find it harder to get out of this slavery!

We should speak up more and more ! And what is the plan!!!! Nigeria is NOT WORKING!

All you wrote is already happening!!

 A.Akintola

I have been an ardent reader of your column in Vanguard newspaper. You have been able to educate young minds like myself on issues bothering this country. Also let me say a big well done in trying to bring the entire South together to form a common ground. As for restructuring and true federalism which you have always canvassed for, my fear is this sir, how are we sure that after we restructure, these same poliTRICKtians won’t retire to their regions or federating states to continue the looting spree?

 Regards

 Nwaboku Chuka

 Student of the Dept of Geology Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State.