THE Igbo are a unique people in Nigeria. Often hated with a ferocious clout of jealousy by their neighbours for the reason of their manifest industry and trajectory adventurism, being the most vulnerable to unpleasantness of any society they have found themselves as sojourners. Yet, they have always held their heads high as a people with a culture of taciturn personality and reflective pride in their ethnic nationality. Mendicancy as a culture is an abhorrence among the Igbo. When it actually occurs, it is only reflective of a crack at the nexus of a particular extended family.

Otherwise what garb of pride will any Igbo man wear before his peers if it is discovered that a member of his family, whether close or extended is shamelessly involved in public begging? As a people inveterately excluded from most plum jobs at the Federal level since the end of the Nigeria civil War in 1970, exception being the brief period of President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, the Igbo have long learnt how to endure the hard nut of political exclusion in a nation they have continued to sacrifice so much for her sustainable development. They remain till date the least dependent on the economic largesse of the Federal government for their economic and educational developments of all Nigeria’s peoples. Yet, they have remained foremost in these two major areas of national development by the single act of habitual enterprise.

The number one problem of the Igbo has been their inability to urinate at one point to generate solid and strong political foam, in line with the Igbo saying that “a yuko nwammiri n’otu ebe o gbaa ufufu”. Their second problem is their inability to court the confidence and support of their immediate neighbours of the South-South region. These two problems seem to have evidently reached the point of virtual solution with the recent re-election bid of President Goodluck Jonathan. At least the Igbo can now beat their chests and say to their South-South brothers look, we have shown you the test of brotherhood and thus we must now stand together as one people and work together no matter the circumstances.

This is the stance every patriotic Igbo expect from the like of Governor Willy Obiano of Anambra State at the present critical moment of Igbo sit-down-and-look strategy, and not to hastily rush to bow to the very man he campaigned against few months ago. Igbo leaders should learn the hard culture of holding their heads high by allowing their actions to be dictated by the political vibrations of their people. Governor Obiano cannot say that his hastily jumping into the bandwagon of General Buhari’s victory was at the very behest of the majority of Anambra people.

The point has to be made here and now that the majority of the Igbo like the present writer who worked for the re-election bid of President Jonathan did so for the sake of the Igbo question and chequered historical experience under the dominance of the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy of which the President-elect is an archetypical player. If General Muhammadu Buhari decides tomorrow to revoke the contract for the construction of the second Niger Bridge, and if that was the reason for Governor Obiano’s untypical desperate visit, because the Igbo did not vote for him, to God be the Glory. No Northern or South West governor of APC stoop so low to beg President Jonathan for favour in what was considered his inalienable right as a component administrator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Igbo need not lobby for ministerial and ambassadorial positions as if there are no prominent Igbo personalities in APC. The onus is on General Buhari under the present democratic dispensation to court Igbo support and not the other way round. Igbo leaders should desist from chasing wild political goose in the name of soliciting for support for their people. Governor Obiano will soon learn that that desperate political promenade to General Buhari while his people are still reeling in political mourning will definitely generate a political backlash on the integrity and invincibility of his party APGA as a core Igbo political party..

What needs to be stated here is that General Buhari’s victory has not in any way changed the general Igbo view about him. The only factor of change in this regard will only come by way of his performance as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria the next four years. Beyond this nothing else can change it. If the people of Taraba State could stand firm by their conviction to have a Governor of their choice in the midst of the wild-wind of bandwagon in the North, the Igbo can do even much better. Most importantly, the Igbo are anxiously awaiting the much orchestrated change coming particularly to the NNPC and the Armed Forces to ascertain the level of General Buhari’s inclination to equity in one united Nigerian.

For most of us, we stand convinced that our decision to work for President Jonathan re-election bid is eternal and ancestrally sanctioned by the blood of the Igbo people shed before, during, and after the 1966 pogrom. There is therefore no reason for any Igbo leader to chaotically jostle for General Buhari’s recognition at this moment. The onus is on the President-elect to prove the many unsavory tales about him through the act of governance. We are anxiously awaiting this magical change of our time.

What the Igbo need at this moment are leaders who are ready to sacrifice their wealth, time and brain, risk their personal interests at the expense of commanding Igbo interests to bring up the Igbo as a formidable democratic political force in Nigeria, not by boot-licking the APC ruling oligarchy, but by standing up to the challenges of opposition as did the Yoruba nation first under the NADECO, then AD, before the emergence of Bola Tinubu’s ACN to now dominant APC. Again, has the Upper North not stood firm with their traditional AP, which later became APP, before metamorphosising to ACN to form APC?

It is striking to note that throughout the two years of Umaru Yar’Adua’s presidency and subsequent six years of Jonathan’s presidency, no Yoruba occupied any of the eight highest positions at the Federal level namely­­­-­­: President, Vice President, Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Justice of the Federation and Secretary of the Government of the Federation (SGF). Yet, neither did the opposition ACN led by Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu nor the Yoruba in PDP go cap-in-hand begging President Jonathan to reconsider their apparently disadvantaged position. The Yoruba opposition rather than cry wolf resolved to sit down to do the necessary political mathematics and subsequently overturned the political table.

This is the lesson our Anambra State Governor should learn from the Yoruba. To most of us, Anambra State symbolises the gateway to Igbo nationalist spirit and manifest destiny as an ethnic nation. We pray that this spirit should not be desecrated by the single act of unwarranted political mendicancy. The people of Anambra State are admirably too politically conscious, intellectually sophisticated, patriotically self-willed, morally assertive and economically adroit to be so easily stampeded into the status of the political black-sheep of emergent South East- South South regional political solidarity.

Dr. Tony Nwaezeigwe is Acting Director, centre for Igbo Studies, UNN.