There has been no agreement among the Igbo about the boycott of the Anambra gubernatorial elections slated for November as called by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Perhaps nothing has ever divided Igbo opinion more than this boycott issue; but in the midst of the cacophony that has characterized much of the debate, some salient points are missed. The missing of the point comes in two ways: through honest misunderstanding of the real issues; and through deliberate muddying of the waters by seasoned politicians who fear that the boycott would hurt their selfish political career interests. But, the issues involved are too serious to be abandoned to either of the two sides listed above. There is a third group that has not yet spoken out strongly enough, and those voices should speak now and never let up until they are heard.
This opinion piece belongs in that third group.
The Igbo say that a child can play with its mother’s breasts and get away with it, but the day the child dares to play with his father’s scrotal sacs is the day the child gets appropriately punished.
Let’s go there.
The ultimate truth is that the governors of the South East states in Nigeria have collectively failed to provide the needed leadership that would protect Igbo interests in Nigeria. All the governors have been local champions who cannot see beyond the boundaries of their individual states; sometimes they can’t even see beyond the gates of their official governor’s residences.
One may disagree with IPOB on their ultimate goal of seceding Igbo from Nigeria, but one would be hopelessly dishonest, or outright irresponsible to self-interest, to say that IPOB has been wrong on how absolutely useless the South East governors have been to core Igbo interest in Nigeria.
To add to the utter short-sightedness of these governors -whose conception of development only ends in tarring of the village and inter-village roads- they are also of the worst cowardly set; the likes we’ve never seen in the East right from the time of Nigeria’s independence. It is as if Igbo governors are getting weaker and more cowardly as time passes. Michael Iheonukara Okpara was a very courageous Igbo man who not only boldly developed South Eastern cities of Enugu, Onitsha, Owerri, Aba, and to some extent Umuahia his own town, but also South South cities of Port Harcourt, and Calabar. Okpara was not busy building village roads -he was developing both Port Harcourt and Calabar (as coastal cities) to rival Lagos in everything -industrial estates, international airport, and other megacity infrastructure. He did so without ever looking the way of Nigeria’s federal government, and he built them with a spirit that says “this is what we want for ourselves, deal with it. If you like it, good. If you don’t, too bad for you because we won’t stop!”.
That is the Igbo spirit.
After Okpara, Sam Mbakwe did the same, and to some extent, Jim Nwobodo in Imo and Anambra states respectively. In fact, Nwobodo and Mbakwe built Anambra and Imo (Mbakwe started Imo airport) with a certain confrontational attitude towards the federal government of Nigeria which has historically schemed to “contain Igbo people”. These real Igbo men stared down the FG and built infrastructure that could attract Igbo and other people back to South East. Had Jim Nwobodo continued to be governor of Anambra, even this much smaller one, he would have built an International airport there whether the federal government liked it or not. Fashola did exactly that in Lagos and handed the batten to Ambode who is continuing the Lekki international airport project and deep sea port, demonstrating no change in leadership philosophy for Lagos – bold, ambitious, unapologetic.
Why, for example, can’t the governor of Enugu state sponsor and pass a law that bans open cattle grazing in Enugu state? A family friend from Enugu state told me yesterday that people no longer go to farms and streams in her village because terrorist Fulani herdsmen kill the men and rape the women in the bushes there. Why is it that the only “policy” demonstrated by Enugu state governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi is to cry like a woman? What type of a governor is that? What has Ugwuanyi done to protect Enugu villages from alien terrorists essentially making life hell for the people he claims to govern?
Why is Owerri -a so called capital city- so insecure that people are being gunned down in broad daylight while the governor goofs around? Owerri used to be the most peaceful and “civilized” South East city; but now it has become a den of kidnappers, assassins, and armed robbers.
Why is Obiano not able to build an international airport at the site of the so called “cargo airport”? Anambra state has so much potential that all it would take is an investor ( foreign or domestic ) who would be given a BOT contract to build a world class international airport to attract entrepreneurial Igbo people back from all corners of Nigeria and the earth. Why can’t Obiano see that Anambra is the commercial center-point of Igboland, and deserves international connection? Oh, I see, he is waiting for the
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