KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future

The gods are naked (2)

M. O. Ené
egbedaa@aol.com
Tuesday, May 21, 2002

::::continued from part 1::::

MAGIC MOMENTS:

It is becoming sadly common to bash and trash other Nigerian nations on the web, with the obvious exception of the Igbo -- some have developed a special knack for bashing and trashing only themselves. Some statements are so preposterous they simply tell you the author needs further professional development. How do you respond to a supposedly educated Hausa-Fulani Muslim who regurgitates stereotypical baloney beyond belief? This morning I read one in South Africa of all places tell the world that the Igbo are intolerant of other religions! Here is person who would not hesitate in cutting off the head of a fellow citizen and parading it across town for being of another faith… as in Gideon Akaluka of Kano. Here is a person who, while professing the immense help he got from named Igbo sons, turns around in the same piece to mischaracterize and broad-brush paint Ndiigbo. Any wonder why we cannot stop the cat from mousing. 

Personally, I do not care who is what in Nigeria; I would rather dwell on our cultures, on the things that make us human, and on things that promote constructive coexistence of all Nigerian nations. It is very difficult however to ignore obvious mismanagement of the truth. The following passage from Remi Oyeyemi is so full of it I could not let it fly: 

“On the contrary, the Yorubas have always treated the Igbos as true compatriots. The Yorubas have allowed the Igbos unfettered freedom in their land to enable them (the Igbos) truly realize their potentials without any socio-political inhibitions. The Yorubas have always recognised and respected the sanctity of lives and accorded the Igbos the same kind of protection, which their daughters and sons enjoyed. The Yorubas enabled an engendering atmosphere for prosperous commerce and permitted them to freely practice their faith(s) without molestation or harassment.” 

Fabulous fibs make petty propaganda. Minister Modupe Adelaja must be laughing off her head at the “true compatriot” treatment. Here is a daughter of the Yoruba national leader and a minister of the federal republic calling Ndiigbo “traitors,” and not a single Yoruba person of substance said one word! It reminded me of what Colonel Victor Banjo told Wole Soyinka in 1967 Enugu about the Pogrom in Western Region of Nigeria: 

“But what happened to all you [Yoruba] people in the West? Otegbeye and all those people who are never off the pages of the newspapers. Not one word of condemnation from anyone. No protest to Gowon, not even a student demonstration, not one act of solidarity with the victims. How did the rest of the country expect them [Easterners] not to feel cut off?” 
[“The Man Died” by Wole Soyinka, page 180]

If “unfettered freedom” means smoking out Ndiigbo with the “Obalende/Obalande Test” [See Surviving Biafra (Part 1) by Alfred Uzokwe], I want no part of it. If “true” love means bringing soldiers to kill your landlords and or tenants and their wives and infants, please spare me your hate. Those who say there was no pogrom in Oodua can go on deluding themselves with a sham shield of innocence. It happened. We remember. Oh yes, we remember. We remember that across the width and breath of Nigeria north and west of the River Niger, Ndiigbo were set upon and butchered for being Igbo. Our own dear Wole Soyinka called it as he saw it on Pages 118-119 of The Man Died:

“The following fact is therefore stated merely as a matter of record: in September/October 1966, another ATROCITIES did take place all over Nigeria including Lagos, the seat of Yakubu’s government. But where it really manifested itself in a grand style was in the North. The ATROCITIES were so public even in the south (Lagos)…. Man-hunts, publicized by machine-gun stutters took place around Ikoyi…. – Ikorodu checkpoint was the favorite kidnap point…”

There are no set numbers for a pogrom to have taken place. Only a callous citizen would compare numbers of Easterners killed up North and the obvious smaller number of heads severed in the West. Or, maybe because we were spared the barbarity of dissecting a pregnant woman to kill her unborn child, as happened up North, then it was a soccer stampede of sorts! Denial, as the advertisement has it, is not the river in Egypt; it is a deep-rooted delusion in Nigeria. Yet, we must learn to move on. We are not moving on because many do not comprehend the complexity of the situation. Instead, we are told that Ndiigbo are suffering from some je ne sais quoi complex. Typical oppressor’s mentality: blame the victim.  

“I am not very happy about this. We should put a stop to these. It appears that it is going beyond the point of recklessness and irresponsibility…” That was Yakubu Gowon speaking in late 1966 Lagos. It has not stopped. We have had other “lesser” postwar Pogroms. What happened after June 12, 1993, the so-called “Oso Abiola” (Abiola Flight)? What provoked the Massacre of Ndiigbo and the burning of Alaba Market? What about the killing of Ndiigbo at Ports Authority by Dr. Frederick Fasheun’s OPC? If these are “respecting the sanctity of lives,” imagine what would happen when an army of anarchists is fully mobilized. Unless the writer is arguing that the Yoruba have meted out similar treatments to their sons and daughters, as in ‘Wetie’ and in Akin Omoboriowo-Michael Ajasin 1983 saga or as in the current can of worms in Osun State, then I don’t see the Yoruba nation in that light…. sorry to generalize. So, if the ceaseless killing of Ndiigbo in Yorubaland and elsewhere is “unfettered freedom,” then we should start writing in vernacular.

That the Yoruba “enabled an engendering atmosphere … without molestation or harassment,” albeit false, is neither here nor there. We are still talking of “one Nigeria.” The Igbo and other Nigerians have contributed immensely to the prosperity and progress of Lagos and other parts of Yorubaland. Harassment of Igbo traders is widely common long before the area boys made it blatant. Not one statement in the above passage can stand the test of Bar Beach breeze. One the other side, NEVER, not once has any Igbo community set on a Yoruba person for being Yoruba. If you think there are not many Yoruba people in Igboland, think again.  

AFFIRMATIVE BASHING:

It is so interesting that the writer saw it fit to try building bridges amidst such blatant bashing of Igbo people who had done him no harm. Unfortunately, no bridge built on the oppression of another nation can stand. The Igbo would not want any part of it; their sense of social justice is too acute to tolerate the denigration of the Hausa-Fulani people, no matter the insalubrities of our recent history. It was a new low, but not a surprising low, to state that unlike the Igbo and Yoruba, “an average Hausa-Fulani man who has no blue blood in his vein and believes that his daily meal must come from the one Allah has chosen.” This is yet another stereotypical statement that has no place in public discourse. In any case, the Igbo lay no claim to such biological and political nonsense as “blue blood”; they are republicans, remember! No Igbo person should occupy himself with the concept of “born-to-rule” because it is a hollow concept in Igbo theosophy. As evidenced in the name of Obi of Onicha Ugbo (Delta State) Agbogidi Chukwumaleze, only God knows the king; the rest of humanity is a sea of souls searching for their destiny, and not one is god. Besides, since the Fulani do not occupy an inch of Igboland, they can be born to rule from Sagamu to Sokoto. 

It goes on, and it gets even lower: For “the [Hausa-Fulani], there is nothing untoward about marrying an eight-year-old,” while “it is a noxious crime” amongst the Igbo and the Yoruba. So? There is nothing “untoward” about betrothing days-old girls; it is an African culture. However, since the Igbo do not dream of marrying eight-year-old girls, its noxiousness or its criminality is a no-brainer. I am ashamed as an African that we could spew out such inanities. I would never submit such a nugatory nuisance for public consumption, and I hope no other Nigerian writer on these webs degenerates to such a level, no matter the provocation. Not even the infamous “Adamu Mohammed” satire of the Abacha days went this low. It is understandable that web publishers desist from being gatekeepers for decency in writing. However, the line must be drawn somewhere. No Nigerian should take on an entire people and broad-brush paint them. A critic wondered why Ndiigbo let the Fulani (as if so distinct from Hausa-Fulani) get away with bashing and not the Yoruba, proving that there is an underground industry of ethnic bashing and mischievous goading of Ndiigbo. Once the Igbo pick on the Fulani for a fight, Hausa-Fulani and Oodua elite will forget Ilorin and team up again for another looting spree! These evil machinations should stop. Enough already.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

Besides propagating a culture of crudity, it is hard to see what the piece intends to achieve. We all know that many Yoruba politicians are in a quandary, not that others have it all together. No, but the Yoruba have an added problem: They control the presidency and, as Kole Omotoso boasted in 1999, they were going to wow the world with the superiority of the Yoruba race. It hasn’t happened. Therein lies the danger of broad-brush painting; it ropes in everybody, even the Yoruba majority that roundly rejected President Obasanjo at the polls. Personally, I doubt the failures or successes of Aare Obasanjo or of Kakanfo Afonja provide a good study in Yoruba political pragmatism. Similarly, the antics of Igbo politicians -- especially the election rejects who rave and rant in the media -- should not adversely reflect the political prowess, social sophistication, and educational excellence of Ndiigbo. 

Mr. Olu Itayemi got it right in a piece published just a couple of days before President Obansanjo entered the Rock. Responding to his non-Yoruba friends who had wondered what the restive race really wanted, he submitted:

“…Some Yoruba leaders have been carrying on recently… as if a Yoruba presidency at all costs is all they stand for. They behaved as if they were ready to pay any price for it, even the price of abandoning self-determination. Now with the bizarre turn of events as we have witnessed lately, they have been left in a quandary or a cul-de-sac. They failed to focus on the centrepiece of Yoruba agenda. This left outsiders with the unfortunate impression that the Yorubas do not know what they want.”
 [Focusing the Yoruba agenda, Vanguard, May 27, 1999] 

Three years later, the situation got worse. Everyone is lost for words. What difference would four more years make, especially with three-year-old AD bride being sold into matrimony with PDP geriatrics? You see, to those who do not know where they are headed, every roads leads somewhere. At this juncture, it might be prudent to try and figure out very briefly what the entire exercise was all about. The following schools of thought hold: 

1. 2003

As could be seen, the Anenih-fixed landslide of 2003 may be running into some turbulence. If events go down further and Ndiigbo of Aladimma and Niger-Delta peoples are not carried along, the prospect of rigging the incumbent back into power could be very bloody expensive and seen for what it was in 1999: a fraudulent selection. Therefore, knowing that no other Yoruba man could be backed by Arewa powerbrokers, this school of thought thinks that some homeboys are afraid of losing the power they didn’t work for in the first place. It is therefore plausible that Igbo-Yoruba amity would galvanize the entire southern Nigeria, Abubakar Atiku’s Adamawa-Bornu and a chunk of Solomon Lar’s Middle Belt into calling the Arewa bluff, hence the sophomoric denigration of the Hausa-Fulani. This is not the way to achieve the desired amity; it only shows the shallowness of knowledge about the Igbo. We need more macho masquerades (“ijele”) in the communal rotunda, not noisemaking masquerades (“otimkpu”) on the roadside.

2. NORTH-EAST ALLIANCE

Some believe that the recent meeting of few Ohanaeze and Arewa members must have rattled brains across the Niger. I wonder why. When Chief Bola Ige and other Afeniferites were feasting at the feet of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and forging alliance, I didn’t read any Igbo person reminding the Yoruba leaders not to go crawling. I only wrote that it wouldn’t work. It didn’t. Why would the Rogers Okorocha-engineered meeting of some Igbo private citizens, not elected nor occupying any public office, attract so much opprobrium? If the meeting came to Umuahia (after Ndiigbo of Jos had asked them to stay the heck out), how does that mean “Igbo leaders kneel-walking”? I didn’t read anyone say the Hausa-Fulani were “kneel-walking” -- like General Oladipo Diya before Major Hamza El Mustapha (speaking of “courage and candour”) -- when former President Shehu Shagari, his son, and Alhaji Umaru Dikko, and later General Ibrahim B. Babangida (rtd) and so many other northerners of note streamed into Umuahia to pay homage to Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, who had warned that the Igbo would thenceforth retaliate any future pogroms. It was not an Igbo who “kneel-walked” to the Alhaji Maccido, Sultanan Sakwatto, to seek permission before declaring to run again. Need we go on?

3. GOVERNORSHIP OF LAGOS

Another school of thought thinks the announced plan by some Igbo Lagosians to field a credible gubernatorial candidate for Lagos rattled the twisted nationalism of Yoruba irredentists. By the way, there has been a governor of Lagos who is Igbo! Alhaji Bola Tinubu let the schoolboy be governor for a day. Such a very innocuous act rattled many big guns. Let me ask a simple question: What is the problem with Lagosians of Igbo extraction seeking to occupy the executive mansion at Alausa? They are a Lagosians. We just have to get used to it. Don’t we all know about the Jakande and the Tinubu and the Fawehinmi and the returnees of Lagos? It is one Nigeria after all!

I was one of those who didn’t give the announcement by an Ohanaeze group a second read; however, it now seems that there is some meat in this matter. Evidently, Ndiigbo are spending less time at Alaba and more time on weekends meeting and strategizing. Politics is a game of constant conspiracies. In a true democracy, the Igbo, the Niger Delta, the Arewa, the Ijebu-Igbo (HA!) and other urbane and marginally Yoruba populations could form an alliance and seek to safeguard their lives from the marauding “area boys,” irredentism, and xenophobia. If the likelihood of this scenario and the arrival of another Aladimma-Arewa alliance give some people goose pimples, then they should get used to the permanency of political pimples. “One Nigeria sosai!” The alternative is violence, a double-edged sword sharp enough to cut both ways. 

4. REALIZED POLITICAL IMPOTENCE:

The writer walked all over the place, blowing hot here and cold there. The need for Aladimma-Oodua amity is all over the place, but the writer preferred cowardly coercion of action by using insults and instilling a sense of shame and to shield the fact that the gods he worships have no clothes. If this is the case, he has my sympathy. We know all about the “quandary.” We all know that the entire East can make a huge difference. But, Oh God, Chineke biko: Please choose another race. Ndiigbo must decline at this time. We have shed enough blood for Nigeria, and no Igbo should be doing anyone’s dirty jobs. We shall ‘buy and sell’ our wares -- apology to Dupe Adelaja -- while we watch the dance of madmen in the marketplace. We shall not be their drummers. We shall not applaud them because, as our glorious ancestors put it: Anaghi akulu onyeara aka! Recall Ikemba Nnewi’s TSM Lecture. He alluded to this sort of cries for help, but stated unequivocally that he won’t bite: 

“Today other people are feeling the pangs of what I felt some twenty-five years ago. These people have my sympathies. These people not having the guts to say so have continued to murmur the word in the hope that I will take up the refrain. I will not.”  [TSM's 2nd Diamond Lecture, February 22, 1994: NIGERIA: The Truths Which Are Self-Evident.] 

Ndiigbo did not bite; they “bought and sold” Bola Ige’s doctrine of “siddon lookism.” No Ifeajuna or Nzeogwu stood up. Instead, General Oladipo Diya played the leading role, with Adisa and Olarenwaju supporting, in “The Movie of Di Ya” released on December 21, 1997.” Thanks to Viagra, orange juice, and Indian trollops, what three generals had bungled like boys scouts recruits was realized. And Abacha died. Aare Aremu Matthew Okikiola Olusegun Obasanjo became president. 

It should not really trouble Ndiigbo who wins the presidency in 2003. Forget the bone-headedness of the parroting Azuka Alagwus and the flip-flopping Arthur Nzeribes and such Igbo AD-ites as Okwadike (Dr.) Ezeife and IBB-drafters and OBJ-supporters, no Igbo person should apologize for aspiring to serve in the house Venerable Ancestor Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe built. If an Igbo runs, so be it; if not, so be it. Win or lose, the presidency is not the be-all and end-all of politics. The fact remains, however, that the Southwest can kiss the crown goodbye after Obasanjo; whether he likes or hates Ndiigbo is Senator Ike Omar Sanda Nwachukwu’s problem -- we knew the truth from day one. Then, we (of the entire south… when the going goes gaga, that is) would have wasted the opportunity with absolutely nothing substantial to show for the superiority of Omotoso’s race. It is so sad, but breeze has revealed the fowl’s derrière.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

1. I think the biggest bump on the road to 2003 is the Niger-Delta. It took the region all of thirty years to realize that they were lied to and goaded by the ghoulish gods into instituting the status quo with their Igbo brethren. When the present regime sent tanks to demolish whole communities in Bayelsa and Rivers, the President still demanded appreciation for saving them from a worse fate in Biafra! Brainwashing is indeed a dangerous design. What broke the camel’s back was the resource control proposal. The entire Southern governors agreed to go to war. Before you could say “crude oil,” the Yoruba governors were making contradictory statements probably because, but for the Ijaw parts of Ondo, there is no major oilfield in Yorubaland. It didn’t stop there: an AD bigwig and prominent Yoruba serving as attorney general took them to court and won! Meanwhile, no one took the Sharia states to court. When next the President came, he told them: “You can ‘control’ the resources, but I will ‘manage’ it.” And he does. To date, the President remains the Minister of Petroleum Resources. If you want to feel the pain of the situation, speak with Governor Attah of Akwa Ibom State. 

2. It took three decades of Ndiigbo not bothering anybody for the gullible goons in our East to see the light. Those who feared our brethren by the sea won’t get too far on the road to nowhere let them anyway. They are now stuck. Those who “feared Igbo domination” have had a chance to marry two husbands. They took it. They tested it. It was good for some sons of the soil. Sooner than later, it turned very ugly. Today, the road is littered with the carcass of our heroes. Brothers and sisters were deceived by giddy gods, divided by desperate deities, and easily eliminated as major players. The entire East has lost many battles in the process, but the war is not lost. The Igbo are no saints, but those who were running away from pricks have ended up with tentacles.

3. It was really amazing and amusing to read that Ndiigbo did this or that, yet it is agreed that they are republicans. Those who roam the land chasing contracts cannot in any way be tagged “Igbo leaders.” We should feel free to take potshots at them whenever they misspeak; that is the Igbo way. But to castigate Aladimma, the Igbo nation, must no longer be tolerated. Ndiigbo know that the moneybags and master’s voices don’t represent them; Nigerians should take note. We know our leaders; when we need them, we shall delegate them. We won’t identify them; if we tell you, you will kill them. So stop searching for “Igbo leaders.” Ndiigbo are not Nigeria’s problem, or the other 249 nations would have allowed them to squeeze themselves into their supposedly small space without oil, without access to sea, without water, and without air! 

4. Nigerians had a good deal at Aburi, Ghana, albeit concocted by unelected young men. It has the backing and blessing of a properly constituted Igbo assembly. And on Aburi we stood. Thanks to wise men from the West, we blew the chance. There was a war, and it still smolders in all places from the coastal Kalabari to the Chad-basin Kanuri and from Mushin to Malunfashi. Badmouthing Ndiigbo or scheming to lead them to the slaughterhouse of yet another pogrom is not going to solve Nigeria’s problems. This much we know. So we must quit trying. As the first Governor of Lagos Major Mobolaji Johnson rightly put it in Aburi: Those with lice in their hairs have bloody fingers. 

5. No amount of name-calling or revisionism or provocation will propel Ndiigbo into taking actions that are inimical to their national survival again. Never again shall an Ifeajuna rise in Ibadan to stop the conflagration of Oodua nation. Those who elect “leaders” for the ruggedly republican Igbo should first sort out their own leadership structure. No amount of mean mischaracterization will change the course of history. Of course, we can always embellish any attack on the Igbo people line-line, exposing in the process the long history of deceit and detestation and political impiety packaged as “native diplomacy.” However, our ancestors asked us not to add pepper in any medication meant for the eyes. We are all in this for the long haul, and no one should hurry to deplane in midair. Nigeria must reach its destination intact (including Bakassi) or it will crash. Henceforth, while we cruise over the present turbulence at a very dangerously high altitude, those who strike at the Igbo, we shall strike down. 

6. No amount of literary intimidation will cut it this time around. A dozen more pogroms will not kill the soul of Ndiigbo. Blaming the Igbo is false. Demonizing the Igbo is futile. Nothing but sincere reappraisals of who we are as nations of one country and where we are going as a people brought together by colonialism would settle the Nigerian question. Nothing short of a peacefully engineered restructuring of our geopolitics will cut it. Unfortunately, the Yoruba leadership wasted these past years basking in the euphoria of a Yoruba-presidency dream donated to a most reluctant candidate for the second time in 23 years. Three year later, it suddenly dawns on us all that the game is almost over. President Obasanjo has succeeded in spite of his kinsmen, who have never elected a Nigerian head of state; he should be allowed to continue or crash on his sword or to swim or sink as those that put him in power deem fit.

7. We are back to square one. 2003 will be 63, 73, 83, or 93 all over again. The circle of madness is back. The full moon seems larger these days, and our national schizophrenia should soon become full-blown lunacy. The gods scream and swoon in their epileptic fit, foaming from both sides of the mouth. The cure is in blood, a special blood -- not iodized (Odi) or the zinced brand (Zaki Biam). The drowning deities or giddy gods once again want Igbo blood to quench their Dracula curiosities, and their slaves creep around the land butt naked looking for the bloody cure. Just as someone warned “Yoruba ronu,” the Igbo must master their own mantra: “Igbo, anya saa nu!” (Those with eyes, let them see): The gods are naked too!

Everything else is embellishment.