Whither the Igbo Nation? (2)

Whither the Igbo Nation? (2)

Ubanese Nwanganga

ubanganga@yahoo.co.uk

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Kidnapping started in Nigeria in the Niger Delta. There, it was a legitimate protest and an expression of dissent against an overbearing, arrogant, parasitic and oppressive system. God did not make any mistake in endowing the Niger Delta with oil resources. Unfortunately, while the legitimate owners begged for crumbs, emirs in the north received official allocations of petroleum products free of charge. The demand for resource control by the people of the Niger Delta was, before God and man, legitimate. Instead of lending support to such a worthy cause, our young men and women went to the Niger Delta to acquire AK 47 assault rifles with which to intimidate their kit and kin in Igboland. Today, no part of Igbo land is spared the sorrow, agony and shame of kidnapping.

Even a child knows that federal government’s presence in Igboland consists of barracks and soldiers and other forms of security men. Besides, not only are we denied federal presence obstacles to our self help efforts at development are officially erected in order to hold us down. Therefore, what else can be more of a disservice to Igbo land than when senseless young men frustrate the efforts of their brethren at attracting foreign partners for our development? These young men behave like bastards who will not think twice to dispossess their mothers of their clothes at the public square. It is indeed very shameful.

Consider the abduction of the Chinese at Nnewi. They were expatriates working for an industrialist to bring about development there. To the misguided kidnappers, the contribution of the industrialist to the development of Nnewi was not important. It was not necessary. What mattered to them was that the money should be in their pockets to enable them buy the latest cars in town, engage in drinking sprees, smoke marijuana and snort cocaine and, of course, maintain chains of girlfriends.

Nnewi owes its industrial achievements to self-help efforts by its sons and daughters. Without that it would remain like any other Igbo town stunted in growth by official neglect. In spite of the foresight and determination of Nnewi people to rid their community of underdevelopment, the town has received no support from the federal government. No roads, no electricity supply, no water! These are critical elements for any industrial venture to succeed.

For Nnewi people, they have through self help tried to solve the problem of water and electricity, although at a price, which is that their manufactured products are less competitive locally and outside our national borders. Recall what Obasanjo did to Ibeto Industries? So, why should an Igbo man, no matter the social pressures, accept to act the script written for his kith and kin from Kaduna or Lagos?

Recently, a near-cousin of mine, a young man whose mates are seriously settling down in life went mad. When the news reached me, I was shocked. I reviewed his family line from both his parents, and I did not discover any trace of madness. Then, I got the shocking revelation that he had been hooked on marijuana or igboo, in local parlance. I went to see him where he was receiving treatment and found him chained to a tree. Not surprisingly, he had totally gone off his mind. Immediately he saw me, like the demoniac of Gadarenes in the Bible, whose name was Legion, he began to shout.

I was not challenging the demon of madness that had possessed him, although it is not correct to attribute his state of health to any demon. He was the demon himself. And what was he shouting about? “Deede, biko, ga zutaram igboo,” he was pleading with me. I tried to calm him down and pretended I was sympathetic to his crazy desire. So, I told him that I did not know where the stuff could be bought. Surprisingly, he gave me a vivid description of where it was sold and the different prices.

When I left him, I went straight to discuss the young man’s revelation with the traditional ruler of the community. I wanted him to contact the DPO (deputy police officer) at the local government police headquarters, so that the joint where the illicit substance was sold could be raided and the criminals involved arrested. To my surprise, he dismissed my suggestion. He went on to reveal to me that even the police men bought igboo from the same joint. Also, politicians, students and even school children also patronized the joint. He even mentioned that cocaine was on sale locally to the knowledge of the police and other security agencies. His position therefore was that there was no need to take action because those whose responsibility it was to check such social ills were deep into it themselves. In fact, he said that most people around were high on one illicit substance or another.

In the community, which I suspect may be representative of entire Igboland, to remain sane or be on the edge is a personal decision, for the society has since lost control of its traditional and modern means of enforcing good behavior. Imagine the pain of an old man like me! What else would be more devastating, more disappointing for people of my generation than to live an Igbo man in Igboland of today?

In 2008, I spent the Christmas with a Jukun friend and former colleague in Abuja. However, due to some unforeseen development, I had to cut short my stay with my friend and returned to the southeast at the end of December. I boarded a cab traveling to Enugu through Ajaokuta, Igalaland and Idoma area of Benue state. The driver topped his tank at Okenne. Again at Ejule, he topped his tank. He did not pay more than the official pump price. At Obollo Afor, he stopped to top the tank. The pump price had changed to 90 naira instead of the official pump price of 75 naira per litre. Throughout Igboland, there is nowhere that fuel is sold at the official pump price.

The Anambra state governorship election of February 2010 has come and gone. We thank God for his divine intervention. There is no other way to describe what happened in the state. It was indeed a miracle. Before then, the prediction was that the election was going to be marred by violence. There were tale-tell signs that violence was going to be on a scale never witnessed elsewhere in the country before. On the platform of the PDP alone, there were 47 aspirants. Each of the five other parties with significant presence in the state could boast of a long list of aspirants. Add all these to the list of contestants on the platforms of the fringe parties and you would have an idea of the nature of the war, not contest, that the governorship election promised to be.

Was the large number of aspirants in the Anambra election a reflection of the desire to serve the people? Or, was it a new found patriotism? The answer is capital no. It was borne out of greed and arrogance. If a man invests more than one billion in election campaigns, it is an investment. It must be recouped. Besides, many of them joined the fray to show that they have arrived. They had to be recognized, whether or not they had what it would take to lead the people. It appears that chieftaincy titles are becoming less visible these days. A political office will be more preferable.

At my age I would never have imagined Igboland in its present condition. Some people accuse me of being too critical of my immediate environment. They claim that what I complain of as unhealthy developments are obvious necessities in a society in transition. Yes, while we are transiting to modernity, we cannot claim to be the only ones in the process. It may be true that other societies in Nigeria have an edge over us because of the outcome of the civil war. Yet, it is time to call a spade a spade and admit our collective failures. It is time we stopped using the war as our alibi for our ill-conceived actions and outright inactions. After the war, we were spurred to action in order to regain and recover lost ground and momentum. At what point then did that advantage become a disadvantage? Everybody cannot be a millionaire at the same time. It is impossible and not in the natural order of things.

Let us all ponder over this new craze among our people. Is there nothing that can be done to tackle it head-on? In the late seventies, armed robbers made Onitsha very insecure. Then, they robbed and killed with reckless boldness. They were law onto everybody. The situation became so intolerable that on one Saturday traders at Ochanja and Main markets took the law into their hands and decided to help themselves. In an operation to flush out the armed robbers, otherwise known as “Boys Oyee,” the traders embarked on a systematic cleansing of the commercial city. Hotels, brothels, and other known hideouts of armed robbers were raided while the police and other security agents were overwhelmed. At the end of the operation, armed robbers ran away from the city. The traders achieved what the police had refused to tackle because they were part of the problem.

Similarly, Owerri went up in flames during the Otokoto saga in the late nineties. Without any leader, angry residents of the town took on the kingpins of 419 and ritual killers. Nobody would have imagined that those angry Owerri residents knew who was who in their midst.

Kidnappers, like armed robbers, 419ners, and ritual killers live with and among us. They are our brothers and sisters. Their lifestyles stand them out. When an unemployed young man suddenly begins to live a life of affluence, something is wrong somewhere. He is not harvesting money from any tree, neither has he won any secret lottery.

All over Nigeria, the police are quite often accomplices in crimes. They provide guns, uniforms, and vital information to armed robbers, ritual killers, and now kidnappers. Unfortunately, this problem is made worse in Igboland by official policy of neglect. Otherwise, how come, in this day and age when technology has become highly advanced, and at the same time cheaply available, that kidnappers can engage families of their victims for days on end while the police claim helplessness?

I think we must act now. We must take our fate in our hands. But if we cannot embark on self help to rid our society of evil considering what became of Bakassi Vigilante, can we place curses on all sons and daughters of Igboland who kidnap their kith and kin? Suppose we send Amadioha, Kamalu, Ozuzu, Ojukwu Diobu, Arusi Okija, and all sundry shrines throughout Igboland to visit them with confusion and the spirit of terror? Suppose we implore these gods to turn their police accomplices against them? And what if we ask the Earth to open up and swallow them after the order of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? And should the sun not smite them by day and the moon by night? Yes, let their happiness be cut short and turn to perpetual sadness.

I know somebody somewhere will accuse me of exhibiting siege mentality. I am not suffering from siege mentality or hopelessness. I want us to appreciate the seriousness of the latest evil in our midst. Kidnapping will destroy Igboland, if no drastic measures are taken against it now. An attempt was made in 2009 to kidnap the Obi of Onitsha in his palace. Professor Soludo’s father was kidnapped. A young man from Uruala in Ideato, Imo State was kidnapped last year at Owerri. After collecting the ransom payment of over seven million naira, the kidnappers still went ahead and killed the man. The young man, who lived in Lagos, had set up a factory at Owerri. It turned out to be a fatal mistake.

As I write, a good number of our traditional rulers across Igbo land are in captivity. Wealthy Igbo sons and daughters are afraid of staying in Igboland. I do not fabricate stories -- they are available on the Internet. Next year, 2011, is an election year. As it draws nearer, one begins to worry about how kidnapping will be used to settle political differences throughout Igboland. Let us not downplay the seriousness of this demon.

Yes, kidnapping is a disgrace to Igboland and calls for an unusual response. My prescription is that if we institute curses at the village level against kidnappers and their accomplices, it will die a natural death. Thank God that the traditional rulers who helped to create the monster of greed across Igboland by celebrating criminals are not spared by the kidnappers. Therefore, I expect them to be in the forefront to rid Igboland of this menace by misguided young men and women who think the society owes them. Let each community institute curses against kidnappers, who live in their midst but whose names cannot be mentioned for obvious reasons. The efficacy of this prescription may be in doubt but, if community leaders will have the courage to institute it, the spate of kidnapping will start to decline. Call it Obasanjo’s prescription to end apartheid in South Africa, or what you will. By the time you or your relative fall victim, you will understand the import of my prescription.

I welcome constructive reactions to this essay. We have a problem on our hands. I suspect this was how the Italian mafias took root, which more or less made them parallel governments. We should not allow kidnapping to destroy Igboland. It is our only home. In any other place, we are strangers even if we have married and acquired chieftaincy titles from there.

I remain yours without rancor.

CONCLUDED

Sunday, April 11, 2010