If the Igbo people want peace and progress, they would join the campaign for restructuring. I am an Isoko man from the Niger Delta. There is no right that I am enjoying in Nigeria that is denied to the Igbo people. Nigeria at present is based on the plunder of the resources of the Niger Delta. It is intellectually dishonest for anyone to accuse Nigerians of hating Igbo people when the South-East people have very strong negative feelings against other Nigerians especially the minority in the east.
By Dr Austin Orette
When I write about Fulani, Igbo and their negative activities against Nigeria, I am flooded with acidic comments. The replies are so juvenile and emotional, devoid of substance and laden with ethnic gobbledygook.
Some say I am Islamophobic while others say I am Igbo phobic. These replies are lame and devoid of any scholarship.
Debate the key points and spare me the emotional drivels that lack clarity and common sense. My interest is to make the amalgam called Nigeria to work because ultimately Africa will unite as a single or semi-autonomous entity in the future. I believe in “E pluribus Unum “Out of many we are one). How can we unite Africa if we cannot unite a little place like Nigeria because of ethnocentrism and religious bigotry?
My discussion is to make those who are inside to see how those outside see them and vice versa. Self-examination is a very difficult thing for those whose perimeter is a unit. We are all black people in this continent and our present relationship and views have been shaped by those who conquered and colonized us. This colonization brought linguistic and religious differences which have created a lot of cognitive dissonance amongst us.
The Fulani man thinks he is superior because he is a Muslim and the Igbo man thinks he is superior because he has western education. I hate to burst their bubble. Their claim to fame and arrogance are what has rendered Africa impotent in the greater scheme of things. The education and the religions zealotry only made them mental hostages of their colonial masters. This is why they cannot love and see themselves in each other as fellow Africans who can develop and share common values. The education and the religions are products of foreign culture that undermine African civilization and freedom. The education and the religions that hold Africa hostage were brought with the sword and are still being defended with the sword to this day.
No where can you see the battle between these religions other than the opposing positions between the Igbo and Fulani. The Fulani people used Islam to perpetuate their Suzerainty over Northern Nigeria. Igbo people are predominantly Catholics. The schism between these two groups can be seen as a subterranean religious war fuel by the headquarters of the religions. The Igbo people will attack the Fulani with phrases that the Fulani people are trying to Islamize Nigeria, while the Fulani people will say no infidel will rule over them. What they really mean is that no non Fulani can rule over them. They use religion as a ploy. If you can see this in a broader context, you will find that the Fulani people telescope the problems of Nigeria to the Arab and Islamic world as problems with infidels, while the Igbo people telescope their problems to the Vatican as Islamic invasion and Sharia.
Due to good politicking and good cultural awareness, the Western region tends not to get involved in politics of extremism. The Fulani and Igbo consider this position to be too good for comfort. In search of allies in this region, both groups will try to plant seeds of dominance. The Fulani people will tell the Westerners that Islam is superior to the culture and the Igbo people will take the bait. The Fulani people will instigate actions in the West that are inimical to Igbo. The Igbo people not knowing this will lash out in their characteristic bravado. They will claim they developed Lagos. A new schism and war front is opened. No one looks further to ascertain the voice from the hand of Esau. This is where we are today. The rush to judgement is one of the drawbacks of group thinking and there are proxies that make these fictional absurdities the realities that fuel more hate.
I want all the components of Nigeria to come together for restructuring. Restructuring will give us the pace to run the affairs of our various regions or zones without the interference and manipulation from an overwhelming center with overwhelming powers.
The Igbo people who are complaining so much about the present system are the ones who destroyed our regional system. The regions we had were semi-autonomous. What the Igbo people are asking for today is what they destroyed yesterday .They have a strong proposition for Biafra but a lukewarm attitude towards anything that will restructure our present polity to be akin to what we had in the First Republic. Of all the candidates that come from Igboland, none of them have vociferously challenged or worked to evolve a system that takes the federal government from the centrality of our existence. This is one quality they share with the Fulani. The Fulani people openly oppose restructuring; the Igbo people are strategically silent in this regard.
I take this to be acquiescence. The campaign of Peter Obi was that of a man trying to paint a dilapidated building where a structural engineer is needed. A lot of people were carried away by the flowery prose. I wasn’t. This house has fallen and needs builders not painters. They will rather declare Biafra and scuttle debates on restructuring. None of their politicians have shown any consideration in this regard. It can be assumed they are threading both sides. It is like the case of the politicians who will defend a bill by saying they voted for it before they opposed it. It is a gross attempt to attach a meaning to opposites.
The Igbo people in their usual polemics will say that the British handed over Nigeria to Fulani. I beg to differ. The British handed Nigeria to Nigerians and the Igbo people handed Nigeria to Fulani. This is our history. Nigeria became chaotic and the Fulani people took advantage of chaotic Nigeria to manipulate the levers of power. Since they discovered that chaos is beneficial to them, they have adopted it as one of their tools of diplomacy and statecraft and they are using it to achieve the results they want.
Today it is Boko Haram, tomorrow Fulani Herdsmen. A chaotic Nigeria will find it difficult to restructure. In the old order, they would have resorted to coups by some illiterate military upstart who would cry corruption and empty the treasury in the same breath.
The western world has also seen that a chaotic Nigeria will work to their advantage too and they are joining the bandwagon and developing policies of chaotic interference by supporting the terrorists and also positioning themselves as the diplomats with solutions in Nigerian affairs. They have the coin. Head, they win and tail, we lose. Nigeria will never know peace again until we understand that inviting them to settle inter-tribal wars and skirmishes will be the new diplomatic order and diplomatic relations of the western World in Nigeria. They will distill a solution that will perpetually put Nigeria in purgatory. They are not our friends. They are strategic partners whose only goal is exploitation and degradation of Africans.
Boko Haram has paid them so much through the precious metals they are smuggling from the conflict zones of Nigeria. This is why I worry. After Boko Haram, Biafra will become another conflagration. The tone of most Biafrans is anti-Nigeria and Western intelligence will be stupid not to water the seeds of this brewing chaos.
If the Igbo people want peace and progress, they would join the campaign for restructuring. I am an Isoko man from the Niger Delta. There is no right that I am enjoying in Nigeria that is denied to the Igbo people. Nigeria at present is based on the plunder of the resources of the Niger Delta. It is intellectually dishonest for anyone to accuse Nigerians of hating Igbo people when the South-East people have very strong negative feelings against other Nigerians especially the minority in the east.
There is schadenfreude in Biafra land when an unfortunate event happens to the minorities in the Niger Delta. This was very palpable when Ken Saro Wiwa was murdered. To the Igbo people, his death was the price paid for not supporting Biafra. This attitude is pervasive all over. They tell Benue people that the crisis in Benue is a punishment for not supporting Biafra. What is the punishment for other Nigerians like us in the Midwest who pushed back the invasion of Biafra? This is a question we should ask since we were not in support of Biafra? Are they suggesting that Biafra was going to usher in a Eldorado?
Biafra was a project of Igbo nationalism in a new nation called Nigeria that was just barely six years old. The Igbo people overthrew the government they were in charge of. This is the nihilism that could also have come to the fore if Biafra had succeeded. Those of us in the Midwest were not interested in the substitution of tyrants. We just wanted to be left alone.
Igbo people must ask themselves some tough questions. Why do they think there is antipathy towards them? No one hates anyone because they are successful. I like successful neighbors because they can solve problems. It is lazy thinking to always point the fingers at others. Telling us that Nigerians hate you and in another breath you tell us you own 80% of houses in Abuja is confusing. This is like a black American saying he is the victim of racism and on the other hand the racist whites gave him the opportunities to own the majority wealth of America. They must correct the impression they have created around the world that Nigeria is oppressing them as ethnic minorities. This lie has been used by a lot of Igbo people to obtain asylum in foreign lands. They have a duty to correct this. Nation building is not for timid souls. Igbo people in Nigeria are not a minority. The relationship with their minorities has always been frothed with distrust. This is why the minorities did not lend their support for Biafra and remains a sore point to this day. This has given rise to uneasy neighborhoods.
In 1961, Western Cameroon was part of Nigeria. It was north and Southern of this western Cameroon. Due to several complaints of oppression by the Igbo people who were in charge of the region, there was a plebiscite. The Southern part chose to avoid the Igbo oppression by joining the French speaking part of Cameroon. The North which in today’s Nigeria, Adamawa state chose to remain. Atiku Abubakar could have been president of Cameroon or cattle farmer minding his business and wondering about the beauty of the Mambilla Plateau. The South took the painful decision to leave Nigeria because of the Igbo people. Today those people who were Nigerians are suffering because the power of that country is controlled by the French speaking Cameroonians. From their archives, the other minority probably would have voted to join Equatorial Guinea or some neighboring entity if they were given the choice.
Were these folks born to hate their neighbors? Leadership demands responsibility. It is the duty of the majority to protect the rights of minorities in a democratic society. Did the Igbo people protect the rights of their minorities in the First Republic? Bakassi and beyond belong to Nigeria irrespective of the Abracadabra of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo who hurriedly surrendered Nigeria real estate to Cameroon. Those people are Nigerians who were seriously traumatized.
It is the duty of the majority to protect the rights of the minorities in a democracy. Did the Igbo people protect the rights of the minorities in the South East? If the answer is yes, why did they leave? You cannot accuse every one of hating Igbo people without looking inward to see the source of the negative actions towards others. Some people left Nigeria because they could not tolerate Igbo oppression. Is that hatred or self-preservation?
Dr Austin Orette Writes from Houston Texas
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