AN OPEN LETTER TO APC AND PDP

I have chosen today to write an open letter to the two major political parties in Nigeria, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Starting from 1914 when the British Colonial Government, under the watch of Lord Frederick Lugard, coerced the various nations that now constitute the Nigerian state into one, Nigeria has always been known for its tripartite assemblage. Three major tribes have always stood out. They are, alphabetically, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. There are many other tribes and they are all important in every quantification. The truth, however, remains that the Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba have been and remain the most populous and homogeneous in Nigeria.

The struggle for the political independence of Nigeria from the British was mainly championed by the Yoruba and the Igbo. The Igbo, of all tribes in Nigeria, are the most ubiquitous and adventurous. Their ingenuity and enterprise are next to none in Nigeria. Their natural disposition towards social and economic development of the Nigerian State, no matter where they find themselves, stands them out not only in Nigeria but the whole of Africa, if not the World.

In any part of Nigeria one gets to, immediately after the indigenous population, the next tribe in terms of population would be the Igbo. In any place the Igbo are seen, they are either traders or artisans. By every or any positive engagement, the Igbo contribute immensely to the growth of the economy of their society, both at home and in the diaspora.

Their entrepreneurial nature, at times, creates an image challenge for them. Many other people misconstrue them to be boisterous and domineering. Some perceive them to be uncontrollably arrogant. This public perception has become almost an albatross to the Igbo. It certainly has created a lot of envy against the Igbo.

The Igbo have severally suffered enormous losses on account of this public perception. In 1945, for instance, hundreds of Igbo traders, artisans, transporters and their families were brutally slaughtered in Jos and environs, for no other reason than envy arising from their success in wealth accumulation.

Only eight years after the genocide in Jos, another disastrous misfortune became the fate of the Igbo in Kano, in 1953. They were killed in their tens of hundreds. The only reason for that utmost Brutality was the fact that the Igbo were considered dominant in businesses in Kano.

The last straw that broke the Camel’s back was the misguided botched January 15, 1966 Coup that led to unjustifiable assassination of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello; Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Samuel Akintola; First Republican Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okoti-Ebo and some others. Though the coup was a purely military initiative, majority of the coupists were Igbo.

Even though there was a successful counter coup on July 28, 1966, during which the first Military Head of State, General Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi and hundreds of Nigerian Military and Police Officers of Igbo extraction were killed, the revenge extended to massacre of Igbo civil population in the Northern and Western Regions.

The failure to bring the ethnic cleansing of the Igbo in Nigeria to an end consequently forced the Military Governor of Eastern Region, Lt-Col Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, after due consultation with Leaders of Thought in Eastern Region, to declare Eastern Region as Republic of Biafra on 30th May, 1967.

A three-year war broke out between Nigeria and Biafra! It is estimated that the Peoples of Eastern Region lost more than one million persons during that war of self-defence.
Though the physical war ended on January 15, 1970 echoes of the war have continuously been prevalent in the collective psyche of the Igbo. Their roads are always under the suppressive coercion of Nigerian security personnel whose only motive is to harass and extort money from road users.
Immigration offices in the South-East, particularly the one in Umuahia, are clear places of extortion against the Igbo young applicants for International passports who pay outrageously before they are issued passport. Police and military brutality in the South-East of Nigeria could be described to be worse than in a normal war situation.

Despite their predicaments, the Igbo have managed to carry their Cross with Equanimity. But their Patience and Tolerance got to their climax under the Buhari/APC Administration that made the most unpatriotic and undiplomatic declaration of his hatred against the Igbo.

Under the Buhari/APC government, no Igbo indigene is considered fit and proper to be a member of the Security Council. No wonder some Igbo Youths, fed up with all round’ discrimination decided to agitate for a Biafran State. They, no doubt, want to escape from this Orchestrated Policy of Discrimination and Marginalization.

The Buhari/APC Government recommenced the Nigerian/Biafran War, hiding under the cover of Unknown Gun Men. Thousands of Igbo Youths have been sent to their untimely death. The government of General Muhammadu Buhari has forced a war that started in 1966/67 to have been prolonged up to December 2021, making it the longest war fought on the Continent of Africa.

Take it or leave it, the Igbo influence on Nigeria cannot just be wished away. These are people who have painstakingly emerged as multi-billionaires, despite being heartlessly forced to start their economic life with a paltry £20, immediately after the Nigeria/Biafran War in 1970. Other tribes, especially the Fulani, have the wealthiest men in Nigeria but the difference lies in the fact that while the Fulanis amassed wealth through federal government’s deliberately created policy loopholes, the Igbo acquired their wealth through entrepreneurial sagacity.

I strongly think that there is need to end this war. Late President Shehu Shagari had commenced the expected process of ending the war when he successfully chose a renowned erudite Igbo Professional, late Architect Dr Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, as his Presidential-running mate in 1979. It was most likely Dr Ekwueme would have ended up as President Shagari’s successor in 1987. It is believed among the Igbo that General Buhari also had this feeling hence he rocked that boat through the illegitimacy of a military coup d’etat on 31st December, 1983.

The truth of Nigeria’s reality is that he who holds one down, also holds oneself down. The Nigerian State is determined in every material particular to hold the Igbo nation down. By consequence, it has been busy keeping itself down. The Nigerian State is like a football team. Like it or not, the Igbo unarguably are manning a strategic wing in the Nigerian state’s team. If the Igbo are made the weakest and most porous link in the team’s chain, it would follow that Nigeria’s avoidable defects and woes could continuously erupt from the Igbo.

Nigeria needs a rethink. It can only be incivility and primitivity that could keep Nigeria constantly at war with itself. Why can we not learn a simple lesson from Rwanda that it’s national leadership, under President Paul Kagame, had most effectively reconciled the two major tribes, Hutus and Tutsis, that had fought a very devastating war that nobody would have imagined could allow the country forge a united progressive entity?

It takes genuine and patriotic leadership to reconcile differences in national politics. I have a strong feeling that justice, equity and fairness are the elixir to Nigeria’s problems.

In the chequered history of the Nigerian State, the Hausa/Fulani have produced four democratically-elected heads of the federal government: Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Mallam Musa Yar’Adua and General Muhammadu Buhari. The North has also produced numerous military heads of the federal government. The Yoruba have produced one democratically-elected President in the person of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The People of South-South have had their turn in the person of Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

The Igbo have not had the opportunity of being elected as President of Nigeria. Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was merely a ceremonial president. The constitutional powers of the First Republican Era were vested in the Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.

I want Nigeria to grow and prosper. But it cannot be achieved in an atmosphere of open discrimination and segregation. There has to be justice, equity and fairness in the running of affairs of Nigeria.

Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State