The challenge of the new Ohanaeze leaders

Professor Chinua Achebe rightly pointed out in his last book titled ‘There was a Country’ that “once a people have been dispossessed and subjected to dictatorships for such a long time as in Nigeria’s case, the oppressive process also effectively strips away from the minds of the people the knowledge that they have rights.”

I just want to believe that this is not what is happening to Igbo people and their current Ohanaeze leadership today in Nigeria. I have a somewhat strong feeling that it what is actually happening to them and other Nigerians, especially the youths and the aged men and women in the country, who had been so traumatized by their level of poverty and seeming helplessness that they virtually came to accept those as their destiny, in a land supposedly flowing with milk and honey.

In the short history of independent Nigeria, evidence abounds that those who were stubborn enough not to accept the imposition of suffering in the midst of plenty took to arms. They continued to sabotage government in various ways. They vandalized pipelines. They kidnapped both local and foreign staff of oil companies. At a time, even the step-father of former President Dr Goodluck Jonathan was kidnapped and a ransom of £2 million placed on his head.

Others who were not so stubborn, perhaps because they had not seen the usefulness of stubbornness after they suffered the effects of defeat following the Nigerian civil war were more contented with protesting peacefully in an attempt to bring to the attention of the federal authorities the neglect and infrastructural decay that had become their lot decades after the war was fought and a declaration of ‘no winner, no vanquished’ made by the then head of state, General Gowon. They refused to carry the gun. They refused to bomb anywhere, be it hospitals, secondary schools, universities, markets, military and police posts, or public offices as their counterparts in the North East and Delta Regions did.

It may be true that the Igbo made their mistakes when they bungled the opportunities they had as Senate President and later settled for the number two post in the National Assembly because they could not hold their ground. Had those political leaders of the Igbo who had the opportunity of getting the Igbo back on their feet initiated the laws that would have made Nigerian nationalism more central and less ethnic, obviously Nigerians would not have found themselves where they are today. Nigerian nationalism would have had a serious boost and building a strong and united Nigerian nation would have been on a more genuine course.

From the look of situations at the moment, I am sure the Igbo do not want to continue being seen by the international community as the football that other Nigerian ethnic groups keep playing around for their personal and collective pleasure. I am saying this because I feel really sad seeing the way the Igbo and the leadership of the current Ohanaeze seem relaxed to be regarded as second class citizens within established organisations in their own country. I feel sad knowing how much the Igbo have sacrificed to keep Nigeria united and strong and yet they do not receive the same level of collective respect other groups do. I feel sad that despite all the travails the Igbo have passed through in trying to keep Nigeria united and strong, they still cannot speak with one voice. They cannot speak as a tribe that knows what it wants in a united Nigeria.

Before this last Presidential election, some Igbo wanted Biafra. They threatened there would be no elections in the East of Nigeria. They wanted to severe from Nigeria because they didn’t think Nigeria deserved them. Many more didn’t want Biafra. For them Biafra was dead and should be forgotten. They believed the Igbo should be able to thrive in Nigeria that is one united and strong African country. They believed that the diversity in Nigeria should be a source of strength and not weakness for the citizens of that country.

The most important day Nigerians waited to actualize their dreams in the last twenty four years came and quickly flitted past. Nigerians had eagerly trooped out once again to vote for a new President who would take over the mantle of leadership from General Muhammadu Buhari and set up a new government. It was amazing to watch young Nigerians turn out in their huge numbers on Saturday 25 February 2023 for the presidential election. Even elderly men and women past their 70s came out to vote. They were set to make history, no doubt. This year’s election was the most keenly competed for, since the return of democracy in 1999 with the Fourth Republic.

It was even more interesting to note that most of the young people who voted across board, with no affiliation to state of origin, religion or party backed the third-party candidate that surreptitiously emerged, as it were from nowhere, determined to take the country back from the two main competing political organizations, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP and All Progressives’ Congress, APC which many stakeholders agreed completely misruled the country in the last 24 years.

In a very solemn sense, Nigerian youths across border believed, and possibly rightly too, that if Labour Party could break the ranks of the ruling APC and the main opposition PDP, it would bring positive changes to Africa's most populous country after years of economic stagnation, crippling official corruption and seemingly intractable insecurity of lives and properties.

Guided by what they all saw as the successful result of the 2020 EndSars’ protests that called for more efficient, transparent, accountable governance and adequate remuneration for the Police Force, millions of young people who thronged the polling units across the country, and who were under 35 years of age, had registered as first-time voters. They were very determined that they must vote and that their votes must count. And they never minced words telling anyone who cared to listen, including the security officers who were at the polling booths to maintain peace and order, that it was their constitutional right to make the decision on who becomes the head of state of their country on that crucial 25 February and that they were in no mood to compromise their right.

It was a defining moment for most Nigerian young adults who had consistently suffered severe academic and economic deprivations over the 24 years that the ruling parties created obnoxious laws that turned the country into a paradox, lending their weight to the rich families becoming richer while the poor families were made poorer.

Many Nigerians knew that the country could not continue the way it was going without a total somersault. And so they not only came out in their millions to vote but more importantly to ensure that their votes counted and that they fully participated in electing the man they believed would put Nigeria back on the path of sanity.

They had learnt their lessons from the brutal manner the Endsars protests were abrogated by the military. But they also counted it as victory for the voice of the ordinary citizen that the SARS organization seized to become after it was disbanded as a police unit because of its notorious profiling of young people who they dispossessed of their valuables like mobile phones, laptops and money or murdered extra-judicially if they resisted. That lesson appeared to have brought frustrated but determined young Nigerians together on 25 February to vote for real change from the old way of running government. The experience of EndSars protests saw many young Nigerians take an unprecedented interest in politics for the first time.

Offering hope of a new Nigeria, the Labour Party went up against the ruling APC and the main opposition PDP – two sides of the same coin that had alternated the post of President between them since the end of military rule in 1999. According to BBC, the man many people backed was Peter Obi of the Labour Party. At 61, Mr. Obi was not that young, but still he was the youngest of all the presidential aspirants that mattered. He was new but not so new in Nigeria’s political arena. Previously, he had vied as Vice-Presidential candidate for the main opposition PDP. He also governed Anambra state for eight years from March to November 2006, February to May 2007, and June 2007 to March 2014 under the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA.

Of the other two candidates, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP was 76 years old and Bola Tinubu of the APC was 70.

Generally and in comparison with these other two aspirants, Obi was seen as the most ordinarily accessible, a wealthy man whose simple lifestyle spoke volumes in his favour with the Nigerian masses in addition to the fact that he had an impressive and hugely admirable record of frugality and accountability with public funds when he was the governor of Anambra state.

In a country where more than three-quarters of the population of 210 million people were aged below 35, it was no wonder that the youths opted for a man they considered young enough to understand their plight and the level of suffering they had passed through in 24 years, a man they considered had the capability and agility of turning particularly the fortunes of Nigerian youths and elderly pensioners around, for better.

Whatever the much awaited results might turn out to be, Nigerians had made their choice and that choice should be respected. But it didn’t seem that the choice mattered to the electoral umpire. The election of a new Nigerian President who would take over the mantle of leadership from the incumbent was hot cake. But after the election, many accused the INEC of being compromised. Many fingers pointed at the ruling APC they said was bent on rigging the will of Nigerian people. Nigerians decided to stand up to their rights. The youths decided to stand together to ensure that their voices were heard and that their votes mattered. They stood firm on their constitutional rights and would not allow their votes to be rubbished by rogue politicians who usually saw public offices as their gold mine.

Both the PDP and the Labour Party, dissatisfied with the results Professor Yakubu announced as authentic headed to the court. First, the court granted the two parties their request to inspect the materials used by INEC and find out if there were any discrepancies or irregularities during the presidential and national assembly elections of Saturday 25 February 2023.

Embarrassingly the current leadership of Ohanaeze jumped the queue to congratulate the APC president-elect whose election was dogged by many question marks. And then they tried to play the intervener role by consoling those they accepted had lost a battle that was only beginning to warm up. Although Mr Obi was not exactly fighting as an Igboman but as a decentralized Nigerian, a close look at the Presidency since Nigeria had self rule in 1960 shows that people from Eastern Nigeria, despite their qualifications and ability, have never produced an executive president in Nigeria.

In the Guardian Newspaper of 17 February 2022, Igbo Elders Consultative Forum had maintained that rotational presidency is constitutional by virtue of provisions of the Federal Character principle in the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Secretary of the forum, Prof. Charles Nwekeaku had said several times that “legally, morally and strategically, it is the turn of the South East to produce the next president of the country, as the other regions had been given the opportunity to serve Nigeria at the presidential level.”

Citing section 14[3] of the 1999 Constitution, he said: “The composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the Federal Character of Nigeria. It also provides that there is the need to promote national unity and command national loyalty, thereby, ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in the government or in any of its agencies, among others.”

Nwekeaku pointed out that the fact that the South East was not being allowed to offer the country a President, even when it is the general will of the people, was a clear breach of the Federal Character principle. So, leaders of Ohanaeze should please not aggravate issues by believing it is doing the will of an embittered, aggrieved and unhappy section of the Nigerian community. We should keep our finger crossed until the Supreme Courts takes its stand on a matter that is so close and so dear to the hearts of the people, especially the youths and elderly men and women.