Peace Within Each Ethnic Group Before Other Groups

It is about time Ndi-Igbo have a heart to heart talk within one another. This violence within (not from outside) is a race to the bottom. When other groups see how each African ethnic group maim and kill members of their own groups, they see an opportunity to divide them further by taking sides. Africans cannot condemn inhumanity of man to man, Police ritual killings and cannibalism seen in Europe, Americas and Asia when worse behavior is dished out to our own blood and kin in the name of solidarity to wage wars against other ethnic groups.

Africans cannot justify Xenophobia against other Africans. You cannot repress all of your own who refused to follow or support crude behavior seen in lower primitive animals. We have seen these inhuman traits too often from South Africa, Nigeria, Somali to Sierra Leone among others. It cannot be justified as a way to punish traitors within. Humans have got to the stage where we define traitors and punish them according to the rule of laws, not by juggle justice.

Unity within each ethnic group for progressive ideas and defense of civilized culture is paramount. If we see unity and peace through tolerance for political views and respect for different religions without rancor, distractors face an uphill battle against us. It becomes easier to form barriers against those trying to disrupt our civilized peaceful existence. Forced compliance, attacks and mutilation within each ethnic group to enforce crude behaviors displayed by lower animals must be discouraged and disowned regardless of status.

The Silent Majority have unwittingly or inadvertently supported crude and uncivilized behavior of their kin because they are not directly affected until they find themselves as targets. It may remind us of the popular saying that they came for different people while we watched until they started coming for us. Bullies do not stop their crude practices on others, they bring those practices home. Violence always rear ugly heads if we do not stop it at the source.

Ndi-Igbo land is witnessing the dark days of Maitatsine and Boko Haram that started by burning Churches. The problem with this type of punishment is that it can only be temporarily repressed. It is easier to reward civilized behaviors widely acceptable in an environment with positive reinforcement. Maitatsine did not stop there, fundamentalists brought it home, killing and kidnapping in their own communities.

There is no reasonable excuse for Nigerians not to move forward after the Election and revitalize the polity to greater heights. While it is true that every ethnic group did not get the Presidential candidate they wanted, no election did. We must move forward to encourage good governance, accountability, to solve insecurity and corruption in high places. There is no reason to encourage or allow crude animalistic instinctual behaviors in humans, even some lower animals discouraged.

No matter who we want among the soiled baggage of the three Presidential candidates, one of them became President. It is time to shield our swords and watch him fulfill his promise that his families have been blessed and there is nothing further to gain from corruption. While we have heard this before from every head of state once assuming the Presidency, this Nigerian President must be watched carefully, especially by those of us that did not support him.

This is the reason Tinubu lost his home state in Osun and his adopted state in Lagos. If there was any place he could have rigged the Election, he could not have lost in Lagos and Osun states. The fact that his own Yoruba people voted against him is a pointer that civilized dissents and opposition can be healthy in a multi ethnic nation. There were no killings or maiming of those who voted against Tinubu within his ethnic group. This negates the self-serving agitations of his opponents that he was not duly elected.

It is a mischievous strategy to cause chaos and nullify the Election in court of law or to unify only one ethnic group against the winner, out of all those in Nigeria. It is so preposterous, no other ethnic group would buy it. Unfortunately and sadly, we watch as the extremists within Ndi-Igbo cajole, maim and kill members of their own ethnic groups who have different political positions just as the Yoruba or Hausa. There are many more ethnic groups that do not belong to the three behemoths Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo that have accepted the result of the Election.

However, the Igbo extremists and their Youths are whipping up sentiments, chaos and allocating a weekly day of maiming or killing against anyone of their own that fails to adhere to their hypocrisy. This is in spite of the fact that 95% of Ndi-Igbo in the Election voted for Igbo and no other ethnic Presidential candidate. Yet, they claim they were rejected since other ethnic groups did not vote in enough numbers to increase their 95% solid votes within them.

They claimed they have never been the President when in fact the record demonstrated otherwise. Azikiwe was the President of Nigeria but that he was not the Executive when by choice, Azikiwe turned down Executive Prime Minister offer from Awolowo in order to form alliance with Tafawa Balewa's Government. They claimed they had never been the President when Aguyi Ironsi took Power as a Military President, he immediately turned Nigeria from a Federal government to a Unitary government.

Ndi-Igbo proclaimed Biafra that led to a civil war. But after a Biafran became the President with the support of North-central and Southern Nigerians, they disowned him as a Biafran. Though he had a cabinet full of Igbo! Ndi-Igbo opposed Awolowo, Abiola and now Tinubu for President. They fought each of them with everything they had including Awo that offered Zik Executive Prime Minister; Yea For Abacha to deny Abiola.

They are back again with frivolous court cases coming from their third place finish, in the Election. They refused to vote for anyone else but cried that they did not get enough votes from others, many of whom voted for Obi, their Presidential candidate. It is this form of hypocrisy that turns others off. It is anybody but Yoruba choice. They claimed they voted for Obasanjo but against Falaye, the Yoruba choice for President. A political malpractice.

Those who have warned all along that despite African warm welcome for strangers extended to Igbo in Yoruba land than anywhere else, Igbo were warning their children never to trust Yoruba. As Yoruba trained children that if a stranger arrived at dusk, he must be fed, clothed and given a place to sleep before dawn, Igbo parents were planning what we see today.

Farouk Martins Aresa @oomoaresa