I have been married for
about nine years now. My experience in my nearly a decade of being grafted to
another being has taught me to maintain the sacrality of my union. No
interloper allowed, even at times when the tempting thing to do is to succumb
to the emotion of letting in an outsider.
I have come to understand
that not all those who come to grief with you or provide you a shoulder to
recline on at your time of vulnerability are really ‘’grieving with you’’. Most
will exploit your low point to arrogate to themselves some importance and even
offer gratuitous suggestions to nail you to the wall of guilt.
This is the stitch of the
Igbo in Nigeria today. Everyone is now an adroit opinionist on what the ethnic
nationality must do to ‘’get presidency’’, as if the group is one undeserving
lot that has to grovel to get its due.
I must admit we have our
own peculiar challenges as a people, and so do other ethnic nationalities in
the country.
Really, I reckon as
condescending the statement of Ismaila Isa Funtua, an associate of President
Muhammadu Buhari, that the south-east must review its ways of playing politics
in order to get the presidency.
He said the Igbo do not
play inclusive politics and they like to “do things on their own”.
According to him, “They
(Igbo) should belong. They should join the party. They want to do things on
their own and because they are Igbo, we should dash them the president? That
was the reason I said is it turn by turn Nigeria Limited?”
He also said: “With due
respect to the Igbo, they fail to understand that when the south-west chose to
remain on their own as opposition, they did not go near the power. To a large
extent, the north in terms of religion and culture are closer to the south-west
than to the south-east. When Ekwueme contested (for the PDP ticket), Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo defeated him.
“I know Nigerian politics,
you chose your candidate who will be able to bring votes to you to win
election, not on regional basis, not on tribal basis. Is he going to be the
president of the North, East, South-west, South-south or whatever? If the Ibo
wants to be president, then they must belong. If you don’t belong, then you
can’t be the president.”
As a matter of fact,
Funtua’s statement reeks of corpulent arrogance, bigotry and acute sense of
entitlement. It reinforces the stereotype that his section of the country
bullies any region that does not kiss the ring of the caliphate.
If Funtua says ‘’Nigeria is
not turn by turn limited’’, then is our unity still non-negotiable? Why should
any group stay in the union when they are by design sequestered from taking the
lead role in the marriage? You cannot hold a people in abusive nuptials, and
still insist on relegating them to subjects.
I need to emphasise this,
we have always pledged to Nigeria’s unity. But we have not gone beyond this
perfunctory humbug to work at it. How can we assert, “Nigeria’s unity is not
negotiable”; yet we constantly chip away at the umbilical cord that holds us
together?
It is obvious that the
‘’leadership quarantine’’ of the south-east is deliberate. The region may never
be considered good enough to hold the highest office in the land no matter how
much it bends over backwards. Really, what does Funtua mean by ‘’the Igbo must
belong’’. They must submit themselves as vassals? I do not get it because there
are many Igbo politicians and supporters of the APC. In fact, my staunchest
critics are members of the APC from the south-east.
Political balance is a sine
qua non for nation building. We cannot pontificate on unity and be insensitive
to issues of political equity. The fons et origo of strife in society is
inequity and imbalance.
How do we build an
inclusive country with deeply lacerated political imbalances? How do we foster
oneness with this depressing level insensitivity to matters of national unity?
Igbo presidency in 2023 is an issue too critical to ignore.
A country as enormous,
diverse and delicate as Nigeria cannot evolve organically when a part of it is
marooned and confined to the fringes of political exclusion. The argument has
always been, “the Igbo are not ready”, and “they are not playing the right
politics”. But this argument is classically insipid and hollow. In fact, it is
an untenable rationalisation of the marginalisation of the Igbo.
It is now a moral burden on
Nigeria that a president of Igbo extraction emerges in 2023. If we are serious
about our unity, then we must take cognisance of the country’s sensitivities.
Our unity becomes truly not-negotiable, when all Nigerians matter.
By Fredrick Nwabufo
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