I grew up with a fascination for thrillers, being totally absorbed with my Dad’s old Readers Digest magazines. It was from there I read about Jeffrey Dahmer, the guy who kills women and freezes their body, cuts them up and eats them (not that beef was expensive in America). I remember about Ted Bundy, whose specialty was to kidnap women who parted their hair in the middle (it was the hippie days). He killed hundreds before he was caught. I read about Jack the Ripper, and the Una Bomber, Timothy McVeigh, the Zodiac Killer, Son of Sam (David Berkowitz) and a lot of crazies. Since then, I’ve grown up a tad suspicious, knowing that at the end, people have different motivations for doing what they do, that people see things differently (yes, where you see white someone else sees red and you cannot convince them otherwise), and that you cannot put anything past human beings, at the end of the day. My interest in human psychology started a long time ago.
I also read a lot about cults. Especially religious cults. But let’s hang this here for a while.
Fortuitously I travelled to Eastern Nigeria two weeks ago (I was last there more than 14 years ago, and properly around 1994) and came back with a shock; the people there have done extraordinarily well for themselves and the rest of us need to learn from them; that sense of aesthetics, attention to details, patriotism to one’s motherland, investment in one’s homestead, establishment of high standards in everything, even the internal competition to achieve results (to a large extent), are attributes worthy of emulation. My entire thoughts were that everything must be done to ensure that the achievements of South Eastern Nigerians be preserved and not jeopardised in any way. I am an anti-war advocate. I did mount a coalition against the destruction of Libya in 2010/2011 and gathered over 12600 followers just before Gadaffi was murdered. I felt pained about Homs in Syria, and about what became of Iraq. I simply don’t want war anywhere in Nigeria, least of all, the beautiful South East. In my view, the rhetoric, actions, threats and propaganda from IPOB could only lead to boots on ground. And so upon return from the East I’ve been in several battles to ensure this IPOB issue does not escalate.
I saw through the ‘strategy’ of Kanu and his close supporters; that the game is to collapse the current economic structure so that they may emerge on top. This is what many ‘enlightened’ achievers who support him (mostly from the closet), don’t seem to understand. This guy wants them to abandon all they have and come back home to the ‘holy land’, which Chukwu Abiama has blessed, and the God of the Jews has ordained. The message is puritanical. It is about the exceptionalism of a particular tribe who are better than all else. Reasonability would have demanded that even when a tribe is better in many things than others, it should be humble about it because no one has it all. This Kanu guy will hear none of that, and would usually launch into a diatribe if he is challenged.
The message from the East in general is confusing. Nnamdi Kanu and his core supporters most of whom are street/area boys who have missed their ways actually want Igbo achievers to abandon what they have elsewhere so that when they go back home, they start afresh. When told about Igbo investment all over Nigeria, Kanu retorts that any Igbo with houses in any part of Nigeria was an idiot and a fool. The Igbos are a driven people who have achieved a lot, even at home. But cramming back into the South East of Nigeria will be very problematic. Even a referendum as advocated will be tough to administer. Will we seek the opinions of every Igbo person all over Nigeria or all over the world to know if they want to remain in the Nigerian union or form their own country? Or will the exercise be limited to the East? With the overflow of emotions, will people not be victimized and labelled ‘saboteurs’ if they choose to remain in Nigeria?
Yes, many Igbos don’t want to leave Nigeria. And even among those who want to leave, many are not too sure. Yet others want to leave but be able to stroll into Nigeria to do their businesses as usual, as if nothing happened. The last option will be great (leaving but remaining as traders), but will be seen as a defeat of the Nigerian side; that we were called a zoo, and the Igbos got their own country, only to trade in the zoo, selling to wild animals who are best put to death. This is the culmination of Nnamdi’s ideology. No one else has given us a better analogy about how this can play out amicably, but it is apparent that this charge cannot be led by a lunatic ‘leader’ and megalomaniac who insults, curses and threatens everyone else. We need reasonable people who can build proper coalitions for this to work.
Having just seen the South East, I can confirm that that region can be self-sufficient and will most likely show quick signs of real progress ahead of any other part of Nigeria. The region, from my informed eyes, is intrinsically ahead of the rest. With my Samsung phone, I took pictures of monuments I never knew existed in Nigeria; dozens of them. I saw infrastructure and sights that don’t exist anywhere in the South West of Nigeria where I am from. The Igbos may leave the union in order to continue that trajectory of achievement that they have established. But the problem again, is that they really don’t want to leave. Or do they? The matter leaves one confused.
Buhari’s appointments
When I engaged a number of friends about what that region had achieved and how marvelled I was with what I saw, they insisted that President Buhari had not appointed Igbo people into government, that what I saw were personal/community achievements. I agreed, but I wonder if that is enough reason for them to leave the union in anger? I thought a better strategy was to bid one’s time, warm your way into everybody’s hearts and then if the goal is political office, you coast into the top office in the land with one of your brightest. Buhari has 8 years to spend in leadership at the maximum. Time conquers us all. I recall even proposing in 2013, for an Igbo person (Rochas Okorocha – for he was the most prominent and most vocal ‘Easterner’ in the APC then) to run for President in 2015 because I saw an opportunity to somehow bring the whole saga to a close. See https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/global-connection/the-imperatives-of-okorocha-fashola-ticket-1/95858.html and https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/global-connection/the-imperatives-of-okorocha-fashola-ticket-2/95890.html.
Many told me Rochas was not what he made out to be. Well, I know little about the local politics there but I think they are often too hard on themselves. Some of the best governors in the country are indeed from the South East, simple. Results on ground show that. I did an update recently on my Facebook page that governors from other regions in Nigeria should head east to see what they had achieved. If the East of Nigeria disgusts Easterners so much, then the rest of the country will indeed be a crying shame for them and hence the anger and eagerness by many, to break away entirely. Also, part of the psychology is that the average South-Eastern Nigerian is today well-travelled and has seen how other countries look. This may have affected their expectations from this country, and the impatience that is boiling over. More next week.
