The campaign of hate and the popularisation
of hate speech in Nigeria is a legacy of Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign tactics
which many people failed to see it for what it was because we were blinded by
one sentiment or the other. It first
reared its head in the final days of the late Umaru ‘Yar Adua, his former
principal. After the death of ‘Yar Adua,
it became Jonathan’s mantra – with his no shoes slogan saturating the airwaves
and the print media. We all forgot that
most of us went to school without shoes.
Most of us were blind to the real meaning of the slogan – it was a barb
directed at most Nigerians. The other
oft repeated refrain was Jonathan’s ethnic minority status and his
religion. These were presented as if
there were people out there who are against the candidature/ presidency of
Goodluck Jonathan on the basis of these two issues. With the connivance of our security agents,
Jonathan made it back to the Aso Villa.
The man’s true colours began manifesting. All the credentials one need to be accepted
into the president’s inner circle is your hatred for the north. Apart from the likes of Edwin Clark, Reuben
Abati and Asari Dokubo, Igbo leadership was falling head over heels to outdo
all.
Igbo jezebels like Stella Oduah and Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala were brought on board and given sensitive ministries to
head. They have so far discharged their
briefs with diligence, may be surpassing their expectations. The duo have effectively “igbonised” their
respective ministries by ensuring that all departments and agencies under their
ministries are headed by Igbos to avoid for a situation where a non Igbo may
prove to be a spanner in the works. Two
examples of Oduah’s “success” may suffice here.
She worked extra hard to make Mallam Aminu Kano Airport redundant and
one would not be wrong to rename the Nigerian College of Aviation, Zaria as
Biafran College of Aviation because 90% of the management staff in the school
are all Igbos. Not to be outdone by
Stella Oduah, Okonjo-Iweala ensured that almost all agencies and parastatals in
the Finance Ministry is headed by an Igbo man or woman. The Nigerian Stock Exchange, Securities &
Exchange Commission, Bureau of Public Procurement, Budget Office, Debt
Management Office, etc. No one cares
that the actions of the two damsels is in direct contravention of the Federal
Character principle which is easily laid on any northerner who had the guts and
the gumption to try something akin to equity.
But knowing the whole Igbo leadership and followership will stand by
them and give them covering fire; they trudged on not minding whose ox is
gored.
The recent revelation by the Nigerian
Customs Service that the country lost about N1.4tr to waivers and concessions
under Okonjo-Iweala’s watch put a question mark on the woman’s much vaunted
integrity and economic expertise. It
only proves that she is not averse to telling lies under oath as was recently
shown by her response to the House of Representatives Finance Committee. With a straight face, she claimed waivers and
concessions granted to some people “only” amounted to N170.7bn. This was a woman whose arrival from the World
Bank was heralded with a lot of hype on her numerous qualifications from Ivy
league business schools around the world.
Nigerians were made to feel honoured that such a personage has “stooped”
to be in our midst and be Finance Minister, a position her paid pipers made us
believe is beneath her. That she is
sacrificing a career at the World Bank to come and fix a broken country and a
battered economy. I had cause to point
out then that wasn’t it ironical that Christine Lagarde, the then French Finance
Minister, was on the verge of leaving her post to take up the Managing
Directorship of the IMF, the junior partner to the World Bank, while our own
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was resigning as the Managing Director of the World Bank to
be a minister of a third rate rentier economy like Nigeria’s. What we were not conveniently told was that
she was a Managing Director - one of three Managing Directors - and not the
Managing Director.
While Madam Wahala was holding brief as our “Co-ordinating Economic Minister”,
$49.8 billion got “missing”. She
presided over the voodoo explanations that Nigerians were subjected to without
blinking her eyes. For daring to
question Okonjo Iweala’s integrity, we got heaps of insults from the Igbos. We do not know whether the monies were stolen
on behalf of the Igbos or not – what we know is that this huge amount of money
got missing when Okonjo-Iweala is sitting pretty tight as the ‘Co-ordinating
Minister of the Economy’.
We have also seen how the issue of Stella’s
kleptomania is turned into an ethnic rather than a national issue as the Igbos
went on a threat-issuing spree. Another
instance of this Igbo politics of threats is the announcement by Professor Ango
Abdullahi that the Northern Elders Forum is contemplating filing of a case
before the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the immediate past Chief
of Army Staff, Lt. General Ihejirika, for atrocities committed by his troops in
the country’s fight against insurgency.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Igbos have a separate agenda
from that of other Nigerians. The threat
by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) eastern region that the north
should be prepared for a tribal war in the event the Northern Elders Forum
(NEF) carried through its intention of taking Ihejirika to the ICC is very
revealing to the unbiased. What are the
Igbos afraid of, what are they trying to hide?
Was Ihejirika an Igbo or a CAN, eastern region, Chief of Army
Staff? Was he not a Chief of Army Staff
of the Nigerian Army? Were there things
that the former COAS did at the behest of the Igbos and the eastern region CAN
that they are scared may be laid bare by a trial? Or that people of Igbo extraction should not
be held responsible for their actions or inactions, commissions or omissions
while in office?
The fire of ethnicity and religiosity
ignited by Jonathan in his 2011 campaign has turned into a conflagration with groups
from the former eastern region trying to re-enact their despicable actions of
January 1966, which took the country through a needless civil war. While his kith and kin are insulting the rest
of the country, Jonathan is busy summoning from pulpits across Abuja. Nigeria will not survive another war and
going by the beatings of the drums of war by the president’s supporters, we
have to pray hard that one isn’t thrust on us.
An amicable parting of ways as happened in the defunct
Czechoslovakia, may be in the best
interest of all concerned. We can go our
separate ways without a single shot fired and with everybody’s integrity
intact.
It is also high time northern leaders across
board wake up to the ;ossibility of such inevitability. The display disdain, hatred and raw animosity
is becoming more and more provocative.
It is apparent that what Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Okoro and company began on
January 1966 and which Tony Nyiam, Jonathan’s white-haired boy, tried to finish
in April 1990 but failed must be completed for these people to be
satisfied. The inheritors to the ‘five
majors’ diabolical blueprint believe there won’t be more auspicious time than
now – with a pliable and guillible president on seat – to realise their
lifelong ambition. Arewa, Ronu!
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