Did the Nigeria-Biafra war, 1967-1970, damage the psychology of the average Igbo person? No. But… For more than half a century since after the war, the Igbo have continued to grope in the darkness of the Nigerian social and political space. When we say ‘since after the war’, we actually meant the shooting with deadly rifles and bombings to kill mostly defenceless and unarmed innocent Igbo civilians and sundry non-combatants.
The reality is that the war on Ndigbo is still well and alive. The other day, a hitherto respected academic and grand-father, Prof. Oluwole Akinwale Soyinka, side-stepped the many ills afflicting the country under the rulership of his benefactor, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to pontificate on, and about, tomorrow. He said of 2027 that the Labour Party [LP] presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, should perish the thought of presenting himself as a candidate for an election that’s still three years away.
For the likes of Soyinka and Tinubu, Nigeria’s democracy and governance begin and end with manipulated balloting, compromised election results and stolen victories. They are contented with winning legal battles in corrupt law courts and struggling with widespread debilitating legitimacy burdens. Positively impacting the lives of Nigerians is immaterial to them. They do not even care about signalling. Tinubu and his co-travellers have no qualms living large off our commonwealth.
When Soyinka whimsically and summarily disqualified Obi from the 2027 presidential poll, the only reason he offered was that the Obidients, a section of the vocal Obi supporters in last year’s election, were irreverent. While he muttered those words, Soyinka knew that he was only inventing a disqualifying criterion that has no place in our laws. But he always feels he has a licence to speak as it pleases him but not to be responded to. Hubris.
Soyinka and Tinubu his benefactor and lord who can do no wrong are not of interest to us in our intervention today. We are concerned with the Igbo in themselves and in Nigeria.
It’s 54 years since Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s former military usurper, declared ‘no victor no vanquished’ after the civil war. As it turned out the phrase was an empty slogan. However, the greater tragedy is that the Igbo have remained paralysed in significant areas of rehabilitating themselves in spite of the Igbo adage that ‘onye ajuru aju, anagh aju onweya’.
We should make no mistake about it nor underestimate the capacity of Ndigbo to lift themselves by their bootstraps. And they have done so in many tangible areas. They have achieved huge success in economic rehabilitation through commerce and investments. Their phenomenal success is the envy of other nations in Nigeria.
In comparison, the Igbo nation has done extremely well in the education sector. In public examinations such as the National Examinations Council [NECO], West African Examinations Council [WAEC] and the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board [JAMB] examinations, the five states, bar one, awarded the Igbo by military regimes are perennially in the top 10 of performance rankings. Even the laggard Ebonyi State is usually ranked immediately after the top 10.
In areas where there are no Nigerian state strangle-hold, the Igbo have held their own, and, indeed surpassed competition here and elsewhere. In the state arena, what appeared to be a political reintegration was quickly squashed. Within nine years from the end of the civil war, Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, a lawyer and architect, became vice president of an elected Nigerian government. He lasted four years in office and then spent half as many years imprisoned by the military that overthrew his, and President Shehu Shagari’s administration. Ekwueme was probed and probed again and again and was found without blemish. Yet he was kept in prison. In fact, his traducers determined that he came out poorer from his service to Nigeria as vice president. All the while, his principal Shagari was only confined to his home in Sokoto. Different strokes for different folks.
To appreciate the enormity of the exclusion of Ndigbo in state-controlled institutions, just undertake a casual review of the headship of the armed forces, intelligence agencies and para-military organisations since 1970. The Igbo are treated as pariahs in appointments into these positions. Even the recruitment of Igbo youngsters into these agencies have become issues of grave concern. The truth is that Igbo young men and women now consciously and deliberately excuse themselves from recruitment exercises into the agencies. They claim, and rightly so, that the experiences of their parents, uncles and aunties in these agencies have been unpalatable- stagnation in a position, undefined career paths, maltreatment, abuse, inexplicable loss of seniority, sudden and premeditated premature retirement. The next generation of the Igbo do not see a future for themselves in the agencies.
The loss of the civil war was crippling but the Igbo managed to rise from the ashes in many respects. However, the spirit that made the Igbo rebuild the massive devastation of the infrastructure in their homeland was unfortunately not applied to a critical area of their lives as a hunted people in a haunted nation.
In nation building symbolism is very important. It could seem intangible but when properly articulated, symbolism can prove a rallying point for bonding and unity.
If the Igbo recovered faily quickly in the 1970s and the 1980s, it was due largely to the spirit of igwebuike. Through igwebuike community hospitals, schools, roads, boreholes, post offices and postal agencies, etcetera were built. Strength in number was a rallying cry and Igbo mainstay then. And it performed wonders. Igwebuike birthed the Imo Airport [today’s Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport, Owerri], arguably the biggest infrastructural project to date in Nigeria delivered by communal effort. It worked because igwebuike was rooted in the hitherto undiluted culture of Ndigbo. Now ikeotuonye [I alone or solo effort] is aggressively displacing igwebuike. Ikeotuonye degrades stakeholder mentality and imperils the safety of community projects. And what a price the Igbo are paying!
It’s a matter of regret that the Igbo failed miserably in deploying igwebuike in the years after the civil war in memorialising the war in which they were the major victims and engraving the horrors and the lessons of that bloody conflict in their consciousness and the consciousness of succeeding generations.
It could be argued that the command and control nature of military regimes in the ‘70s and ‘80s would not have conduced for memorialising the civil war by Ndigbo but can we say the same for the 24 years, thus far, of democracy since 1999?
Nature abhors vacuum. So in 48 hours much of the Igbo nation or the entirety of it would be on a lockdown. Indigenes and residents will be compelled at the risk of their limbs and lives to stay indoors to reflect on the civil war. The Indigenous People of Biafra [IPOB] has seized the initiative because the Igbo political elite and the intelligentsia have failed to do the needful after more than two decades of unbroken democratic rule.
Imagine the optics and the likely soothing effects if any set of the governors of the south east states had come together long before today, or even now, to declare May 30, the day the peoples Army General, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu proclaimed the now defunct State of Biafra in 1967. Such a day will be dedicated to sober reflections on the costs and lessons of war. It could be a sad reminder of what happened and losses incured but it could also help the healing process for Igbo families [and every Igbo family did] who lost so much. Heroes’ Day, Martyr’s Day, Remembrance Day, Memorial Day or whatever name it is called, would also help the Igbo tell their own story about the civil war and what led to it. It should be an eventful Day every year.
For so long the narrative about the war has been told mainly by the peoples of other nations in Nigeria at the expense and detriment of Ndigbo. It is the reason why the coup by the military in January 1966 was branded Igbo coup. But the military coup of July 1966 was not christened Hausa/Fulani coup. In addition, Nigeria’s official history of the war carefully sterilised the Aburi-Ghana Agreement to ensure that Nigeria’s wilful repudiation of the accord which it signed was not a significant part of the war history.
If Ndigbo had initiated and sustained telling their children, other Nigerians and the world the story of the war from their own perspective and experience, perhaps no sane person would have ever contemplated the idea of the Igbo seeking forgiveness from any other nations in Nigeria or championing the issue of national reconciliation. The Igbo are not without blame in the troubles with Nigeria but in the context of the civil war, they were the people who were wronged. They were forced into a war of survival. They were victims of pogrom and genocide.
But ‘taa bu gboo’ [better late than never]. The Igbo leadership should put on their thinking cap. Let’s begin to take the steps to reinvent ourselves. The consideration of what other nations in Nigeria will think about the Igbo is no longer valid. The Igbo have been paralysed by fear for far too long. The generation that fought gallantly to fend off the extermination of Ndigbo between 1967-1970 is almost extinct. If you want evidence then take a trip and drive by the expressway through Oji River en route Enugu State and observe the diminishing and vanishing lines of wheel chair-bound Biafran veterans. They are going to their graves sad. Unsung even by those they fought for. A stub of the elite Biafran warriors and acclaimed inventors are in their end-of-life stage as exiles in foreign and strange lands. For current Igbo leaders, their job is cut out for them. Enough of thinking about others to the detriment of Ndigbo. Let’s formally declare May 30 every year a public holiday and a day of remembrance. Political party affiliations should ordinarily not be a hinderance. We have allowed the sun to set rather too early in the Land of the Rising Sun.
