26 Feb 2006 |
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Helloo village people, This whole thing is simply decapitating, isn’t it? While we are still mourning the death of a child bitten to death by rats, chickens are growing vicious fangs! As if our predicaments are not overwhelming enough, fascist hoodlums in the North, again and again, use religious smokescreens to unleash carnage and mayhem upon innocent citizens of other ethnic extractions, especially the Igbos, who live among them under the “one Nigeria” deceit. Averagely, this phenomenon keeps reoccurring every two years since 1945 with rabid and retarded Hausas and their confederates resorting to violence to assert their primitive jingoism for every little provocation, national or international. As far as I am concerned this latest case is a typical act of giving a dog a bad name in other to hang it because it clearly has nothing to do with an offensive attitude by those victimised. Even in monolithic Arab Moslem nations, irate protesters did not target Christians living among them, they went for the properties of their perceived blaspheming nations, which nonetheless, were no acts of heroism. But when the tremors of a cartoonist caricature of Mohamed with its epicentre in Denmark resurfaces in Northern Nigeria to claim innocent lives who, most probably, were entirely oblivious of such a peccadillo, we have a lot of questions to ask ourselves. Come to think about it; we all know that the number of cyclists in Beijing alone is higher that than the number of cyclists all over the world put together. Now imagine that a cyclist trips in that city precipitating the fall of another umpteen thousand cyclists who then block an important highway for hours, you come to Nigeria and hold Okoro man responsible because one cyclist while falling made an exclamation that sounded like nnaa! Haba, what concerns an Igbo man with fallen cyclists in China? Okoro man no be Chinese, Awusa man no be Chinese, Nigeria no de for Asia, na wetin be all this, na wa-o! Jokes aside, this is a blatant act of betrayal on fellow citizens who have travelled far to come to live with you believing that we are one people in one nation despite your repeated ruthlessness on them. Not even the common human ethic that understands the protection of one’s guests do you respect. Shame I say, shame on you murderers and arsonists. Forever shame on you jackals! You are cowards who repeatedly take advantage of your visitors, cutting their throats and dispossessing them of their belongings in the guise of religion. Yes you are mere filthy, stinking brigands void of all healthy human reasoning. All you have accomplished in your lives is a shallow knowledge of the Koran, enforced on you by your equally misguided mullahs. But even here you are evidently lacking because you have woefully failed to understand the fundamental tenets of Islamism. Let nobody tell me this time that I am being too emotional because I need to tell those barbarians what they really are. I hope, this time again, their demonic and necrophiliac orgasms were as explosive as always whenever they smell the blood of Igbos they have killed! A murderous lasciviousness I doubt could be stilled by any number of heavenly virgins when Allah finally receives them at a wide-open heaven’s door with wide-open arms for the great job they have accomplished on earth exterminating uncountable number of infidels! However, to those families and friends who have once again been called upon to make the sacrifice and endure the loss of a member, a loved one or more, I wish them the strength and fortitude to get over their grieves and look up to the future with confidence. I humbly appeal to my Igbo brothers and sisters to show restraint. Apart from its reciprocal nature revenge is hardly the answer to our problems in this unholy union. Besides, we should not let them drag us down to their devilish level. I know this is a tough demand to make, especially for the fact that these heinous attacks are recurrently systemic and our governments, past and present, intentionally or not, do not seem to have any intentions of cracking down on these murderous loonies and do not seem to have any solutions to the security problems of this nation in the foreseeable future. But look at those crippled and poor mendicants who beg for their daily existence around our public places, are they worth dirtying our hands on in reprisal for the murder of our people by their kinsfolk up north? Besides they are just as innocent as our killed and maimed kindred. We shouldn’t forget that not all those Hausas are bad. In every pogrom there have been Hausas who would stake their necks to save their Igbo friends. All the same while revenge is not the answer we, as a matter of urgency, must start exploring strategies to secure our lives and those of our posterity in this Nigerian entrapment before we are declared endangered specie. The government cannot help us. Surely no right thinking Igbo man needs a written document from the government to appreciate that fact. Backing out of the Nigerian nation cannot help us either and besides, it is not the wisest thing to do. I’ll soon tell you why. Only we, our earnest and concerted efforts, can save ourselves from the bubbling abyss whose misty edges are so precariously closing in on us. The truth is often a bitter pill to swallow but let’s face it our condition in Nigeria today is to a large extent our fault. All these sob stories about marginalisation, oppression, economic and social negligence and so on and so fort are not only exigent but are also out of place. We are the ones marginalising ourselves, oppressing ourselves, economically and socially neglecting ourselves and above all, throwing the hammer into our own works and placing stumbling blocks on each other’s paths! The root and roof of the Igbo man’s problems are: A) the psychological backlash of his perceived loss of group dignity as a result of surrendering the Biafran dream involuntarily. B) This wrongly perceived loss of group dignity resulted in his loss of group solidarity and to a large extent desensitised his collective instinct for survival in a hostile environment. But this factor of “hostile environment” is not uniquely an Igbo problem. Every distinct ethnicity in Africa, if not in the whole world, faces or had had to deal with that problem sometime in their history. Since the Igbos generally do not wear tribal marks the Igbo language was an important unifying factor. Thus, in the days of yore an Igbo man would defend anybody who uttered some Ibo words while in trouble and it didn’t matter if the beleaguered individual was Igbo or not. However, the two aforementioned losses have seriously blighted upon this once strong characteristic hallmark of the Igbos. Further compounded by the fact that the Igbo has never been a sincere hero worshiper, his individualistic character became very pronounced and since the disillusionment of the Biafran dream he has been engaged in a personal crusade to assert his individuality to the detriment of his ethnicity. It is unimaginable what some of us would do to accomplish our individual goals. I had a personal experience with this parvenu who came back home from some distant firmament with allegedly mounds and mounds of dollars. He hails from a village, which is bordered to mine. These two communities have been the best of friends right from our ancestral history respecting each other’s territory. But as soon as this ogre appeared in the picture, he started to erect a monolithic structure, which spanned across our border without first consulting with my folks. My folks did not approve of this disrespectful attitude and demanded an explanation. Now, can you imagine, this “big man” told them to go to hell! Aware that there was nobody in my community that had the wherewithal to challenge him, he even threatened to evict my people from our ancestral home claiming that the area was theirs and that we were only tolerated there as tenants. My brother, ih no de hard ih bigin hard’o! In fact this plutocrat got my folks scurrying and flurrying to raise funds for legal backing when they found out that he was really out to make good on his threats. The worst is that none among his kindred came out to tell him that he was wrong. They backed him. These are a people with whom we have enjoyed peaceful neighbourliness all along our history. But thank the gods nemesis has its way of taking care of the poor. I know of a many compulsive young Igbos who would do everything within and without the legal books to escape the excruciating penury at home. They find their way to Europe and elsewhere, risk their necks and toil their fingers to smithereens, sending their earnings home to relations with a tacit understanding that they would safeguard their money for them until they come back home. Not a few of these guys returned to find out that one uncle or brother had embezzled all the money he sent home while abroad and in some cases had even resorted to witchcraft or hired killers in a bid to eliminate him. If one takes an objective look at the Nigerian political scene today one would realise that some of the most unabashed sycophants in public offices are Igbos and they would do anything to outwit each other. Every Igbo man wants to be the president of Nigeria and if they can’t they sabotage the prospects of other Igbo candidates. So why should it surprise anybody that the Igbo aspiration for presidency remains a will-o’-the-wisp. There was an occasion when a local politician in my area was out to chastise my parents when he found out that they voted for another party that they believed would represent their interests better than his. Just imagine that! Yes, we are the sole architects of this crumbling house of cards in which we now find ourselves. Unfortunately we have not learned from our mistakes. Instead of turning inwards to sort ourselves out we feel more comfortable blaming our woes on everybody else. The Igbo man has an uncanny penchant for producing potential “abandoned properties.” Why is it that despite being resented almost everywhere he pitches his tent in Nigeria, he still leaves his home to go dwell in other parts of Nigeria, establishing business and building edifices with impunity? What magic is it that forever lures the Igbo man back to the north, again and again, no matter many of them get killed there? A hard-core Igbo businessman would tell you that it is because he believes in “one Nigeria!” Despite all my love for Nigeria I must admit that this overstretches my personal credulity because that does not quite explain why a hundred Igbos would be killed in Ugwu-awusa today and within one week another two hundred would be back there to await the next round of blazing machetes. I suspect there is more to it than meets the eye. But what is it? Hmm, this is a veritable conundrum! Say what? Did I hear you say there must be something horrible we are fleeing from in our homeland? Could it be that Igbo land is too arid and inimical to progress? Igbos are everywhere in the world. Go to the deepest coal mine in Siberia, you must find at least one okoro man among the coal miners there. I remember years back when importation of tokumbo into Nigeria was still an in business, my younger brother and I came up with a genial idea to drive to one of the remotest corners in Bavaria in search of used cars to send home. Used cars in Munich where we live have became too expensive. No thanks to our other brothers who would buy anything, Germans started demanding money for cars they would’ve paid you to remove from their premises a few years back. My brother and I thought we had come up with the greatest gambit in the world. One of my German friends even told us that when we get there people would be throwing their old cars after us and if we smiled friendly enough, they would even give us money to ship them. We closely guarded this secret until the day we finally made the voyage. The first sign to know that you have arrive at a part of this planet where the natives were not used to seeing black people around was how they stared at you from the distance and their ambivalent responses when you greeted them. But when we stopped at a filling station just outside the hamlet we were visiting to enquire about cars and car dealers in the place, a little lad, I guess the son of the station operator, approached us boldly and asked us where we have spent our summer holidays to have acquired such a great tan, I suspected something was amiss here! Anyway we got our information and soon arrived at what looked like an abandoned car lot a couple of kilometres later. It was 9.00 A.M. As we stepped out of our car to go find out what was on offer, my brother tapped my shoulder and told me to take a look over there. I thought he had descried a car that was worth a closer attention, he had an eye for good cars. Far from that, it was another car scavenger, another black man, wow! He didn’t seem to be too enthused about our sudden appearance but he managed a strained smile. He was the only person in the entire car lot but all the reasonable cars were tagged “SOLD” in bold letters. Not knowing what else to do we asked him if he was the dealer. Somehow, he was able to discern from our accent that we had something in common. “Nna, obukwa ofu ije ahu’o,” “I am doing the same thing like you,” he responded grinning smugly at us. Damned! He told us that he had been buying from this car lot for more than one year and that the owner of the place would not sell to any other black man than himself. All the cars tagged sold were his, about fourteen of them. The owner of the place was nowhere around, so we couldn’t verify the veracity of his claims. You can’t beat okoromaduekwe, I thought. We thanked him for the information so far and left without finding out how much he paid for each car. He wouldn’t have told us the truth anyway. Enterprising Igbos are all over the places. They are some of the most talented engineers, doctors, scientists, entrepreneurs and financial warheads, diplomats, educationists strewn all over the world; you name it, architects constructing some of the world’s greatest architectures. When they settle down anywhere they speak the language better the indigenes. For some reason, at that level of success, they never go home anymore. I once had the opportunity to watch one of the conventions of the Commonwealth nations on the TV some years back. The then general secretary of the organisation was an Igbo man. Many renowned personalities including the queen of England were in attendance and they all had their turns addressing the gathering, some of them articulate and interesting, others somewhat prosaic. But when this quondam Secretary of the Commonwealth took the rostrum and started speaking English language, even as a TV spectator, you could notice how the audience was electrified. I developed goose pimples listening to this man. After his speech he was greeted with such a resounding standing ovation that even the queen of England could not help being envious. Now with all these human resources can anybody tell me why we cannot make more out of our lot as a people and stop all this whining over such trivialities like marginalisation, etc, etc. I think it was Colonel Achuzie who once told us during the Biafran war, “If they cut you off, you cut them in.” Onye ajuru anaghi aju onwe ya. One does not reject oneself just because another rejected one. The Nigerian government is not going to redeem any ethnic group or us from our present miseries. With our breed of politicians who would rather own properties in Europe and America, send their children to school oversees, go for medical check ups oversees and only commuting between their comfortable villas abroad and their goldmines in Nigeria, what other evidence does one need to know that they have neither hope nor trust in the country they are supposed to be leading. Methinks they don’t even know they are part of us. They are neo-colonialists who have vested interests in the present chaotic state of affairs and unless we ignore and boycott them, exercising our human and citizens rights by taking our own developments into our own hands, this situation would persist for a long, long time! If we strongly believe in ourselves we could harness all these potentials and bring them home. We could develop Igbo land and make it one of the most progressive places in the world. We could develop infrastructures and industries; create jobs and amenities that would make it difficult for any Igbo son or daughter to want to live anywhere outside Igbo land. Above all, we could do all these legitimately without the risk of bloodshed. Like I earlier mentioned, running away from Nigeria is not the wisest thing to do. Despite all its shortcomings, a Nigeria that is intact is the most auspicious backdrop for developing Igbo land because the great population of Nigeria would provide an immediate market for our industrial products and services, which could otherwise be destroyed requiring years to recover if we ever resort to violence again. This is one of many reasons why I would appeal to those protagonists of the actualisation of the sovereign state of Biafra to go back to the drawing boards one more time. I was a Biafran soldier and there is not much anybody can tell me about the woes of war anymore (read the “Biafran Odyssey” written by Chidi Giniji). I do not know why they are so infatuated about that word Biafra. Biafra is not an Igbo word, except when it is derided to Bia furu, which means, come and gawk, and it has little to do with Igbo land or are they counting on the south south to stand by them if it ever comes to violent hostilities? I wish they would first find out the facts before plunging those innocent and uninformed young men in harms way again. Already many of them have lost their lives! When they talk of non-violent resistance, they forget that their interlocutors are entirely different from those Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela had to deal with. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you cannot stand your grounds and fight it out when it comes to a head but why stir the hornet’s nest? Why go for lead if you have gold? With all our potentials and human resources we are the ones most likely to lose if we get provoked into anything funny again. We have so many peaceful options to better our lot, why do we even want to go into any argument with anybody. Besides, many of the Igbos you might be counting on have vested interests in the present status quo. Don’t be surprised that they would betray you at the eleventh hour. If you are hoping that the US would support you, think again. Clamouring for Biafra now could send us moving backwards to where we stopped more that three and a half decades ago. Rather than put the cart before the horse, what we need to do now, especially in the face of all this hostilities, is to maintain a cool head. Do the ground works; encourage all those Igbos outside Igbo land, starting from Nigeria, to come home and invest. If their customers cannot find them in Lagos, Abuja and Maidugri, they will come to Igbo land to buy. In the process other services shall benefit from the influx of guests and commerce shall flourish. The next step would be to improve and extend our infrastructures and security systems and then encourage those highly proficient technocrats in the Diaspora to repatriate their skills. Obviously these would take years to accomplish, but it is viable and most of all it is legitimate and peaceful. Though most of us today might not live to see it accomplished, our children and grand children can enjoy the better of two worlds. We should give up this unreasonable obsession for Biafra. It has become anachronistic. We only need to look inside and to come together. There are a lot to benefit from the Nigerian nation state. The only thing Nigeria lacks is a true leader. This must not be a political leader; it could as well be a dynamic group of people. By the way, everything I have written in this essay about the Igbos applies to every other ethnic group in Nigeria but like they say, charity begins at home. If we would define our distinctiveness, polish our individual ethnic characteristics and respect our petty differences, we would be creating a better Nigeria in which we can live together peacefully. We do not have to wait for our so-called governments to call for a national conference and sort things out for us because a functioning Nigeria just does not seem to be part of their agenda.
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