From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Ebere Uzoatu is a legal practitioner based in Aba, Abia State.
In this interview, he ex-rayed the strategy adopted by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in their struggle for Biafra and advocated for a new strategy that would be in tandem with present realities.
He also spoke on other issues.
You’ve all these while been calling for the release of the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, but up till now, nothing has happened in that direction. How do you feel?
Though the matter is subjudice, it is still within the precincts of the Supreme Court to give her judgment sometime in December, we are hoping on the best, let the Supreme Court pontificate on our legal jurisprudence that Nnamdi Kanu should be a free person in Nigeria. After all, the Court of Appeal had earlier before now set him free.
Is there anything the Southeast stands to gain if the IPOB leader is set free today?
A lot. The Southeast will first of all gain in the area of security architecture. All manner of security problems have cropped up in the Southeast and some parts of the South-south ever since Kanu was incarcerated in the dungeon of the Nigerian government. Apart from the security architecture being enhanced, the zone will equally gain in the area of economic prosperity. Many businesses in the area have collapsed since Kanu has been in the gulak of the Federal Government. Every sphere of life will be enhanced with the release of the IPOB leader.
The Southeast economy crumbling, is it as a result of the sit-at-home in place there?
That’s the major reason and I should think other parts of Nigeria are benefitting from the downfall of the Southeast which shouldn’t be the real thing. The Southeast as every other person knows is the economic hub of Nigeria. A situation whereby these things have been happening and other parts of the country kept quiet, as if they are taunting the Southeast, it’s not the best. If your brother is down, you are down. The Igbo are the only people that know how to navigate in Nigeria and once they are down, other parts of Nigeria are equally down. So, it’s high time they took steps towards nipping in the bud this sit-at-home conundrum.
From your assessment, is the sit-at-home worth all the troubles?
It is not. Why it is not worth it is if you look at the marginalization of the Igbo since ever the end of the civil war, they have been kept down so that other parts of Nigeria will rise above them. It could have been nice if the Igbo land can boost of major industries in the country so that when we cough, other parts of Nigeria will catch cold. But, we don’t have major industries like petrochemical, refineries and what have you, all those things that can make Nigeria shake and that’s why they are looking at us and say you can as well kill yourselves.
Some people are blaming Simon Ekpa for this sit-at-home, accusing him of going out of the IPOB way. Do you agree with that?
As far as I’m concerned, Simon Ekpa is a fifth columnist, he is a fifth columnist till tomorrow who is doing the bidding of the Hausa/Fulani and those supporting him. A fighter does not fight at home, you take the battle to your enemy. You cannot be killing your brothers and sisters in the name of sit-at-home. Many of these people you are asking to sit-at-home are peasants, they depend on daily income for them to eke out a living, so, why should he be enjoying himself in Finland and be imposing curfew here and there; that’s not the way real revolutionaries carry out things. Let him take the battle to Lagos, Abuja or where the Federal Government will feel the impact, but we cannot set our houses on fire simply because we want to chase out a rat from the house.
Some people are calling for Simon Ekpa arrest, I wouldn’t know if you’re of the same view?
Thank you very much for this question, that’s why I said and some of us are of the view that Simon Ekpa is a fifth columnist, he is doing the bidding of his pay masters. If it were to be under a normal clime, the Federal Government should have engaged the Finnish Government on how to extradite him because he cannot be hiding there and be distablizing Nigeria, but because it is happening in Igbo land, according to them, we can go to blazes. If they were serious about it, they should have put every other thing in motion to extradite him normally, properly into Nigeria to face any charges that may be preferred against him. Simon Ekpa is dealing with Igboland more than any other thing whatsoever.
Are you now saying Simon Ekpa is not a freedom fighter?
As far as I’m concerned, he is not, he is enjoying himself, at times you see him in certain videos, drinking costly wine, choice wine, dancing, as if he is mocking us here in Igboland. A freedom fighter should be in the oven to take the heat. You don’t just go and marry a white woman, enjoying, cruising and asking people to be doing certain things that are impossible. Let him come down to Nigeria and let’s follow him.
What are you telling these youths that have been carrying out this Simon Ekpa’s sit-at-home order?
What I will tell them is this, every other person including myself is that everybody should put on his or her thinking cap. A typical Igbo man is known for using his brain, being wise in certain things. You can’t ask a typical Igbo man to jump into the fire and he does that without asking you why, without your convincing him, it’s not proper. Nnamdi Kanu at a point came to Nigeria and that’s why he has tremendous followership. You lead from the front, not from the rear.
How would you assess the present administration in Abia?
I will give Alex Otti an excellent mark, not a pass mark. With Otti’s administration, many Abians, many Nigerians have come to realize that you can construct roads even during rainy season. Before, the powers that be used to tell us to wait, that they only have three or four months in a year to build roads. But Otti, under thick and thin has been working on Abia roads, let him improve on it, let him not be deterred.
When Prof Bath Nnaji came with his Aba Power Limited, he promised residents 24/7 power supply, but that has not come to be. From what we are hearing, it appears there is sabotage somewhere. What do you have to say?
That’s part of the marginalization of the Igbo because they know that if the Igbo get it right in electricity, power generation and distribution, the sky wouldn’t be their limit, but the starting point. So, if you look at even when Geometric Power came into being, all manner of politicking came into being too, all manner of things were put in place to stultify it until God used the former Vice President, Prof (Yemi) Osinbajo to resolve the matter, that hurdle was crossed and the ownership of the Aba Ring Fencing was clearly defined. But, right now, the gas that will be used to power that place is not forthcoming and I understand Prof Nnaji is doing everything to solve this problem, again that is part of the scheme to undo the Igbo.
Did it not pain you that an Igbo man was used against Prof Bath Nnaji in achieving his goal initially?
Yes, that’s the problem the Igbo man has been having since the cessation of hostilities in 1970. The Nigeria federation did everything to keep the Igbo man down. If you look at it, before, we used to have three strata of people in the society, we had the upper class, the middle class and the lower class. Right now, there is nothing like the middle class again and you know the middle class use to the pivot of people in a nation. But it has been destroyed, right now, it’s either you are poor or you are rich and every other person fighting for his or her existence and that’s why you see of these not do well Ndigbo, they can do anything, sale their brothers in other to belong. The Igbo man of old we used to know, held their heads high, but all I know is that the good times will still come back.
As things are now, what advise do you have for Prof Nnaji of Geometric Power?
My advice, if I’m worthy to advise him is that he should remain steadfast, he should not be deterred. Posterity and Igbo nation would remember him, it might not be now, it might be some years to come. They will remember him as someone who sacrificed his comfort in the United States of America and came back to Nigeria to serve his people and in doing that, he decided to start from his enclave, not just because the enclave belongs to him, but because it has the technological know-how and that is being put in abeyance because of power supply problem.
Are you comfortable with President Bola Tinubu’s political appointments as it affects the Igbo?
We had earlier before now though President Tinubu would be exact opposite of former President Muhammadu Buhari in terms of nepotism, but he has worsened it in the sense that the major ministries, the major parastatals and the major organs of government, have been given to his people at the discomfiture of the Igbo who are always made the weeping boys in the Nigerian polity. The only major ministry worthy of consideration that he seemed fit to give to Ndigbo, is the Ministry of Works, probably because ex-Governor Dave Umahi was subservient, he sacrificed Igbo interest in order to be recognized by both Buhari and Tinubu. So, he was compensated with that ministry. Come to think of it, if not that the Constitution of the country said every state must have at least one ministerial slot, Tinubu wouldn’t have given the Igbo any. Imagine, out of 48 ministerial positions, the Igbo has only five.
What do you think is the way forward for Ndigbo?
Let Southeast governors synergize so that we can have Southeast economic summit so that they pull resources together and get this right for the people. I am saying this because the hated does not hate itself, we must truly come together to solve our problems.
Insecurity is taking upper hand in Igboland and it is believed that youths from the area are responsible for this. How do you feel about this?
I told you earlier about the middle class being wiped out in the system, but I blame military President Ibrahim Babangida for that because during his regime, the middle class was wiped out. A hurry man is an angry man, unless one is imbibed with morality, you must fend for yourself and family. A real leader or fighter, does not fight at home. If one is an armed robbery, he shouldn’t rob in his home, he should rob elsewhere. If you say your people are being marginalized, take the battle to those who are marginalizing your people.
What do you make out of the strategy adopted by the various groups agitating for Biafra?
The strategy adopted by IPOB and others is zero, they are not getting it right. Everybody should be carried along, the intelligentsia that will be producing papers they will work with, the business people that will be providing the needed funds, the working class and so forth and so on. What we have today is a situation one or two persons want to go it alone and they recruit urchins who would be causing more harm than good. IPOB should restrategize and do things that are in tandem with legalism as the Scottish are doing. This idea of some hoodlums wielding sticks and cutlasses, abducting people is not the best, it will even make some of your own people to hate that organization. Whichever way, if the Supreme Court fails to release Nnamdi Kanu by December 15, let President Tinubu release him, it doesn’t urgur well for Nigeria that the IPOB leader is still in detention.