Moment of truth: Before they come for me or you

These are odd times indeed. Suddenly, the sun no longer seems to rise from the east; it’s almost setting there. The sun is soaked in blood; the blood of the innocent and the guilty, in an admixture of profound confusion.

This is the moment of truth, told with all vehemence: This  Biafra, is it theirs only or ours too? What sensible man would bring war into his mother’s kitchen and gallivant about like a man under a spell, thinking that all is well?

Call me any name you like but the truth is that I am neither a coward nor am I sabotaging the dreamland. I’m just pro-reason and common sense. The Igbo are overwhelmed militarily and there is no way we can engage Nigeria in a fight. We need Biafra but a Biafra of the living, not the dead.

Don’t we see that Igboland is occupied already? It is illogical to hope that the international community would intervene when the killings get too much. Who are those to be killed? Where are the warriors pushing this weird strategy? Are they in the battlefield or offshore havens and yet goading others to self-destruction? And, come to think of it, why must we have a Biafra dipped in blood?

Having come out of an incinerating three-year civil war that cost Ndigbo millions of precious lives, whoever is contemplating another one needs to see a shrink. Even the late Eze Igbo Gburugburu, Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu, had a rethink and sought to reintegrate Ndigbo to Nigeria by contesting a senatorial seat.

However, was it not his fellow Igbo that was used to manipulate him out? Is the same scenario not playing out today? What are the antecedents of the self-appointed leaders? Can you seize another man’s house by force and use it as a citadel of destruction? Honestly, I don’t know who hates Ndigbo more, the assumed enemy or ourselves.

There is no denying the fact that the Igbo are loathed across the country. The Igbo man’s industry, resourcefulness, entrepreneurial excellence and tenancy have aroused the envy of neighbours and they would stop at nothing to crush Ndigbo. They eagerly await an  opportunity to destroy Igbo businesses and waste Igbo youths, our tomorrow. They did it before but sadly to them, with mere 20 pounds and even after being shut out of the indigenisation policy, the Igbo arose out of the ashes of the civil war like a phoenix and emerged an unassailable warhorse in business such that if they sneeze, Nigeria would catch cold. Ndigbo have the potential to determine the direction this country would flow if only we apply our brain skillfully.

However, that is where the trouble is. They are more into developing the lands of their haters than theirs. Those in sleepy Government Houses only use resources of the people to build personal estates while boasting to have attracted Domino Pizza, Chicken Republic and Mr. or Miss Biggs as achievements. Igbo kins contracted to do projects in the East pocket the money and leave them undone. Foolishly, the youths are now destroying the few infrastructure the government mistakenly sited in the region in a dog fight heading nowhere in particular.

I said ‘mistakenly’ because, indeed, that is what it is. It is true that Ndigbo are marginalised in the affairs of this country, as manifested in the paucity of  critical infrastructure cited in the East. It is also noticeable in key appointments and policy thrusts that tend to hurt Igbo interests more. There seems to be an official policy to starve Ndigbo of federal presence, and it is not about President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC); it’s always been there. If you are in doubt, travel back to the Goodluck Jonathan era when Ebelemi dubiously became Ebele and Azikiwe and point at what the administration did for the East despite having Ndigbo at the commanding heights in that government.

However, we need to make demands of those who rule us. We have only made the Fulani and Buhari the satan that must take the rap for our perfidy, as if they are beyond Chukwu Abiama to handle. Those that captured political power have become profligate and wayward, untamed and unrestrained, and inordinately selfish.

Does Buhari deny Igbo governors that swim in the cesspool of ineptitude the monthly statutory allocations? Where does the money go? Will Buhari stop the governors from building a strong regional conglomerate for the collective good of the region? Can’t they build a good interconnecting rail system and such like if the Federal Government fails to build one for us? Don’t palm trees grow in the East any longer?

I have consistently advocated homeward integration by which I mean that Ndigbo should start thinking homewards. So, could Buhari stop any Igbo man desiring to relocate his billion naira business empire to the East? Don’t talk to me about ports. Which ports are there in the North?

Ndigbo should start investing in their own land and gradually repatriate their humongous investments home. State governments should create enabling environments for this. Of course, an official pen by the government could alter everything. Not really; what difference does it make now or then? The stroke of a pen could also do it now.

The Biafra campaign is just a nebulous flood, flowing in no defined direction? Is it not funny too to insist on going to Biafra with strange bedfellows, who have repeatedly denied you? People that seized our fathers’ estates during the first war and openly rejecting the current campaign and you want to force them into Biafra? O di egwu o!

Our egbe onu must stop. Luring innocent, frustrated and gullible youths to their untimely death through photo-shopped bland propaganda must cease while the elders engage the government to withdraw its army of occupation, who are trigger happy to wipe out the Igbo race because of our failure to see through the veil. Tales and video clips from the macabre ‘war scene’ in the East are blood-chilling and horrid. We are only fooling ourselves if we believe the international community would come to our aid. They never will because their plate is full already, and even if they do, it would have been far too late and they would be more interested in selling arms to both combatants.

The carnage must stop. Burning down state facilities and hunting down security operatives is against Igbo values and culture that cherish human lives. You may claim that the attacks were provoked but they cannot be justified by any means, and considering the consequences of the counter-attack, they are foolish and not well digested.

Please, let us be wiser; our mumu don do; only a foolish man brings his enemy to his house to burn it down; that is what we have done.

For now, let the Daniels in Ala Igbo come to judgement; let the Solomons bring their wisdom on display and chart a pathway out of this monstrous cul de sac before they come for me or you. Birthing Biafra does not have to be through bloodshed or brigandage, as we are currently witnessing.

There must be saner alternatives to the current campaign that has brought nothing but fear, tears and sorrow.

Clearly, it is consolatory that the war has actually recorded a measure of success as other nationalities have been aroused enough to agitate for their own estates outside Nigeria. Nevertheless, You don’t run under a moving train and expect not to be crushed. Therefore, Ndigbo should not continue to be quarry for a hateful genocidal failing state.

Lamentably, we seem to have lost our compass in the whirlwind of political gerrymandering. Let us rediscover our bearing and focus on ruling the economic turf where we are masters. That’s not saying we jettison everything about politics but it should not be our priority for now. Everything has a phase and the time shall surely come when we shall mount the podium in Biafra land or a balanced Nigeria where all citizens are the same sans tribe, tongue or creed.

Nigeria must recoil from the Somalia route. Every life lost in this crisis, whether northerner or southerner, easterner or westerner is a huge loss for this country because all lives matter.