By Rev. Fr. Evaristus Offor
The belief of any Igbo person in the concept and project of the Nigerian nationhood has been as strong and solid as a religion, as experienced in her or his activities to cement its bits and bits together. His passion has been burning high and unquenchable since the amalgamation till even today, he is under manacles and hawsers.
Since the striking of the five majors mostly peopled by Igbo majors, according to them, they had wanted to oust corrupt, inept and sectionalized politicians with mindsets of continuing the implantation of bribery and corruption, embezzlements, nepotism and callous political inroad. He has made all the necessary attempts to make this country just, peaceful and a climate of conviviality and fraternal brotherhood of all illicitly amalgamated cultural groups.
He championed the Aburi Accord, while Yakubu Gowon reneged and imposed the war against humanity. General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu representing the Igbo accepted and settled to the Aburi contracts, only for Colonel Yakubu Gowon to crush its peaceful resolutions to embellish his ego and northern animosity against Biafrans and consequently caused the genocidal crime against millions of innocent people. Even after the aftermath of all the past unexceptional hostility against the Igbo, he has become chubbily determined to make Nigeria become a true nation. He was killed by an allied forces and his property seized across the country and his many rights denied him even till date, yet he is more Nigerian than both the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba put together, having found it easier and more natural to be vested in and eke out a living in all parts of the country, in spite of all embarrassment, ethnic and religious rancor, hate, racial bellicosity, demotion and ill-treatment.
He has helped to build all political parties in the country, and yet the rest will always derive decisive joy to shove him to the inconsequential glassy. Can someone say a word of reason this time around, please? Despite the fact, that he is subjected to so many exasperating moments and strains and untold tribal and religious injustices, and even to the extent his future leaders being threatened thunder and lightning by the president for being cheeky to ask what happened to their ancestors and siblings during the war, and why they are still under fetters and captivity, under a country we always croon misleadingly in our chorales, ‘’…freedom and peace and unity’’.
Sadly enough, northern youths will always threaten Igbo youths trading in the North with countless quit notices at the lease niggling. Someone in federal employ, would irrationally compare struggling Igbo youths with rampaging and murderous Fulani pastoralists who conquer and extinguish both human life and property in peoples’ lands.
This pronouncement was an indication of the maximal and intensity of northern hatred on Igbo people, if not who in his right senses, would make such a flaggerbusting, drizzly and perky avowal in this modern civilization. You will find only an Igbo person in the most interior parts of Nigeria contributing to their integral development and anywhere in Nigeria you can’t find an Igbo person developing it, does not exist. The question is, ‘why the hatred on Igbo person who believes in a just and united Nigeria like religion. Was it not a matter of continued oppression that made him to succeed in the first instant, and the indices are still tending their offensive heads in all facets of Nigerian life? Why are the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, and all other pockets of agitators protesting, if not against persistent marginalization and oppression of the people of the South East? Why is Nnamdi Kalu being detained in Abuja, if not his opposition to the suppression of his people? Instead of having a dialogue with them, they are being harassed and further oppressed and encumbered, but when the Niger Delta youths rose against the government of Shehu Yar’Adua, he as a listening father listened and gave them their rights, and their agitations stopped. Now is the Federal Government not assuaging even criminals? In a family of three, even the protesting child should be listened to, in order to mollify him. Tell me where an Igbo person is living in Nigeria and is causing trouble. Wherever can you see an Igbo person, where he does not pay his taxes or does not contribute his or her quota? Travel to Lagos, Abuja, Kano and cities, all over Nigeria and see for yourself what marvels they have done. We have to have a Christian Igbo person who is apt to follow a religion of justice and peace and human concern. We need an Igbo man who has shown explorations in governance such as Senators Ken Nnamani and Orji Uzor Kalu, and so on. We need a cool headed Igbo person without religious bias or ethnic bigotry as our national president. We need an Igbo person who will not philosophize as the present president who belongs to nobody, but to all. What a bizarre and bamboozling term rendering a higgledy-piggledy and jarring presidency of a military dictator, as we can see. We need a president who will belong to all, and all will belong to him. We need detribalized and a religion-less president, who will bury nepotism and favoritism in the eternal earth-shattering antiquity.
We need a rational and sensitive Igbo president who will be readily available to tackle issues facing us Nigerians which include a growing rate of youth unemployment a constant increase of the cost of living, inadequate health provisions, insecurity, and the desperate situation of rural families and never fulfilled official promises. We need a sensible and pro-active president to further probe into the root causes of the boom of official bribery and corruption and gambling, the lack of freedom of expression, varied forms of violence, repressive legislations calculated to victimize and intimidate the people, the lack of participation of the people in decision-making process, etc. If anything, all these problems are escalating at a grievous and frightful speed. This is where the voice of the Church should be heard strongly against the luster and dangerous leadership of the ruling party. We should remember that our Lord fed thousands without charge, healed the sick pricelessly. He cast out demons to set people free. In the gospel of St. Luke 4: 18, Isaiah 61, he simplified his mission on earth which he handed over to the Church for continuation, after the outpouring of his anointment and the Holy Spirit. He was sent into the world to evangelize and humanize it so as to be perfect as his heavenly Father is. Here in Nigeria, hunger, insecurity, ethnicity, bad news, official corruption and lies, poverty, religious imposition, favoritism and nepotism are all rocking the basic foundation of its feet. People are killed, ransomed for money, kidnapped, raped callously and freedom fighters harassed and incarcerated in the most monstrous manner. Prices of Petroleum products have reached an unconceivable and irredeemable loudening, high taxations, high whizzed school, house and water rates are suffocating the abject poor Nigerians, legislators are having jamboree allowances when the poor is being starved to death. There is no constancy in power supply, yet, the suppliers of light want to suffocate the poor through epileptic supply and intolerable price tags. Our roads are comparable to the bumpy purgatorial and hell- in-a- cell eco-systematic macroclimate. Terror, fear, unemployment, insurrection, youth uneasiness, regional agitations, assassinations, arsons, repression of the opposition and general anarchy have become our daily bread. Since, the Church is a community of faith and love, a vessel of charity and justice, it must bring to reality the presence of God in Nigeria. It must work sedulously for God’s Kingdom on Nigeria. As a community of charity, it must bring about a year of favour which will translate into freedom and sincere liberation. The Church must concertedly and collectively ensure good governance and a country where justice and love holdsway, by holding leaders to accountable. The whole of Nigerian Church, in spite of ethnic base, religious leaning or cultural affinity, must come together and demand for the immediate release of all freedom fighters, and work for the Igbo presidency. This is justice. This is what Jesus Christ would have done if he were still on earth, in the forms of fresh and blood.
• Rev. Fr. Offor is of Catholic Diocese of Enugu