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From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Ebere Uzoatu is a legal practitioner based in Aba, Abia State. He is a trustee of Igbo Lawyers Association Worldwide.
In this interview, he spoke about the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, the Southeast and the Senate President’s seat, among others.
What’s this association all about?
The Igbo Lawyers Association is an amalgam of all lawyers with Igbo agenda. It was formed to galvanize all the Igbo within and without Nigeria with a view to a new golden dawn. In Nigeria, you can see that the Igbo are marginalized right, front and centre. So, it is left for us Igbo lawyers in the association to reach out to other bodies with similar ideals like World Igbo Congress and Ohanaeze Ndigbo with the view to protecting Igbo interest.
The Igbo have been crying of marginalization in Nigeria, what has your association done to remedy this?
Let me first of all give you a clear case scenario. When some Northern youths under one disused organization sued the Igbo at the Federal High Court, Abuja, that the Igbo should be allowed to leave Nigeria, that they are bad people, they are this, they are that, we saw the handwriting on the wall that that was the voice of Easu and the hand of Jacob. We said no, we can’t keep quiet, if we had kept quiet, they would have watered the case in such a way that the court would have refused the application so that any other time an Igbo man files an application that he wants to leave Nigeria, they would tell you the matter had been settled by the court. We saw the hand writing on the wall and applied to be joined in the suit, and when they saw us, they became jittery and it was an eye opener. Other tribal conglomeration in Nigeria, like the Ijaws, Ogonis, etc, decided to join. They said they will equally leave Nigeria because the suit will affect their corporate interest.
Will you be happy should the court ask the Igbo to leave Nigeria?
Yes, we will be happy to leave in an atmosphere of peace. Once the Igbo leave, by our landmass and population, we are bigger than Israel. If the Igbo leave Nigeria, that’s when their ingenuity will come to play. They will develop their homeland, and the fears they are entertaining that they have developed other parts of Nigeria should not be there. Once we move peacefully, there are regulatory laws that say you can own property in any part of the world, but those property will be protected.
What’s the stand of Igbo lawyers in the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu’s case?
Nnamdi Kanu was extra-ordinarily renditioned to Nigeria, in fact, the Igbo Lawyers Association came out with a blue print when that thing happened. We called on the British Government to intervene because Nnamdi Kanu is equally a British citizen. You can’t just rendition a citizen by force of arms from where he was to Nigeria. If you want to take somebody from a particular place, there must be processes, you don’t just take someone by force of arms. But I don’t know, for one thing or the other, the British Government, they don’t want to say something, maybe, because Kanu is a black man as a Briton. If he were to be a white Briton, by now, Britain and Nigeria would have had some skirmishes over his arrest.
Your association appears not to be vocal in the fight for the release of the IPOB leader, why is it so?
No, we’ve been vocal within the parameters of our finances, our association is self-financing, we are not being funded by the World Igbo Congress, neither are we being funded by Ohanaeze Ndigbo. We have been vocal and equally working underground to achieve the release of Kanu.
What advice would you give President Bola Tinubu pertaining to Nnamdi Kanu’s release?
Well, in the first place, I don’t think I’m qualified to give somebody who took away another person’s mandate advice, by so doing, that means I’m stooping low to his own level. But truly, if I were to advise him, let it be the thing he must have achieved before the right mandate goes to the rightful owner who is Peter Obi. Let him release Nnamdi Kanu, if not for any other thing, it will cement the bond of that Southern solidarity. Let him not swim in (former President Mohammadu) Buhari’s own tribal bigotry, let Tinubu release Kanu, the Court of Appeal has said so, why can’t they obey the judgment of the Court of Appeal? Let Tinubu release him and get the accolade. By so doing, he would not be the first person to have done it, General Yakubu Gowon did it when he released Chief Obafemi Awolowo and that was how he won the heart of the Yoruba.
What’s your takes on the present sharing of political offices at the national level. Has the Igbo been well treated?
In other to include the Igbo in the political apparatik of Nigeria, the Igbo should not only have been considered for the Senate President position, but also be allowed to produce the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. After all, Nigeria use to stand on a tripod: Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba and Igbo suffered most for Nigeria both in terms of Independence and development. Come to think of it, the Yoruba have taken their eight years under (Olusegun) Obasanjo, this time around, the thing came to the South, the same Yoruba have taken the same slot, where is the justice, where is the equity?
They gave the Southeast the Deputy Speaker position. Isn’t that enough?
Deputy Speaker, that’s a useless position. What’s Deputy Speaker in all these things? The positions that are reckoned with constitutionaly are office of the president, vice president, Senate president, Speaker and Chief Justice of Nigeria. In all these positions, Igbo man is not there and you are talking of deputy speaker, which is a mere spare tyre.
How would you place the last administration in Abia State?
As far as I’m concerned, (Okezie) Ikpeazu could have been a golden boy and by extension, the Ngwas could have been golden people when that mandate was handed to them. But it is apparent Ikpeazu misjudged the political barometer, he thought the mandate was given to him as a person, but he did not know it was given to Ngwas as a collectivity and if he had performed like the late Sam Mbakwe, he could have brought honour to his people and people of the state would have been asking the Ngwas to rule them till perpetuity. But I’m sorry to say he misused the opportunity and the whole thing backfired
Could that have been the reason for the first time in 24 years, an opposition party won the governorship election in the state?
It is a collectivity. Alex Otti cashed in on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) maladministration. But the major impetus that galvanized Otti into political golden boy was this tsunami called Labour Party under Pater Obi. If Otti had been in any other party other than LP, he would have lost the election. It was the Labour movement that dwarfed APGA that the Igbo used to see as their party. If fact, Otti should be grateful to God first, followed by Obi. Otti should work hard because all eyes are on him. When he addressed lawyers at our emergency meeting, we asked him hard questions and he said he would not betray anybody, that the saviour we have been looking for has come and we prayed for him. I will advise Otti to liase with other Southeast governors so that they work as a think tank, have an economic structure so that the whole of Southeast will develop. I am saying this because what the typical Aba man wants is to give him basic infrastructure, he is not interested in whether you are embezzling money or not, just give him good roads.
What’s your take on the strike by the judiciary in Abia and why has it lasted so long?
The judiciary in Abia State has been on strike for two months, all the courts locked because the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUON) embarked on that strike. They were claiming among other things that certain of their benefits have not been paid. They are equally saying government must implement self autonomy that has been granted the judiciary so that their funds will be coming to them directly. And other things, the dilapidated nature of the courts in the state. At a point they are taking it to the extreme because I remembered when Aba Bar wanted to liaise with them with a view to wading into their matter, but they shunned us, that we were not in the position to meet their demands. We had to sue them at the National Industrial Court at Owerri. All said and done they should call off the strike, if not for any other thing, to give Otti the benefit of the doubt going by the party he is coming from, Labour Party. If the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in the state should call off their strike, why should a microcosm of the major Labour union say no? They should not push lawyers to the wall because there are certain things the Constitution allows us to do when something like this comes up.
