By Chiedu Uche Okoye
Nigeria, a heterogeneous country, is a nation of nations as more than 250 ethnic groups make up the geographical expression and Lugardian contraption called Nigeria. Nigeria, which is a multi-cultural and multi-religious country, sits on the three legs of a tripod, namely Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and the Igbo. They are the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria with the Ijaw people being the fourth largest ethnic nationality in Nigeria.
In most heterogeneous countries in the world, the issue of ethnic rivalry and hatred exists among the peoples of those countries. It is the chief reason some countries fragmented into smaller nation-states. Didn’t Pakistan break away from India? Eritrea emerged from Ethiopia while today’s Somaliland was formerly a part of Somalia. In Europe, Czechoslovakia had disintegrated in the same way as Yugoslavia did, with smaller countries emerging from them.
Nigeria, which is wracked with ethnic rivalry and nationalism , would have disintegrated a long while ago, but for mother luck and divine providence. So, she could be likened to a cat with nine lives as she emerged from a protracted civil war and political conflicts not dismembered. One of the causes of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war was bitter ethnic rivalry, which bifurcated the country.
The issue of ethnic division in Nigeria predates Nigeria’s attainment of political sovereignty in 1960. Didn’t our freedom fighters and First Republic politicians form their political parties along ethnic line? The Action Group (AG) was to the Yoruba people what the Northern People’s Congress(NPC) was to the North. And the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroun (NCNC) was believed to be an Igbo people’s political party. And Chief Awolowo’s espousal and promotion of ethnic nationalism further deepened the problem of ethnicity in Nigeria, with its dire implications for our national unity and cohesion.
However, it’s the Igbo people who are mostly affected by Nigeria’s intractable problem of ethnicity. The January 1966 coup, which was wrongly tagged an Igbo coup, caused the execution of the July 1966 counter-coup in which Aguiyi Ironsi, our head of state, then, was killed. Thereafter, a wave of genocidal killing of Igbo people swept through the North, causing the deaths of millions of Igbo people, who were living in the North, then.
Not unexpectedly, the Igbo people ably led by Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu embarked on a secessionist war, which lasted for 30 months. The war caused the depradation of infrastructure in the Southeast and deaths of millions of Igbo people. Till now, 50 years after the end of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, the Igbo people have not recovered fully from the bad effects of the civil war on them. The displacement of their people from their ancestral homes, the deaths of their relations, and the destruction of their houses are eternally etched in their psyche. They are the emotional scars, which they bear till now. That is the reason the mere mention of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war makes them feel sad. It is a sore-point for them.
Worse still, the Igbo people have not been reintegrated fully into our national life and the mainstream of our politics. In Nigeria, people, who are not Igbo people, view the Igbo people with suspicion and deep-seated animosity. And the Igbo people are marginalized in Nigeria’s scheme of things as evidenced in the sidelining of the Igbo people when it comes to recruitment of personnel into national security organisations and other federal establishments.
Again, alongside other geo-political zones in Nigeria, the Southeast, the homeland of the Igbo people, rank far below other geopolitical zones regarding infrastructural development. While Kaduna state is home to many military organizations, the Southeast has none.
The blatant and glaring marginalization of the Igbo people in our country’s scheme of things and other Nigerians’ treatment of the Igbo people as second class citizens in Nigeria caused the resurgence of the agitation for the creation of the state of Biafra. Were the Igbo people not mistreated in Nigeria for a long while after the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war, the resurgence of secessionist activities in the Southeast would not have occurred. It took the arrest and the ongoing trial of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, for the secessionist agitation to quieten down.
But today, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, has become the iconic symbol of the Igbo people’s dream to achieve parity with the other major ethnic groups in Nigeria regarding political leadership at the centre. He has become the rallying point of disillusioned and disenchanted Igbo people, who feel that they are unwanted in Nigeria.
Mr Peter Obi, we know, defected to the Labour Party from PDP because the top members of the PDP jostling for the party’s presidential ticket were playing a kind of politics that negated his political philosophy and worldviews.
Mr Peter Obi’s open disavowal and rejection of the PDP stalwarts’ political modus operandi won millions of Nigerians to his side. And his rhetoric on our economy, disdain for money politics, achievements as a political leader, and parsimonious nature have warmed the cockles of hearts of millions of Nigerians. So they perceive him as the political Messiah and revolutionary, who will revolutionize our systems of doing things, and set Nigeria on the path of national development.
His followers, who call themselves the Obi-dients, cut across ethnic divides and religions in Nigeria. His followers believe that he possesses probity, leadership qualities, education, experience, and vision, which he can deploy in leading Nigeria if he wins the 2023 presidential election. It is an indisputable fact that Mr Peter Obi fits the bill of a philosopher-king, the type of a political leader Nigeria needs at this critical juncture in her political and economic evolution.
But beyond the fascination, which he holds for millions of Nigerians from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, Mr Peter Obi is seen as the linchpin for the liberation of the Igbo people from the fetters of political bondage and domination in Nigeria. Since the dawn of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba people, who represent the two legs of the tripod on which Nigeria stands, had produced presidents of Nigeria at different periods.
So fairness, political equity, and the principle of egalitarianism demand that the next president of Nigeria should come from the Southeast of Nigeria. It will be the antidote to the separatist tendencies and agitation , which has seized the Southeast.
And Peter Obi’s emergence as the next president of Nigeria will erase ethnic prejudice and feelings of being unwanted in Nigeria from the minds of people of Igbo descent. His winning the presidential election will make for the deepening of our national cohesion , peace and unity.
• Okoye writes from Obosi, Anambra State