BY Kalu Ogbaa *****
Every society, whether ancient or
modern, has an established system of governance through which it regulates the
actions and lives of its inhabitants. Hence, when an individual or group in a given
society attempts to impugn the authority of those in charge of the system, by
threatening the security, harmony, and peaceful coexistence of its inhabitants,
it becomes an unfailing duty of those in charge of its governance to take all necessary
and adequate measures to prevent the threat and protect the people. In a literate
society like the United States of America, the founding fathers established three
branches of government and enshrined their respective roles in their Constitution
to ensure that the people enjoy their freedoms, happiness, and security of lives
and property in their homes and communities. It is a democratic system which guarantees
that everyone, including the President, is ruled by the same laws of the land.
On the other hand, in a non-literate, ancient African societies like those Chinua
Achebe romanticized in his rural novels, Things
Fall Apart and Arrow of God, readers
can also find systems of governance established by Igbo religious, sociocultural,
and political leaders which were based on their traditional religion, cultural
norms, and ethos to regulate the actions and lives of their people. Although those
societies had oral traditions, their governing authorities unquestionably had positive
aspirations to produce good and effective governance like those found in
literate societies. In other words, the ancient Igbo systems, however imperfect
they may appear to modern readers, ostensibly worked well for the people until
the arrival of the British in their land. Resultantly, the encounter between
the two peoples contributed profoundly to things falling apart for the Igbo religiously,
culturally, politically, and economically. Hence, for Achebe, a candid exploration
of the colonial and postcolonial conflicts between the British colonial powers and
the Igbo native authorities on one hand, and those between the native
authorities themselves on the other, became an overarching theme of his rural novels.
Writing under the topic “The novelist
as teacher,” Achebe explained why he was so driven to restoring, albeit fictionally,
the sociocultural and political systems of his native Igbo when he said, “I
would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past)
did no more than teach my readers that their past—with all its
imperfections—was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans
acting on God’s behalf delivered them.”
Before that, however, while discussing “The role of the writer in a new nation,”
Achebe said the following to his audience:
For me, at any rate
there is a clear need to make a statement. This is my answer to those who say
that the writer should be writing about contemporary issues—about politics in
1964, about city life, about the last coup d’état. Of course, these are
legitimate themes for the writer but as far as I am concerned the fundamental
theme must first be disposed of. This theme—put quite simply—is that African
peoples did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; that their
societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and
beauty, that they had poetry and, above all, they had dignity. It is this
dignity that many African people all but lost during the colonial period and it
is this that they must now regain.
The systems of governance that brought the
Igbo people together, of which Achebe spoke, derived from their cosmological
beliefs and a worldview which began “in the distant past, when lizards were
still few and far between, [when] the six villages—Umuachala, Umunneora,
Umuagu, Umuezeani, Umuogwugwu and Umuisiuzo—lived as different peoples, and
each worshipped its own deity” (AOG
14), which I characterized as Igbo folkways in one of my books.
Some of these ways are folktales, proverbs, proper names, rituals and festivals.
Achebe beautifully expressed all of them poetically and metaphorically virtually
in all of his five novels.
With the hindsight of over four decades
of studying his novels, I must say that Achebe deserves all the acknowledgements
and praises that literary critics from all over the world have been showering
on him; for they attest to the tremendous impact of his arrival on the African
literary landscape that began in 1958. Moreover, the crafting and publication of
his first novel, Things Fall Apart,
alongside his magnum corpus, Arrow of God, persuaded some renowned critics of the novels to
proclaim him the founder of modern African novel, but that is not to say for
sure that he is the founder of African literature as other critics have also dubbed
him. Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter which of the two proclamations of Achebe’s
role as a literary ancestor a reader chooses to accept. What resonates to me,
however, is that upon his graduation from the British University College at
Ibadan, Nigeria, Achebe began his writing as a form of protest exercise which challenged
what he read from British novels on Africa—the notion that Africans had no
respectable cultures and civilizations—and eventuated in sustained, thorough,
and careful literary criticisms of the prejudiced colonizers’ novels on Africa,
such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
and Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson. Blessed
with a vivid imagination for creative writing and formal education in Western culture
(especially comparative literature and religion), coupled with his informal
education in Igbo story-telling habit that he received from his elder sister,
Achebe positioned himself firmly to play
the role of the novelist as teacher—a self-imposed role that he distinctively
played until his demise in 2013.
Specifically in Arrow of God, the governing authorities in Umuaro clan are Ezeulu
the Chief Priest of Ulu, who serves as the clan’s ritual and religious leader;
the priests of deities of the six villages that constitute the clan; the clan’s
titled and political elders (ndichie);
and, the unseen but ubiquitous presence of the dead-living ancestors among the
living people. Achebe succinctly delineates the political failures of the clan,
tracing their roots to the power struggle and political maneuverings of the
rulers, who are purportedly backed by their various deities, and sees them as
the main source of the divisions in their once-united clan. In other words, the
ruling elders’ impious and unethical struggle for power created hydra-headed
conflicts in their society and, in the process, they committed nso ala, an abominable offense against
Ala, also known as the Earth Goddess—an offense that necessitated a
propitiatory sacrifice, albeit involuntarily, with the life of one of their own
clansmen, Obika, the son of Ezeulu. Emmanuel Obiechina describes the complex
conflicts in Umuaro as follows:
The
conflicts in Arrow of God develop
around the person of the Chief Priest of Ulu, who is the ritual and religious
leader in Umuaro. On the one hand, there is conflict between the local British
administration represented by the old-fashioned administrator, Winterbottom,
and the native authority represented by the Chief Priest. On the other hand,
there are the internal politics of Umuaro and the conflict between the
supporters of the Chief Priest and those of his rival, Idemili. On yet another
level belongs the conflict taking place within the Chief Priest himself, a
conflict between personal power, the temptation to constitute himself into an
“arrow” of God, and the exigencies of public responsibility. All these are
handled in the main plot. A subsidiary plot deals with the domestic tensions
and crises in Ezeulu’s own house, the tensions and stresses between the father
and his grown-up sons and between the children of different mothers in his
polygamous household.
The Umuaro internal conflicts, in the
form of sociocultural and political power struggle of the ruling elders, could
not have come at a worse time when Igboland and adjacent West African
territories had just been amalgamated, colonized, and named Nigeria by Great
Britain at the turn of the 20th century. Ordinarily, one would expect
such conflicts and power struggle in the novel between Umuaro clan elders to have
been between Igbo political leaders and their counterparts from other Nigerian
ethnic groups, or between Umuaro clan and other Igbo clans. Unfortunately, however,
the conflicts between members of the same clan of six villages aptly exemplify
the pan-Igbo apothegm, “When two brothers fight a stranger reaps the harvest” (AOG 131). Contextually, the immediate
beneficiaries of the clan’s internal conflicts are the newly established European
church and school, which the missionaries built under the leadership of Mr.
Goodcountry, and the British political officials, who appointed Ezeulu a
warrant chief that he nevertheless rebuffed, saying: “Tell the white man that
Ezeulu will not be anybody’s chief, except Ulu” (174).
This article discusses how Chinua Achebe’s
critical analysis of Igbo intraethnic conflicts between Umuaro elders in Arrow of God, which weakened their clan
for easy colonization by the British, can be seen as a foretaste of Igbo
people’s problems in postwar Nigerian geopolitical system. More specifically, it
discusses the inability of the Igbo political elite to speak with one voice in
matters affecting the Igbo nation as an ethnic group; the negative effects of some
Igbo communities denying their prewar Igbo origin and identity because mainland
Igbo people, who fought as leaders on the Biafran side of the Nigeria-Biafra
War, were defeated; the unwholesome changes in Igbo value system and ethos since
the end of that war; and, currently, the inherent lack of strong political will
and leadership whenever Igbo political representatives engage in fights with
other Nigerian ethnic groups for their fair share of “the national cake.”
Even though some individual Igbo
persons have been appointed every now and then by non-Igbo political rulers to serve
as leaders in various areas of Nigerian governance, we as an ethnic group seem
to lack the prewar unity, courage, and strategies that should have enabled us to
produce a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction as the other two dominant ethnic
groups—the Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba—have been doing since the end of the
civil war. Instead, we keep lamenting our marginalization by other ethnic
groups without doing much critical analysis of our plight which could enable us
to realize how and where “the rain began to beat us” as a people. Hence, it is
my hope that when we do sincere soul-searching with a view to correcting our sociopolitical
blunders, then we can one day rise up to fight for our rightful position in this
our country where other ethnic groups cannot continue to see us as postwar exiles
or aliens. Instead, they would recognize us as the proud builders of Nigeria that
we have always been.
In the novel, the narrator, who speaks
on behalf of Achebe the Igbo author, on one hand describes what evil things happened
to the ancient Igbo clan of six villages when they chose to live separately in
disunity, and on the other the good things they experienced when they decided
to unite and find positive ways of solving the problems their common enemy
created for them:
[The]
six villages of Umuachala, Umunneora, Umuagu, Umuezeani, Umuogwugwu and
Umuisiuzo lived as different peoples, and each worshipped its own deity. Then
the hired soldiers of Abam who used to strike in the dead of night, set fire to
their houses and carry men, women and children into slavery. Things were so bad
for the six villages that their leaders came together to save themselves. They
hired a strong team of medicine-men to install a common deity for them. This
deity which the fathers of the six villages made was called Ulu. Half of the
medicine was buried at a place which became Nkwo market and the other half
thrown into the stream which became Mili Ulu. The six villages then took the
name of Umuaro, and the priest of Ulu became their Chief Priest. From that they
were never again beaten by an enemy (14-15).
Anecdotally, Achebe drew inspiration
for developing this part of the novel’s plot from an old Igbo adage, “Divided
we fall but united we stand,” which should have inspired our present-day Igbo
leaders in all walks of life to work for our ethnic unity in Nigeria and in the
Diaspora. For adopting the adage in our daily lives would not only promote our collective
progress, security, and development, but also our social, political, and economic
survival and wellbeing in any community where we live as a people. Unfortunately,
however, that unity has persistently eluded us since the end of the civil war, and
it even appears unreachable to many people, partly because of the evil deeds fellow
Nigerians from other ethnic extractions continually do to us, and partly because
of those that we inflict upon ourselves as a people. Hence, any candid
discussions of both obstacles in our way to regaining our collective prewar unity
and political leadership, which made us an enviable ethnic people in Nigeria,
should help us find our way out of our sociopolitical troubles quicker. When
that happens, then no other ethnic groups can successfully thwart our unity, nor
would that unity seem to us unachievable anymore.
The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the
Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-70), brought unimaginable destructions upon the once lush
and exquisitely idyllic Igboland and on the psyche of its proud and prosperous inhabitants.
The people generally contributed enviable high-level educated personnel to the Nigerian
manpower pool, which comprised civil service technocrats, teachers and
scientists, as well as millionaires, savvy politicians, and cultural icons. For
that reason, Igbo talents were sought after like a beautiful bride by every
administration of the federal government of Nigeria before the war. And because
of their enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit, as well as their unflinching
belief in Nigeria as one indivisible nation, the Igbo lived in all corners and
crannies of the country, where they worked very hard to develop and live in
peace with others as neighbors. And yet, despite the patriotic sacrifices they
made to develop the country right from its creation by the British, the Igbo
were brutally attacked and slaughtered like animals, raped and maimed like
common criminals, and chased out of Northern Nigeria like aliens in their own country
during the riots which followed Nigeria’s first bloody coup of January 15, 1966.
Most unfortunately, the Igbo erroneously
thought that the barbaric acts meted out to them during those Northern riots,
which forced them and other Easterners to return to their native Eastern
Nigeria, were just temporary incidents. Shortly thereafter, the federal
military government realized that it could not find people to take over the irreplaceable
Igbo services in the North. So they asked the charismatic military governor of their
native Eastern Nigeria, Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, for help in appealing
to the Igbo civil servants to go back to their stations in the North. As a
military officer, the governor promptly obeyed the orders and made the appeal.
Some of the workers blindly trusted and obeyed him, even as they privately counted
their human and material losses with fortitude and rectitude. The turn of
events made Ojukwu to regret for the rest of his life making that deadly appeal
to his people.
Furthermore, following the examples of
the civil servants, the business class returned to the North, believing that the
fractured nation could be healed soon. They also trusted that the federal military
government’s avowed promise would promptly quell the riots and guarantee them
protection while they lived and worked there. Unfortunately, it was not until the
onslaught of the second, third, and fourth bloody coups of May 29, July 29, and
September 29, 1966, in which they were systematically slaughtered further in
cold blood in the North and in some parts of Western Nigeria, that the Igbo belatedly
realized that they were no longer welcomed in those regions of the country they
had assiduously worked to develop. Finally, their gory experiences forced them
back as refugees to Eastern Nigeria, where they were eagerly accommodated by their
kith and kin, and by an overwhelmed but empathetic, caring government that gave
them both spiritual and material support. The Igbo adage, “Onye aghala nwanne ya”, “May no one leave their brother or sister
behind,” worked magically to save the Igbo nation in a time of need.
In the end, when all entreaties from the
then Eastern Nigerian Government to the Federal Military Government failed to
bring the much desired peace and reconciliation between the two governments,
the people of Eastern Nigeria were forced by the events of those cruel months
to declare themselves a separate country, the Republic of Biafra, under Governor
Ojukwu, who later was promoted the
People’s General, as president. About a month after the declaration, Col.
Yakubu Gowon, the then head of the federal military government, declared war on
the young Republic in which, for thirty grueling months of warfare, millions of
Igbo people were killed, their grown-up girls and women raped, the pregnant
ones disemboweled, and their young children and babies starved to death. So, to
prevent further torture, bloodsheds, and deaths of the Biafran people, General
Ojukwu flew out of the country “in search of peace with Nigeria” through the
help of some friendly African and European political leaders. In his absence,
however, some representatives of his military cabinet and civil political
leaders surrendered Biafra to Nigeria to prevent the imminent annihilation of
the people and destruction of their territory—a bold and courageous move that brought the war to
an abrupt end on January 15, 1970. Although it was a relief to both sides of
the war, it marked the beginning of more agony for the ex-Biafrans who lost the
war and were forced back to a country which had attempted to annihilate them
all.
Like Ezeulu’s polygamous family in Arrow of God, the Igbo ethnic group comprises
men, women, and children who live in diverse clans and villages; they trace
their origins to blood-related ancestors. Hence, their clan or village names
begin with the prefix “Umu,” which means “children
of-” as in the names of the six
villages that comprise Umuaro clan. Therefore, it behooves every clansman, no
matter his particular village, to work for the growth, progress, stability,
peace, and unity of the clan. If there is failure in any aspect of the clan’s corporate
life, all the clansmen are held responsible for the failure and condemned for
bringing disappointment and shame to their dead-living ancestors—a failure that
portends the metaphoric death of their proud nation. The same philosophical and
ethical beliefs regulate the actions and behaviors of Igbo men in general, no
matter where they live and have their being. As it was in precolonial era, gods,
oracles, and divination continue to play the important role of maintaining
order and balance in Igbo clans and villages. They promote and foster peace and
unity among the people, even though many of them now live in towns, cities, and
foreign lands. So, whenever and wherever the people gather for meetings and
ceremonies, they first have to break kola nuts and pour libation to their
dead-living ancestors as a way of inviting them from Ala mmuo (Spirit world) to accompany living human beings whose
affairs they guide. After the kola-breaking and libation-pouring ritual, the
oldest man calls the meeting to order by bellowing the phrase “Umuaro kwenu!” and the people answer “Hem!” in unison, which is the equivalent
of “Amen” in Christianity or Judaism. For, it is a call-and-answer ritual that
binds all those who utter it to the execution of whatever decisions they arrive
at during their group deliberations. If after agreeing with others before men
and the dead-living ancestors a person flouts the decisions made at the meeting,
he is punished by the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient gods and
goddesses for committing nso ala, an
offense against the Earth Goddess Ala, who is in charge of the people’s
morality and ethos, as well as human, animal, and plant fertility. That is why all
Igbo customs derive from, or are anchored on, a worldview known as omenala: that which is rooted on the ground.
Therefore, for the Igbo, the whole Earth or ground, not just a specific portion
of it, is sacred. Hence, right from their infancy, Igbo people are taught not to
misuse or abuse the earth or to take untrue oaths with sand or soil taken from
the ground. Furthermore, they are not expected to tell the truth only when they
are sworn to do so under oath, for they believe that the eyes of the
dead-living ancestors are always upon them. Whenever they misbehave even in
private, the gods and goddesses must surely punish them in public.
In Things
Fall Apart whose events predated those of Arrow of God, the narrator laments the Igbo people’s loss of their
primordial piety, patriotism, and ability to fight a common enemy in defense of
their clan. They attribute the loss to the presence of the British colonial
master in their midst who is ignorant of the Igbo customary laws on land use. That
is why when Okonkwo, who still embodies all of those great Igbo attributes now
moribund, asks his friend Obierika, “Does the white man understand our custom
about land?” Obierika replies in grief as
follows:
How
can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are
bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say our customs
are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned
against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his
religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has
won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife
on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart (TFA 176).
Some of the factors that held the
ancient Igbo people together were their customs and worldview, as well as their
traditional religion, called Igo mmuo,
which the white missionaries saw as heathen and fetish, hence condemnable. For
that reason, while some Igbo traditionalists held on to their traditional ways
of life, the new Christian converts and Western educated Igbo were bent on
bringing some changes into old Igbo ways of life, and the changes resulted in dangerous
divisions in their communities. And even
though their ancestors fought hard to resist being colonized by the encroaching
foreign powers, their colonizers ultimately succeeded in opening up the erstwhile
closed Igbo societies to foreigners who brought in their religion, education, and
employments to the native people. Consequently, such foreign elements became
anathema to the internal weaknesses of ancient Igbo customary practices, such
as the killing of twin babies and the banishment of their mothers to evil
forests, as well as dedicating some free-people to serve as priests of the gods
and goddesses and branding them as osu,
the untouchable people.
Furthermore, despite some obvious benefits
of the British colonial system in Nigeria, many Igbo people continued to lament
what the new dispensation did to their societies: That colonialism seriously
affected their ability to speak with one voice as they used to in precolonial
eras, more so as it attempted to destroy all their traditional ways, including
those that promoted peace and unity among the people. Nevertheless, although
the Igbo culture was not built on granite, yet it was not so fragile that the
British agents could destroy it completely. That is why, in contemporary
Nigeria, the indigenous Igbo culture is able to coexist with the foreign ones,
such as the British and the American.
The ability of the Igbo culture to coexist
with other cultures was due to the Igbo stoic and resilient spirit. Once Great
Britain found an irremovable foothold in Nigeria, the Igbo ethnic group quickly
devised some clever ways to hold on to their customs and traditions in spite of
the serious threats the colonial authorities posed. Politically, they exploited
the British parliamentary system of governance in Nigeria which had three strong
regional governments and a central government that was not so strong in Lagos,
the then capital of Nigeria. For the British allowed each of the regional
governments (with capitals in Enugu for Eastern Nigeria, Ibadan for Western
Nigeria, and Kaduna for Northern Nigeria) to maintain their individual and unique
paces of development. In their sociopolitical practices, the Igbo-dominated Eastern
Region, in southern Nigeria, was a model region in terms of governance,
education, and management of its natural and human resources; so was the Yoruba
government of Western Region, also in southern Nigeria. But the Hausa/Fulani-dominated
Northern Region, in northern Nigeria, was somehow behind those of the two
southern regions. I believe that the disparity between the northern and southern
regions, in terms of their internal developments, was largely due to the
differences in their respective precolonial histories, including their
divergent religious, educational, and cultural backgrounds, as well as their political
viewpoints, all of which are discussed in detail in Obaro Ikime’s edited book, Groundwork of Nigerian History.
At the end of the civil war, some Igbo
communities outside the Igbo heartland were enticed to renounce their Igbo heritage
for political and financial advantage. For example, the Igbo people who lived
in Port Harcourt Province of Eastern Nigeria before the war became part of a new
state, named Rivers State, which the Federal Military Government carved out of the
erstwhile Eastern Nigeria on May 27, 1967. Thereafter, in the mid-1970s, the
state government hired Kay Williamson, a British linguist who specialized in
the study of African languages, to develop the linguistic studies of the
languages of the Niger Delta, especially Ijaw, which she offered as a course at
the University of Port Harcourt. While doing her studies, she changed the names
of the Igbo communities in the state to sound Ijaw. For instance, the original
Igbo community of Umumasi became Rumumasi, and Umuodumaya became Rumuodumaya. As
a reaction to the changes, many mainland
Igbo scholars argued that the Igbo inhabitants of those areas supported the
state government’s move to enable them dissociate themselves from the political
“sins” that the “secessionist” Igbo people committed against Nigeria when they
led the Biafran cause of the civil war. From then onwards, some of the politicians
of Igbo descent in Rivers State changed their attitude toward mainland Igbo people
to the extent that they even colluded with their government to confiscate Igbo
landed properties whose owners left behind when they fled the state at the onset
of the war.
However, the more devastating effect of
the change in the attitudes of some Rivers State politicians is the disunity it
brought into the global Igbo ethnic nation.
For example, the governor of that state, Chibuike Amaechi (2007-2015),
who rode on the political coattails of another Rivers State governor of Igbo
descent, Hon. Peter Odili, categorically disavowed his Igbo descent and
heritage when he came to New Jersey to receive “The 2013 Quintessence Award”
given by an Igbo book publisher, Dr. Ugorji O. Ugorji. In his acceptance
remarks before some Nigerian Americans—I was one of them on the occasion—Governor
Amaechi opined that unlike other ethnic groups (including his own Ikwerre
group) the Igbo were naïve in the way they were playing politics in contemporary
Nigeria. Like a drunken masquerade, he went around Nigeria fighting President
Goodluck Jonathan, a fellow People’s Democratic Party (PDP) politician from the
same South-South geopolitical zone. As he viciously attacked the president
politically with reckless abandon, he fell out of favor with many of his political
associates, including members of his cabinet like Chief Nyesom Ezenwo Wike who
fought back and won the May 2015 gubernatorial election, and thus became governor
of Rivers State on the platform of the PDP instead of that of All Progressives
Congress (APC), Amaechi’s new political party.
Savvy Nigerian political observers and
media gurus, who followed Amaechi’s political activities, opined that he not
only decamped PDP, which made him a state governor, but also took with him many
members of the party to the APC party so he could become a running mate to
Maj-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who quickly made him head of his presidential
election campaign organization. And even though Amaechi acknowledged on several
occasions that he was not Igbo, yet in the dying days of the campaigns he
brought Buhari to the Igbo Enyimba City of Aba to campaign for him,
hypocritically claiming there and then in public that he was after all an Igboman.
He also thought that the Igbo people would easily forget his condemnation of
President Jonathan for helping Igbo people develop some parts of the South East
geopolitical zone. He urged other Nigerians not support the president’s bid for
reelection because, according to him, the president’s development effort was
tantamount to rehabilitation of the former Biafran enclave: “The Governor
Amaechi in an interview with AIT television said that President Jonathan has
developed Abia and Imo but he has refused to develop Rivers. Are we Biafrans?”
9/26/2014]. In the end, however, Governor
Amaechi failed woefully in his attempt to become the Vice President of Nigeria;
neither did he win his state’s electoral votes for the APC.
In contrast to Amaechi’s negative
effort, all the five South East states voted for President Jonathan because of what
he did politically for their development. Although he did not win the
presidency, the Igbo grateful nation did not regret casting their votes for a
man who helped to make their sociopolitical lives a little better than they
were before his tenure. In essence, Amaechi’s political fights with President
Jonathan and members of the PDP brought so much destruction to the human and
natural resources of Rivers State that his political mentor, the former
Governor Odili, publicly expressed his regret for having worked hard to make
Amaechi his successor in office. Nevertheless, while the political struggle
between Amaechi and Wike continues, politicians of non-Igbo descent in the
state have been watching both of them in utter disdain and disbelief. Their
fight once again reminds people of the Igbo adage, “When two brothers fight, a
stranger reaps the benefits.” Every Igbo person is anxiously waiting for the time
when the two Igbo political gladiators’ quarrels would end in Rivers State and its
environs.
The devastating political wrangle and disunity
that Nigerians are currently witnessing among politicians of Igbo descent in
Rivers State are a child’s play when compared to what has been happening in all
five mainland Igbo states since the end of military administrations in Nigeria.
In Anambra State, for example, after Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju (May 29, 1999-May
29, 2003) finished his tenure in office under PDP, Chris Ngige of PDP and Peter
Obi of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) competed to succeed him. Although
Peter Obi won the election, Chris Ngige and his party rigged him out of victory;
thus, Ngige became the governor from May 23, 2003 to March 17, 2006. However, through
the concerted effort of APGA and the indefatigable General Ojukwu, Peter Obi
regained the stolen mandate the people gave him through their ballots to govern
them. That was after three years of brutal court battles. He became the state governor
from March 17, 2006 through November 3, 2006; but the state legislature
impeached him for an alleged gross misconduct. In his place, the deputy
governor, Dame Virginia Etiaba, was appointed to serve as governor on November
3, 2006. Three months later, she transferred her powers back to Peter Obi on
February 9, 2007. At the interim, a PDP candidate, Emmanuel Nnamdi Uba (Andy
Uba), was elected and sworn in as governor of the state on May 27, 2007, but he
was removed by a Supreme Court decision on June 18, 2007. That means he illegally
governed the state for only twenty-two days. On the other hand, Governor Peter
Obi served as the duly elected governor from February 9, 2007 to March 17, 2014.
He was reportedly the first modern Nigerian governor to leave office with a
surplus in the state’s coffers. Thereafter, he was succeeded in office by
another APGA candidate, Willie Obiano, who won the election and began serving as
governor of the state from March 17, 2014 up to date. He is said to have since
completed most of the projects Governor Obi left uncompleted and then some. So
far, most Anambra people love and respect him for the work he is doing in all
parts of the state.
From the foregoing, one can see that there
was a lot of political dysfunction in the state which produced six governors in
eleven years—a period of time that should have been the constitutional tenure
of only three governors. It was a period marked by political godfatherism,
blatant rigging of elections by PDP, politically-motivated kidnappings of
people, wanton destruction of people’s lives and property, as well as many incidents
of arson. Regrettably, during the dark period, Anambra State, which had boasted
politicians of “timber and caliber” such as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. Nwafor
Orizu, Dr. Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, and General Chukwuemeka
Odumegwu Ojukwu, became the most politically violent state in post-era of military
administrations in Nigeria. And there were no effective political interventions
by some of its clear-headed sociopolitical and religious leaders.
As a politically conscious Igboman,
what bothered me most about the situation is that a revered politician like Dr.
Alex Ekwueme from Anambra State could not make the warring politicians in his
home state see reason in what they were doing as he did whenever there was political
turmoil at the national scene. He served meritoriously as vice-president of
Nigeria during the postwar civilian administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari
(1979-1983), was a founding member of the PDP in 1998, introduced and canvassed
the concept of geopolitical zones in the country, served as a PDP presidential candidate
in 1999 and as chair of PDP Board of Trustees for a considerable period of time.
In addition, in consideration of his negotiation skills, President Olusegun
Obasanjo sent him all over the country to troubleshoot political problems in
the PDP constituencies. And he did so
with great success that earned him the respect and admiration of the political class
from all ethnic and political spectrums.
The question then arises, “Why didn’t he succeed in quelling the
internal political quagmire in his native Anambra State?” Or, as the Igbo would
ask proverbially, “How could an old man sit idly by and watch his tethered goat
suffer the pains of parturition without giving her any assistance?” Although
many political observers think that that was what he did, no one could tell with
certainty the extent to which he tried privately to make peace among his people
but in the end failed. The curious thing though is that although he was aware
of the criticisms, as a very private person, Dr. Alex Ekwueme refused to stoop and
quibble with his critics, whether informed or uninformed.
While the political dysfunction went on
in Anambra State, another Igbo state, Abia State, seemed to enjoy initial
stability in its governance under Governor Orji Uzor Kalu of the Progressive Peoples
Alliance (PPA). It is a mini party he formed for the South East geopolitical region
to checkmate such other regional parties as All Peoples Party (APP)—primarily for
Northerners, and Alliance for Democracy (AD)—primarily for the South West. Governor
Kalu was so successful in controlling his government functionaries as the party’s
leader that he completed two terms in office (May 29, 1999-May, 2007).
Thereafter, he was also successful in handing over power to his chief of staff
and protégé, Chief Theodore A. Orji, whom he helped to win the gubernatorial election
on PPA platform from prison under some dubious circumstances. But while in
office, Governor Orji defected to PDP and allegedly ruled the state like a
tyrant for two terms (May 29, 2007-May 29, 2015). Ultimately, he and Governor
Kalu clashed and became mortal enemies. Resultantly, Governor Kalu’s political
appointees whom Governor Orji retained in his administration found themselves
dispensable and ultimately relieved of their positions.
Furthermore, unlike Governor Kalu his
political mentor and predecessor who brought some visible developments in the
commercial city of Aba, rebuilt some state roads, and paid state workers’
salaries regularly most of the time, Governor Orji did more to help himself and
members of his immediate family than he did for the people of the state. Many
of them allege that he converted some public facilities into his personal
businesses, especially those cited at Umuahia, the state capital and his
birthplace. There were also some published and privately asserted incidents of the
governor bulldozing the landed properties of his neighbors, especially those he
disagreed with politically before and during his tenure as governor.
Reportedly, his son, Chinedum Orji, fired at will some state commissioners he
did not like and replaced them with those who were willing to become his
stooges. His doting father accepted his recommendations enthusiastically. Also,
Chinedum so intimidated many other state workers that they lost their freedom
of speech for fear of being removed from office, physically manhandled, or even
killed. Finally, on leaving office, Governor Orji created a strong niche for Chinedum
in the Abia State House of Assembly where he now serves as a member.
But the most despicable political
decision Governor Theodore A. Orji made, which momentarily brought a visible
crack in the unity of the Igbo nation, was firing all workers from other Igbo
states who had lived and worked in Abia State even long before he became the
governor. And yet, Abia State indigenes working in other Igbo states were
retained and treated as brothers by their respective governors. It took the
effort of the apex Igbo sociocultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to dissuade
the governors from retaliating in the national interest of Igbo ethnic unity.
Against the backdrop of these
allegations of corruption against the former governor, a voluntary association
of concerned Abia citizens, “Save Abia Initiative for Change (SAIC)” has petitioned
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) “detailing how the
erstwhile governor, Chief Theodor Orji, his wife, Mercy Odochi, their son,
Chinedum (a. k. a. Ikuku) and a few of their cronies allegedly squandered N474
billion of Abia State funds between 2011 and this year”
In contrast to the disappointing roles that
some Igbo politicians in both Igbo mainland and outside of it played that
brought disunity in the Igbo nation, other politicians of Igbo descent outside the
mainland have played roles which demonstrate in practical terms the adage that
where people have the will, there can be unity in spite of the great odds
against them. For example, the Igbo sociopolitical leaders in the old Bendel
State, now Delta State, have done things in present Nigerian geopolitics that
have not only showcased their love of country, but also the love and defense of
Igbo ethnic nationalism to the admiration of all fair-minded Igbo people both
in Nigeria and in the Diaspora. This they did in spite of the slaughter of the Niger
Igbo in Asaba during the war because they supported the Biafran cause of the
mainland Igbo and other Eastern Nigerians who were being exterminated by the
Nigerian armed forces. Anyone who reads their gory experience of the Niger Igbo
from Emma Okocha’s book, Blood on the
Niger, cannot but marvel why their love of the
Igbo nation is so great and unshakeable.
One of those Igbo personalities from Delta
State who played great roles to foster Igbo ethnic unity and nationalism is
Col. J. O. G. Achuzia. Those of us who were old enough to experience the
Nigeria-Biafra War are familiar with the story of how he gallantly fought the
war in defense of “Biafra as an experiment of the black man’s ability to
survive in the face of impossible living history,” which earned him the
monikers “Hannibal” and “Air Raid.” Although the physical Biafra collapsed, as
a noble idealistic struggle it continued to exist in the hearts and souls of
patriotic Igbo people now dubbed ex-Biafrans. Achuzia’s roles in that war and
what Biafra meant—and continues to mean—to many an Igbo man is brilliantly discussed
in his book, Requiem Biafra: The True
Story of Nigeria’s Civil War.
Furthermore, since after the war, Achuzia has been fighting with the same
soldierly zeal in the apex Igbo sociocultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to
ensure that the marginalization of the Igbo people in Nigerian nation state becomes
a thing of the past. Hence, some Igbo people like me applaud him for his unalloyed
Igbo ethnic patriotism and nationalism. May he live long for the benefit of our
people!
Another great personality of Igbo
descent from Delta State is Ralph Uwechue who was a former Nigerian career
diplomat. In 1966, he opened Nigeria’s embassy in France. However, “strongly
disagreeing with the federal government’s handling of the situation produced by
the massacres of September 1966, he decided to quit the federal service to help
present the case of the Ibos to the French world. This he did with remarkable
effect in his capacity as Biafra’s representative.” But he resigned that
appointment in December 1968 “in protest against the Biafran leadership’s
attitude towards absolute sovereignty.” Most of his thoughts on the Nigerian
civil war can be found in his book, Reflections
on the Nigerian Civil War: Facing the Future. Although many ex-Biafrans were disappointed
in what he did then, they are currently happy with what he did since after the
war: He became a great advocate for the unity and survival of the Igbo nation
inside Nigeria and in the Diaspora. Specifically, he worked assiduously to
unite the Igbo people in Rivers and Delta States. One easily admires how
politically savvy and well-informed he was by reading his published analysis of
the Igbo situation in present Nigerian geopolitics as revealed in the interview
he granted to The Sun News Publishing,
titled “How Zik Stopped Nigeria from Breaking up in 1957” [See The Sun News online, Wednesday, March
10, 2010]. He also served as one of the
leadership cadre of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and later became its president before he
died in 2014. His political sagacity is missed by patriotic Igbo persons today.
Among the people Ambassador Uwechue
lionized in the interview is his fellow Delta Igbo, Prof. Patrick O. Utomi. Many
Igbo people (especially me) consider him as their personal hero because he
epitomizes all the attributes one finds in a phenomenal Igbo person:
acquisition of higher education, professional excellence, civil rights advocacy
and rule of law, uncommon political leadership, and endless committed service
to one’s community. Professor Utomi is a native of Igbuzo in Oshimili North
Local Government Area of Delta State. After attending high school and the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Mass
Communication, he came to the USA for graduate studies, where he earned his Ph.
D, MPA, and MA at Bloomington. He also became a scholar-in-residence at Harvard
Business School and the American University in Washington, D.C. Thus
academically and professionally equipped, Utomi returned to Nigeria to serve
both the Nigerian nation and his people, including his Igbuzo community and the
Igbo people at home and in the Diaspora. He helped to reenergize Ohanaeze
Ndigbo, and raised the political profile of the Igbo nation when he ran as a
candidate for the office of the Nigerian presidency in 2007 and 2011. Although
he did not win, he became a powerful force that no Nigerian politician or
political party can ignore. Hence, he has served some Nigerian presidents,
especially President Jonathan, as an official or private advisor. Furthermore,
he successfully co-founded a political party ADC and some banks and businesses
that have created numerous employment opportunities for many Nigerians. He is
the author of several management and public policy books which professional
organizations and universities have adopted in Nigeria and abroad. If I were to
speculate this quintessential Igbo son’s greatest achievement, I would say it
is his service to his people as the traditional ruler of Asaba, an ideal, if
exemplary, Igbo community, and his indefatigable effort to restore the dignity
of the postwar Igbo nation in Nigeria. I personally pray than he runs again for
the Nigerian presidency in future.
Another major cause of Igbo
marginalization in the present day Nigerian geopolitics is the unwholesome
changes which have occurred in postwar Igbo value system and ethos. As an
enterprising ethnic group, the Igbo people have always pursued every legal and
ethical means of acquiring wealth for the common good of the community. For
example, in the ancient clan of Arochukwu, the people’s entrepreneurial and
frontier spirit drove them to various places in precolonial Eastern Nigeria
where they founded plantations they called uno
ubi—an act that earned them the moniker “Aro Okigbo,” which means “Aro the
great Igbo people.” They live in present day Arochukwu Local Government Area in
Abia State. In those primordial years, they developed their own peculiar
governance, a code language, Insibiri,
and commercial systems which the British missionaries and government
functionaries waged battles to destroy. But their failure to win the cultural
battles caused the British to respect and work with the Aro people—a bold act which
elevated their status as a strong clan in Igboland and Nigeria as a whole.
In the same manner, the people of
Abiriba developed commercial, trade, and blacksmithing businesses, collectively
called ikpu ozu, which took them everywhere
in Eastern Nigeria. In their trade and commercial industry, they specialized in
smuggling illicit goods from foreign countries, especially fairly-used or second hand clothes, stock fish,
tobacco, and hot drinks into Nigeria. Through such enterprises, the men and
their young apprentices made a lot of money and became rich, not just for the
benefit of their immediate families but also for the entire community. In fact,
the Abiriba business class and artisans were so successful in what they did that
they built secondary schools and hospitals for the clan without any government
assistance that made Abiriba one of the most developed clans in Igboland.
People in Old Bende used to refer to the clan as “Small London.” In addition,
they gave massive university scholarship awards to their young men and women to
study in local and foreign universities. And during the civil war, Abiriba
businessmen and women purchased and smuggled food, medicine, and small arms into
Biafra to feed and protect all the people in their clan and its environs,
regardless of their socioeconomic classes and gender.
Some of these altruistic endeavors, enviable
community development efforts, and time-tested commonweal aspirations found in
Arochukwu and Abiriba clans could be found also in other Igbo communities
though not in the same scope or amplitude. If you were a rich farmer, you could
take titles involving the slaughter of cows to feast a whole village with yam
foo-foo and drinks. That way, you became Ogbuefi—killer
of cows. From time to time though, the villagers would offer free labor on your
farms in appreciation of how well you have been supporting and caring for them
as a rich brother. As a village
elder, you would take care of orphans and widows and always find a way to make peace
between warring neighbors without the involvement of police and the courts. Above
all, the seasonal rituals and ceremonies were staged in the village to promote
the unity and comradery of the people who are descendants of a common ancestor
that should not wage wars against each other. For the security of the people, men
sent their able-bodied sons to serve in the village vigilante outfit. And
finally, because of the sense of unity inculcated in the people to defend all
aspects of their communal life, there was peace in those rural communities most
of the time. Nevertheless, all that could not happen if there were no established
mechanisms to maintain law and order in the villages, which no villagers,
however rich or powerful, could impugn without incurring severe sanctions and punishment
from their gods and goddesses and human authorities.
Unfortunately, however, such neighborly
attitudes of the villagers changed after the war. People began to pursue the
acquisition of wealth for the benefits of their nuclear families only. The
moral and ethical standards which used to guide their behavior drastically
changed ostensibly because people now live outside their villages and clans
most of the time. Anyone who is able to defraud or steal from other people and
thereby become rich overnight is applauded by some fellow villagers without
qualms. And for too long, the broad day thievery has been happening to the
extent that the village, which used to be the conscience of the people, is now
deserted by the thieves and criminals who now make the towns, cities, and
foreign countries their permanent abode. In face of these reprehensible
activities of some of our people, we the Igbo people need to go back to our spiritual
past and pick up our abandoned prewar moral compass to enable us live morally and
ethically better lives.
Before the war, those who gave the Igbo
nation visibility and recognition in Nigeria and Africa were the political
class because of their selfless contributions to the country and the continent.
Who could ever forget some of such great nationalists as Dr. Nnandi Azikiwe the
great Zik of Africa, Dr. Nwafor Orizu, Dr. Michael Okpara, Dr. Kingsley
Mbadiwe, Dr. Francis Akanu Ibiam, Dr. Alvan Ikoku, Mazi Mbonu Ojike (of the
“boycott the boycottable” fame), Chief Dennis Chukudebe Osadebey, Dr. Okechukwu
Ikejiani, Chief Jaja Wachuku, Chief Nathan Ejiogu, Chief Raymond Amanze Njoku, Chief
Sam Ikoku, Chief Sam Mbakwe, and Mrs. Margaret Ekpo?
How many mansions and edifices did they
build for themselves except leading the war of independence against the British
colonial powers that resulted in Nigeria attaining self-rule in 1957 and
independence in 1960; building the first Nigerian indigenous bank, African Continental
Bank, Enugu, in 1954; founding the first indigenous Nigerian university, The
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1955; founding the first indigenous Nigerian
college of education, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, in 1974; and,
founding the first indigenous Nigerian state university, The Imo State
University, Etiti, in 1981 for other Nigerian states to emulate? As one can
clearly see, the Igbo elder statesmen were concerned only with giving peace,
unity, and progress to the Igbo nation in Nigerian and not about their personal
wealth or fame. The heroes’ achievements speak eloquently for them after their deaths.
Now the question arises: “Can anyone of
us favorably compare what our current Igbo political class or leaders are doing
with what our renowned past leaders did as we have seen above? I personally do
not think so. In fact, as a result of the creation of many states in Nigeria and
the way the Federal Government has been sharing petro money to each state every
month, many of the politicians—especially state governors, senators, and members
of the House of Assembly and State Legislatures—have ample opportunities and
the wherewithal to develop Igboland faster and better than their counterparts in
the past and to promote peace, unity, and economic wellbeing for people in the South
East geopolitical area if they if they wanted to. Unfortunately, however, because
of their greediness, selfishness, mediocrity, political ineptitude,
indiscipline, and what Achebe once called “crude showiness,”
the politicians are unable to forge any strong political bond and leadership as
well as the will power that would enable them fight for an Igbo fair share of the
metaphoric Nigerian national cake. No, they could not even unite to recommend
one additional Igbo state when it was rumored that the Federal Government might
create one additional state in the South East geopolitical zone to bring the
number to six as it is in the five other geopolitical zones of the country.
Instead, Ukwa and Ngwa clans in Abia State, Orlu and Uguta clans in Imo State,
Nsukka and Awgu clans in Enugu State, and Afikpo and Edda clans in Ebonyi State
each want the one additional state to be created in their backyard as it were.
Thus, the other ethnic groups who have always been opposed to creating an
additional state for the Igbo nation (for the sake of equity and balance) were
happy about the Igbo political leaders’ disunity and disagreement on the issue.
What a shame and ethnic disgrace!
Even when they are given the
opportunity by politicians from other ethnic groups to serve, the Igbo leaders squander
their political capitals very easily. We saw that happen during President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s two-term administration: Senator Evan Enwere was elected Senate President on
June 3, 1999 but was sacked on November 18, 1999 following his impeachment; Senator
(Dr.) Chuba Okadigbo served as Senate President from 1999 to 2000, and was also
impeached; Senator Pius Anyim Pius served honorably as Senate President from
200 to 2003; Senator Adolphus Wabara served as Senate President from 2003 to
2005 and resigned because of charges of corruption; and Senator Ken Nnamani
served as Senate President as well from 2005 to 2007. In other words, within a
period of eight years five Igbo senators served as presidents of the red
chamber. One can see how disappointing their collective service and reputation
(even though not all of them were bad) can be viewed by other Nigerian ethnic
peoples, especially when compared to the tenure of the immediate past Senate
President, Senator (General) David Mark from Benue State, who served from 2007
to 2015, which is eight consecutive years. And they sarcastically ask, “If the Igbo
senators could not complete their senate presidency tenures meritoriously, how could
anybody trust that they could do so if they were elected President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria?” What those Igbo senate presidents did can be seen
proverbially as a case of one finger that collects dirty oil and smears other fingers
with it. Hence, in our Igbo intraethnic democracy, all our smeared fingers must
be washed clean.
Now that we have examined where the
trouble with our Igbo ethnic people lies, the question becomes “What can we do
to extricate ourselves from it?” First of all, we must decide that our collective
problems are not unsurmountable, for other ethnic groups have had their own
peculiar sociopolitical problems in the past and took care of them. The Yoruba
and the Hausa/Fulani had their own share of problems in the 1960s, but after
fighting each other for a while, they came together in unity and dealt with the
problems. Who could forget the Yoruba
division between the Awolowo and Akintola factions that partially caused the
Army to stage the first Nigerian bloody coup of January 15, 1966? For us Igbo
people, our present task is to let the Igbo nation be Igbo again. Doing so
involves harnessing our ethnic consciousness, all the brainpower, foresight,
soul force, and determination which guided our past heroes to make the Igbo a
great ethnic people in Nigeria. Even though this article’s analysis of our
situation has been focused on the sociopolitical class in Nigeria, we must also
emphasize what we the Igbo people in the Diaspora can do to help our people in
Nigeria solve the Igbo problems at home, because we have the higher education,
experience, and the wherewithal to deal with such problems without the fear of
being thrown out of jobs or assassinated politically by the powers that be in
Nigeria.
As a matter of fact, the rescue
operation has already begun in Nigeria and in some foreign countries, including
the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France.
For example, while Professor Austin S.
O. Okwu and I were brooding over the situation of our Igbo people in current
Nigerian geopolitics following the just concluded 2015 Nigerian national
elections, an Igbo blues song came to my mind: “Where are the young suckers
that would replace the old banana trees after they die? Both of us were saddened
by the sorry situation of our people in general. Anybody who knows Professor
Okwu would not be surprised that I had this type of conversation with him, for
he has done a lot of things toward achieving the unity, survival, and progress
of the Igbo more than most of the people I know about here in the USA. To know
about this quintessential Igboman necessitates a review of some of his services
to the Igbo nation in particular and Nigeria in general. As a diplomat, Okwu
began his professional journey in the Nigerian Foreign Affairs Ministry from
1961 to 1967 during which period he served in Ghana, Tanganyika (now Tanzania),
Britain, and the United States. In Tanganyika, Okwu negotiated with that
government’s officials to fill vacant positions in their judiciary with
Nigerian lawyers as magistrates and judges. In 1967, before the Nigeria-Biafra
War broke out, Colonel Ojukwu sent Ambassador Okwu to go open the Biafran
Foreign Office in London, from where he could plead the Biafran cause before
the outside world. Later on, he was redeployed to serve as an ambassador to
East Africa, where he won for Biafra the first two diplomatic recognitions from
Tanzania and Zambia. The two other countries that recognized Biafra
diplomatically, Gabon and the Ivory Coast, and then Haiti in the Western hemisphere,
took their cues from those countries that Ambassador Okwu first persuaded to
recognize Biafra as a country. He continued his ambassadorial services in East
Africa up to the end of the civil war.
Thereafter, Ambassador Okwu and his family
emigrated to the U.S. where he attended Columbia University, New York, and
earned a Ph. D. in History. After that, he taught in some American colleges and
also worked as a dean in some of them. What is most admirable in this great
Igbo son is the life of service he has led up to his early 90s. He spearheaded
the founding of an Igbo sociocultural organization, “Igbozue,” alongside his
wife Dr. Beatrice Okwu, who herself spearheaded the founding of the “Igbo Women
Association of Connecticut.” Both organizations in Connecticut State serve as
platforms from where they taught Igbo people through personal experiences how
to unite and uphold their cultural norms and traditions. Above all, since after
his retirement, Professor Okwu has been busy visiting Igbo organizations in
other states in the USA as well as in Nigeria to ensure that our culture never
dies.
Acting as a bridge between the old generation
of sociopolitical leaders (some of whom he worked with) and the new class of leaders
(some of whom seem ignorant of what sincere public service means to our people),
Professor Okwu has been making presentations in some Igbo academic institutions
like Abia State University, Okigwe. In March 2014, he attended and contributed
a paper to a conference, titled “The First International Colloquium on The Igbo
Question in Nigeria: Before, During, and After Biafra,” which was organized by
Alaigbo Development Foundation of which he is a founding member. The papers
delivered at the colloquium eventuated in the publication of a monumental
two-volume book, Igbo Nation: History
& Challenges of Rebirth and Development,
whose contents teach and exemplify what the Igbo people must do to overcome their
challenges in order to achieve rebirth, unity, and development which ameliorate
their geopolitical situation in Nigeria. Most of these sociopolitical and ambassadorial
roles that Ambassador (Professor) Augustine S. O. Okwu has played for more than
five decades can be found in his memoir, In
Truth for Justice and Honor: A Memoir of a Nigerian-Biafran Ambassador.
Another Igbo scholar who is working tirelessly
to unite the Igbo in thought and reason in Nigeria and in the Diaspora is
Professor Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, who currently lives in and writes from Brazil. His
forward looking blog, Rethinking Africa,
is dedicated to the exchange of innovative thinking on issues affecting the
advancement of African peoples wherever they are. He provides rigorous and
insightful analyses on the issues affecting Africans and their vision of the
world
[See http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/federal-ministry-of-education-has.html.
Accessed
7/7/2015]. In 2014, I attended a conference in which I observed Ekwe-Ekwe make incisive, erudite,
and thought-provoking arguments in defense of Africana cause in the world.
Also, his book, The Biafra-Nigeria War
and the Aftermath, is one of the best reads on the Nigerian civil war.
The more I read his blog entries, the better I appreciate the Igbo nation and
the Black World. His article “Does Arrow
of God Anticipate the Igbo Genocide?” contains a complex argument that the
novel “presents a highly imaginative and anticipatory insight to the turbulent
trajectory of post-(European) conquest African history and politics. This
insight anticipates the catastrophe of the Igbo genocide”
Of course, the anticipated genocide in the novel Ekwe-Ekwe referring to in the
article is the massacre of the Igbo that began during the I966 Northern riots
and ended in the civil war, which we have earlier touched on in this article.
In the end, after this metaphoric sea
journey through the Igbo geopolitical terrain in which we have seen some
examples of the activities of our fellow Igbo people at home and abroad, what
is there to be said about Igbo intraethnic democracy in present-day Nigerian
geopolitics? Or what is it that this article has contributed, if any, to
ameliorate the Igbo people’s plight in the scheme of things in Nigeria? One can
say, for one thing—curiously—that issues have been raised and observations made
on the performances of the Igbo sociopolitical class in Nigeria, which have not
given us an ethnic nation the peace, unity, and development we deserve since
after the civil war; and, also, that an attempt has been made to draw attention
to how, when, and where the rain started to beat us as a people. Therefore, if
we become more conscious of the causes of our downfall, even our marginalization
and thereby decide to do something positively concrete about them as Umuaro
clan did in Arrow of God, then we
will have started to reenergize and reinvent ourselves to face the great odds
that have bedeviled us as a people who fought and lost a secessionist war we
were forced into fighting against Nigeria. And we can do that without lamenting
the noble experimentation on the building of a new nation—Biafra, our New Jerusalem—which
gave us the love and hope of surviving the brutality of three nations: Nigeria,
Great Britain, and USSR. And if we realize that Nigeria is the only native country
that our Igbo nation has in the world, then we must always fight with every
means available to us without retreat to ensure our survival in it politically,
socially, economically, and emotionally.
Igbo
ndi oma, anyi ga adi ooo!
*****Kalu Ogbaa is a professor of
English at Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven. He has published
ten books and many book chapters, articles, and book reviews on Africana literary
and cultural studies, including Gods,
Oracles and Divination… (Africa World Press, 1992), The Gong and The Flute… (Greenwood Press, 1994), and Understanding Things Fall Apart… (Greenwood
Press, 1999).
