President Buhari’s two-day visit to the South-east is a proof — if one is still needed — that the race for 2019 has begun in all earnest and that he will — unless God decides otherwise — be a candidate in the election. The late Mandela was the only African leader to decline his right for a second term in office.

Earlier, in what appeared to be more than a mere coincidence, Buhari announced plans to make more political appointments and promised that in doing so he would allow the Governors and party apparatchiks to make in-puts.In his previous appointments, it is thought that he sidelined those groups and chose whoever it pleased his fancy and those of his inner cabinet (or the ‘cabal’) to choose.

What can we expect from the President’s one- day visit to Ebonyi state on November 14, 2017 and another one- day visit to Anambra State the following day?

There is no doubt that the President has image problem in the Southeast. The image problem is often dramatized by vested interests in the number of votes he got in the region – 198,248 as against the 2,464,906 secured by President Jonathan. The politicisation of the disparity in the votes secured by Buhari in the region and the incorrect reading of its import contributed immeasurably inworsening the relations between the region and the President.

It would seem that in the early months of his government Buhari bought into the narrative of being hated by the Igbos by a simplistic reliance on the vote figures he got from the region.We saw this in the exclusion of the Igbos in the early appointments into his kitchen cabinet, his statement about 95 per cent versus 5 per cent, the relocation of 47 Boko Haram prisoners to Ekwulobia prison, Anambra state, without offering any explanation – among others. Obviously groups like IPOB tapped into the situation and worsened matters.

The President’s visit affords him the opportunity to feel the pulse of the people and hopefully re-invent himself in the region. A starting point is to go beyond the simplistic interpretation of the import of his electoral figures in the region as evidence of hate.  The truth is that historically the critical elements of the Igbo faction of the Nigerian elite rarely like to play ‘opposition’ politics – or put crudely to be shut off from the corridors of power. In the First Republic for instance, Zik’s NCNC was in alliance with Sarduana’s NPC just as Zik’s NPP was also in alliance with the NPC’s reincarnate, the NPN in the Second Republic (1979-1983).

In fact, the Igbo political elites’ philosophy of the ‘goat follows the man with the palm fronds’ was dramatized in 1983, when,  despite  the Great Zik’s leadership of the NPP in the Second Republic,  most of the eminent Igbo politicians chose to join NPN,  the ruling party at the centre at that time, abandoning Zik, so to say.  Again it should be recalled that when the late Yar’Adua became gravely ill and a cabal around him did not want power to be transferred to then Vice President Dr Goodluck Jonathan, the South- east Governors collectively aligned themselves with the cabal.

So the decision by the Igbo elites to massively support Jonathan was partly in tandem with their philosophy of the ‘goat follows the man with the palm frond’ and not necessarily anything personal against Buhari as it was being interpreted.If this philosophy is still strong among Igbo political elites, it means that Buhari, as an incumbent President, may also benefit from it – if the size of the crowd that welcomed him in both Ebonyi andAnambraStates were anything to go by (and assuming the crowd was not rented). It can also be argued that the fact that an APC candidate in the November 18 governorship election in Anambra State is regarded as one of the key contenders in the race is already an indication of the softening of attitude in the region towards Buhari and his party, the APC.

But how do we interpret the Igbo political elite’s philosophy of the ‘goat follows the man with the palm fronds’?  Is it reflective of lack of political principle or is it pragmatic politics?

Some have argued that being very diasporic and with homes and businesses in every nook and cranny of the country, it will be unwise for them to play ‘opposition’ politics as they need to be friends with the government at the centre to ensure friendly policies that will protect the group’s interests across the country. Proponents of this view will often point to top business people like Aliko Dangote who seem to be friends with any government in power at the centre. But while it will remain debatable whether this type of politics is crass opportunism or pragmatism, it is however symptomatic of the character of our politics, which hinges on fears that the group that wins power at the centre will inevitably use such power to privilege its in-group or disadvantage others.

There were certainly other reasons for Buhari’s poor outing in the region in 2015 but the point is that some of the structural issues that played against him as a candidate may now also play in his favour as an incumbent – if he manages his relations with the region well, including its optics.

In essence Buhari’s visit affords him the opportunity to soften his mind about the people in the region – and vice versa. It is human nature that sometimeswhen you meet someone you are angry with, the anger has a way of softening on its own – just by a human feeling that the other person may actually not be as bad as you thought from a distance.  It is instructive that during the visit (in which Buhari appeared relaxed and happy with the reception he received in both states) he was conferred with the chieftaincy title of Ochi Oha Ndigbo (Leader of all in Igboland) by the South East Traditional Rulers and Enyi Oma 1 (Number one good friend) of Ebonyi State by the Ebonyi State Traditional Council).

During the visit Buhari did precisely what incumbents on campaign trails do – talk about dividends of their administration for the area they are visiting and commission new projects. Buhari did not miss the chance to tell his guests that he gave four senior ministerial slots to four of the five states in the Southeast and that in the 2018 Budget before the National Assembly the Second Niger Bridge was allocated ten billion Naira. Other projects in the Southeast he unveiled included construction of new international airport terminal in Enugu, a coastal rail line that passes through Aba in Abia State and Onitsha in Anambra State and a promise that the Federal government is todredge the River Niger to satisfy the yearning for maritime access to the sea by the South-east and the North.

Going by the recent statistics of the distribution of appointments and infrastructure by the Buhari government, it will appear there are areas that the Buhari government may not be getting as much credit as it deserves in the Southeast. This could be a result of several factors: Buhari’s communication style, which needs to be changed to recognize the crucial role of optics in politics and these ‘positives’ not being well communicated or communicated by those who have lost credibility in the eyes of the public such that the messenger, so to say, becomesthe message.

A softening of attitude in the Southeast towards the Buhari presidency may not necessarily translate into electoral victory for Dr Nwoye, the President’s  candidate, in the November 18 2017 Anambra State governorship election. This is because the Igbos seem to be currently struggling for a new identity within the Nigerian political space and it remains unclear which of the contending forces in the region will triumph. While in the past all it would have taken to placate the Igbo political elites against opposition to the Buhari government would probably be promises of contract and perhaps land allocations in choice locations in Abuja or Lagos, in the last few years, there are forces in the region pushing for a new form of politics that is antithetical to joggling to be a junior partner with any government at the centre.  While some within this group try to anchor the new identity on ‘marginalization’ some are trying to revolve it around a neo Biafra identity that seeks to build Igbo solidarity on a shared victimhood narrative. In this sense these forces are trying to play catch-up to the Yoruba political elite which for long glamorized opposition politics as ‘progressive’ politics and consequently placed more premium in having the Oduduwa states being under one political umbrella than being a junior partner in any government.

Email: pcjadibe@yahoo.com

Twitter: @JideoforAdibe

I have just undertaken a pit-stop visit to three state capitals and passed through several villages in the South-East of Nigeria (at least the ones en route). It wasn’t planned, as it was just a working visit for two days. I landed in Enugu State, presented a paper in Awka, Anambra State, and flew back out of Owerri, Imo State. I took hundreds of pictures with my phone as we journeyed – especially between Anambra and Imo States, and the above title is my verdict.

I have been to quite a number of states in Nigeria, and would hopefully be undertaking a visit to the others shortly. Whereas the ‘federal’ roads between Enugu and Awka were bad in the beginning, the truth is that I’ve seen much worse within Nigeria. 75 percent of the Enugu-Awka road – though single-lane – is well-maintained. I can quite clearly confirm here that there is no such road network between any two states in South-West Nigeria as what I saw between Enugu and Anambra, as well as between Anambra and Imo States. The Anambra-Imo stretch was particularly shocking to me for its smoothness. Not even in the north of Nigeria have I seen such roads. The Kano-Kaduna expressroad is presently shameful, and the Kaduna-Abuja one was only recently patched up with about N1 billion or so, when we had to repair the Abuja Airport. I hear the road is back to disrepair. I have been to Katsina as well, and the Kano-Katsina road, or the Kaduna-Katsina expressway is nothing to write home about. I hear that the roads in the Adamawa axis isn’t good as well, and people blame Atiku for not doing anything while he was the vice president. So we should probably bust the myth that northern Nigerian infrastructure are particularly invested in at the expense of others.

I left my hotel in Awka early enough because it was a Friday and there were already rumbles in Abia and Rivers States over the IPOB matter. I didn’t want to get caught up in any of the snake dances that might be on the way. The Nigerian Army had declared Operation Egwu Eke. Kanu, the new, very rude and negatively-intelligent Chancellor Hitler of South-East Nigeria had been blowing fire and brimstone lately, advising his followers to burn down Nigeria if he was arrested. A number of my highly-enlightened friends who share the same language with Kanu have sided with him and for some odd reasons cannot see the danger the guy portends for the entire people of Nigeria, especially as we have on the other end of the quarrel, President Buhari who equally has his own cult/religious following, only larger than that of the South-Eastern demagogue.

My driver was a highly enlightened chap named Daniel from Ideato-South area of Imo State. I didn’t have to prod him before he opened up on the stupidity of Kanu and his area-boy followers. He spoke of the way they looted people’s shops and damaged property when they came into Owerri, especially those of fellow Igbos, and wondered how they could hope to make a dent in the war they have chosen to fight since the odds were greatly stacked against them. He wasn’t for Kanu at all, and believed – like I do – that the man has only gathered together the unteachable boys of that region, who believe they have lost out in the game of personal prowess that is the culture of the people, and are neither ready to try harder or bid their time. Kanu’s crowd are the type that engage in crimes, taking by violence from those whom they see are ahead of them financially. They are simply driven by the anger that some others have more than them, simple. How my corporate friends cannot see that the guy’s simple strategy is that if we scatter everything and start afresh, he will be right on top of the pack, even as his compatriots who have invested in diverse places around the country at least, lose all they have and come under his majestic feet. That is if things are done in a peaceful and orderly manner. But the guy is not peaceful, and only recently on September 3, 2017, spoke of burning down the zoo called Nigeria. It’s also appalling how educated folks with careers and businesses, who have keyed into a globalised world will see nothing wrong with being led by such a megalomaniac who even insults his own people, calling them ‘fools and idiots’, merely for having businesses and buildings in other parts of Nigeria apart from the East. Kanu, by every means, is a loser, and so also are those who follow him around and kiss his feet. And if the region follows him, they will rue their fate.

As I waited to be picked up by Daniel, I received something which could be a threat call. Can you imagine? One Aloysius who said he was calling from Abuja, called to tell me ‘I should keep it up’ and hung up. I called him back after 15 minutes to know who it was. He explained that I should just ‘keep up what I am doing, you hear!’ It wasn’t a nice keeping up he wished me. It was quite amusing to me. The same person just ‘flashed’ me again yesterday night at exactly 10.24pm! What exactly have I done and said over this issue to warrant a stalker and threats? Well, I recall begging the whole world that the invasion of Libya was a bad idea, and being told by some Libyans in a Facebook group I formed, that they were not part of Africa anyway. I realised how ‘racist’ north Africans were at that moment, but also the need for us here in Nigeria to sit up and govern ourselves properly. Anyway, Libyans stupidly supported western countries who destroyed their country, killed their leader and today the place has no government. One could say they are still better than Nigeria though, because our people still get deported from there by the droves!

Along the way, the driver tuned into a station in Port Harcourt where an anchorman chatted with people in a phone-in programme. The topic was on whether Ohanaeze should be allowed to hold a meeting in Port Harcourt. Almost everyone who called in vehemently asked that the meeting be stopped, especially as the Secretary General of Ohanaeze had announced that the meeting was to hold in ‘Port Harcourt, Biafraland’. The Ikwerre people and others who phoned in were vehement that Rivers State could never be part of Biafra, but one man from Etche, said he was Igbo and that the meeting should be allowed to hold. He also said that Rivers State does not belong to anyone but the Rivers people, and that he didn’t support the IPOB Idea. The first resistance to the Biafra idea is from next door, although it is interesting how the Etche Igbo people consider themselves Igbo, while the Ikwerres – with a very similar culture and names – totally differ to being looped into the same category. This reinforces my own research (in an area that has been criminally neglected by our intellectuals), that each village, settlement, town in Nigeria before and even after the British incursion, were/are nations onto themselves and therefore should be respected and documented as such, not tucked under some fairly recent grouping such as ‘Igbo’, ‘Yoruba’, ‘Hausa’ and the rest, which are more political than substantive.

Yes, even Hausa. Hausa is a language, not a people. And even as a language, it differs in places, just like Yoruba or Igbo, or Ijaw. There is absolutely no geographical demarcation of these ‘tribes’ or languages anywhere if we are to be honest with ourselves. The languages and cultures flow into one another, and the peoples of Africa have always inter-married, warred with, enslaved, given succour to, banished and generally interacted with each other in a stochastic manner for eons. It is fraudulent, therefore, to ignore the nuances and uniqueness of each community. And it speaks of our usual lack of attention to details if we so do. My driver told me of the Asaa and Awara people of Imo State who are always at each others’ necks, quarreling and killing one another in their villages. He also spoke of the Ohaji Egbema Ugwuta people, whose language the rest of Imo people hardly understand. At that point I recalled meeting an Uber driver in Lagos who spoke to me about his people in Anambra State – the Ogwaru, who are called the ‘Olu Bialumba’ people by Anambra locals, because they are deemed to have migrated from elsewhere. Indeed, if we Nigerians submit ourselves for DNA testing, most of us will be shocked to discover where we are truly from.

My key observation about the Igbo people is that they seem to have very high standards in leadership. However, I believe the present ‘war’ should be properly defined. Yes, Nigeria does manifest behaviours worse that what wild beasts will tolerate in a zoo. But let us properly define what we want. First of all, the people from South-East Nigeria are certainly not the worst off people in Nigeria. They just happen to be the most difficult to please, and probably impossible to impress. They are doing better than most. And why? Not because the government has been nice to them, but actually the opposite. These are a people who have learnt to stand up for and by themselves, and who have developed business acumen that have stood them apart everywhere in the world. Even American authors have taken note of this. Read Amy Chua’s Triple Package for a sample. What about the mentorship programme they have in business? Yes, that may have waned as the population increased and business become more formalised, but it has proven to be priceless in terms of knowledge transfer and the democratisation of wealth. My people say ‘Ise omo aleseje, owo re omo alasela’, meaning when you work you shall be able to feed, but when you trade, you can truly be wealthy and successful. I believe South-Eastern Nigerians should take a moment and count their blessings.

I would advise they pitch the fight to be that they want Nigeria to be generally a much better country, because it can be so. Except if they believe they have achieved enough and would want to walk away and do even more. I think we can live together. I believe that apart from the cash flow which percolates in the South-East because people go back home as a matter of culture, and all those houses and mansions even deep in the villages have brought money back to those areas, that region has also done well because they are a very critical people. What other states – like those in the north of Nigeria – will accept from their leaders in the name of respect, the Igbos will not. My host in Awka, and Daniel the driver, says that Willie Obiano has done very well with infrastructure in his state, but many Anambrarians feel otherwise, and would describe their leaders in very unflattering terms.

That said, how can anyone jeopardise all the investments in the South-East? How can anyone jeopardise all these beautiful people in this region? How can anyone hope to reduce this plush region to ashes once again? My people say that an injury is treated on the body of the injured, not on someone else’s. Provoke military action as a result of the call for secession and treasonable felony and it is your people who will suffer. We have seen what urban warfare has been like in places such as Syria, Libya, and the rest. It is best never to invite such on oneself. How can we not see this? I’m just broken-hearted.

Well, South-East Nigeria is where you would find the most beautiful and well-fed people in the whole of Nigeria… OK, the most Westernised at least. Even the lady who served in the airport restaurant had just returned from the USA. An Air Peace worker who came in made this known. As we drove through the many villages of Nanka, Nise, Aguata, and so on, what I saw were young boys and girls who could fit into Lagos or New York in one breath. They didn’t look malnourished or even rough. They looked like they were in touch with the modern world, being well-dressed and well groomed.

I love these people, and it pains me what they are attracting to themselves. The situation is made more complex as we are presently led by General Muhammadu Buhari, whose core constituency is still the Nigerian Army. He sees nothing wrong with deploying his boys to start ‘doubling up’ anyone who errs. He doesn’t understand all the niceties of deploying the police, instead of the Army; and to be fair to him, with the kind of things Kanu has threatened, only an irresponsible leader will not act strongly and show force. The combination of cult-following by the two leaders could be very lethal to the nation. For now, I sway on the side of Buhari. Kanu is a Hitler in the making, except he properly calibrates his quest for a greater cause.

The message should be that Nigeria can and must get much better and urgently so. The message must be on behalf of all Nigerians and for the sake of our humanity. It must elevate all of us and not put anyone down. It must be delivered in carefully-chosen language and at the right pitch because it’s a very serious matter. It must be deeply intellectual and backed with action. There is enough of tardy leadership already! We need leadership that will impact the humanity of our people. We must learn to live together.

On a lighter note but in deep connection with my spirit, as we drove through the villages and plush greenery of the South-East, I couldn’t help but reminisce that indeed life is beautiful. That lushness and greenery, the forests and the lakes, even the rustic towns and the modern mansions that intersperse them would have earned tourism billions if such were in Europe or even East Africa. Why have ours become forbidden even for us to explore?

On getting to the airport, I also noticed another peculiarity with the Igbo people. People respect themselves. There weren’t the usual gangs of beggars and touts as in other Nigerian airports. No one seized the tissue paper in the toilets hoping to extract a bribe. The bathrooms were neat at Owerri Airport, the cleaners kept to their schedules and were not hanging around precariously after they had done their duties. One thing I can surmise is that part of the problem here is that the average South-Easterner never wants to beg the next person to feed. However in life, sometimes valiance fails one. What we do when that happens shapes society for good or ill. Do we tear down the structure? Do we take from those ahead of us by force? Or do we need to understand that sometimes things may not always be on the up and up? I posit here that the whole of Nigeria needs to begin understanding that life is not a straight line graph; both leaders and the led must know this.

Let me do an advert for a small bookshop at Owerri Airport where they have perhaps the most diverse collection of American books in a small space than I’ve seen anywhere lately. Anyone who passes through that airport must visit that place for a complete journey. Next door to the bookshop is a shop where I bought more than 40 different CDs of Nigeria’s rare music – all the highlife, Majek Fashek’s original album, Sir Warrior’s series, including Oriental Brothers, Inyang Nta Henshaw, Chief Osadebey, Congo, including Owerri’s Bongo music. Even Nigeria’s first ‘modern’ Nollywood movie, Living in Bondage, is there. They are cheap, and could only be found in places like this. The challenge for you is to find your way to Owerri Airport and the cities that Rochas is struggling to bring under his control. As a lover of history, that passage through the airport, for me, was priceless. I also met a young businessman from Ebonyi, named Godwin. In our brief chat, this man said to me “our people have everything but they don’t know”, and he refered to something Ben Bruce had said about the Igbos.

Life is beautiful. Nigeria is indeed beautiful. We can talk through our issues. The time is now.

Postscript – I started writing this article while waiting for my flight at the Owerri Airport. Upon eventually landing in Abuja, I picked up the news that government has declared IPOB a terrorist organisation. I think we should not waste time arguing and nitpicking. Are they terrorists? Can they not complain? The IPOB boys probably have their own aims and strategies. They are locked in battle with the government. The two will sort themselves out. Let us keep out of arms way. I can never side with Kanu.

‘Tope Fasua, an Economist, author, blogger and entrepreneur, can be reached through topsyfash@yahoo.com.

Source: premiumtimesng.com