IGBO REPUBLICANISM - an article by Kizito Ike Osuji

That the Igbo of Nigeria are unapologetically republican in nature is a fact; but whether or not this is a blessing or a curse in the context of Nigeria’s politics is debatable. Whereas one school of thought posits that this is a curse which is at the root of current Igbo marginalization and neglect, the other sees it as a blessing and the catalyst for the significant self help progress made by the Igbo in education, commerce and infrastructural development of Igbo land, even as successive Nigerian governments intensify the neglect and marginalization of the Igbo and Igbo land.
The recently concluded convention of Nigeria’s ruling political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the election of its national officers according to their zoning arrangement, which produced an Igbo, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, as it’s national chairman, has brought again to the fore the lingering question; is the famed republicanism of the Igbos a blessing or a curse? I invite you to a discourse.
But first, let me quickly get this out of the way; this is not a judgment on the qualification of Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, the new PDP chairman. As far as qualification goes, I have nothing to suggest Chief Ogbulafor is not; he is Igbo, well educated, with a well honed political pedigree, and not known to be one of those “political rogues”, rather, this is about whether the Igbo have turned one of their greatest positive attributes to a negative and how that has played and continues to play out in Nigeria’s political equations? It is also whether on the one hand the Igbo complain of marginalization, and rightly so, while on the other hand offer to other more political astute ethnic groups the weapons to further marginalize them? Why do I say so? It disheartening that a slot meant for the Igbo that could have been decided in Enugu or some Igbo town by the Igbo and presented on the national stage was foisted on them by outsiders, all because they could not forge a concensus.
I am inclined to believe that the republican nature of the Igbo is a positive trait, it served the Igbo well in the past and could continue to serve them well today and in the future, but in the recent Nigerian history it has manifested as a curse, and only because it has been adulterated and infused with individualism in the most crass form. Today, the term republican as is understood and ascribed to the Igbo is a curse. The Igbo must return to the term’s original content or forever roam the Nigerian political wilderness. Here is my argument.
“Igbo enweghi eze” (Igbo have no King) was a mantra that the Igbos proudly chorused like a badge of honor, and it indeed was. Yes, was. In the glorious era, the traditional Igbo society was an egalitarian republican society where every adult male had a say in the rendezvous of “umunna”, even if the “titled men” had their way. There was always a robust discussion where the impatience and urgency of the youth, the experience of the titled men, and the wisdom of the elderly, all had their say before coalescing into the decision of the community, the disobedience of which attracted repudiation and sanction. In matters appurtenant to women their views were sounded. This democratic approach to civic duties afforded ventilation to all shades of opinions and concerns, filtered greed, selfishness and egotism, and enabled a popular stand to evolve amidst built in checks and balances. With a bellowing chant of “Igbo kwenu!” and an affirmative chorus of “yeah!’ the collective decision was sealed. That was then. Regrettably, while the bellowing chants of “Igbo Kwenu!” are still heard at Igbo gatherings today, the responsive chorus of “yeah!” has increasingly become mellow and unenthusiastic. These days, wherever you hear an enthusiastic “yeah!” take a close look, it is the scripted response from the cracked voices of a motley crowd of “the otinkpus” (sycophants) hanging around the big masquerade, waiting for the crumbs from the table.
The mantra “Igbo enweghi eze” is now nothing more than a metaphor for crass individualism. The term has also been dubiously used as justification for selfish voyages, and for courses of action that are repugnant to the very ideals on which the Igbo society was built and served. The consequence of this is that while the other ethnic groups have strengthened their position and advanced their interest in the Nigerian Project, the Igbo which used to be one leg of the tripod on which Nigeria stood is today of little or no significance. It’s preeminent and trail blazing status has been decimated.
As an Igbo I wonder, is this republicanism in this crass individualistic form something innate in us we should have seen coming? Nothing in all the accounts of Igbo origin or mythology suggests that, whether it is the mythology of the Nri progenitor or that traced to the Hebrews of biblical Israel. If this troubling trend of individualism that is destroying the very fabric and essence of the Igbo has not been part of our nature where then did it come from?
The present sorry state of the Igbo nation in the Nigerian political context did not happen over night, and there are sundry reasons for that, however, to say, as some have argued, that the Igbo today are like sheep without Shepherd because they do not have a common monarchical authority around which they can rally and articulate their position and interest, is to detract from the issue and deny the fact that Igbo republicanism worked in the past. Some have also argued that the present individualism of the Igbo is a natural progression from their republican nature, only waiting to transmute when the time is right, and that time they say has come.
It is my belief and I submit that the present dysfunctional political compass of the Igbo is one of the major fallouts of the Nigeria/Biafra war. Without doubt the war was a devastating blow on the fortunes, unity and psyche of the Igbo from which we are yet to recover, but even more devastating were the policies of systematic, if not brazen, containment, deprivation and marginalization by successive Nigerian governments since the end of the war and which foisted on the Igbo this on your own mentality, the virus that has been gradually killing the Igbo nation. We have lost as consequence thereof, a society with intrinsic progressive qualities, a society with inherent methodology for decision making, leadership vetting and ascendancy. As Prof Chinua Achebe succinctly put it in describing the demise of Umuofia in Things Fall Apart, an apt description of Igbo of today’s Nigeria; a knife has been put in the things that held us together and the center can no longer hold.
Here are some illustrations. When the administration of General Yakubu Gowon upon the cessation of hostilities and surrender of Biafra, treated the Igbos as the vanquished, even while declaring NO VICTOR NO VANQUISHED, and proceeded to hand out the paltry 20 pounds sterling for any amount of cash previously owned by any Biafran person or family, followed by implementation of series of emasculating policies like the Abandoned Property Decree and the Indigenization Decree, the mortal blows were effectively struck. The bruising effects are still sore today; self centeredness, greed, and ambivalence.
We have seen Igbo leaders stand hands akimbo watching states and local governments’ creations, as well as census exercises in Nigeria, drive the Igbo into insignificance. From one leg of the tripod to just 5 out of 36 (plus one) states, we have become inconsequential. Census after census the Igbo population has continued to shrink in proportion to other regions, almost like the Igbos adopted China’s one child policy. Today, the entire population of the entire South East zone is only marginally more than those Lagos or Kano States. Where were the Igbo leaders when this political gamesmanship was going on?
An Igbo re-awakening in the form of demand for inclusion of state of origin in the last census as a way of demonstrating real Igbo population across board, particularly in states like Lagos and Kano, was roundly shut down without as much as a quibble from our leaders let alone declare the threatened boycott. The result of this do-nothing and sidon-look is that today revenue allocation and constituency delineations are on the basis of states, local government areas and population. Any surprise therefore, that a fraction of a single zone in the north or west could equate or cancel out the entire Igbo strength in the National Assembly.
When General Sani Abacha died, General Abdusalami Abubakar, the new Head of State, announced a firm commitment to return to democracy and blew the take off whistle. Like every other ethnic group south of Niger /Benue confluence, the Igbo joined in the clamor for the presidency to be zoned to them. We were not beaten in the articulation of reasons for such clamor, but crushed in that quest by reasons of poor strategy, crass individualism, and lack of leadership. While other groups were coming together to form a united front and a consensus around their common strength as a basis for matching other groups or forming an alliance for the preservation of their interest, the Igbo from every corner and of every shade was declaring for the presidency rather than coalescing around a consensus candidate or around Dr Alex Ekwueme who seemed our best shot then.
The senate presidency, a position the ruling PDP zoned to the Igbos in 1999, could not even be chosen by us. When momentarily it appeared the Igbo had come together behind a pan Igbo choice; Dr Chuba Odadigbo, our more astute political zones panicked at this Igbo consensus and set out to halt it. The rest as they say is history. Senator Evan Enwerem became the senate president. Even when Senator Enwerem lost out of the power game and Dr Okadigbo re-emerged, they made sure his hallways and pathways were laden with banana peels, and sure enough, he slipped and crashed out. A booby trap had been laid and the carrot was dangling in the face of every Igbo senator. One after the other they cut down senate presidents thus ridiculing the Igbo and the post, the one post the Igbo got in the power sharing arrangement.
After President Obasanjo’s 3rd term bid failed and it became obvious that a vacancy existed in Aso Rock, the Igbo again joined other zones in the clamor for the presidency to be zoned to them, but while other zones were strategizing how to achieve this, the Igbo were individually fighting on their own and falling over each other doing it.
Recently, following the election of a northerner, Alhaji Yar Adua, as the president, the ruling party the PDP re-zoned political and party posts, leaving for the Igbo this time the post of party chairman. No sooner that the whistle was blown than over thirty Igbos announced they were in the race. They could not come together behind one of them, and there was no Igbo leader or association to help determine who was in the best interest of the Igbo and help forge a united front behind him or her. We have seen the result, it was the Governors who got together and said to the Igbo and all; take or leave it! Ogbulafor it shall be, and so it became. Even if that deft move failed, the alternative would have been Dr Sam Egwu, the former governor of Eboenyi State, President Obasanjo’s candidate. Either way, none was the Igbo candidate chosen by the Igbo to fill a slot zoned to the Igbo.
Should we begrudge the other ethnic groups for our fate? No. They too legitimately fear a runaway Igbo race lapping the others in the race for progress and development, and they are smart enough, not only to fear this, but to know how to prevent it. And you can see this in the way and manner they have prevented the Igbo from forging any common front on any national issue, with the result that they decide for us, and even chose for us who occupy the crumbs the often skewed arrangements have left for us, and when they like, they change the occupiers whether we like it or not. Even in times that token plum positions have gone the Igbo way, and quite a few have, they had made sure they chose stooges, and where not possible to get a stooge they planted snitches all around them such that the Igbo and Igbo land have fared worse during those interregnums. Because there were no Igbo influences in their appointments they owed no allegiance to the Igbo cause. We had Chief Onyema Ugochukwu head Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for years, we had Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu head Federal Road Emergency Management Agency (FERMA) for years, and also for years Dr Andy Uba was reputed to be President Obasanjo’s closest confidant, yet no tangible benefit to the Igbo may be attributable to these people from the offices they held or relationship they had.
Since the exit from the stage, and eventual demise, of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and his political acolytes, there have been no Shepherds to gather the flock, no credible conveners of Igbo discourse, and no leaders to articulate Igbo views and champion their cause.
Today, what we have is a cacophony from all manner of groups mushrooming about, purporting to champion Igbo cause and looking well intentioned on paper and in their rhetoric, but whose leaders’ sometimes dubious intentions, manifest so soon after the launch. Groups like Ohaneze Ndi Igbo and MASSOB once held so much promise but soon began to self destruct from greed and power tussle as in the case of Ohaneze, and incoherent plan of action and illegible road map as in the case of MASSOB.
In conclusion, as gloomy as the horizon may look I see silver lining in the sky reminding us that all is not lost. While the war was providential, our failure to rise again from the defeat and reclaim our position is a character failing that must be quickly addressed as a way forward. Whatever the prescription for Igbo renaissance and emancipation, the first step, at the minimum, is to have an authentic umbrella association for the Igbo, be it a new one or a revamped Ohaneze, in which our remaining men of staunch standing and following, both at home and in Diaspora belong and are active. An Ohaneze that has Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu, Chief Ebitu Ukiwe, Dr Alex Ekwueme, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Prof Pat Utomi, Chief Ralph Uwazurike, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Dr Phillip Emeagwali, Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, Prof. Charles Soludo, Prof Chris Okeke, Dr Leo Stan Ekeh, just to mention a few, working together to set the Igbo agenda, articulate and harmonize our views and position, vet Igbo aspirants to public offices whether elective or appointive, define Igbo expectations of our politicians and monitor their performance, coordinate other Igbo groups and associations in line with the common objective, call to order or exact sanctions on deviants individual or group.