PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI, SIMPLY IGBO-PHOBIA?

Icheoku says once again the little-hearted cattle-man president of Nigeria from Daura, a man who could not grow out of his old hateful and vile self, hating a people who did not do anything to him but merely refused to lie supine belly down in utter hopelessness and complete  surrender, has done it again. This time he appointed a seven-man team to streamline his war against corruption WITHOUT even a single Igbo person therein. Imagine a people who constitute more than one third of the country's populace being so continually marginalized and deliberately stayed out of the government by a supposedly Nigerian president of and for every Nigerian?  Icheoku says what other explanation do the APC apologists and Buharists, especially those of them from Igboland, Joe Igbokwe and Osita Okechukwu, have to proffer this time as reason for this continued slight and marginalization of Ndigbo? 

Fortunately, Icheoku does not care about this lean and mean Cassius of Daura; neither does Icheoku expect anything palliating from his one-man show styled government; and needless to hope that Ndigbo will get anything from him and/or his one-point agenda government either. Icheoku is emphatic that President Muhammadu Buhari, despite his very tall stature, appears to be a very little person inside. He is very small minded with a very small pint-sized unforgiving heart of bile beating inside of him. He seems to keep malice; does not know how to move on from his past - two vices which obviously constitute the greatest albatross hounding the man from Daura. 

Icheoku has come to the conclusion that President Muhammadu Buhari does not necessarily hate Ndigbo; rather he is most probably intimidated by them. As a result, he does not like the queasy feeling usually occasioned by having people you are deathly-afraid of being very close around you; hence his proactive decision to keep them out of his government and out of causing him needless panic-attacks or even the attack of the heart. Icheoku maintains that President Muhammadu Buhari's current trend of sidelining Ndigbo from his government is a calculated decision geared to permanently keeping Ndigbo out and at arms length? Recall that as a former coup plotting despotic head of state, only one Igbo person, the late Chike Offordile, made his cabinet as the then Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Federation. Needless to rehash the many innocent Igbo politicians including Ikemba Nnewi whom he clamped into detention without cause or reason during the said first coming from hell. But lets move on.

Icheoku says this conclusion is the only derivable meaningful and articulable reason why the continued shut-out of Ndigbo in the present President Muhammadu Buhari led government of Nigeria. It shows that the lean and mean man of Daura has some unfinished business to finish with Ndigbo, which even the Asaba massacre in addition to other atrocities were incapable of atoning for; hence he must step up his war of attrition against Ndigbo by denying them their rightful places and positions in a Nigerian government led by him. Otherwise how else does anyone fathom an explanation to the continued exclusion of Ndigbo by the lanky fledgling from the far North or is the Biafran war still raging and not yet over in his closed-out mind? 

If in the eyes of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigerian war of attrition against Biafra was indeed over and that there was no victor and no vanquished as claimed, and that Ndigbo are still integral part of the greater Nigeria society,  why then the continued exclusion of them by him in the affairs of governance of Nigeria under his watch? A  people, so eminently and most competitively qualified, completely excluded in almost twenty five key appointments and still counting, so far made by President Muhammadu Buhari and he claimed that only "qualified" people were appointed into those positions; thus leading Icheoku to ponder what possibly amounts to qualification in the eyes of this President Muhammadu Buhari? The president's just announced latest seven "wise-men" appointment, mostly constituted of scholars and academia, yet no Igbo person is professor-enough or a PhD-enough in the estimation of President Muhammadu Buhari to "qualify" for inclusion therein?

The summary of his allergy for Ndigbo is that his comfort-zone does not permit nor tolerate having an Igbo person within a close proximity. This and only this is what is driving his anti-Ndigbo actions as so far displayed with all the appointments made to date by him.  Icheoku opines that it is not President Muhammadu Buhari's hatred for Ndigbo that drives him nuts or makes him see red at the sighting of an Igbo person; nope, it is his fear of Ndigbo and phobia could drive anyone over the edge. Otherwise he would have heeded the long well known and established rule of survival to always keep your friends close but your enemies closer so that you can keep an eye on them. Therefore were President Muhammadu Buhari to hate Ndigbo, he would have kept them very close in order to keep an eye on them and monitor them closely. But he does not hate Ndigbo, only that he does not feel comfortable with their very much intimidating presence, hence his decision to keep them very very far away removed and out of contamination. Icheoku says President Muhammadu Buhari is simply intimidated by Ndigbo's brazen audacity, a can do entrepreneurial spirit and their will to survive against all odds; so he would rather keep them at bay in order to enable him breathe much easier. 

A man who once on a visit to Onitsha back in the 80s, marveled out loudly that the civil war could not have been fought on this land due to the level of development and recovery he witnessed; following their conspiratorial civil war to cut Ndigbo to size. He was literally out of his breath to see the devastated Igboland of Onitsha so rebounded and recovered, following the ravaging civil war of attrition waged by himself and his marauding beasts from the North assisted by their Southwestern collaborators. He was quoted then as saying "is this place part of the Biafra land which we completely destroyed?" So this lean and mean man who was  so overwhelmed with the feat achieved by Ndigbo with a mere twenty pounds handed to them at the end of the war, still marvels at the heads and hands that could engineer this feat of recovery and within such a short period of time. 

This shock infected him with chronic voices which now habitually live inside his head. He is constantly hearing voices in his head telling him that Ndigbo must be contained; Ndigbo must be stopped; Ndigbo must be held with suspicion and therefore Ndigbo must be kept at bay. This is what is manifesting in his decision to completely exclude Ndigbo from his government and unfortunately, it is beyond his ability to counter his psychotic instructions even if he wanted. Icheoku says President Muhammadu Buhari deserves the pity of Ndigbo rather than complaints of marginalization because the man is possessed by his demons and is very delusional as to the phony existential threat to Nigeria which Ndigbo poses. If only he is a Christian, he sure needs and could use some deliverance.

Icheoku therefore calls on Ndigbo to maintain their cool in the face of all the provocations and irritations of their marginalization and completely being kept out of government by the present government of President Muhammadu Buhari. Ndigbo must not and should never do anything untoward or which would further rattle the already edgy president into taking rash reactionary action against them; as an intimidated man on hair-trigger alert could be as dangerous as a rattle snake. Ndigbo must therefore learn to ignore this four years and treat same as a cold war and lost. They must walk tall with their heads held straight up high and with princely gait, go about their hustling. They should know that the president of Nigeria does not sleep with his two eyes shut because he is too scared and very afraid of them and this should somewhat be their consolation prize. 

Ndigbo should temper their expectations from the President Muhammadu Buhari's government, knowing fully well that nothing lasts forever especially a four or eight year termed office. Like every other past traducer of Ndigbo, the current storm will eventually blow away someday and as always, a staying power with equanimity will always triumph. Ndigbo should learn how to just simply smile while they go about their business and give President Muhammadu Buhari the silent treatment which his actions so far entitles him. Let President Muhammadu Buhari appoint every other Nigerian but Ndigbo into offices if he likes, Ndigbo will not die but as always will survive and survive well. Ndigbo are survivors, Ndigbo have survived before and Ndigbo will survive the current traducer, President Muhammad Buhari of Daura. Icheoku says it is President Muhammadu Buhari's inferiority complex that is worrying him and forcing him to keep Ndigbo out of their well deserved positions and places in his government and not that they are not "qualified" or decent enough to fill the positions being denied them. So to President Muhammadu Buhari, Icheoku on behalf of Ndigbo, says SAI BUHARI.