TIME TO GO AND LET GO
by Clement Udegbe
An Igbo adage says ‘” Rather than puting me on your back to help me to walk and thereby cause my feet drag on the floor, let me down to walk at my own pace”
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi said inter alia in 1999;
“Having said that, this nation must realise that Igbos have more than paid for their foolishness. They have been defeated in war, rendered paupers by monetary policy fiat, their properties declared abandoned and confiscated, kept out of strategic public sector appointments and deprived of public services. The rest of the country forced them to remain in Nigeria and has continued to deny them equity.”
This is a fact acknowledged by him before he became Emir, and changed to use his arguments, to reduce the powers of the Southern Nigeria including Igbos.
Nigeria wants to help Igbos by keeping Igbos permanently oppressed, suppressed, and denied. But, who takes that type of nonsense?
When Igbos say no, it is labelled hate speech, when a northerner says same or more caustic thing against Igbos it is no hate speech. An Igbo public officer steal small money, he is arrested and detained, a northerner steals humongous sums of Dollars, he gets a political appointment. All because Igbos were labelled coupists since the 1966 coup and killed in millions during an arranged war of genocide that followed.
Iam not surprised that the highest level of northern intelligentsia still prefer to refer the 1966 Coup as ” An Igbo Coup”, inspite of all the details that the direct participants and witnesses of that coup has published and said.
Iam not surprised because that is a face saving tag given to that coup to justify the unfair and wicked displacement and genocide that was metted out to Igbos which forced them to Biafra land.
Iam not surprised because if you called it all Nigeria coup then you place the consequences on the door steps of the conscience of the perpetrators of the looting that followed of Igbo investments.
Iam not surprised because it enables them to face their vomits and eat same without shame…” What can you do to us they say to themselves…God will follow our reasoning because God gave us victory over Igbo people”. Igbos often stand like hated by God,or so Nigeria reasons.
The fact is that whenever it comes to issues of Nigeria, that war plays constantly in the minds of Nigerian partners who rightly or wrongly believed that Igbos have no choice than to toe the line dictated to them by Nigerians.
They will always have to watch the Igbo man to contain him or reduce him.
This is why some Yorubas will team up to lie and decieve the populace just to push a man they perceived as an Igbo Man away from the Presidency in order to install another whom they know has an agenda to Islamise Nigeria.
Today we hear men like Tinubu saying that 2023 presidency is more life threatening than the Coronavirus! Tinubu had all the resources to know what Buhari stood for and just would not care provided he remained in control and his party in power…He had his own New Paper, and TV…all that money!
Is he really in charge of that party today? I hope so for the loss will be calamitous.
In all political and economic calculations in Nigeria, the situation of the Igbo Man forms their bond of friendship for example, because Igbos in that 2015 election remained honest to Nigeria and rejected Buhari completely.
When the North and their allies fight to regain what they lost therefore, wisdom demands that Igbos should let them wash their dirty linens in their own rivers because we do not fetch water from the same rivers.
In Nigeria Igbos washed themselves with love and devotion to good life of Nigerians. They gave their all till, Buhari turned against them in all his policies, allowing the 75% and 5% votes deciding all he did.
I personally had no issue with Buharis 75% policies because he will one day vacate that office for a better man. But I became genuinely concerned when he turned to make Nigeria the home of all Fulanis in the land.
I became concerned when the killings in Benue and Plateau areas continued and he asked the Benue Governor to make peace with the armed marauding and killer Fulani herds men.
My concern heightened when he assaulted the sensibilities of Imo people with the instalation of a Governor whose job was basically to destroy the PDP and make Imo Fulani Home Base in Igbo land.
When a Child lifts up his father , the clothing of his father will cover his eyes we say in Igbo land.
So ,if Hope Uzodima who became all he wanted under PDP wants now to be the hatchet man to destroy the same PDP, the words of wisdom of ancient Igbos shall reign!
I don’t have to say much because that’s their politricks. I am interested in the protection of Christianity and lives in Imo and Igbo land.
Back to Igbos and Nigeria,Many Igbos have also been bought to think and live like defeated cronies; Many still think that One Nigeria is for them; That there will be restructuring.. Those who think like this do so for one reason…their stomach!
The mistake they have chosen to make is their failure to look at the component parts of Nigeria and who really owns the place.
Nigeria was actually given to the North and with the South to produce for them, and the North had been successfully conducting themselves as owner of the Nigeria Estate, with the South following dutifully till 2015 when the North came out openly as the owners to chase GEJ away because he a Christian and they see him as Igbo man.
The right of choice is one right no man can deny an Igbo Man in Nigeria. You can deny him access to appointments, projects, and all the Federal Government of Nigeria under APC can muster, but no one can deny him the right to chose what he wants.
Where the Igbo man rights ends within Igbo land is where the right of any other including the Fulani begins.
Fulanis showed Igbos on several occasions that their rights of choice in the North prevails over that of Igbos in the north.
The 1966 Genocide, the Killing of Gideon Akaluka, the quit notices issued by Arewa Youths in 2013, all go to show that indeed the North believes that in their land, they decide what obtains in spite of the constitutional rights of freedom of movement, worship, etc in all the states of Nigeria.
In the same token, the Igbo man has individually and severally chosen to part ways with Nigeria.Igbos want a separation.
In marriage separation is permitted, in contractual relationships, termination and or suspension is legally permitted. Friends can part ways when it becomes necessary..
Igbos want to try to find their ways in a new nation, they want to try their hands at other things as a separate nation.The experiment in the Nigerian Project has failed them.
That is not to say that Igbos are not aware of the the obvious perfidy of leadership in Igbo land. The lack of medical facilities, fire fighting materials and equipment, poor security arrangements, bad roads, poor educational facilities Weak institutions and neglect of agriculture to name a few.
We Igbos know that our governors are just stealing and lying, and we also know that it is all possible because we are in Nigeria!
Its only in Nigeria that leaders celebrate their parents overseas spending and displaying stupendous wealth.
It is only in Nigeria that thieves are set free once they declare for the ruling party. It is only in Nigeria that Pastors who attended free or cheap missionary schools set up educational institutions that the common man can hardly afford.
It is only in Nigeria that a half baked educated person lords it over a PHD owner because of his ethnicity.
It is only in Nigeria that the citizen is taxed on borehole water electricity, that he provided for his family.
It is only in Nigeria that the parasitic leech claims he owns the host and source of its livelihood. Nigeria is the only nation that invites all other nationalities to come irrespective of their violent ideas while banning Nigerians from travelling to other nations.
So Igbos will wait till they are done with Nigeria and her misguided ways, thereafter they we will come home to tell themselves the truth.
Nigeria let Igbos be , let them go. They are seriously not interested in the gains of your size and all the trappings in it. Leave Igbo land to Ndigbo. God bless Biafra and also Bless Nigeria.