_Evangelist Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko, founder of the Igbo Youth Movement, is also the Secretary of Eastern Consultative Assembly, and Deputy Secretary of Igbo Leaders of Thought. He dissects the Igbo situation in the Nigerian context and points the way out of the logjam_
*The South East has gradually metamorphosed into a totally different land within the past decade or so. Is the transformation in the region for good or for ill?*
It depends on the perception of the individual. I agree with you that so much water has passed under the bridge. The South East has a beautiful admirable history.
A great but silent revolution spearheaded by visionary leadership stood the region out 80 years ago. The region stood out between 1940 to 1965. Within those years the people were transformed from bottle washers, messengers and cooks, to clerks, store keepers and retailers. They embraced education with both hands caught up and over took others by building schools through community efforts and granting scholarship to bright students. That 25 year leap, hasn’t been replicated anywhere in the world.
The first coup put them in trouble, the second coup decapitated them and the very brutal war crushed them completely. Their resurgence from 1970 moving forward, shocked everyone. The failure of their political class to appropriately handle Ralph Uwazurike’s MASSOB (Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra) from 1999 moving forward sowed the seeds of what is happening in the region today.
The region’s leaders failed to understand that the solution lay only in identifying why hundreds of thousands of mostly youngsters were following Ralph and paying monthly dues in the belief that they’ll soon have a new country where they’d be treated with dignity.
I was privileged to have intense relationship with the man who led _Ndigbo_ through the war and I believe his postulation that the solution to the agitation was to draw the agitators close to monitor their decisions. He met with Ralph every Sunday at his Enugu residence. Keeping them away could turn them to a loose cannon.
The agitation was anchored on desire for justice and equity. The political class of the region, sadly agreed rather with the central authorities that military clampdown was the solution. When Ralph raised the Biafran flag at Aba and jumped on a bike 25 years ago, clampdown on the agitators began. That strategy of containment has not resolved the situation.
So when Nnamdi Kanu emerged and grew the membership into millions, it became difficult for the leaders to reverse their preffered strategy of containment, especially when they had congratulated themselves that they had solved the agitation by discreetly inspiring Ralph’s bodyguards and close aides to revolt and seize his country home at Okwe in Okigwe for several years.
They believe they had degraded him. They have no idea that fearsome hurricane was brewing through Nnamdi’s broadcasting from London.
Nnamdi literally grew the agitators into millions with strong diaspora structures in many countries.
The stage was set for a showdown. The authorities didn’t understand that it was high noon. They applied the same old strategy and the region became convoluted. The current situation metatasised and snowballed into the present ugly situation, simply because no attempt has been made since 1999, to identify the root cause of the anger, frustration and bitterness that led to loss of faith by millions of citizens in the region, which inspires and drives the agitation. And to address them.
Had that been done before now, the agitation would have been easily resolved. The format of deploying military operations over the years, simply gave the agitators the impression that there are no plans whatsoever to ever address their grievances.
A lot of people deliberately refuse to ask, how come the agitators have sustained their agitation for 25 years. The answer is simple. They watched as they were treated differently. They know that they are suffering humiliation and ill treatment because their parents fought and lost a war.
They groan and reel under grave injustices they won’t want to transfer to their own children; disparate cut off marks for unity schools and UMTE (Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination) with other regions; impossible elections and imposed leadership; strange unjust census figures; creation of states and Local Governments deliberately skewed against them; no federal presence in their region; seaports, railways etc denied their region.
Convinced that if they do nothing about these unkind and unjust situation, then their own children will be sentenced to the same, if not worse humiliation, they watched Minister Ibe Kachikwu despatched to negotiate with the Niger Delta Avengers, they watched as Minister Godswill Akpabio rushed personally to the creeks to meet Tompolo (Niger Delta militant, Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo).
Operation Cobra jump, Viper Sing and Anaconda Cry seem reserved for them, while they are described as five percenters and a dot in a circle.
They concluded rightly or wrongly that nobody cares about their plight, as they are proscribed and tagged miscreants, criminals and terrorists. They concluded that they are being told, ‘you can go to hell’, ‘do your worse’, ‘nobody will ever ask for your grievances’, ‘we will crush you guys’.
For decades, the agitation boiled until three years ago, regrettably, when violence was sadly introduced to the mileu.Had the authorities sought to identify and address the root cause of the anger that drove the agitation, long before now, it would not have drifted to this very ugly situation. The agitators made many mistakes, but the political class underrated the frustration driving the agitation.
*Is there hope for an end to the agitation in the horizon?*
Dr. Alex Ekwueme pleaded with me to bring the agitators to him so he’ll plead with them to embrace restructuring and to avoid violence by all means. I did that. He begged Nnamdi in my presence to avoid violence of any kind.
I also took Nnamdi to traditional rulers, senior; 17 meeting in all between May and August 2017. The agenda was the same: to get them to remain non-violent and to trade restructuring as against secession. Archbishop Maxwell Anikwenwa almost wept in my presence pleading with Nnamdi to adopt restructuring as opposed to secession.
When Nnamdi finally yielded and agreed to adopt restructuring Nigeria and infrastructural development of the region, that is, seaports, railways, international airport, dry ports (container terminals), at the historic meeting with the South East Governors on 30 August 2017, I called Dr. Ekwueme on his sickbed in London and relayed the exhilarating news to him. I don’t know what actually transpired a fortnight later at Afara Ukwu, Abia State on 14 September 2017, on the eve of the concluding part of the peace effort. That changed everything.
It seemed some people had other plans. You see, I dutifully shared with leaders of my region, my personal experiences in the 1980s and 1990s, as I organised seminars for Igbo youths all over the place. I noticed the frustration and bitterness in the hearts of the younger generation _Ndigbo_ . They simply don’t want to bequeath to their own children the humiliating second class situation they painfully found themselves in within the post-civil war Nigeria. They were hungry for I discovered that delegates to my IYM (Igbo Ÿouth Movement) programmes said the same thing in Lagos, Aba, Enugu etc. And these youths never met each other and didn’t know each other.
My resource persons, folks like Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu, Admiral Godwin Ndubuisi Kanu, Comrade Uche Chukwumerije, Prof. Ben Obumselu, Chief Sam Mbakwe, Chief C C Onoh, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Chief M C K Ajuluchukwu, Senator Onyeabor Obi, etc all were asked similar questions during the question-and-answer sessions at my IYM seminars during the 1990s.
The loss of faith amongst the young people, especially those on the lowest rung of the ladder, was real. They saw themselves as onlookers, and spectators within the Nigerian project. They believe that they are hated, resented, despised and ill-treated. Many believe they’ll never get justice in Nigeria. That’s the foundation of the agitation.
If your teenage son runs away from hope and planning never to come back because he thinks you, your wife and his siblings do not like him or want him, when you are told he is at the park with his Napsack heading to a neighbouring country, you will not solve that problem by sending Operation Python Dance to go deal with him. You’ll better solve the problem by going to embrace your son at the bus garage and speak softly to him. You tell him how much you love him. You apologise on behalf of other family members who offended him.
You drive him to a restaurant and have lunch with him, you buy him new clothes and sneakers and you drive him home, where you wisely hold a family meeting and you ensure, moving forward, that everyone is given a sense of belonging; that none is isolated, mistreated or made to feel hated. It doesn’t matter that his decision to run away from home was petit, childish, injurious to himself and actually wrong. As a father, you ensure resolution and closure. And everybody’s happy again.
*Is resolution and closure feasible in the present circumstances?*
The Good Friday agreement that brought resolution to the IRA (Irish Republican Army) agitation for a separate Northern Ireland, succeeded because the desires of the Irish agitators were addressed. My fear over a prolonged agitation is the response and reaction from children of slain agitators in the near future and very young people who march with their parents waiving Biafran flags in all the major cities of the world. I fear that future leadership of the agitators may emerge from the ranks of the little ones in the future. Which is why I fervently pray for early resolution and closure. By identifying the source of the fire and fixing it.
The only attempt to address the root causes of the agitation, was made nine years ago when the then Governor Dave Umahi (six months into his first term), invited me and pleaded with me to bring the entire leadership of the agitators for a meeting with the authorities to identify their anger. I did that. The effort could not fly and did not bear fruit. Genuine effort at sincerely addressing the root cause of the anger that powers the agitation, will restore normalcy.
Those angry youngsters are scared of the future. The unitary structure creates apprehension about the future, some people believe the future of the country is bleak under the present constitution.
The delay in restructuring Nigeria contributes to the loss of faith that creates fear of the future in the hearts of compatriots. Their belief that the denial of Federal Government driven critical infrastructure in the region is deliberate, also increases loss of faith in the system.
Thirdly, delay in identifying the root cause and fixing them, seems to suggest, disregard for the people of the region, who think they are treated with contempt and disdain for loosing a war almost 55 years ago. They yearn for justice and equity, level playing field for all, true federalism, regional autonomy and devolution of powers. They desire to see a new working Nigeria. It is not true that this current unitary structure will make Nigeria great.
Crises in the North West, North East, Middle Belt etc, clearly illustrate a need for change of the template, structure and grundnorm holding the country together. Delay to reinvent and rejuvenate and reinvigorate Nigeria is unhelpful. It is sad that the South East is going through these temporal challenges at this time.
*Do you think the 2027 elections will usher in a new glorious era?*
I am known for my disinterest in elections and power struggle. Whoever is President must restructure Nigeria for this beautiful country to move forward. No President can succeed under this choking unitary constitution. We have already lost many years. We must face reality and courageously move to restructure Nigeria without delay.
