Despite Governor Rochas Okorocha’s warnings and fears, the Igbo leaders from the five Southeast states who met in Enugu on Wednesday had the right and justification to endorse the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket of Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, and Peter Obi, a former Anambra State governor.
What is controversial, however, is whether that right and that justification amounted, in combination, to wisdom. Almost immediately, Mr Okorocha, the Imo State governor and founding member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), responded to the Southeast leaders’ endorsements by suggesting to them that they were both incautious and indiscriminate in their endorsements. He argued further that the leaders appeared to be putting all their eggs in one basket as they did in 2015.
But had they endorsed the APC presidential ticket of Muhammadu Buhari and Yemi Osinbajo, nothing suggests that the Imo governor would have chafed at the move.
The Southeast leaders who met in Enugu to discuss the place and future of the Igbo in Nigeria constituted a broad spectrum of Igbo elders and statesmen, of course minus their wary and often fearfully cautious governors. Egged on by the impassioned plea of elder statesman and eminent law professor, Ben Nwabueze, 86, who asked the elders to honour his age by working for the success of the Atiku-Obi ticket, the gathering seemed to believe that this time, unlike 2015, they could pull off the impossible.
Speaker after speaker whooped enthusiastically for the ticket, suggesting that its success might bring the alienation of the Igbo to an end. In general terms, they expect without saying so that the Igbo should take advice from the resolutions of what they described as their non-partisan meeting in Enugu. Even Mr Okorocha knows that the meeting was probably more representative of the Igbo than his own camp of tentative ideologues.
However, the Enugu resolution is more revelatory of the problem with the Igbo political logic than indicative of either their common purpose or their overall objective. Consider the following excerpt from the communiqué: “…The summit deliberated on the state of Ndigbo in Nigeria today, especially after years of exclusion from the centre. This country has never been so divided as it is today. We Igbos have always yearned for a level playing field with justice, equity and fairness.
The summit recognised the nomination of His Excellency Mr. Peter Obi, former Governor of Anambra State, as the vice presidential candidate of the PDP and fully endorses this nomination. It was acknowledged that this nomination puts Ndigbo back in the centre of governance. It is, therefore, important that Ndigbo should rally behind the Atiku/Obi ticket. We identify with the Atiku/Peter Obi ticket on the restructuring agenda as has been reiterated by four zones of the country, namely: South-South, Southwest, North Central and Southeast. We believe that as long as the federating units remain weak the centre will continue to be weak.
We equally move to appreciate the position of the Atiku/Obi ticket in promoting national unity. In conclusion, the summit reiterated that the time is now for Ndigbo to mobilise and organise effectively to realise the Atiku/Obi ticket. We are not campaigning against anybody, we are simply campaigning for our very survival. Igbo votes must count wherever Ndigbo live in Nigeria.”
On the surface, the main trigger for the Igbo disaffection is their alienation. That alienation is real and cannot be disputed. Even Mr Okorocha knows this as well. It is indeed doubtful whether any Nigerian but the most rabidly sectionalist will dispute that under the Buhari presidency in particular, the Igbo have been marginalised and alienated. So, no concrete steps have been taken to lessen the alienation, nor to heal the deep wounds of the 1967-1970 civil war, not to talk of finding ways and formulae to integrate the Southeast seamlessly, continuously and permanently into the system. The divisions have been accentuated, have become more noticeable in the past three years, and there does not seem to be any hope that soon the fractiousness and chaotic approach to socio-economic and political integration would be straightened out.
Furthermore, the Enugu meeting also correctly identified the urgent need for restructuring, given the political imbalance and disarticulation an untenable structure has horribly engendered. That the Atiku-Obi ticket promised to address the restructuring agitation undoubtedly and unavoidably holds some appeal to the Southeast. In the face of APC dithering over the question of restructuring, not to talk of the implacable opposition of the president to anything that would as much as give a hint of even tinkering with the country’s wobbly structure, it is only natural that the Southeast would gravitate towards the Atiku-Obi ticket, regardless of Mr Okorocha’s hysterical denunciations. In addition, whether the APC likes it or not, or whether the PDP is able to grab the chance to do something about the controversy or not, the restructuring controversy will only die when something concrete has been done to exorcise the ghost of imbalance from the body politic. The Enugu meeting was, therefore, not opportunistic, self-serving or irrational in putting the interests of the Igbo or their region ahead of any other consideration.
But the Enugu resolutions were also revelatory in a disturbing and unflattering way. In their communiqué, the Southeast leaders painted a picture of an alienated region that must single-mindedly look out for number one. They hoped to advance that interest by promoting the candidature of Mr Obi, over which they exulted. Why they equate the promotion of their regional interests with the promotion of the political career of a politician from the region is hard to say or defend.
It is uncertain that such equalisation or conflation even makes sense. The effort falls dismally into the same trap that has held Nigeria captive for the past five decades or more, wherein regardless of the incompetence of the president, his failings are excused by his tribesmen. Could the Southeast, which has produced some of Nigeria’s notable statesmen and intellectuals not find — and verbally promote — refuge in a ticket that appears competent, ideological, and patriotic, whether Igbo or not?
There is of course nothing to indicate that the Buhari-Osinbajo is more competent or ideological than the Atiku-Obi ticket. What is dangerously amiss is the grounds upon which the Southeast leaders base their infatuations. Whether it is obvious to them or not, they seem to be promoting the same insularity and clannishness the Buhari presidency has found so natural and comfortable to exhibit and adulate. If the Southeast wishes to replace the ruling party because of the latter’s dangerous failings, it must take care to promote that noble objective in ways that elevate their region and the nation as a whole.
The Buhari-Osinbajo ticket is not even a tad ideological, and does not possess the nobility of purpose a driven nation must promote as its lodestar, but neither the Southeast nor the Atiku-Obi ticket has proven that it is inspired by a greater sense of nobility and purpose than those of the party they seek to replace.
It is perhaps too late to persuade the Southeast to vote APC in the next presidential election. Nothing Mr Okorocha does or says will deliver the Igbo votes to the ruling party. As a matter of fact, almost from the beginning, the Buhari presidency had seemed to write off the Southeast as a factor in their quest for a second term. Having been consigned willy-nilly to the opposition, the Southeast has taken the natural and most plausible course of embracing the Atiku-Obi ticket to actualise its ambitions and yearnings.
Nigerians had hoped that those ambitions and yearnings would be undergirded by principles and values that are hard to impeach, let alone gainsay: values that bring out the best in the Igbo, principles that do justice to their huge contributions to the nation and the continent, and logic that do not give dark hints to other nationalities that the Igbo votes outside the Southeast could be used conspiratorially and disingenuously to affect outcomes in ways that irritate and provoke host communities. The Southeast is far better and more endowed than the politics it is playing. (The Nation)
