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Igbo: Dating Yoruba but Marrying Hausa/Fulani By Tunde
Adenodi,
First
of all, the Yoruba, led by late Bola Ige, formed the vanguard of the
main opposition to Abacha’s tyranny in what was called NADECO. Then
they joined with Solomon Lar, Ekwueme and others to form the PDP. Seeing
that this group included those whom he perceived as pseudo-democrats
whom he was not comfortable with, he joined with Shinkafi to form the
APP. But this group consisted of the likes of Arthur Nzeribe whom Ige
could simply not be found dead or even alive with. He fled and formed
the party called the AG, excuse me, the AD. And at every stop, Ige lost
a handful of his followers to the group he had just left. So within a
period of 48 hours, Bola Ige moved his Yoruba group from NADECO, to PDP,
to APP and finally to AD! And it became inconceivable that anyone, other
than Bola Ige (since Abraham Adesanya was not interested in the
presidency) could aspire to that office. And if anyone told you that the
AD was registered because it met all parameters of registration, please
be informed that that was false. It was registered in order to balance
the tripod and to assuage the feelings of the Yoruba. The
Igbo on the other hand, led by Dr Alex Ekwueme,
was a little more circumspect. They realized that the PDP was a
party that had a more national spread and that Bola Ige had just made
the same political miscalculation which was the hall-mark of Awolowo’s
political career, and to a lesser degree, Zik’s career as well. They
stuck with the PDP, and in my judgment, rightly so. And they
participated in the process of picking Obasanjo as the flag-bearer of
the PDP even against the wish of Obasanjo.s own ethnic group. The choice
of Obasanjo was to serve three purposes: To
cover the tracks of all previous governments, especially Babangida’s,
who brought the country to her knees. To hold power in trust for the
Hausa and Fulani for one term of 4 years only during which time they had
hoped that the disease of general amnesia would have caught all
Nigerians who would forget their past misdeeds and To propitiate the
angry people of the West who felt greatly injured by the unprecedented
injustice of denying Abiola the presidency. It
should be noted however, that Obasanjo was selected for the same reason
his own people had rejected him. In fact, he was supported to spite the
Yoruba and in order to be able to say that the Yoruba people are
fastidious and insatiable.
Any other reason given by the Igbo or the Hausa and Fulani, for their
choice of Obasanjo against
other more “credible” Yoruba is therefore dishonest. So the myth
that “we supported Obasanjo, or indeed Sonekan’s interim
government” is nothing but a ruse. Let it be said loud and clear that
if the Igbo really, really wanted to support a Yoruba, they would have
supported Olu Falae who was at that time, rightly or wrongly, the choice
of the Yoruba. Why
did the “north” (excluding the northern mainstream minorities) pick
Obasanjo? And why did the “East”, especially the Igbo, support those
who chose Obasanjo even against their own Ekwueme? As
for the “north”, the three reasons above will suffice. But not so
the “East”: For some curious reasons, the Igbo believe that the
Hausa and Fulani like them and trust them enough to entrust them with
the presidency whenever, and
if ever their turn to occupy the presidency came around. Even the
routine murder of hundreds of Igbo and now Yoruba in the North by the
Hausa and Fulani in just about every two years since 1966 has not
dissuaded the Igbo from going back to the same place and acting as if
nothing has happened! They
continue to trust on the promises of the Hausa and Fulani even when it
is clear the promises have never been and will never be
fulfilled. Not so much because the north is unwilling to trust
the Igbo, which they are not, but more importantly because the Igbo have
not done anything to earn the trust of the Hausa and Fulani and indeed
of the rest of the country including the Yoruba. This is manifested in
the political activities of the leadership of the Igbo and the inherent
idiosyncrasy of the mainstream Igbo in business and even in leisure. Can
any serious minded Nigerian of any ethnic group fail to notice the
activities of people like Nzeribe and even Ojukwu whom Igbo revel as
their leader even when the Igbo should and do know that these two,
especially Ojukwu, will not be acceptable to other Nigerians for obvious
reasons? Can the north forget the rhetoric of the Igbo during the short
period it seemed that Nzeogwu succeeded in capturing power in the north
in 1966? Or during the 6 month-rule of Aguiyi-Ironsi at the Federal
level? Can the Yoruba fail to notice that the only ethnic group in In
the run-up toward the 2003 elections, the Igbo increased the anti-Yoruba
rhetoric. They found nothing good in Obasanjo and all Yoruba.
They were angry that Yoruba people were beginning to show some
support for Obasanjo. They expected him to resign and hand over to an
Igbo claiming that it was their turn to run for that office. They
claimed that they supported Abiola when he ran (knowing that Abiola was
not allowed to rule even for only one day), they called Yoruba people
all kinds of names and labeled everyone
that expressed a view contrary to theirs - a tribalist. They labeled
Yoruba a people without principles, untrustworthy and cowardly. Peter
Opara wrote personal letters to me calling me “mad”
and condemning all Yoruba for what they are! He said that Yoruba
have never “engaged in a principled fight” for anything and that
Bragadier Ogundipe’s inability (or refusal) to take over leadership
during the 1967 coup was the height of cowardice which Yoruba are known
for. In fact Opara wrote that the Igbo and Hausa have some important
attributes in common: they are both able to fight for what they believe
in, much unlike the Yoruba who fight with their legs in the opposite
direction! The
Igbo or the likes of Peter Opara have probably forgotten that Colonel
Adekunle Fajuyi sacrificed himself
for Ironsi and that the man who obtained Biafran surrender was none
other than Obasanjo. In deed, the 3rd Marine Commando which was
essentially a Yoruba brigade was the arrow-head of the final push
against The
last two years just before the presidential elections and immediately
thereafter till date, we have seen the intense exhibition of hatred to
anything Yoruba by Igbo and Hausa and Fulani people. This is seen from
the write-ups emanating from opinion leaders on the internet and several
forums. I have seen write-ups by prominent Igbo reminiscing on what a
true “democrat” Buhari was and still is! I have heard Abacha called
a statesman! And Babangida a God-sent messiah and Obasanjo referred to
as the worst that could ever happen to To
put it succinctly, the Igbo have abysmally failed to diagnose their
problems in The
Igbo is at home in all parts of Yoruba land going about their business
unmolested. Their children go to the same schools Yoruba children attend
and are entitled to, just like Yoruba children, all the rights and
privileges of all residents of Yoruba land. In
a Yoruba adage, the goat is asked why he does not talk to the sheep. And
the goat answered: “I would like to be the sheep’s friend, but the
sheep had told me that none of her siblings is short and black”.
Obasanjo, just like Awolowo, is now the most hated. All efforts of
Obasanjo to address the fears of the Igbo have been rebuffed. Yet, since
1967 till the second coming of Obasanjo, no Igbo or Yoruba have ever
been appointed commander of a major division of the army. No Igbo or
Yoruba or indeed southerner has
been Chief of Army Staff, or Minister of Defense, or Minister of
Interior or Minister of Federal Capital Territory.
And generally speaking, wherever they are appointed ministers or
commanders, there is almost always a junior minister or deputy commander
who is invariably more powerful than the substantive appointee. Obasanjo
has changed this. Every Nigerian ethnic group is represented in his
government. The credit is Obasanjo’s. The
Igbo or someone from the East, in my humble opinion, must start
preparing for the presidency in 2007. They must go back to the PDP.
Ojukwu’s party will end up like AD. Okadigbo’s party under Buhari is
not it. If an Igbo, he cannot be an Ojukwu, nor an Nzeribe. He should
make friend with all groups in |