By

Uche R. Madu

ihieoha@aol.com

The appointment of DIG Mike MBAMA Okiro  as the acting Inspector General Of Police of the Republic of Nigeria, brought disappointment to some Igbos, who had argued the position belonged to their kin and another DIG Mr. Ogbonnaya Onovo from Enugu State, one of the so called Core Igbo States. To many, this is one of the well established pattern of denying Igbos, what is due to them, even after achieving to the height of Deputy Inspector General of Police and the number two man in the police force, despite all odds, placed in their way, since the end of the civil war. I believe this negative reception of the appointment of Okiro over Onovo, by some Igbos, were based on ignorance.   Hopefully they have sat down and reflected on it with more facts, now at their disposal, and have celebrated the fact that the appointment of any Igbo to the IG position, is a major breakthrough for the Igbo people of Nigeria. I was surprised by the news that the number two and three officers of the Nigeria Police are Igbos. This is a credit to the Obasanjo administration, as it took forty years and under his 8 year watch, to produce this miracle. Igbos showed other gains, in many areas, that remained glass ceiling for them during the military regime.

Igbos must begin to see our native presence in Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Delta, and even Kogi and Benue , as strength and accept the elevation of any Igbo, even when they do not originate from the South East zone, as a gain for our ethnic group. We cannot on one hand claim Ikwerre and the likes as Igbos, even when some of their misguided people do not want anything to with the Igbo nation, and on the other hand be disappointed that an Igbo from Egbema , in Rivers State , was favored over another Igbo, from Nkanu, Enugu State. Given our rancorous disposition over sharing the Federal bred cramps swept in the direction of the Igbos, the debate and complaints would have shifted to ever fiercer complaint, id these two Igbo DIGs hailed from two different so called Igbo stales in the South East Zone. The issue of which South East Igbo state the IG came from, would have dominated the discussion and disagreement. What happened with the Senate Presidency zoned t o the South East, provided a road map.

But for the injustice perpetrated through the Nasir Boundary Adjustment Commission, that ceded parts of Egbema to Rivers State, because of oil well politics, acting IG Okiro, could have still hailed from Orlu Senatorial Zone, Imo State, where some of his other Egbema people still belong, the part of Egbema that does not harbor significant number of oil wells or deposits. The name Mbama, if  it has the same pronunciation and meaning of a similar  sounding Igbo name, with the same spelling, is as Igbo as can be. I am from the Igbo hinterland of Imo State ( Igbo no Igbo na Ime) and Mbama is a common name from where I hailed from. It is much more common Igbo name than Onovo, in my area. In one of my many trips to Nigeria from the United States, I sat next to a woman, who hailed from Ogba/Ndoni/Egbema area. Not only did she speak the Igbo language fluently and flawlessly, her dialect is far more central than that of anybody from Ebonyi and s ome parts of Enugu State. She was proud to be Igbo. She came from the same area as IG Okiro.

Rivers State is a de facto Igbo state anyway. Igbo leaders like Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu worked hard to create conditions that made it possible that both ex governor Peter Odili and the present governor, Celestine Omehia are all ethnic Igbos, an impossible proposition, only few years back, when the Ijaw had a power stranglehold over Rivers and Port Harcourt and had held sway, since after the war. Before then, the Ijaw was anaesthetized with Port Harcourt (Igwe Ocha) and it was only when they were forced into Bayelsa State, did they suddenly realized the rape and pillage of the past 40 years by the federal government and this gave rise to the present restiveness and militancy of the Ijaw, in Niger Delta. Acting IG Okiro is an Igbo from essentially an Igbo state of Rivers. The six geopolitical zones just as the states before them, are artificial political contraptions, and not by any means an ethnic divide. Note that Ogoja in Cross River is part of South South, whi le Aba and Umuahia, which are more south in location, belong to the South East Zone. One does not have to be born in the South East to be Igbo and to represent Igbo interest for that matter. The most gruesome failure of Igbo leadership, since after the war is its inability to mend fences among all ethnic Igbos in the former Eastern Nigeria. The division and doubt which the Nigerian Civil war and the successive military regimes,  introduced and fanned among Igbos in Nigeria, have been allowed to take root and fester for the past forty years.

Geopolitical zones was an Igbo idea under Abacha. We should not allow it to separate us from our kins outside the Southeast. If Igbos essentially gave up their quest for the presidency of Nigeria, when it appeared that Dr. Peter Odili was a clear front runner and anointed ( a cuel hoax piloted  and perpetrated by Obasanjo and the PDP, to take the sail out of the Igbo quest), why should we not be happy that his kinsman, Mr. Okiro hopefully is about to be the first Igbo Inspector General of Police, even though is not from the South East, just like Dr. Odili?

As for DIG Ogbonnaya Onovo, I advise you not to despair. Igbos are happy with the gains your rank and position in the Nigeria police represent. Stay put and do not succumb to the temptation of resigning your commission. In fact, you should resist such pressure from any and all quarters and work with IG Okiro and bring back merit and excellence Igbos are known for, into the Nigeria Police force. Stay put as the number two man in the Nigeria Police Force. Do not deny Nigeria the further benefit of you experience, simply because you were passed over for the IG post for your kin, Mr. Okiro from Egbema. We should all look forward to the first substantive Igbo IG, no matter the part of Igbo land he hails from.