“People who praise a leader even when he is doing the wrong things are the main reasons why his fall is near.” ― Israelmore Ayivor
Whenever the history of Ohanaeze Ndigbo will be written, it must be noted that when the rotational presidency of the apex socio-cultural body came to the turn of Imo State, Imo failed to meet the manifest and silent longing of Ndigbo. Recall that Imo took over the reins from Chief John Nnia Nwodo of Enugu State, a consummate and quintessential leader, whose shoes are obviously too big for the two nominee-placeholders Imo has presented so far.
The first was Ambassador George Obiozor [God bless his soul] and now Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu…special Igbo sons who have had careers in their fields of human endeavour. The late Obiozor was indisputably an uncommon diplomat. So is Iwuanyanwu in business and entrepreneurship. But as leaders of embattled people like Ndigbo at a time like this, the duo are misfits, given how Ohanaeze Ndigbo suddenly nose-dived from the height Chief Nwodo left it to the exasperating sycophancy that is being celebrated while the people groan.
Imo’s inauspicious leadership of Ohanaeze inflicts more pain when one recalls that the State has always been at the forefront of anything Igbo. The late Ikemba Nnewi, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, and the latest kid on the block, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, have their core support base in the Heartland State [Imo] even more than their home states of Anambra and Abia respectively. Even when Ndigbo embraced the Obidient political movement ahead of the 2023 general elections, Imo State provided the early ground of mass following, not minding the INEC-backed, result-writing Governor at the Douglas House, Owerri.
The dispiriting and below-par leadership that Ohanaeze is getting from Imo has called to question the justifiability of the current rotational Presidency among the seven Igbo-speaking States. More to be questioned is the wholesale involvement of concerned State Governors in selecting the placeholders. For instance, given the challenges Ndigbo faced and the good job Chief Nwodo was doing, there was no need to change that leadership at that time, especially bearing in mind the questionable and legitimacy-challenged government in Imo State.
It was obvious that with the enigmatic emergence of Hope Uzodinma to govern Imo, he was never going to be pragmatic in choosing a leader for Ndigbo. It is therefore not a surprise to many that in the two opportunities he had, the Governor went for tired and retired persons who, by their nature and career, always played the pro-establishment game. The obsequious behaviour shown towards President Muhammadu Buhari by Chief Iwuanyanwu as Ohanaeze President-General, cannot be excused.
The lavish toadying of the President is just irritating and infernal. Hear Chief Iwuanyanwu on Buhari: “When he took office, we were not happy. But today, at the point of departure, things have changed, and we are happy. So, I will like you to tell our son, Buhari, that we are very grateful, and I want him to realize that he is an Igbo man and our son.”
Even Buhari will be embarrassed by this panegyrics because he knows he does not merit it. No Fulani or Yoruba leader, whether traditional or political, will shower such unsolicited veneration on somebody who ruled for eight years and is doing a window dressing of one of the most important projects needed by your people three weeks before his departure. The dredging of the Oguta Lake that made Iwuanyanwu lose his head has all the economic potential to the country more than the expressway and rail line from Daura to the Niger Republic that is already done.
No federal road is passable in any Igbo State, yet Iwuanyanwu is dancing the samba in what he knows is an unrealistic project for an outgoing regime. The new Ohanaeze leader might be living in the mistaken impression that by being sycophantic, Buhari will be swayed and possibly release Nnamdi Kanu to him. He should go find out from past Igbo leaders who worshipped and adored him, like Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, Ken Nnamani, Emeka Nwajuba, and lately Dave Umahi, how they ended up. Not to talk of a consistent “any government in power” [AGIP] leader like the multi-billionaire, Prince Arthur Eze, who before Buhari in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital, a few years ago told the world that the President assured him that he would be handling over power to an Igbo man at the end of his tenure and the person happens to be Governor Umahi. The same promise was made to Dr. Onu and Nwajuba, but we saw all that eventually happened. The same Arthur [when he could not get Umahi in] left his brother Peter Obi for Atiku Abubakar, a Fulani.
Nothing can excuse this type of lavish praise to Buhari by an Igbo leader going by the record of his activities with Ndigbo in the last eight years. It’s for Igbos that Buhari introduced the 95/5 power and project-sharing formula. Even the heinous bloodletting in Iwuanyanwu’s Imo State in the last three years [all consequences of disrupting the will of the people to accommodate Buhari’s party’s interest] is enough for him to be thrifty with positive words on the person presiding over it all.
Even the President-[select] Bola Tinubu whose position is dithering ahead of taking the oath of office has begun brushing aside Ndigbo indicating what is in the offing if he enters the Aso Rock Villa. His inauguration committee has no Igboman [not even the Nnewi-born Joe Igbokwe or the banker Akabueze]. In the hustle for National Assembly leadership, he has overlooked Ndigbo for either the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. During his campaign for his party’s ticket last year, Tinubu visited every geo-political zone and told Southeast delegates to come and see him in Abuja, yet they still voted for him after they were dollarized.
Possibly, going by Tinubu’s wish, the top five political positions in the country will not have an Igbo-President, Vice, Senate President, Speaker of the House, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria. This notwithstanding, and coupled with what Tinubu’s lieutenants are doing to Igbos in Lagos before and after the election, some Igbos still hero-worship him all in the name of looking for a job. If loyalty is a viable option, Dave Umahi or Ogbonnaya Onu would have been the President today. It’s a double tragedy diminishing one’s egalitarian nature in the quest for something and at the end of the day you lose the two.
Umahi has lately been saying much against the rest of the Igbos just to impress Buhari, and now he turns his focus on Tinubu. By the time some Igbo leaders finish boot-licking Buhari and transfer it to Tinubu, their Igboness would have suffered irreparable damage. In truth, no tribe has suffered subjugation in Nigeria like the ethnic Igbo and the light is not even in sight at the end of the tunnel where they are, politically speaking. When President Buhari came with Igbo hate in his chest, the people resigned to fate, enduring till now, his exit time. Buhari did not disappoint Ndigbo, he showed exactly what a political enemy can do to an opponent.
He made sure they felt the pinch of his power. He called them a dot in a circle to buttress their insignificance in the system. The President did not pretend. He never gave the impression that he is a lover of Ndigbo. How then does he deserve that accolade of Ohanaeze? Yes, Ohanaeze. That’s what Iwuanyanwu is at the moment.
For the Igbos also, it was a case of if you are not expecting there will be no disappointment. What the duo did was walk mutually in distrust of each other. He used the instruments of the office he controlled very well against Igbo interests and the people also showed their dislike of his ways at the ballot. President Buhari’s unveiled dislike for the Igbo was such that he did not even consider a political strategy of divide and rule. Why waste time on people you don’t need and can do without? When he refused to have an Igbo at any command position in over a dozen military and para-military institutions in Nigeria and ignored their public outcry for eight years, he was only reminding the people who they are, no pals.
When some of his acclaimed friends of Igbo extraction deluded themselves that he would consider them since the justice of zoning favoured them as the only geo-political region that has not tasted the presidency, either as number one or number two in this dispensation, they got the shocker as he looked away when the time came. This is the man, the Igbo leader is praising to the high heavens and calling an Igbo son. The Anglican Communion just rose from a synod where they reviewed Buhari’s era and described it as hellish, yet Iwuanyanwu, an iroko in that church, eulogizes him to the high heavens.
The truth is that Iwuanyanwu’s unneeded ebullience tries to create a divide between the leaders and the led. Igbo youths who have been at the receiving end of the eight-year terror of this regime cannot fathom the basis of Iwuanyanwu’s praises of Buhari. Let us watch and pray that Iwuanyanwu doesn’t wake up someday, congratulating the President-elect even before the PEPT gives its verdict …just to please Governor Uzodinma. God help us.