2023: Why Igbos Don’t Want To Be President In APC (part 3)
Taking cognizance of the ills happening in Nigeria today, from the senseless killings to the high level of corruption, fraud, insecurity, social and economic failure, manipulation, brutality, kidnapping, injustice and conspiracy of silence etc. by those who are supposed to speak and defend truth and justice, APC as a national ruling party was a national tragedy that befell Nigeria in 2015. The high level of moral decay in the Nigerian society today under this administration is absurd and unacceptable and we cannot continue like this. Simply, the party flopped. Consequently, no member of APC should be honoured and decorated with the highest political post no matter the academical qualification and societal position of that person. Anything to the contrary in this our resentful situation would amount to hypocrisy and one spitting at his/her own face. As a developed mind, do not forget that anyone without morality has no integrity, and one without integrity cannot be a good leader. Warren Edward Buffett said, “Look for three things in a person, intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two.” None of the APC’s presidential aspirants can be exonerated from the woeful failure of this government and the sufferings and agonies of Nigerians from the Vice-President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo to the former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu, Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige and the former governor of Imo State Rochas Okorocha etc.
Prof. Yemi Osinbajo
If one has conscience, where and how does one start to excuse the second in command from the dismal performances of this government? Prof. Osinbajo is the number two in the rank of those that have been managing Nigeria’s affairs since 2015 to this point of anarchy in some northern parts of the country, and he has promised to start wherever Buhari will stop if Nigerians should give him a chance to be fully in command in 2023. But Nigerians are currently insecure under Buhari, our economy has never been so bad like it is today and corruption is rising every day. So, what is the positive thing Buhari will leave that Prof. Osinbajo will continue? Prof. Osinbajo sometimes acted as the president when President Buhari was not around. I just hope that our foolishness and sycophancy will not becloud us again to make the same mistake we made in 2015 and 2019 and to think narrow-mindedly that Prof. Osinbajo is just a vice. Anyone who in his/her delusional mind thinks differently should tell the world why he has not resigned. The shocking and embarrassing thing is that there is even no pretence from him to hide his support of the cause of our sufferings by telling Nigerians that he will continue where Buhari stopped. “The quality of a society will be judged by what the least privileged in it achieves,” said Robert K. Greenleaf. Are you happy and satisfied with the “next level” Buhari has taken you to so far? Do you want to continue the same path? What is actually wrong with Nigerians? Prof. Osinbajo has no moral right to be the president of Nigeria.
Bola Tinubu
Tinubu, the Jagaban of Borgu Kingdom is one person I will not dwell much on because the controversies surrounding him and the various allegations against him are in public domain. But anyone who worked for the emergence of Buhari in 2015, supported him again in 2019 and still telling Nigerians in 2022 that he is doing well does not deserve to be elevated by Nigerians. So, “Jagaban” is morally not qualified to be the Nigerian president.
“Conscience is an open wound; only truth can heal it.” Many thanks to Uthman Dan Fodio.
Rotimi Amaechi
In a normal functional society, Amaechi the Minister of transport should have either resigned by now or got sacked as a minister. Correspondingly too, he should be answering questions concerning the Kaduna rail attack. The manifest of the rail incident showed that three hundred and something people were on board but according to reports the actual number was more than nine hundred. How was that possible? What happened to the money paid by over six hundred passengers? Or were those passengers invisible spirits that sneaked into the train? How long has such been going on? Those in the right positions are not asking these questions. This is Nigeria for you, and it remains what it is.
Just a few days after this attack, instead of Amaechi joining Nigerians to mourn those that were killed and comforting families that lost their loved ones, we rather saw him celebrating and running around a stadium in the name of declaration for presidency. Sadly, some of the kidnapped victims are still in the den of the terrorists. No moral value, and to say someone like this does not care about us is an understatement. That he even conceived the idea of declaring his presidential intention at that sad thick moment of our mourning and sorrow was a slap on our faces, and for many of us also to have shamelessly come out in large numbers in solidarity to his faulty aspiration called for the check of our sanity.
This single action of Amaechi is enough indictment of one without moral uprightness.
Chris Ngige
As a Minister of Labour and Employment, how many companies or factories have folded under him? How many new companies has his idea or policy made possible to spring up? How many Nigerians have gained employment since he became minister and how many have lost their jobs? How many Nigerians were unemployed when he came to power, and how many are employed today? Check the statistics and you will see nothing but failures. So, “Why reinforce failure “– as Obasanjo put it? I will also not be surprised tomorrow to hear that the education minister Mallam Adamu Adamu, who has not been able to solve the ASUU problem,has declared his interest of being president, and many Nigerians will foolishly without shame campaign for him.
Rochas Okorocha
If results are yardsticks of judgement of who has done well and not propaganda, lies and press hype, then the former governor of Imo State Okorocha was the worst thing that happened to Imo people as a governor. So, what magic will he do as a president? He was a monumental failure. If you are a leader and only you, your family members, aides and cronies point to your achievements and not the populace, you should know that you are a failure. That is the best way to describe Okorocha’s painful reign in Imo. He can only be compared with Hope Uzodinmma after his term in determining who takes the trophy of the worst governor in the annals of Imo. Do not forget that the people of Imo state christened the roads he built “China” roads. Have you asked why? Some of the things he claimed to be his achievements as a governor were the statues of some animals and known people with questionable character like Jacob Zuma of South Africa he moulded in Owerri, and a church that was of no economic value he wasted Imo State money in building instead of a factory. Meanwhile he was not able to pay pensioners and workers for many months.
Where were these people on the eve of 20th October 2020 when unarmed Nigerian youths protesting the SARS brutality were shot at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos State? What did they say? Any Igbo man who is a member of that party is carrying a moral burden.
Some of these your Igbos politicians you would want to be president in 2023 were once governors, ministers and lawmakers etc., and some of them are still currently in political positions: what were/are their achievements? All they left/supervise were/are scam, sham, decay, allegation of embezzlement and corruption, pain, sorrow and regret. Many of them abused their political positions by creating portfolios and ministries for their children and relatives to head just to siphon money. Some of them are still facing corrupt allegations with EFCC. In a civilized society many of them have no morality to stand for any elective post. But here is Nigeria where everything goes. I live in Austria, I am not even a white man but I am comfortable and have my rights respected sensibly. The electorates here do not know religion or tribe when they vote, and their politicians are morally sound, respect the laws and reasonably manage the affairs that concern their citizens with conscience and face the consequences when they fail. With this exposure you still expect me to support a failure because he/she is of a particular religion or tribe? Are you daft? What is wrong with you?
During the time of “Operation Python Dance” in Igbo land, how many of them spoke justly? What have they done to stop the killings going on in Igbo land? Igbo land today is militarized. Are we at war? What is the work of the military? How many innocent Igbo youths have died because of rascality and abuse of power? Please take emotions and sentiments away. How can these same sets of people soundly represent you? They thought it was smart to remain silent, but we know that not all silence is golden - some is in connivance of evil and some out of cowardliness and selfish interest. But every sane mind knew that in those our moments of tragedies when we were in pain, sorrow, tears and agony over the death of our loved ones, that they calculatedly chose to maintain public silence, and not because what they saw was pleasant, but because they did not want to provoke those they believed would make ways for them to ascend to their desired positions in 2023 as ministers, lawmakers, governors, vice-presidents or presidents etc. Because all they always think is how to win the next election, but now the chicken has come home to roost and we must not fail to be guided properly by the truths and facts in our actions.
Enough is enough, otherwise their trend of deception continues. When the next election of 2027 nears again, they will deceptively switch from flying first/business class to economy from Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Kano and Owerri etc. to Abuja – of course they cannot travel by car because their incompetence made it possible for terrorists and kidnappers to take over the roads. How many of them or their family members were victims of the Kaduna train attack? The answer is none. They are aware of the danger their failure birthed, otherwise they would have been dragging seats with us in buses just for their deception. They will soon start eating corns publicly, fry akara and perhaps hawk fried plantain, bread and carrots etc. on the streets like us and pose for pictures. Painfully we will stupidly and proudly too use these deceptive photos – things they did not and will not do after elections – to campaign for them, exactly what they wanted us to do. But when the elections are over, and the time comes to redeem their own electoral promises, like the case has always been, they will spit at us with greed, corruption, inefficiencies and brutalities. When we complain of the pains we feel they send their political thugs after us.
In Africa, the emotions and efforts many gullible people especially the poor ones who are even the most oppressed and abused express in supporting, defending and catapulting the oppressors who impoverished them – even some times with their lives – because of tribe and religion to political posts are worrisome and becoming too idiotic. If we must get it right this time in Nigeria, we must be rational in our views and jettison all kind of naivety, emotional thinking and ethnicity in choosing who becomes the president in 2023 or else there will be an explosion, and how it starts and ends no one can tell correctly, but one thing is very obvious, it cannot end well.
In every part of Nigeria whether in the south, east, west or north we have people who are capable to lead Nigeria qualitatively, the only impediments that have continued to militate against getting these right leaders that could take us to the promise land are because the system is unjustly structured and corruptly, too. And political cabals and criminals are having filled days to the detriment of the progress, peace and happiness of all of us. Having said this, let me state this fact emphatically that I am not, have never been and will not be an advocator of zoning the president. But Nigeria is not run as a normal society. It has very insincere structures with failed people as leaders and many sycophants as followers. It is a country where politicians lack the political will to do the needful of correcting the abnormalities for the benefit of all. Therefore, if the politicians have agreed to zone where the president should come from as we have been severally made to understand, there is equally nothing bad about that, and I respect it. It was on this ground I say the time is now for the Nigerian people to forget the civil war, heal the wounds and make the Igbos to have that sense of belonging and strongly support and campaign for an Igbo president for 2023 - nevertheless, not an Igbo man in APC.
However, do not forget that I have continued to say that Nigeria’s problem has never been the zone that produces or that should produce the president. The major problem of the country is its unjust fundamental base inherited from the colonial masters and unfortunately and insincerely sustained and sealed in the 1999 constitution as amended. So, it does not really matter where the president should come from, Nigeria will never attain to its potentialities until the injustice as enshrined in the 1999 constitution are revisited, addressedand Nigeria restructured. If Nigerian politicians stubbornly continue to refuse to sit in a round table discussion and fashion out acceptable terms for all to equitably and justly stay together, Nigeria will not have a chance for survival. It is only a matter of time as Nigeria continues to wobble and fumble. Those who say they do not see any reason for restructuring are liars.
2023: Nigerians are already aware that any APC candidate whether Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa or Fulani etc. is not a choice, as they hope for a new beginning in a new president from PDP.
The end.
Uzoma Ahamefule, a refined African traditionalist and a patriotic citizen, writes from Vienna, Austria.
Mail: [email protected]
Mobile +436607369050 (Please, SMS – WhatsApp – only)
Below are part 1&2 of this article, and for those that did not see them and would wish to read.
2023: Igbos don't want to be president under APC – Uzoma Ahamefule
This article will be in three parts.
Part 1
Can an Igbo man be allowed or supported by other ethnic groups and tribes to be the president of Nigeria? This question is currently a domineering topic in the political discourse. It is a big question that has prickled the conscience of so many Nigerians for too long and grilled their integrity because of the way the Igbos have been so highly discriminated and very unjustly treated in the Nigerian union. As events in contemporary Nigeria seem, and 2023 presidential elections draw nearer, this very question of equity and fairness has triggered the affection of many from other ethnic groups with conscience to crusade for justice on behalf of the Igbos in the political arena. Currently, notable voices particularly from the north and southwest have joined the frontal forces of those genuinely clamoring for an Igbo president. This new development has made it imperatively vital to this article to retrospectively, contemporaneously and concisely too view the way the Igbos have been treated before, during and after the Nigeria-Biafra war. It will be an insightful review that will solely capture in summary the pains, the agonies and the regrets/disappointments of the Igbos in Nigeria as a prelude to why they would not want to produce a president through All Progressive Congress (APC) as a party.
Before the war
It was as a result of the unprovoked attacks, destruction of properties and the killing of Igbos in the north that led to the war. After all peaceful resolutions failed, the Igbos, led by now late and respected Col. Ikemba Odimegwu Ojukwu went into self-defense and declared Biafra.
During the war
It was the cruelty of the government policies to block the supply of food to civilians from those that wanted to help that led to the very painful and horrible death of millions of Igbo from kwashiorkor due to hunger and starvation. It was evil to have deliberately allowed blameless children and pregnant women starve to death.
After the war
The Nigerian government was even more ruthless to the Igbos as the government led by Gen. Gowon deceptively declared immediately after the war, “No victor, no vanquished” but affirmed the policy that usurped every Igbo man’s landed property outside Igbo land as an abandoned property. As if such evil was not enough, and without any justification except hatred and malice for declaring Biafra, his government again enacted a policy that callously seized all the money Igbos had in banks and gave each person only 20 pounds – just 20 pounds – heedlessly of how many millions the person had in the bank.
Irrespective of all odds, the Igbos survived every penance meant to destroy them. With their consistent hard work, shared love, team work, cooperation and enthusiasm for survival, these resilient and industrious people were able to overcome all plots to the shameful astonishment of those who carefully designed devilish policies to permanently keep them down and make them perpetual paupers and beggars. Every successful Igbo person one sees in Nigeria today has a 20 pounds background. But in the nature of the Igbos they still forgave the horrible things done to them, spread their wings of love to every nook and cranny in Nigeria and embraced all. Wherever Igbo people find themselves, they make their homes, as they buy lands, erect houses and even sometimes companies, thus contributing qualitatively to the development of that area. As people who foster relationships everywhere they find themselves, the actions of the Igbos in Nigeria testify that they extended hands of friendship to other tribes, built bridges for togetherness, trust and love immediately after the war. But what did they get in return? Contrarily, the properties of these Igbos and their lives are continuously still under heavy threat of attacks and destructions at every little or no provocation at all by the same people they have embraced. Surprisingly too, some of these aggressions could sometimes be because of a cartoon in a foreign newspaper somewhere outside the continent of Africa. With visible and quantum evidences of Igbos’ presence everywhere, they have demonstrated enough love, peace and unity, yet the Nigerian environment still has continued to be very hostile and aggressive to them and their possessions 52 years after the civil war. The worst show of threat, hatred and incitement against Igbos of recent time was even from the number one citizen of the country – supposedly father of all – President Muhamadu Buhari. In his exact words of the threat, he said, and I quote, “That IPOB is just like a dot in a circle. Even if they want to exit, they will have no access to anywhere. In any case, we say we’ll talk to them in the language that they understand. We’ll organise the police and the military to pursue them. That is what we can do, and we will do it.” Why this high level of bitterness against a people? Why this distrust? Why this hatred against the Igbos? Why? If other Nigerians do not want the Igbos and accept them to coexist in justice, fairness and mutual respects etc. they should let them go and have their Biafra.
Having succinctly narrated the agonies of the Igbos before, during and after the civil war, and the danger they face in Nigeria, let me also state sincerely and unequivocally too that every ordinary Nigerian is a victim of injustice, brutality and suppression under the cruel leadership of a very few cabals that controlled and are still controlling this country analytically speaking. To expatiate, let me shortly focus on the northern region and use it as a case study to portray that the major problems of Nigeria are fundamental issues that the political leaders do not have the political will to address and not where a president comes from.
Before I conclude part one of this article, I want to equally lend my voice to all those that have called for the release of Nnamdi Kanu and appeal to the federal government and also to all Igbo leaders to please find a neutral ground and set Kanu free as quickly as possible for peace to reign.
2023: Support Igbos to produce the next president that will be fair and just.
To be continued.
Uzoma Ahamefule, a refined African traditionalist and a patriotic citizen, writes from Vienna, Austria.
Mail: [email protected]
Mobile +436607369050 (Please, SMS – WhatsApp – messages only)
2023: Igbos don't want to be president under APC – Uzoma Ahamefule
Part 2
The north has produced more presidents than the south, but if one goes to the north and sees the poor embarrassing level of human and structural development in that region, the troubles they birthed, nursed to maturity and the dangers still incubating presently – in Amajiris and the number of children out of school and those who are not even in school – under the watchful command of these very few clique of so-called leaders, one will sincerely understand that the problem of Nigeria is not where the president comes from but insincerity, parochialism, incompetence, corruption, absence of political will, hypocrisy and lack of qualitative leadership etc.
When one painstakingly looks at the pitiful conditions of Nigerians, an objective mind will agree that ordinary northerners like in other regions are victims and equally in pain and agonies. They equivalently need help to be rescued from the hands of their merciless political leaders who think only about themselves, their immediate families, relatives and their cronies while using religion and tribe to divide all and protect their evil. Ordinary northerners whether Fulani or Hausa are not really the problem, they are just victims of brainwashing and mental cruelties - badly used and abused for too long and schooled wrongly by their leaders. The longevity effect of their neglect by their successive leaders have narrowed their thinking into believing that it is normal that a male teenager who is supposed to be in school and still under parental care should be given cows by their leaders and sent into bushes to rear. And he is schooled to believe that he could destroy people’s crops with his cows, kill and rape women etc. in bushes without any consequences because he would be protected. Meanwhile the same leader who sent him into the bush sent his own biological children to high quality standard private schools – since public schools have been overlooked and abandoned to deteriorate by government officials. Mothers have also been conditioned to accept it as a normal thing that their minor females are mature enough for marriages. To put this one mildly here, the northern politicians shamelessly considered it very wise to make an embarrassing and absurd educational policy that lowered the standard of education for the northern children to gain admission into Nigerian universities. While the average JAMB mark for the southern children to gain admission into any Nigerian university is 200, the scores for some states in their northern counterparts are as low as 40 and 50 marks etc. for them to gain admission into the same university a southern person will not be admitted with 150 marks. Why this high level of insult on northern children? Are the northern children inferior to their southern folk? Consequently, an ordinary northern child is a victim of longevity of mental cruelty who deserves not only pity but also our collective help and not vindictiveness.
Unless one is a sycophant, otherwise it is obviously clear that the past and present leaders of this country failed the people of Nigeria woefully. How else can one sum up the irony that Nigeria has no steady electricity supply, has no reasonable structures like industries that employ people. Former governor of Lagos State, Chief Ahmed Tinubu recently attacked Buhari while addressing some Nigerian youths in Lagos in view of him becoming the president of Nigeria in 2023. He accused the president of failing to provide electricity for Nigerians and as such cannot call Nigeria youths a lazy people. But he forgot that he was part of the problem and one of those that promised to give us electricity in six months under APC.
The leaders of this country did not fail us, but they are very cruel. They siphoned the Nigerian airways monies, destroyed post, killed railways, mismanaged Ajaokuta Steel Mill etc. and kept air and sea ports in sorry states. There is virtually no government owned company or structure in Nigeria that is still working properly or that government officials have competently handled and cared for appropriately. The only industries they have been able to sustain perfectly well are fraud, corruption and embezzlement. Many of the newly built roads they constructed for our use are all death traps. Government owned schools and tertiary institutions are at the lowest ebb as teachers and lectures are not paid well, even sometimes they are owed months of salaries. We produce oil, yet we have no fuel. We have refineries and yet we import refined oil because we are too corrupt and cannot manage and fix our refineries as we prefer to import refined oil from smaller neighboring countries and give fraudulent subsidies. What kind of country is this? If there should be any government company still functioning properly in Nigeria it simply means that they are still stealing from such like the way invisible ships come to steal our crude oil on a daily basis without notice by any of our security agencies. Unfortunately this is our story, and that is where we are today.
The narrative above that described the high level of injustice, moral decay, cruelty and corruption in Nigeria today and without any sign of ending does not give joy, and it is very sad. Therefore, let me unambiguously and ardently too state that the erroneous statement that Nigeria is a non-negotiable entity is a fallacy that the incompetence of President Buhari, his nepotism and the disaster of APC as a national ruling party have nakedly unmasked and exposed beyond comprehension and cover. Make no pretense about this; the people of Nigeria are in excruciating sufferings and intense pains under Buhari and APC’s led government. The situation of Nigeria from all perspectives has never been so bad and catastrophic like it is currently. While it is true that every problem of Nigeria today cannot be solely traced or blamed on Buhari and his government alone, far from it, but the ugly truth is that the current disjointed and discontent voices of separation currently on the lips of many people from different ethnic groups are in response to the nepotistic, brutal and unfriendly policies and the general failure of governance under his command.
To be continued.
Uzoma Ahamefule, a refined African traditionalist and a patriotic citizen, writes from Vienna, Austria.
Mail: [email protected]
Mobile +436607369050 (Please, SMS – WhatsApp – messages only)