By Ekerete Udoh
In the next few weeks, the remains of General Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu-the Ikemba Nnewi will be committed to mother earth-thus ending in a physical sense the life of man who will remain forever a colossus in the annals of Nigerian history and our struggles to form a prefect or mutually respectful union. Given what has happened in our polity lately- the drum beat of war and internal anxieties, given the concerns of safety that has been manufactured and nurtured by Boko Haram and given the inflammatory rhetoric that are being spewed by certain ethno-cultural organizations, one is left with no choice but to wonder whether it is déjà all over again!
In 1966, Nigeria was on a precipice-and its corporate soul and essence were dangling precariously on the edge. Six years after independence, the chasm and zero sum tendencies of the ruling elite had alienated and poisoned the fountain of unity. Hard ball political tactics were employed by those who commanded the instrument of power and coercion. Those who legally constituted themselves into viable voices of opposition were hounded, traumatized and eventually jailed. Thousands of innocent lives were wasted at the altar of depraved political gods and as the military watched and squirmed at the wanton level of corruption and carnage, they stepped in and cleaned the Augean stable.
The January 15 coup- led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu had disproportionately killed the cream of the northern political and military class. The spirit of revenge on the part of northern soldiers was thick and palpable. Whether by design or by accident, the leaders of the January coup had been mostly Igbo speaking officers mostly from today’s Delta state. The northern soldiers had concluded that the coup was executed to foist Igbo hegemony over the rest of the country. It didn’t help matters that the man who succeeded the rump of the Balewa administration was the highest rankling military officer in the land-the Igbo-Umuahia Ibeku born General Thomas Umunakwe Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi. To the northern military and political establishment, the Igbo hegemonic thrust that the late Northern Region Premier-Ahmadu Bello had warned in 1952, was now a clear and present danger.
In the counter coup that ensued, Major General Aquiyi Ironsi-the highest ranking officer who in the order of military tradition, had stepped in and assumed the leadership of the county, was brutally murdered by the northern coupists. Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon-the Chief of Army Staff-not easily the most senior officer, but the one ordained by the coupists was named the Head of State and Commander- in -Chief of the Armed Forces. The Eastern Region Military Governor-Lt.Col. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu- being a stickler for military tradition and order, refused to accept the leadership of Gowon-insisting first to know what had happened to the substantive Head of State-Aguiyi Ironsi and second, why Brigadier Ogundipe-the next most senior army officer did not automatically take over the reins of the country.
The blood-letting that was going on in the military-targeting the Igbos and other easterners soon devolved into other levels of the society, as Igbos were hounded in the north and slaughtered like rams. Easterners were advised to come back to their regions by Ojukwu, many of whom were attacked and killed on their way back to the east. After series of talks and meetings aimed at resolving some of the knotty issues of our existence as one nation- issues that were unfortunately not resolved, the country was plunged into a 30- month long civil war that cost billions of dollars and millions of lives.
The war ended in 1970 with the “No Victor no Vanquished policy “. Ojukwu who had led that secessionist bid was offered asylum by Houphouet Boigney-then the President of Cote’d’Ivoire. He was later pardoned by the Second Republic administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, from where he plunged into the political waters and ran for a senate seat in the then Anambra state, losing to a little known medical doctor-Edwin Onwudiwe- a move many had felt was orchestrated by his own party, fearing that he would dwarf and take center stage were he to be elected into the senate.
Until he died last November, Emeka Ojukwu has always asserted that we should come together at a national conference and talk things over about our corporate existence. He has always asked for the implementation of a true federalism-fiscal and political and that the issues that led us to war in 1967 were still prevalent with us. Sweeping them under the carpet while thinking all is well with the polity is akin to postponing the evil day he has always cautioned.
Now fast forward to the present. In 2010, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan-an ijaw academic from the Niger Delta state of Bayelsa was thrust into the presidency by the National Assembly legal construct called-“Doctrine of Necessity”. The country had been almost plunged into constitutional crises following the refusal on the part of then President-Umaru Y’ardua to hand over power to his deputy as the constitution stipulates following his illness which had rendered him incapable of executing the office of the president of the republic. The machinations and despicable subterfuge that was pulled by those who came to be known as “The Cabal” had rubbished the spirit and letter of the constitution and had pitied the south against the north. The underlying reason for the lack of proper handover of power to Jonathan many had observed was the morbid fear by the northern establishment that President Jonathan will interpret a different script were he to be allowed to succeed Ya’rdua- a script that may write or pare down their power and influence. For such narrow and parochial instincts, the nation in their reasoning should plunge into an ungovernable pit. The Doctrine of Necessity rescued the nation from that near constitutional crises.
President Jonathan, in the full exercise of his constitutional rights, offered himself as a candidate for the presidency of the republic-setting himself and the south on collision course over the principle of zoning which the north had claimed was reserved for them to produce the president, even if Y’Ardua succumbed to death through natural means. The resultant fight over who would become the presidential candidate of the PDP had seen the Adamu Ciroma led northern group selecting former Vice President-Atiku Abubakar as the Northern Consensus Candidate. Needles to repeat here, Atiku Abubakar lost at the primaries and was routed by President Jonathan who went on to campaign and win the presidential election in April last year.
The election of Goodluck Jonathan-Nigeria’s first Niger Delta born president appeared not to have been accepted by a cross section of the people-especially some from the northern part of the country. There has been talk-largely unsubstantiated- but clearly not without foundation, that certain elements in the north had promised to make the country ungovernable in the aftermath of Jonathan’s election. To these people, the new political alignment represents an affront-an assault on their hitherto stranglehold on power.
The step-up efforts of the Islamic sect-Boko Haram to sow fear and mayhem through the novel idea of suicide bombing to some analysts represent the upping of the ante on the part of those who are determined to derail the Jonathan administration. The spate of bombings-first at the Police Headquarters in Abuja, the UN Building also in Abuja and the sickening slaughter of innocent Christians who had gone to church to celebrate the birth of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ in Niger state on Christmas day, the senselessly slaughter of Igbo traders in Mubi-Adamawa state and the drum beat of war that has been going on all over the country present s clear and present danger to the corporate existence of the nation.
Like 1967, southerners based in the northern states have started heading back to their states of origin and vice versa for the northern in the south. The chord of unity appears to be dangling dangerously and is held together by a very tiny thread that could snap if mature handling is not expended.
As preparations get under way to commit the body of the late Head of State of the defunct Republic of Biafra-General Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, perhaps we should ask ourselves this question: Can we all get along at least for the sake of our children? Must we, for narrow reasons attempt to plunge the nation into another needless ethnic conflagration? Is the nation not bigger than a sectional interest or should we sacrifice all we have archived since 1970 at the altar of political tin gods who must always exercise power, failure of which the nation must go down in flames?
In the middle of this, it was heartening to read the thoughts ascribed to former military President-General Ibrahim Babangida where he canvassed for true federalism and asked Jonathan to seize this moment to restructure and institute a regime of social and political engineering aimed at devolving power form a highly centralized one at the center to those of the federating units. That was what Ikemba fought for and died, still believing the moment would come. Making power at the center less attractive will lessen the zero-sum tendencies and parochial impulses that our political class exhibits. Mr. President, this is a moment to do just that: Please seize it! And kudos to General Babangida for initiating this conversation.
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