By Emeka Alex Duru
The nearest the collectivity of Igbo voice rose in resonance, as it did, last Wednesday, November 14, was at the 2001 Mkpoko Igbo meeting in Zodiac Hotels, Enugu. Barely two years to the 2003 general elections, the people had taken a measured look at their investment in the then civilian administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo and had resolved to go for a bigger bargain in the fledgling democratic order. Each speaker at the occasion harped on the need for the Igbo to cast aside the ashes of defeat that they had borne since the end of the 1967 -1970 civil war and to approach the emerging dispensation as equal stakeholders of the Nigerian enterprise.
The then governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, clearly stole the show in his moving speech in which he claimed to represent the new face of the Igbo. He had, in summary, challenged the Igbo to walk shoulder high anywhere they found themselves, reminding them that their contributions in the making of the Nigerian nation had not been equaled by any other ethnic group in the country. By the time he was through with his presentation, the entire hall erupted in tumultuous ululation, with the youths emptying into the adjoining streets, in celebration.
Coming at a time when the former Vice President, late Alex Ekwueme was going for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he was readily adopted as the South East candidate for the post. But at the PDP National Convention in Abuja two years later, Kalu, who had made the loudest noise on President of Igbo extraction and who, in fact, had vigorously advertised Ekwueme’s credentials for the job, was the first to vote for Obasanjo. His Abia delegates followed suit in keeping with his directives. Other South East governors of the time – Achike Udenwa (Imo), Sam Egwu (Ebonyi), Chimaraoke Nnamani (Enugu), also commanded their delegates to vote Obasanjo, leaving Ekwueme in the lurch, with compensatory votes from Victor Attah (Akwa Ibom), James Ibori (Delta) and their delegates. The South East is yet to recover from that self-inflicted stab and the crisis of confidence it wrought on the people, years after.
But with the Atiku Abubakar/Peter Obi PDP Presidential ticket, the Igbo that had been whipping boy of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in terms of commensurate consideration on key issues of policies and actions, seem to be staging a gradual return to national reckoning.
Incidentally, this is not the first time the zone would be extended the vice presidential ticket since the onset of this era by a major political party. Atiku, had in 2007, for instance, run on a joint ticket with Senator Ben Obi, erstwhile Interim National Secretary of the PDP, under the then Action Congress (AC).
Even Buhari in his days of aspiration under the defunct All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), had variously run with late Senator Chuba Okadigbo and Edwin Ume-Ezeoke. But at such occasions, the Igbo had looked at the larger Nigerian picture, tagging with Obasanjo/Atiku, Umaru Yar’Adu/Goodluck Jonathan and later, Jonathan/Aminu Sambo ticket. Opinions differ on whether their support in such instances yielded commensurate rewards.
In the current experiment, their seeming excitement with the Atiku/Obi ticket, stems from their interpretation of the team as their most available vehicle for getting back to national politics. This interpretation is informed by the assessment of their portion in the Buhari administration that has generally not been exciting.
Curiously, from the onset, Buhari’s marginalization of the southeast appeared deliberate. The President, had shortly after his election, while responding to a question at a 2015 event organised by the US Institute of Peace, said, “I hope you have a copy of the election results. The constituents, (who), for example, gave me 97 per cent (of the vote) cannot in all honesty be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5 per cent,” and added, “I think these are political reality.” That seemed to have coloured the pattern and theme of his relationship with the people, nearly four years after.
Aside the climate of uncertainty that has characterised the relationship between Buhari and the South East, the administration has also been evasive on the issue of restructuring and devolution of power that the zone has been clamouring for, even before the inauguration of the government. Atiku has bought into the agenda, promising to set in motion, machinery for its actualisation on coming to office.
Incidentally, the Enugu event, a non-partisan summit, chaired by renowned constitutional lawyer, Prof Ben Nwabueze, incidentally had restructuring of Nigeria and the agenda for the Igbo in 2019 as its main thrust. Tagged ‘Ahamefula’, the summit was said to be the “beginning of a new struggle to assert Igbo full citizenship in Nigeria”.
For a people that have borne the brunt of intrigue-infested politics of Nigeria all the while, particularly since the Buhari administration, the summit could not have come at a better time. The people, in volunteering their support for the Atiku/Obi ticket, are expected to have set their priorities properly in throwing their hats in the ring. In the past, while queuing behind Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan, the South East had been driven more by the so-called bandwagon sentiments and individual interest of some of the leaders. In the process, they had made the most public show of support for their candidates but had received the least attention in distribution of institutional dividends after the elections.
Our correspondent however gathered that with the position paper which the Igbo leadership had handed to the Atiku/Obi team, their piteous position under the present administration may be on the path of reversal. There is also the larger picture of Nigeria climbing out of its valley of economic uncertainty with the team in office.
Atiku and Obi, had before now, recorded successes in private enterprise and public service. Atiku, as Vice President, had for instance, led the economic team of the Obasanjo administration that had put the nation’s economy under sound footing to the extent of liquidating her earlier debts to creditor nations.
On his own, Obi had made great name in his unprecedented human and material resource engineering of Anambra State, where he served as governor. More than five years after a glorious exit from Awka Government House, the story of his prudent management of the State’s resources leading to his bequeathing huge sums in local and foreign currencies to his predecessor, still resonates. The efforts of his administration in laying solid foundation for the state, continues to manifest in Anambra still leading in public examinations in the country and abroad.
These are among the virtues supporters of the Atiku/Obi ticket expect to be replicated at the national level with the team coming to office. They also count in the support of Ndigbo for the two.