By Emeka Alex Duru
(08054103327, nwaukpala@yahoo.com)
We shall commence by aligning with some resolutions of present and past public office holders from the South East in their recent meeting with other leaders of the zone, especially where they vehemently condemned the killing of security agents, burning of security infrastructure and harming civilians in the region and other parts of the country. That is the way to go. South Easterners and indeed, Ndigbo, are not known for violence, arson and brigandage. They rather build and develop their environment.
Former Enugu State governor and currently, a senator, in his incisive essay, “Refocusing Igbo Youth Energy”, rightly portrayed Ndigbo as a people that have always carried their cot of reason (akpa uche ), deployed themselves in mobility (ukwu n’ije) and have deployed their boundless energy, exemplified in the application of their hands (aka Ikenga) – the trinity of Igbo character, leading to accomplishment. In same manner, Literary Icon, Chinua Achebe, had in his concise but insightful book, “The Trouble with Nigeria”, aptly recalled how the people started off with initial geographical and historical obstacles but with one fantastic burst of energy, overcame the handicap and overtook their peers. That gargantuan leap by the Igbo was virtually wiped off by the civil war and its aftermaths, leaving them struggling to regain their lost grounds. A people with such chequered history cannot afford to be associated with violence, especially that which has the potential of affecting their kin outside their area and turning their zone to a battle ground. The South East leaders were therefore right in their stance against purveyors of insecurity and their sponsors in the region. But that is one leg of the issue.
The second aspect of the matter, and incidentally, the more intriguing is the failure of the leaders to properly situate the trending riotous culture in the zone. Recall that the entity in question was part of the then Eastern Region which Dr. Michael Iheonukara (MI) Okpara, inherited in near decrepit state at Independence but in six years’ time raised to a position of repute in Africa and British Commonwealth. The South East under discourse, formed part of the larger Igbo society which the legendary Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa), an Igbo slave who bought his freedom, had gloriously described as a land free of crime, begging, prostitution and other anti-social behaviours but marked by cleanliness. This is now a section of the country being mentioned in derision.
Whether we admit it or not, the pervasive rot in the present day South East has a lot with the questionable leadership recruitment process that has regularly thrown up charlatans as managers of the affairs of the region. It is a huge irony that since the era of Okpara and the flashes of brilliance exhibited by Dr. Sam Mbakwe (Imo) and Jim Nwobodo (Anambra) in the second republic, most of their successors, can at best qualify as passengers foisted in the drivers’ seats in their various states.
I had argued on this page, recently, that all sections of the society are guilty in this failure of governance in the region. It is not enough for the leaders from the zone to wash of their hands vaguely in the value degeneration in the area and blame the youths so as to be counted good boys and girls by President Muhammadu Buhari and other Nigerians. That, can only amount to being clever by half. No leader receives accolades by throwing his people under the bus. Leadership requires critical thinking and sincere interrogation of the environment and fashioning out agenda at remedying the situation. The immediate challenge is to identify the point at which the youths in the South East began veering from the picture created by Equiano and started being unruly. The axiom of an idle mind serving as devil’s workshop, comes handy, here.
Calling the youths in order should also come with social reforms to get them meaningfully engaged. Most of the young men and women currently disturbing the peace in the South East are largely unemployed or under employed. Most of the factories and industries built by the Okpara, Mbakwe and Nwobodo administrations in the area, are currently in various stages of abandonment or outright disuse. Credits are not also being advanced to the youths on self-employment. The apprenticeship system for which the Igbo have earned global acclaim, is gradually losing steam, exposing the young chaps to Okada economy with its untoward influences.
As we write, Imo State, has the record of highest figure in unemployment in the fourth quarter of the 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), with a staggering 56 percent rate. It retains the position it held in the second quarter with 48.7 percent. Abia manages to pay its employees in the “core” ministries, while attending to teachers, workers in Hospital Management Board, Abia State University Teaching Hospital, Aba and other sections only when it is possible. The two, are incidentally, oil producing states with accompanying revenues. In some degrees, other states in the zone are not giving serious thoughts on how to harness the youth energy.
It is these unemployed and disillusioned minds in the states that readily yield to any message or character that offers them promises of hope and better life from their present condition of hopelessness. Some of the youths are even those used by the leaders in attaining their positions of influence and abandoned midway. They constitute the monsters haunting the South East.
So, reclaiming the region from the brink, should start with the leaders telling themselves the truth and doing the needful. They also need to tell the President in clear terms that he has been grossly unfair to the youths and people of the south east. To be taken seriously in a skewed system as Nigeria, requires a balancing act. In it, no one approaches the negotiation table from a point of weakness. In his policies and utterances, Buhari has manifested extreme disdain for the South East. How for instance, can it be explained that in all the security structures in the country, none is any person from the South East found capable of heading? Who then presents the perspective of the zone when issues affecting it are being discussed? Of course, to say that such appointments are based on merit or competence further compounds the odious situation. If the same region which its sons and daughters are placed on high cut-off marks to gain admission to federal government institutions can be termed not qualified for critical positions, something is then wrong with our reward system.
There is also this regular ejaculation of force at the drop of the hat by security agents against youths in the region which the leaders have not boldly taken up with Buhari. Perhaps, at no time or anywhere else in the history of Nigeria has anything come nearer to the number of youths slaughtered in peace time as currently witnessed in the South East under the Buhari administration by agencies of the state or non-state actors that the government has kept blind eyes to their murderous activities. It rankles profoundly that apart from the occasional and perfunctory expression of condemnation against these dastardly acts, hardly do the leaders from the area take emphatic stance in defending their people. In such instances the young men and women from the area, easily resort to self-help.
Thus, while we condemn the creeping culture of violence among the youths in the South East, the leaders of the region should be bold and sincere enough to do their work and also tell the President that he has not been fair to the people.
