“Joe Igbokwe has gone mad again”

I must confess that the title of this piece is fortuitous. It is a fall-out of an off-the-cuff dismissal of the antics of Joe Igbokwe, Lagos State Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC) by a senior colleague. We were analysing Igbokwe’s recurrent juvenile tantrums at the Igbo nation, when he simply blurted: “Igbokwe has gone mad again”.
But is it really a case of going mad in the real sense? No, it is not. It rather seems a matter of obsession; an extreme desperation to clown around for attention. You cannot rule out complex, borne of inadequacy to reach out coherently, in that regard. In such state of unease, it becomes compelling for him to clutch on any straw in a bid to remain relevant, even if it means playing the jester.
This is, perhaps, the only way to explain his ill-advised diatribe in his recent outing against his Igbo kinsmen. In the piece entitled ‘Igbo ethnic bigotry and hate campaigns worry me’, he had alleged that since President Muhammadu Buhari won the 2015 election after three unsuccessful attempts, a vast majority of the Igbo have descended on him, pouring invective, calling him names, abusing his person and his exalted office, preaching hate and ethnic divisions.
According to him, “Ethnic bigotry and hate speeches our people, both at home and abroad, dish out every day endanger our people living in all parts of Nigeria.” For emphasis, he reminded the Igbo of their relations living in other parts of the country, adding that Buhari’s kinsmen would not fold their arms in the face of insult hurled at him. He also made allusions on the Igbo being foolish and thoughtless in their actions.
I have not been able to understand the reason behind the knee-jerk write-up. But I must add that this is not the first time he would be involved in this odious action. He had done something related to it in the days of the Babatunde Fashola administration in Lagos State. Then, the government, for reasons that clearly defied logic, had rounded up some people it considered economic migrants and hauled them down to River Niger Bridge head, Onitsha, Anambra State, in the wee hours.
While perceptive Nigerians condemned the exercise, Igbokwe went into frenzy, taking up newspaper pages and making television appearances in outlandish justification of the ignoble action.
I recall the hot exchanges I had with him over his dubious stance. I remember telling him that as the then Lagos State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) spokesman, his primary responsibility was to espouse the party’s policies and not to veer into what should be the concern of the Information Commissioner or Media Adviser to the governor. When I asked him whether deportation of Nigerians from other states was part of his party’s agenda, he went into shadow-boxing.
Of course, given his predilection to deployment of intemperate expressions, he called me names. But that is not the matter. The issue then, as of now, is that Igbokwe is yet to state his grouse with his Igbo kinsmen and why he thinks running them down is the only way he can gain acceptance from other Nigerians.
Some of the allegations he levelled against the Igbo in his current tirade can, at best, pass for pepper soup joint exchanges. For a University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN)- trained engineer, it is expected that he would be trading on specifics and statistics. Making a wild allegation of Igbo in the Diaspora and Nigeria refusing to move on except abusing Buhari amounts to taking pettiness to a piteous depth. Who were these people? Where did he encounter them? Has his long sojourn outside the South East made him lose so much of his root as to forget that the Igbo, as a group, has appropriate institutions and individuals that can take up its cause in matters of national engagement?
Is it not ridiculous that a scientist in the mould of Igbokwe would be making his deductions from Facebook and other social media postings? Does it also occur to him that he is inviting hate from other Nigerians to the Igbo by the sycophantic exercise?
But even at that, what is it really that the Igbo have done against Buhari that qualifies them to be guillotined? In the quiet confines of his room, would Igbokwe convince himself that he is satisfied at the level of exclusion the Buhari administration is visiting on the Igbo? In terms of appointments, policies and empathy, can he say, with all sincerity, that the President has been fair to his kinsmen? When really did it become an offence for a people to cry out when they feel criminally schemed out of a system? If he chooses or pretends not to see the dastardly exclusion being meted at his people by the Buhari administration, I will then find it hard to evaluate the type of elder he is at 60.
Of all the insinuations and allegations Igbokwe made against the Igbo, it rankles most to associate them with ethnic bigotry. For a highly-mobile and enterprising people that are expressive and expansive to be qualified with an ascription that connotes racism, intolerance, narrow-mindedness and other despicable descriptions by one of its own is the height of infidelity to one’s root.
It is doubtful if Igbokwe chews over his semantics before rushing to the press. If he does, there was no way he could have attributed bigotry to the Igbo. Which other ethnic group builds and develops its area of domicile except the Igbo? Which other group easily and willingly gets assimilated in its hosts’ languages and ways of life?
The beauty of the Igbo republican world is that it allows plurality of opinions and attitudes. There are, however, instances of some deviants making nonsense of the enticing system, apparently for their selfish interests. Such people go to various extents, including trading on their people. Igbokwe is fast falling into this terrible class.
In this unceasing drift, he is increasingly assuming the classical imagery of what we were taught in our days in the catechism classes of Judas Iscariot.
Judas, we were told, was such a heartless Apostle that he did not blink an eye in betraying our Lord Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver. When the magnitude of his devious action began to weigh on him, he attempted refunding the blood money. But it was too late for him, as his colleagues in crime refused to collect the money from him. Frustrated at the state he found himself, Judas opted for suicide. That was how he lost his position in the ministry and has remained accursed ever since.
I am not sure if it bothers Igbokwe that this is, perhaps, unintentionally, the path he is treading by his regular tirades against the Igbo. But it is not too late for him to reach for the brake pedal. Nobody, after all, wins an award for running down his people.