On Saturday, March 28, Nigerians will go to the polls to elect a president and members of the National Assembly. The stakes are high and Ndigbo have, just as they did in 2011, put all their eggs in President Goodluck Jonathan’s basket. But as Jonathan continues to woo other Nigerians with the exception of the Igbo, I am forced to reproduce in full an article I wrote on July 27, 2010, almost five years ago, on the need for Igbo leaders to weave their political deals around the people’s welbeing.
As a people, we have the right to back the president, but our support must not be taken for granted.
The July 27, 2010 article
In Nigeria, the Igbo have always been at the political crossroads. Whenever they stretch out their hands for the proverbial handshake across the Niger, they end up holding the wrong end of the stick. They are the beautiful bride of Nigeria’s vicious political landscape, wooed and solicited by all, but abused and abandoned after elections.
As the 2011 elections approach, they are once again at the crossroads. This time, it is the ambition of one man, President Goodluck Jonathan, to contest the presidential election next year that has put them in a sticky situation.
First, the governors of the five South East states met in Enugu and unilaterally, without the consent of the people, disqualified themselves from the presidential race. Ordinarily, that was a huge sacrifice, more so when two of the governors are members of political parties other than the president’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But like Oliver Twist, he is asking for more.
This time, he is piling pressure on the two non-PDP governors from the region – Peter Obi (Anambra) and Theodore Orji (Abia) – to defect to the ruling party.
With the North up in arms against the apparent manipulation of the system in furtherance of his ambition and not being sure of what to make of the high-wire political game of the Yoruba, Jonathan is desperately looking for an ally. In the Igbo, he seems to have found one.
In doing this, the president is using every weapon in his political armoury. The new Chairman of the PDP, Okwesilieze Nwodo, is the ‘Garrison Commander.’ He is leading the onslaught. His mandate is simple. He must convince his kinsmen to throw in their hat into the president’s political loop. But it would have been good if moral suasion is the only tool used by the Presidency.
Blackmail is a tool being deployed most effectively. The Igbo are being told that Jonathan’s ambition is like a moving train and anyone who dares to stand on the way will be crushed.
When that makes little impact, a more benign approach is adopted; they are reminded of the president’s special relationship with the Igbo. His wife, Patience, is said to have Igbo ancestry and even the president’s native name (Ebele), which means mercy in Igbo language, is being exploited.
Last week, the Governor of Abia State, Theodore Orji, who defected from the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) barely a month ago, was the main target. Asphyxiating pressure was piled on him to return to the PDP which he quit in 2006.
On Friday, Nwodo led a delegation of PDP bigwigs from the South East to Umuahia to welcome Orji back to the party. Nwodo painted a glorious picture of what the zone will be if all the governors become members of the PDP.
“The Igbo need a strong voice in the affairs of the country and we can only achieve this by being together. With that, the Igbo race will move forward and anything to the contrary will spell doom for one of the most wonderful races in the country,” Nwodo said.
Orji was diplomatic in his response. “When I left the PPA and joined APGA, it was upheld by all Abians, but today it is not easy to make such a decision as a lot is involved like integrity, among others.
“It is a decision that requires going back to the electorate and others involved before a decision can be reached. I need to consult widely with all stakeholders and other people in the system. We have heard you; that is all we can say for now till after my wide consultations. But I know that I still have my APGA ticket with me,” Orji said.
It remains to be seen how much longer he can hold out. For a government that is an ‘offshoot’ of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, it will be no surprise to see the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) moving in to arrest and detain commissioners from Abia State on some spurious allegations of corruption.
But before the Igbo swallow Jonathan’s bait, is it not high time they asked questions? Of course, the mainstream politics argument is so hackneyed that Nwodo can only deceive himself bandying it.
He knows it cannot fly because the question he needs to ask is what the Igbo achieved between 1999 and 2003 when the entire South East was controlled by the PDP.
Not only did the Igbo produce the Senate president in 1999, the five governors from the zone were all members of the party; over 95 per cent of members of the National Assembly and state Assemblies were members, and Alex Ekwueme, one of the founding fathers, was still influential.
Can Nwodo point to any project the federal government executed in the South East during this period? And this was when Nwodo himself was the Secretary of the party. If the PDP could not compensate the Igbo then, what makes him think they will do so now?
Nwodo has not told his kinsmen what they stand to gain if they support Jonathan to retain the presidency next year. Or is that not a legitimate question, more so now that he and his hangers-on are repudiating the PDP’s zoning agreement?
The only reason why they are so brazen and confident in the way they are carrying on is because of the belief that an incumbent cannot lose election in Nigeria. But is that true?
No matter how remote a likelihood anyone might think it is, it is still possible that Jonathan can contest and lose the 2011 presidential election. If he does and a Northerner wins, will the agitation for zoning return to the front burner of national discourse?
The Igbo governors that are going into alliance with Jonathan, have they paused to ask what is in it for their people? Has there been any discussion or shouldn’t there be any? What happens after May 29 when Jonathan must have been sworn in, assuming he wins the election? Will their gesture be reciprocated?
When the Igbo make their own bid for the presidency, will Jonathan and the South South support such a bid or will they then realise how bad a neighbour the Igbo have been?
Beyond helping Jonathan win election and compensating the governors with a second term ticket and the political elite with contracts and all manner of oil deals, what is there for the ordinary Igbo men and women who have, perhaps, suffered more marginalisation than any other group in the country?
How will Ndigbo be better served politically if all of them coalesce under one big umbrella, as Nwodo wants? I doubt if the shoe were to be on the other foot, the Igbo would get an equal amount of solidarity from a people with Edwin Clark as their leader.
“I am not against Jonathan being President beyond May 29, 2011. But if he must be with the help of the Igbo, then it must be discussed.