Anelu was venting what most Nigerians harbour in their hearts but are reluctant to say in the public space for any number of ‘feel-good’ reasons
By Tiko Okoye
The spontaneous outpouring of angst from sections of the country elicited by the hate-filled pronouncements of the now-suspended Rev. Fr. James Anelu, the priest-in-charge of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Ewu-Owa Gberigbe, Ikorodu, Lagos State, wasn’t so much how he abruptly stopped the singing of soul-lifting Igbo choruses and songs during a service he was conducting as what he said to justify his action.
Donning a frosty frown on his face, Anelu pontificated that “the excesses of Ndigbo must be contained” if they are to be kept from “dominating other people in this parish.” Not yet done, he cited the case of his Benin Diocese where he alleged “Igbos dominate to the point of becoming the Bishop” (sic).
Anelu ultimately ended his speech by magisterially declaring that the Spirit of God who created languages just to disperse the tower-building crew at Babel understands only languages indigenous to the areas served by Catholic parishes. Phew! One can clearly see why the Archbishop of Lagos, Alfred Martins, moved very quickly to nip a potential mayhem in the bud.
And truth be said, both the misfiring Anelu and his Igbo congregants must indeed thank God for little mercies. Why? Because in a past era, Anelu would have been roasted alive at the stake for heresy! And in a not-too-distant period, Ndigbo residing in Ewu-Owa and its environs would have been the victims of spontaneous, brutal killing sprees.
But why Anelu, a Bini indigene, chose to stake out his position on the issue of “Igbo dominance” in a Yoruba terrain instead of exhibiting his extreme displeasure and gut-wrenching hate in his own native Benin, where he alleged Ndigbo committed the abomination of browbeating indigenous parishioners to elect a Diocesan Bishop of Igbo extraction, is a question clearly begging for urgent answers.
I had a strong sense of deja vu as I mulled over the contextual antecedents and significance of Anelu’s vituperation, particularly in the light of what occurred in the defunct Western Region when then-Military Head of State Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi (an Igbo man) and then-Military Governor Adekunle Fajuyi (a Yoruba man) were murdered.
Exactly on July 29, 1966, then-Major T.Y. Danjuma, a staff officer from Army Head Quarters who accompanied General Ironsi from Lagos, alongside then-Captains Martin Adamu, Joseph Akahan and Joseph Nanven Garba, and Lieutenants Garba Dada, Ibrahim Bako, James Onoja, Jeremiah Useni, Abdullahi Shelleng and William Walbe, and elements of the 4th battalion moved to the Government House, Ibadan, with a gruesome determination to kill ‘Ironsides.’ The rest has since become part of history.
Let me just mention one or two ironies out of the many embedded in the Ironsi/Fajuyi/Danjuma saga. First, virtually all the leaders of the July 1966 counter-coup are Christians from the Middle Belt hell-bent on doing a gratifying hatchet job for the core North.
Second, despite the mindless brutal murders of Fajuyi and Ironsi, the Yoruba and Ndigbo remain as divided and mutually distrusting of each other as never before.
Third, after using military officers and civilian influencers of Middle Belt descent to stabilise their positions in power, the ‘user’ concluded that the time had come to dump the ‘used’ – the unending crises in the Middle Belt constitute a grim reminder of the trite saying that he who kills with the sword would ultimately be felled with the same weapon.
But the real surprise to me is that many Nigerians are talking as if surprised by what Rev. Fr. Anelu said. Surprise my foot! As a matter of fact, there has been a Rev. Fr. James Anelu lurking in our breasts since this nation gained flag independence – if not even before that. How can it be otherwise when Anelu was venting what most Nigerians harbour in their hearts but are reluctant to say in the public space for any number of ‘feel-good’ reasons?
Another source of amazement for me is the fact that the enraged priest abruptly stopped the singing of an Igbo chorus during the second collection of offerings. Perhaps, it was his way of expressing displeasure that his Ndigbo parishioners dared to wax so lyrical after putting very little in the offering plate. Recall that an Abuja-based founder of a Pentecostal denomination recently lambasted his Ndigbo members for having a ‘super glue’ disposition towards giving offerings and paying tithes.
As a matter of fact, there are many similar family-owned Christian denominations where other ethnic nationalities – particularly Ndigbo – constitute a significant proportion of the membership and major revenue source. But the founders/General Overseers are too street-smart to be recorded making such an embarrassing socially impolite faux pas like Anelu’s.
They equally harbour an inner rage that Ndigbo “cannot continue to dominate or colonise other people wherever they find themselves,” but go about it by ensuring that the significantly large Igbo rank-and-file membership registers only as a blip on the leadership radar – and the heavens haven’t fallen.
Be that as it may, one Laila St. Matthew-Daniel, promoted as a “women’s right activist,” has broken ranks with the crowd hiding in the closet to side with Anelu. Saying that since the beats of Igbo tunes she claims to love makes no sense to her if “I don’t understand what they are saying or shouting about,” Matthew-Daniel (I can do without the ‘Saint’ prefix for now) opined that Ndigbo were not different from “fanatical Muslims.”
The inherent contradiction between what she claims to love but hates to appreciate notwithstanding, one can only wonder what this “women’s rights activist” would do when confronted with the case of a woman of Igbo extraction on the cusp of being deprived of her constitutionally-guaranteed rights!
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It is the national sentiment – this desperate stereotyping of Ndigbo and apprehension largely born of envy and jealousy – that triggered a bloody pogrom in 1966, sparked a three-and-half year civil war, justified a gambit to economically stifle war-stricken Ndigbo by doling a pittance of 20 Nigerian Pounds to each surviving adult regardless of whatever amount he/she might have in the bank or home, and ensured that the mantra of “no victor, no vanquished” remained just a trashy rap.
And as if to lend further credence to this societal malaise, it has been widely reported that one Ibrahim Babazango, an indigene of Adamawa State currently serving and living as a “settler” in the Lagos Police Command territory, recently threatened Vincent Umeh – a “settler” of Igbo extraction in Yola – for acquiring a property next to his. Babazango’s body temperature sent the mercury popping out of the thermometer casing upon learning that an Igbo man was his new neighbour!
Despite the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of domicile and ownership of property, Babazango brazenly warned Umeh to reverse the purchase deal or face bitter consequences including no guarantee of his personal safety. Is there a fatwa decree that can be any more telling than what Babazango’s outburst?
Meanwhile, here is a deputy commissioner of police who could be promoted to a commissioner of police tomorrow and posted to head a state command in one South-eastern state, but yet to be upbraided by the Police High Command, the Adawama State Government or the Presidency!
To be honest, I hold no one but ourselves – and particularly the political elite – responsible for the mishaps Ndigbo have been suffering in the political terrain. At the time I first went to America, Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, was populated 50/50 by upwardly mobile American Jews and African Americans, and both racial sub-groups suffered a similar Establishment-sanctioned nationwide stigmatisation and harassment.
But the World Jewish Council and The World Zionist Congress crystallised a long-term plan that ultimately saw the Jews owning virtually all the major banks, media organisations, law offices and real estates in America. Today, when American Jewry sneezes, the rest of the nation catches a flu. With a proportion of the total population that is less than a paltry five percent, they have a say in all facets of American life, including who becomes POTUS. Meanwhile, African Americans have taken over, and converted, most of the inner-city neighbourhoods the Jews vacated into ghettoes.
Ndigbo are in a better starting position than American Jews. If a credible census is conducted, Ndigbo would no doubt constitute a clear majority. Outside our South-East homeland, Ndigbo are easily the ethnic nationality with the highest population aside the indigenous population anywhere in Nigeria. We have a vice-like grip on trade and commerce; and in towns such as Abuja and Lagos, we own between 40% and 70% of the real estate.
That Ndigbo haven’t replicated the same giant steps we are making in the economy in the political arena is solely due to the selfish nature of our present-day political leaders who lack the capacity and/or the will to think strategically, very much unlike our forebears in the First and Second Republics. It is the vacuum they created that Nnamdi Kanu so cleverly filled.
And come to think of it, perhaps the time has come to assess the psychological frame of mind of clerics prior to being assigned preaching duties or allowed to open a place of worship. Incidents such as the Maitasine riots in Kano in 1980 and the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East keep demonstrating just how easy it is for a cleric hallucinating under whatever influences – devilish or illicit substances – can manipulate a congregation to cause disaffection among the citizenry and untie the knot of brotherhood and one-family posture of the religious sects. Just when would the government take such matters very seriously?
