by Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.) (Raleigh, North Carolina) --- Must Ndi Igbo be sycophantic towards those in positions of power, no matter how much they have contributed towards the genocidal activities against Ndi Igbo? Must Ndi Igbo be sycophantic towards the people who have, by their continued negative and oppressive stance in their performances while in the office, have underscored those attitudes directly against Ndi Igbo? These people towards whom Ndi Igbo cower, may actually be inwardly scared stiff and trembling at the mere mention or sight of Ndi Igbo.]]>
What has President Olusegun Obasanjo actually done for Ndi Igbo to warrant or merit the kind of reception and adulation he received at Amichi at the celebration of the 70th birthday of Chief Simon Okeke? Is it because Obasanjo's Minister for Internal Affairs appointed Chief Simon Okeke the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC)? What did he appoint him there to do? Is it to manage the Nigeria Police, which is corrupt from head to toe, and in which people have lost confidence for the security of their lives and property?
I bet you that the Governor of Anambra State rushed around to pave and clear the roads for Mr. President to ride on to Amichi; and that the people of Amichi also rushed around to clean and clear up the internal roads of the town. This is what Ndi Igbo usually do, whenever such a person is coming to town. They do this so as to present a deceptive face-lift and facade of the town, and to give a smiling-face to their woes and misery. They cover up for the very person to whom they should show the full nakedness of the town in its lack of the basic infrastructure and how they live. Of course, no sooner than the "august" visitor leaves do they sink back and deeper into their multifarious miseries and woes.
This face-lifting is happening in Igbo land because they have forgotten that the icons of Igbo land rode on those dilapidated, broken-down roads, and were jolted in those deep gullies, pot-holes and detours all the way to their homes, in life and death. What about the Economics luminary like Dr. Pius Okigbo who was tossed up and down on those roads back and forth to Ojoto? What about the Honourable Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the singular one of Africa? In what state of repairs was the Federal Nsukka- Enugu-Onitsha Expressway the day his body was driven from Nsukka to Enugu to Awka to Onitsha? Isn't it for the same devilishness that they fixed Honourable Nnamdi Azikiwe's funeral on the same date as his birthday - 16th November? Oh! one will say, but that was on Sani Abacha's watch! Shouldn't such disrespect to the first President of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, be enough for Ndi Igbo?
Is there any difference from one Military Head of State and Administration to the other in their treatment of Ndi Igbo? Need I mention the state of repairs of the roads from Enugu to Abakaliki to Afikpo to Unwana, on which His Excellency, Dr. Sir Akanu Ibiam, used to drive to his home in Unwana; and on which his body was driven to his final resting place? Was that not on Olusegun Obasanjo's watch? Yes, it was indeed! But it was alright for the people assembled at Amichi because anything goes for Ndi Igbo!
Was President Obasanjo not the one who told the former Nigerian Military Oficers who served in the Biafran Army to articulate and submit their losses during the pogrom and the Nigeria-Biafra War? That was during his term of office, 1999 to 2003, which people mistakenly call his first term, when it was actually his second term. The officers submitted all he asked for, thinking that, at last, he was going to implement the much vaunted: NO VICTOR! NO VANQUISHED! slogan and THE THREE R'S policy of the PEACE CONFERENCE at the end of the War, which are: RECONCILIATION; REHABILITATION; and RECONSTRUCTION.
But nothing came of it. It turned out to be THE THREE SSS, which are: STARVATION; STRANGULATION and SARCASM - a hoax; another wild-goose chase, on which the leaders of the Nigerian Federal Government choose to take Ndi Igbo and Biafrans from time to time; a pass-time of Mr. President Obasanjo fiddling while Nigeria burned like Emperor Nero of Ancient Rome; a session to have a good laugh for himself while the people languished in false hopes that relief was on the way. He only made that mock proposal of: LET'S BURY CIVIL WAR BITTERNESS at Amichi as a way of reminding Ndi Igbo that: THERE WAS A VICTOR and A VANQUISHED in case they were forgetting it. He did it to drive his sword deeper into the open wounds of the people while rubbing salt into it and cajoling them. What a saddist!
He is going to set up another WAR MEMORIAL in Igbo land to compliment the one set up by Gowon at Umuahia. I bet he will set up his statue receiving the papers from Major-General Philip Effiong. Not to worry! What has happened to the statues of President Saddam Hussien all over Iraq?
This is the callousness of a man who claims to be a Born-Again Christian, and who has set up a Chapel in his Aso Rock Residence. Of course, the practice of religion of all kinds - Christian, Moslem, and what-have-you - has become a facade with which these people in authority in Nigeria, sadistically, cover up "their manifold sins and wickednesses".
Since President Obasanjo made the people dig up and renew their annoyances and griefs over their losses, they have been dying one after the other, UNRECONCILED and UNREHABILITATED. He did not even acknowledge the receipt of their submissions. Therefore, his request for the people to: "LET'S BURY CIVIL WAR BITTERNESS" AFTER THIRTY-SIX YEARS is the greatest joke of the century. It is another one of his callous ways of telling it to the Marines and to the Winds.
But by that very pretentious appeal, he bought his way into the open arms and hearts of the gullible Igbo people who assembled at Amichi, who poured enconmiums and adulations on him. This is because, for the ilk of Ndi Igbo who assembled there, anything goes, especially with those who are chronically sick with colonial and civil-service mentally among them.
How could any Igbo person, in his right senses, say that Obasanjo is the FIGURE OF RECONCILIATION? What has he reconciled amomg Ndi Igbo and in Igbo land? Is this not the man who has removed Igbo language from being one of the three major Nigerian languages for use in the National Assembly? Is this not the man who is going to take the Census of Nigeria without Ndi Igbo because he does not want it to be known how many Ndi Igbo there are in Nigeria wherever they are, or how many Christians there are in Nigeria?
The news said that that birthday celebration visit was his second in 36 years, the first of course, was when he received the instruments of surrender from Major-General Philip EfFiong. But why was the instrument of surrender received by him at Amichi? Was it because the Rt. Honourable Nwafor Orizu, the former President of Senate, who handed over power to General T.Y.Aguiyi-Ironsi, lived at Amichi?
I need not emphasize it too much that one should read the whole submission of Oha Na Eze Ndi Igbo, entitled: VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO IN THE FEDERATION OF NIGERIA 1966 - 1999. This is within a space of thirty-three years, out of which President Olusegun Obasanjo was in the saddle for nine years - more than one-quarter of the time. Please also read the Speech by Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, entitled: NDI IGBO - THE WAY FORWARD, also attached. President Obasanjo set up the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa Commission of Enquiry to let Nigerian's know who his sacred cows are; and also to show up to teach the people how to embrace, kiss and shed away their grievances and crimes against humanity in tears. The Report of the Commission of Enquiry has not been published by him till date.
But I have news for Mr. President Obasanjo, and that is that: DO WHAT HE MAY, HE CANNOT EXTERMINATE NDI IGBO OR DAUNT THEIR SPIRIT; RATHER THEY WILL CONTINUE TO WAX STRONGER AND MORE RESILIENT; THAT NDI IGBO WILL EVENTUALLY TAKE THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE SCHEME OF THINGS! AMEN!
But just let me highlight some paragraphs of the Violations of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbi in the Federation of Nigeria 1966 - 1999 here, the events in which President Olusegun Obasanjo was stated, specifically, as being responsible:
"5.3.6 Excision of Igbo Mineral-Rich Areas from Igboland and Neglect of Mineral Finds in Igbo Areas. Through boundary adjustment, some mineral - rich areas of Igbo land were transferred to Rivers and former Cross Rivers State (now Akwa Ibom area). As the TSM (October 4, 1993) reported, the Obasanjo regime in its boundary adjustment exercise in 1976, pushed the Ndoni/Egbema area and parts of Ndoki South of the Imo River, which harbour the highest petroleum deposits in Nigeria, into Rivers State.
"Besides this, the Federal Government ignored, as a non-issue, mineral finds within Igboland (probably because the sites could not be merged with non-Igbo areas). Oil find in Nsukka area by SAFRAP (a Federal Oil Company) was sealed up with the expulsion of the Company during the war, and to date the Federal Government has not ordered resumption of activities. Natural Gas find in Ugwuoba, the largest deposit in Nigeria, has been sealed up as strategic reserve.
"5.4 Political Strangulation 5.4.1 Exclusion from Political Apex With the exception of the Administrator of East Central State, Mr. Ukpabi Asika (1967-1975) Ndi Igbo had no representation in all the political and security organs which constituted the apex of political authority - Supreme Military Council and Security Council. Igbo ¡§citizens¡¨ were to be seen, not heard.
"6.2.3 New Heights in Marginalisation (Obasanjo regime): If the history of skewed appointments since independence leaves any one in doubt about the emergence of a pattern, the Obasanjo regime has cleared such doubts. No regime has betrayed so much disdain for the rights of Ndi Igbo in its appointments as the Obasanjo regime. We review the appointment so far:
i National Security Council: - South West (Yoruba) 4 (including the President) North Central 3 North East 2 (including Vice-President) North West 2 South South 1 South East (Igbo)
"The absence of any person from the South-East zone contravenes section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution, especially as paragraph (1) of section 25 of part 1.1 3rl schedule of the 1999 constitution dealing with the composition of the National Security Council provides that two additional members may be appointed to the National Security Council at the President¡¦s discretion.
"ii. Armed Forces: The South East does not presently have any Major-General or the ranks above it in the Nigerian Army, or the equivalent rank in the Nigerian Air Force and the Nigerian Navy and therefore, cannot produce any of the Service Chiefs. Moreover, the number of officers of South-east zone is far short of the one sixth of the total as required by Section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution.
"iii. Nigeria Police: Out of 16 top Police officers, viz, IG, DIGS & AIGS, there is only one AIG of South-East origin, contrary to the Constitutional requirements in Section 14(3). Also, the South-East Zone under the present structure of the Nigeria Police Force, would appear to be a colonised territory because: ♦ƒnAnambra State Command reports to the AIG based in Benin (South-south zone). ♦ƒnEnugu State Command reports to the AIG based in Makurdi (North- central zone). Ebonyi and Imo States Commands report to the AIG in Calabar (South-south zone).
There is need for the zonal structure of the Nigeria Police Force to be changed so that the Police State Commands in the South East Zone constitute its own zone with its zonal office based in the South-East zone, to which all the state commands of the 5 South Eastern States will report, as is the arrangement in other geopolitical zones".
References:
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1. The Violations of Human and Civil rights of Ndi Igbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966 - 1999): A Call for Reparations and Appropriate Restitution, A Petition to the Human Rights Violations Investigating Committee, by Oha-na-Eze (The Apex Organization of the Entire Igbo People of Nigeria) for and on Behalf of the Entire Ndi Igbo, October 1999.
2. Ndigbo: The Way Forward, by Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, Vanguard Newspaper, Friday, December 26, 2003.
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