• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Beyond the IMOB show in Nuremberg

IPOB-Ekweremadu

Political and cultural leaders of the South East have an opportunity to test legitimacy and acceptance between them and the IPOB on Saturday, August 24 when they answer the invitation of the Igbo Community in Madrid, Spain. Expected at the event are the governors of the South-East states, as well as Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State and Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. The organisers have also invited the leader of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, John Nnia Nwodo, Ike Ekweremadu and Enyinnaya Abaribe, both senators.

Honouring the invitation would enable them to call the bluff of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu who has issued a ban on their travel outside Nigeria, or IPOB members would hound them. On Saturday, August 17 at Nuremberg, Germany the group molested Ike Ekweremadu, senator representing Enugu West. The former Deputy President of the Senate had gone to honour an invitation from the Igbo Community in Germany as a guest of honour at their second annual event marking the New Yam festival.

IPOB had called for a boycott of the 2019 general elections that proved ineffectual. The group specifically ordered its members to ensure the defeat of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia state, David Umahi of Ebonyi state and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu state. IPOB did not register a blip in the results as all the targets won re-election. Before then, they threatened to boycott the Anambra State governorship election to no impact.

Many factors are playing out in the South East with IPOB as trigger or provocateur. One is the descent of the group into the Independent Mob of Biafra (IMOB) instead of the Independent People of Biafra. The group now goes about acting as a sovereign within a sovereign and threatening mob action against elected representatives of the people.

However, this is only half the story. The other half is the gross failure of governments in the South East, as well as the broader federation. Citizens suffer disenchantment.  The existing structures do not promote access or enable citizens to hold their representatives to account. On the surface, it allows them to recall or vote them out at the next election, but Nigerian elections keep citizens out.

Unaccountable and unresponsive governments have created a crisis of legitimacy. The mess gets complicated in the South-East because of pent up frustrations. I drew attention to the challenge in January ahead of the elections stating,  “Full-Scale war has broken out in the South East as Nigeria prepares for general elections 2019. It is not a physical battle, mind you, at least not yet. On the surface, the war is about political choice.  Deeper analyses, however, reveals a more nuanced struggle around issues of direction and the soul of a people. https://businessday.ng/columnist/article/the-igbo-wars-on-politics-and-culture/.

By transmuting to IMOB, Kanu’s group has now added the physical dimension of the war. Some citizens applaud the Nuremberg mob as the kind of action required to force a change of behaviour by our public officers. I do not think so. Mobocracy is an evil seed and has never yielded good fruits anywhere. It will not do so in the South East.

Civic engagement remains the path to tread. Such participation must also work within a cultural milieu and recognise structures and protocols. Ire oma ka eju ji aga n’ogwu.

IPOB claims but without proof that South East governors, political and cultural elite colluded with the federal government to throw them under the bus with proscription. Many responsible elders have faulted the claim.  Python Dance happened when in vainglory Nnamdi Kanu broadcast a video of himself as Commander-in-Chief superintending a march past of supposed Biafran soldiers. It was foolhardy and an open invitation to a clampdown. They have spun that story ever since to paint themselves as victims.

IPOB has worked clandestinely but now in the open to undermine the legitimacy of the elected government and authority structures in Igboland. The goal is to elevate their leader as Eze Ahurukwe, the leader you recognise on sight and without a title. It would have been okay if the goal was the betterment of Igboland.  Unfortunately, motive and actions differ and remain unclear.

IPOB is a puzzle for the South East, veritable elephantiasis of the scrotum. It requires careful handling.

On the plus side, IPOB has raised issues of poor governance, lack of infrastructure in the East, and irresponsible leadership. It has excited the passions of the youth and garnered a passionate and large following.  Then it continually fails to make this meaningful through structured action within the bounds of legality.

IPOB offers nothing but nihilism as in the doctrine of the extreme Russian revolutionary party circa 1900 which found nothing to approve of in the established social order. IPOB’s vision is of a Biafra that replicates the old Eastern Region and takes in states in the Middle Belt and South-South with or without the consent of such people. The irony is that the route there would require elders sitting down to negotiate with persons from other regions. Or war, which the region can not afford now.

IPOB had the opportunity to change the narrative of leadership in Igboland by participating in and contesting elections. They prevaricated from boycott to demanding to vote some governors out. You won’t prepare the meal, you will not eat, yet you cannot take your hands off the soup pot!

The incoherence of IPOB is bothersome. Now they have fallen into the classic ditch of the oppressed in fighting each other. At this point, we must ask, what is the tune to which IPOB is dancing? Who is the one paying the piper? Is IPOB like the Pied Piper of Hamelin that led children to destruction in a fit of anger?

 

CHIDO NWAKANMA