Anambra is in the news of late. In the first instance, it is for good reasons: the inauguration of Mr Governor, Professor CC Soludo and his initial sure-footed steps. The inauguration was devoid of money-guzzling fanfare.
He visited Okpoko as promised and the clean-up has started. He nominated his commissioners within record time. The office of the first lady appears to be on sabbatical and this is a good one, given our awful experience with the last occupant of that unconstitutional office, including the valedictory slap incidence.
And then, we have also been on the news for the wrong reasons: the arrest and humiliation of the ‘working’ Willy Obiano and the activities of the unknown gunmen (UGM), the enforced but voluntary sit-at-home (SAH) and the illogical and irrational utterances of UGM supporters.
The Prof-Governor had convoked a security roundtable, and in cohort with the distinguished attendees, declared Monday, 4/4/22 as a day of prayers and an end to deadly sit at home.
The so-called defenders of Biafra went haywire, badmouthing the governor, accusing him of setting up our people for death, fighting against his own people, being a traitor like Hope, asking how he had compensated those who had died in the process and declaring that the SAH was a little way of appreciating Kanu for speaking up for Ndi-Igbo.
Of course, if they had been affected and afflicted by the UGM murderous activities, they would not have espoused these views and some of them, like Simon Ekpa, and enjoying the good life outside our shores. That was as IPOB declared unequivocally that it had nothing to do with the SAH and supported any measures against the rogue-enforcers.
To drive their point home and create an atmosphere of fear, the UGM murdered some FRSC officials at the Uga-Igbo-Ukwu highway. Incidentally, I interacted with these innocent, harmless and unarmed FRSC officials on Tuesday, 29/3/22.
I pray for the peaceful repose of their souls and divine consolation of their families. How can destruction of lives, businesses and properties secure our freedom? Is that how we will run the expected Biafra? And by the way, where are our security and intelligence agencies?
My views about these senseless bloodletting and coerced solidarity have not changed and I present herewith my comments on the Ghost Town Monday and allied matters, written some six months ago, with a small haircut. Read on.
Our people have many proverbs and idioms used to define the unlucky or ill-fated fellow. He needs to pick his teeth after drinking water; whenever he goes hunting, even the tortoise would learn how to climb; the day he searches for a wife, only mad women would be available and the day he wants to ‘do,’ the lady’s ‘holy-of-holies’ grows thorns.
As you can agree with me, these are unusual occurrences, with water sticking in between someone’s teeth, as the weirdest. But that is the fate of onye chi ojoo (the ill-fated fellow). As it is, we, the DOT-people or IPOBians, (for PMB, every ‘onye-Igbo’ is IPOBist) have become the quintessential ill-fated people.
This includes Dave Umahi who swore that Ebonyi would NEVER be a part of Biafra because that would be tantamount to second slavery (haa)! I don’t know whether he spoke for himself or for his people and whether he has bothered to find out those who constitute arch-IPOBians; those who act before they think on behalf of IPOB.
Anyway, because we are an ill-fated people, whenever we or some of us do less than 1% of what others do freely, it becomes a front-page news and we, all of us, become subjected to the ‘language-they-can-understand’ treatment. By the way, there is a book titled ‘An ill-fated people: Zimbabwe before and after Rhodes’ by Lawrence Vambe and published by Heinemann in 1972. I read it during the period when I read ALL the titles in the African Writers Series.
Just look at the recent front-page news and you can understand what I mean. This includes the militarisation of ana-Igbo, and the arrest and brutalisation of Chief Chiwetalu Agu for wearing Biafranist attire. But the issue is that nobody has said a word to Gumi, the uncrowned Minister of Terrorist Affairs, who hobnobs with heavily armed assorted bands of terrorists.
Even the armed terrorists are neither arrested nor ‘neutralised’ because, according to the great Lai, the government does not want to harm the people, because they are petty criminals who love Nigeria and of course, they are a favoured people. But the reverse is the case with my people, my people because, we are an ill-fated people.
In the past few weeks, it has been a reign of terror (ROT) in Anambra State, supposedly by UGM. The gruesome murder of Dr Akunyili was the height of it. Of course, the carnage at Nnewi, (the burning of the house of the drainage specialist, Joe Igbokwe, together with the DSS and FRSC complexes) and the attack on the Project Specialist, Hon Azubogu, occurred around the same time.
Then came the attack on APGA rally at Ihiala on 12/10/21. Some people have already accused IPOB and its ‘military arm’ ESN of complicity.
Suddenly, Mr Malami, announced the intention of the FGN to declare a SoE (State of Emergency) in Anambra State. A look at the terror statistics in Nigeria shows that before SoE gets to Anambra, it would have become a national affair.
In the first six weeks of 2021, 1521 Nigerians were murdered by NSAs (Non-State Actors), with Kaduna, Zamfara and Borno states responsible for 497, 267 and 257, respectively. The entire Southeast and the entire South accounted for 85 and 300, respectively, making the SE, the most peaceful region in Nigeria.
Yet, the South (SE, and Anambra in particular) is where the pythons and crocodiles are gyrating now, in the forms of golden dawn, enduring peace and still-waters. You don’t get peace by raw force or fiat and the water cannot be still when it is consciously being troubled.
Just the other day, Nnamdi Kanu was charged with, among others, insulting the President and looting the Oba’s palace in Lagos. But we all saw when a young man slapped the French President the other day and in a lesser degree, the public hot-slap given to Brig General Abedin Khorram, the Governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province on 23/10/21.
The most laughable, however, is the one about looting the Oba’s palace. On 21/10/21, Olawale, Ajayi, Rafiu, Lukman et al. were charged for the invasion of Oba’s Palace. These names do not sound Kanuish! By the way, if the FG charged Kanu for badmouthing the President, what will it do to Fani Kayode? Well, they just invited him to come and chop!
Now, the precarious situation in Anambra and indeed in the Southeast, started with the Ghost Town Strategy (GTS). It started with Monday lockdowns and then the rebuttal by IPOB itself and then the brutal attempt by some unknown elements to enforce the same lockdown. And then the GTS became an amoeba. One week, it is just Monday; another week it is Monday and Tuesday or Monday and Thursday.
So, when you wake up every morning, you listen to news and rumours to ascertain whether the day was open or closed. And if you wanted to schedule an activity, you would undergo a 30-day dry fasting so that the date would not fall into a GTS day.
There was even threat of 30-day lockdown! As it is now, nobody is sure of who is announcing or enforcing the lockdown. But people, remembering what had happened to those found on the wrong side of the Ghost-Town days, have decided to stay away but some of us claim that the SAH evidenced love and support for IPOBism.
Of course, people in Imo spoke, when they mobbed an Unknown Young Man enforcing GTS (which was why those at Nsukka deployed masquerades for the enforcement). Nobody brings war home!
Incidentally, I have been on the road on 4 of these lockdown days, not necessarily because I wanted to prove that ‘nothing mega’ (nothing is happening) but because I just had to travel on these days.
On the first day, I went to the Nkwo Igbo-Ukwu market square to see things for myself. I have also spoken to a lot of people, those who are directly affected by the lockdown; the ‘ejehu olu ma elighi nni’ group (Those who cannot eat unless they go to work).
The last two people I spoke with were drivers, who appeared sympathetic to IPOB but decried the lockdown, which impoverished them. On 25/10/21, transport workers in Abia State asked IPOB to provide them with palliatives to cushion the negative effects of these ghost-town days, including their vehicles burnt in the process of enforcement.
So, who is responsible for this ROT in Anambra State? As can be seen in the charges against Nnamdi Kanu, the Government is ready to accuse IPOB of everything, including the number of police tollgates on the Shagamu-Onisha high way, the increasing bloodletting by the ‘harmless’ bandits or the wrinkles in Buhari’s face.
IPOB has denied involvement and promised to cut the ears of those enforcing the GTS. But our security officials will accuse IPOB before even getting to the scene. We should however remember that the founder and GO of ‘Hopism’, Governor Uzodinman had told us that 70% of those arrested for the Imo mayhem were not Nd’Igbo.
How did our security people respond to this weighty information? And just the other day, a meeting of traditional rulers in Imo State ended in an orgy of blood. It had been reported officially that the policemen on duty were recalled by their commander before then. What has our security people done with that information?
What I believe is that some people are hiding under the earlier statements by loud-mouthed IPOBists to inflict pain and confusion in Anambra. However, things get complicated when IPOB says there would be no elections and people attack political rallies and destroy billboards and IPOB says it is not responsible.
More so, the one and only Enynnaya Abaribe had declared that there are more than 30 separatist groups in the South East. However, IPOB has gone ahead to directly accuse the Chief Hopist of culpability in this matter, listing the names and phone numbers of those involved in recruiting fake ESN members to cause mayhem in the entire Southeast. You want me to mention the names? I have not written my will yet and I don’t have the money to buy justice for myself.
But why do we still talk of UGM when governor Umahi threatened the other day to punish the parents of UGM? If he knows the parents of the UGM, then he sure knows the UGM! I want to state unequivocally that the GTS, which costs Anambra State N19,6bn each day or N3,8trn cumulatively (according to Soludo & Ohaneze) cannot be in the interest IPOB, or even the Igbos.
This is because we are punishing and brutalizing ourselves, and destroying our properties. Most important, PMB and his government do not give a damn. If PMB did not notice the El Zakzaky group who were protesting in his ‘doormot’ for months, how will he notice and respond to people engaging in self-annihilation of the DOT part of the country.
Read also: Anambra youths declare war on touting, criminal activities
One uninformed local told me on the first day of the lockdown that government would be pained by the amount of money (levies and taxes) it would fail to collect on that day, which was an Nkwo day. Does the FG collect money from Nkwo Igbo-Ukwu, and if it does, how much? Even if it fails to collect anything, the CBN is there to provide ways and means advances!
However, the GTS hurts our people and you cannot save or liberate the people by inflicting pain and sorrow on them. As one Unknown Compatriot had asked after the first Ghost Town Monday: who owns the busses that were burnt today? Who owned the goods in the busses? Whose businesses were truncated? Who was killed: whose children were stopped from taking NECO math’s exams? Whose children will be denied admission into tertiary institutions because they did not have Maths? Who is being affected economically? To all these questions he responded: Igbo Man. Unfortunate; Sad!
I agree that sacrifices are needed to achieve any worthwhile objective but the sacrifices must be strategically aligned to the said objectives. And now, Anambra State is said to have approved a Monday-Saturday School week because of the ghost-Mondays.
And that is after the Governor and South East leaders had ordered a stoppage of the GTS, to which IPOB responded ‘you no fit’! Governor Ikpeazu who is doing signs and wonders at Aba agreed with them, saying that the SE stakeholders, including governors, lacked the capacity to stop the GTS.
I want to state, also unequivocally, that these regularly irregular SAHs do NOT benefit Anambra State, IPOB or Nd’Igbo. I witnessed the Biafran war of independence, LIVE and I will not wish for an encore of it.
Conclusion is what writers do when they are tired or when he runs out of ideas at that moment. I want to condemn all the bloodletting and syndicated Reign of Terror (ROT)in Anambra State. The killings and ROT, including enforced GTS is not in our interest.
However, the degree of Igbofobia, IPOBfobia and DOTfobia in the presidency is condemnable and stands condemned. I also wish to repeat ad-nauseum, my age-old view that the way Nigeria is presently structured and run is NOT sustainable.
This cannot stand and something MUST happen in that regard. What will happen when and how it will happen, the son of man does not yet know. But things cannot continue to be done the way it is being done today.
As I was writing this, ‘somebody’ wrote: Sunday Igboho crippled; Nnamdi Kanu incarcerated, Gumi& Miyetti Allah,( including the bandits) protected. And now, Justice Ladiran Akintola has just ruled, in a suit filed by Sunday Igboho, that based in international and domestic laws, agitation for self-determination is LEGAL. So, wither the consolidated suit against Kanu?
