Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Igbo Question

Ken,

I just want to say that the Igbo who agitate for secession simply want to take more than their fair share of everything in Nigeria and if they are not given, they are ready to use violence like the Boko Haram terror group. 

The Igbo in my view are well integrated in the country for instance, at Adekunle Ajasin University, which is an Ondo State institution in the Southwest Nigeria hired several Igbo not because there are no Yoruba who are qualified like them but to show that every Nigerian is welcome in the institution. In my Department, we have two Igbo Lecturers and several other ethnic groups from other parts of the country. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

Department of Philosophy. 

On Nov 30, 2015, at 8:46 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

dear oa,
mine is a quick question. when i read about the igbo situation, and biafra, it is cast entirely around the question of a separate state, about ethnic division and conflict, with a lot of ugly things being said. but to the outsider to nigeria, it would seem that this represents some kind of exceptionalism.
for some reason, i am always pushed to ask whether, in fact, there aren't resemblances between situations. so, boko haram and the north also represents a site of difference, of all the negative things i mentioned above. and in fact, if you want to say, with the north it is religion, but with the east it is ethnicity, isn't it also a general religious difference there as well--between catholic vs evangelical or protestant--and isn't the religious difference with the north somewhat overdetermined, since there are other major differences as well?
is the conflict between igbo and yoruba or the rest of Nigeria so terribly unique, not only in nigerian germs, but also more broadly in african terms?
lastly, i take your point about the history of nigeria being central to our thinking, and that there was a strong, or too strong, northern domination of the political scene due to the british.
but beyond this particular difference--which is how history always works, that is, w particularisms--i am asking whether the divisions within the nation aren't indicative of something with a broader range than simply nigeria vs igboland?
ken

On 11/30/15 1:37 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:

The opinion expressed below would ordinarily not have mattered much if they were shared in a private conversation. There were posted in public space however. They must therefore be corrected before they assume the undeserved status intended for them by the writer.

There is really no Igbo question. There is the Nigeria Question. The Igbo are not the only group of Nigerians that are uneasy with the ethos of the Nigerian state. Other groups have been at one time or another and many still are, at this time. No one needs reminding of the enduring call from many parts of Nigeria for a sovereign national conference. The calls have not gone away. Having incorrectly defined the question, it is little surprise that an inaccurate, convoluted narrative followed.

I believe that bondage is extreme and not exactly appropriate for Nigeria's situation. Oppressed it seems to me is more appropriate. That all groups are oppressed in a country does not mean that they are for the same reasons and to the same extent. They usually are different reasons- class, ethnicity, geography, and religion for example. When oppression happens to a group because of who they are, it more unbearable because one cannot cease to be who they are. They di not choose to be who they are. They cannot un-choose who they are.  

There is broad agreement in Nigeria for example that the northern states of Nigeria are relatively less "developed" than the southern states of the country. That this is so does not make more bearable the reality that this relative regional underdevelopment is no longer the responsibility of some and not all groups of northern Nigerians, and there is little likelihood of change. All groups may be oppressed but some groups are less so than others. Privilege can be unequal within and across different oppressed groups. In such a situation the extant inequity of the situation becomes a basis for resentment and a possible driver of palpable disaffection. Pain is more bearable if the cause of your is not outside the pained body.  

History does not do things to people. It is people- self and others, and events that do. The Igbo are egalitarians. That is not to say that their society does not share with societies everywhere the co-existence of the rich and the poor. Theirs is a society in which what one gets to become does not inevitably depend on to whom or where the one was born. This is why the Igbo despite all real and imagined odds against them in Nigeria, have much of the success they have rightly been given credit for. They are fiercely competitive. All they ask for is a fair playing field. For the Igbo, privilege must be earned by enterprise and industry, not birth or circumstance. The Igbo believe for example that work pays, equal work should pay equally, and less work should not pay more that more work if personal and societal successes will not be minimized. This grain of their way of life, it seems to me, is one reason for their disappointment and frustration with Nigeria.

There is no fracture between the Igbo elite and their masses. There may be one between some of their opportunistic politicians and their masses. This is an important distinction. Is it not reasonable to expected that serious allegations against a former state Governor and Obasanjo be proved to be false before they are used to discredit the allegers. Disaffected Igbo who try to keep the Biafra issue in view are nothing like the Boko Haram insurgents who are an existential national security threat and have been for years now. It is an obnoxious false equivalence. It is shocking that anyone in good conscience is unable to discern the self-evident false equivalence of this common  characterization.  

Igbo intellectuals have developed a "coherent marginalization thesis". It is based on facts and experience. While some Nigerians may choose to deny the thesis, they cannot deny the facts- the injustices of state creation and the targeted economic policies of the immediate after war years for example. There is no denying that many of the policies were developed to hold some (Igbo) back and allow others to get ahead. Why the hurry  so soon after the war and the skewed implementation as happened to be the case?

Should there be consequences for losing a hard fought war? Not if the post war proclamation by the victor was "no victor, not vanquished". A fraudulent promissory note was apparently issued to Nigerians by that proclamation. Was the fraudulent promissory note the result of a complicity or a conspiracy of Alfa characters in the federal government at the time? Everyone must decide for themselves.

There was a war. It is a fact that starvation was publicly professed to be and used as a legitimate weapon in that war. The federal side choose it to. The disingenuity is its denial after the war. Gowon did offer aid through a land corridor but only under his government's coordination and supervision. He rejected all management of the process by independent third parties including the International Red Cross and many voluntary relief agencies.  He sought a military advantage through it.  Gowon's humanitarian aid was rightly believed to be a potential Greek gift. No adversary in any war would have accepted it. Gowon would not have if he knew what he was doing. How many non-combatant men, women, and children died in that was? Was it a million, two. More? Less? It does not matter. Too many people died. It is outrageous that anyone would make an issue of the numbers of innocent people who died because of the federal government's starvation as a weapon of war policy. A similar argument would be to argue that Boko Haram insurgents are not evil because only a few scores and not thousands of innocent people died as a result of their insurgency?

Ojukwu was Biafra's leader. There is no one anywhere who knew the man who will argue that he did not expect Nigeria to try to stop Biafra's exit from Nigeria. He was well aware of the U.K.'s position on Nigeria and her influence on and support of the Gowon government. He might have believed for some time that the West Provinces would follow. He knew that belief was forlorn before he made his move. It is denied by some today that it was Ojukwu and not Gowon that freed Awolowo from Calabar prison. Ojukwu could have kept the man in prison up until what ever happened. He chose not to. The above and other disappointments and misinformation frayed feelings, hampered trust after the war, and made moving forward together more difficult.

Nigerians who do not fear the Igbo know that the Igbo are a freedom loving, can do, competitive people. It is these qualities that are mistaken innocently or not as they being an aggressive, arrogant, and clannish people. They are a much travelled people. They marry, are married and make home anywhere and everywhere. They are personal achievement driven. They buy, sell, invest, trade, and build anywhere and everywhere. The Igbo are the most invested in fixed assets outside their homeland. You do not do all the above if you have a short-term orientation to the life and relationships that you have, and the country in which you live.

As important as the presidency is, the Igbo desire the office more for its symbolism and what an Igbo president will do for Nigeria's political/economic and other development and growth than anything else. They know that to hold the office could not mean that they would be much better off than they are as individuals or as a people. Anyone who disagrees with this fact should look to see what Igbo Governors and Ministers have done for the Igbo on one hand and non-Igbos on the other, compared with what Non-Igbo parallel political office holders have done for their "people".  The Igbo pride themselves in individual success that is achieved "in spite of" rather than "because of". They respect and value that variety of success much more highly. The Igbo language is stuffed with phraseology that esteem self-made success and denigrates the opposite. It is in this context that the Igbo case of their marginalization should be understood and appreciated. That case has never been about "give me this day my daily bread" as it seems to be for some others.

It is too soon it seems to me for anyone to gloat over the end of the Jonathan presidency and the failure of the Igbo to see it coming. The Igbo did not see the Jonathan presidency as an Igbo presidency and therefore its end as a loss to them. They had no illusion that an Igbo was going to succeed Jonathan. Their concern about the Buhari presidency was mostly to do with the man's pedigree and their real and imagined group political knowledge and experience of him. Buhari now has a chance to change any  perceptions of him he believes might be unfair and wrong. Political battles in politics are characterized by swings and turns. Things change. Quite often times one outcome directly leads to an opposite outcome. Overtime the correlation of election outcomes are negative. You win the next election because you lost the last one.  You lose the next election because you won the last one.

Chinua Achebe was grossly misunderstood by anyone who believes that he meant to "hit the Yoruba hard" when he should be building alliances.  He never considered himself to be a politician much less an Igbo one. He joined the Aminu Kano's Peoples' Redemption Party in 1978, in the full knowledge that he was expected by those who did not know him to join the Nigerian Peoples' Party. His "There Was A  Country" was his attempt to document Nigeria's history as he say and lived it. Many of his critics were falling over themselves criticizing him without research-based knowledge of that history or even reading the book. Many still may have not. They will have to buy it first. He never believed that it was for him to forge an alliance of the Igbo and any other group. What he wanted and was grossly disappointed about was Nigerians and many other colonized peoples' failure by choice not hindrance, to make life more abundant for their people, as people of European ancestry and now some Asians have done by properly and rightly taking their destiny in their own hands.

Is the Nigeria project working? Not for the largest number. Can it work better? Yes but only if mass disaffection and frustration are seen for what they truly- a cry for credible and productive change for the better.

 

oa