Buhari: Every Circle is a Dot and Every Dot is a Circle | #IgbereTV
By: Nnanna Okoroafor
Just when you thought we had seen the worst of prejudiced and unpresidential pettiness, the president just hit a new low in his desperation to malign and oppress the Igbo nation. According to him, the Igbo nation which he equates with IPOB is “just like a dot in a circle.” He sees no future for the people although “they spread all over the country, having businesses, having property.” Had this sort of crass bigotry come from the ranks of Boko Haram, it would be bad enough; but coming from the president of a republic of over 250 ethnic nationalities is, to say the least, revolting.
Nevertheless, President Buhari must realize that every circle begins with a dot, and every dot is its own circle no matter how little its circumference. The Igbo nation may be a dot today due to the civil war losses and the resultant spatial gerrymandering orchestrated by men like him, but it is still a circle and a big circle at that. The Southeast may be a dot to the president, but it is by no means an insignificant dot. That dot was around before this government of anarchy and division, and it will be around long after the grubby despot is gone. One thing is clear: Ndigbo will never bow to him because he is not their “Chi”.
The president is smirking that even if the Igbo want to exit the Nigerian project, “they would have no access to anywhere.” In other words, the Southeast will be landlocked should they eventually secede. He beats his chest that the South-South people are so happy with him they offered a double assurance of no secession. His optimism is probably buoyed by the actions and pronouncements of a certain estranged cousin-governor who likes to gloat about his victimization of Ndigbo. The president also commented on Ndigbo being all over Nigeria doing business and acquiring wealth. It is not hard to see envy at play. It hurts the man so badly that despite all his efforts to destroy the people, they are still spreading beyond the scope of their dot “having businesses, having property.” Well, he needs to understand that “mmadu aburo chi ibe ya!”
However, let the president not be too sure about what other ethnic groups are up to; he should not put his money on others electing to remain in his kind of Nigeria if the opportunity arises. He might be in for a shocker. Mr. President talks passionately about his reprimand of a Frenchman for the colonial drawing of artificial boundaries in Africa that separated him from his cousins in the Niger Republic, but he is at the same time clinging to the artificial boundaries drawn by Gowon and Co. between Ndigbo and their cousins in the old Eastern Region. He seems certain that Ndigbo will be in perpetual enmity with their closest neighbours and I wish him well in that delusion. Mr. President is more worried about the Ndigbo not having access to the sea than his cousins in Niger with 80 percent of their landmass sitting in the Sahara Desert and their capital city being 985 kilometres away from the nearest sea access in Porto Novo (Benin Republic). The president is more concerned about Igboland being landlocked than his cousins in Niger who, despite having the largest country in West Africa, are still some of the poorest people on planet earth.
The president blames the Boko Haram insurgency on massive hunger in the Northeast but thinks the agitations in the Southeast are caused by ignorance on the part of the agitators. He blames the Nigerian youth for the failure of his economic policies. He blames the Southwest governors for the Fulani herdsmen attacks in Yorubaland. He blames the closure of grazing routes for the carnage in the North-Central. He then hopes that Nigerians will be fair in their assessment of him, and I share that hope with him. The bad news is that it will not be up to him to determine what is fair, and the worse news is that he does not have much time left to launder his battered image.
Let me assure you, Mr. President, that the Igbo nation is already looking beyond your time. We might be a dot in your estimation but a nation before God and the rest of the world. We might be a dot in your eyes, but every dot is a circle on its own. We might be a dot in your thinking but let me assure you that every circle begins with a dot.
