In this interview with LEKE BAIYEWU, a former Minister of Health, Prof. A.B.C. Nwosu, speaks on the issues surrounding the emergence of an Igbo as president in Nigeria
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently called on the Igbo to take shot at the presidency in 2019. Do you appreciate his call?
We thank him for saying it but he is not the person who will tell us when we want to become president of our country.
Why do you say that?
Obasanjo contested in 1999 against Dr. Alex Ekwueme. He also contested in 2003 when Dr. Ekwueme had declared (his intention to contest) and he won. So, it is not the first time people of Igbo extraction or affiliation have indicated interest in the presidency but they were stopped. Most importantly, Ndigbo feel insulted when somebody from outside tells them what to do. It wasn’t the Igbo who told other ethnic groups when it was their turn to have it. Telling us what to do, no matter how well meaning it is, doesn’t go down well with the Igbo. The Igbo people think they have enough leaders, wise men and more sensible people who can sit down for the South-East and determine what their political trajectory should be in Nigeria. It would also feel insulting if Dr. Ekwueme should advise the Yoruba to go for the presidency; or Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe or Ike Nwachukwu advising the Fulani or other zones on when they should be president. I think the Igbo should be left alone to determine where they want to go. If you want to support, please support them. If you don’t want to support them, when they have made up their mind, you also have the right to do so. But to give us an unsolicited advice like that, when you don’t really know what we want, is an insult to the South-East.
Former President Obasanjo was my boss; he is an elder statesman and we respect him very much, but respect is reciprocal. If he didn’t know it, he should know that Igbo people feel very sensitive about being tele-guided on what to do. And if you want to remember what (late) Professor Chinua Achebe said about the East, it has to do with this kind of thing. That was why he refused to accept national honours. I think that is why most Igbo will take sides with Achebe on matters like this. People should leave us to determine what we want to do.
You said Obasanjo contested against your man…
He didn’t contest against my man; he contested against an Igbo person in 1999. He also contested against the intention of an Igbo man in 2003; and he moved against somebody (Peter Odili) who, even though was from another zone (South-South), had massive Igbo support in 2007. And we wondered that after being president in 1999, he gave away some of our chances away then. We begin to wonder why it is now — in 2019.
But Obasanjo is widely believed to have been instrumental to the emergence of former President Goodluck Jonathan, who is from the minority South-South, in 2011. Do you think he can’t work for the South-East too?
Obasanjo upheld the zoning formula of the Peoples Democratic Party. The first pillar in which the PDP was founded was that there should be zoning. The presidency was zoned to the South-West. Some people, including those of us who were founders of the PDP, believed that it had to do with the annulment of the June 12 (1993) election. The South-West zone had two terms. That is why I didn’t hold it against him in 2003 when he went for the second term. The reason why (Umaru) Yar’Adua had it in 2007 before Jonathan took over was for the North to also have it for two terms. In the PDP, we were convinced that it was the death of Yar’Adua in office that broke the two terms. Jonathan insisted on doing another term and the North said no, it was not the agreement. There is a minutes of meeting by the PDP, presided over by Obasanjo where the zoning (formula) was upheld. The zoning still exists. I am in the PDP and I won’t want to disrupt the zoning plan. We can meet again to change the zoning but it is not one person who will sit down and say ‘you, go and do this; you, go and do that.’ That is not good. That is not how a country is run. Countries are not run on people; countries are run on norms, consensus, agreement and goodwill.
Some South-East leaders have alleged that other zones are afraid of having an Igbo person as president since the Civil War ended. Do you also believe in this conspiracy theory?
The Igbo, including myself, are convinced that the rest of the country suspect us and will do anything to block us from becoming president. This is not just the average feeling in the South-East, it is also my strong feeling. Why the rest of the country will always agree to exclude the Igbo from the presidency, I have yet to understand. If the rest of the country believes that it is an unreasonable position that we hold, it is left for the country to behave in a matter that removes this firmly held belief by the average Igbo man. For me, it is this feeling that ‘you don’t want me to be’ that makes me ask myself ‘why don’t you want me to be?’ I am convinced that I want to be because there is something I can offer. But if you don’t want me to offer that thing, why don’t I offer it to my zone? I think that is the current prevailing feeling.
If any Igbo person tells you that he or she does not think that the dice is loaded against him or her by the rest of the country, that Igbo person is telling you a lie. Also, if anybody tells you that the Igbo man’s main thinking is to become president and make it a do-or-die affair,that also is not true. The Igbo man does not want to become president at all cost. The only thing an Igbo man wants is for everybody to have unfettered access to federal power. There is nobody who rules the Igbo nation in the South-East; all the five states (in the zone) have governors. It is the federal, which is the centre, that was created by all the zones who reached a consensus. But other zones are saying they don’t want a particular zone; that is the issue. A common Igbo proverb says a person rejected by others does not reject himself. This is the current thinking and I believe that with the new direction of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, we will pursue it, if the rest of the country is happy with it.
Is the feeling of marginalisation the reason for the recent uprising by groups in the South-East?
We are not even talking of marginalisation anymore. I personally hate that word “marginalisation.” We are not talking of marginalisation. I am not talking of marginalisation; I am talking of the assertion of my citizenship rights. Many people fail to understand what the Igbo people want. Because of my very close association with the late Igbo leader, Odimegwu Ojukwu, I know that the Igbo’s intention is not to dominate anybody. The Igbo want to have a say in the control of central power in Nigeria. We desire that when we gather to take decisions on Nigeria, we should be there. We should not be begging to be there because it (South-East) is a significant part of Nigeria — in population and otherwise. If you exclude us, Nigeria will limp.
On the issue of calls for secession, who is calling for secession? People don’t understand what the agitation is all about. The agitation is about injustice and there is no society that thrives on injustice. How many Igbo leaders have you seen condemning them? That is because there is no Igbo leader who likes injustice. Even on the issue of slavery in America, the Igbo rebelled; they didn’t like it. One of my favourite persons in terms of resentment and resistance of injustice is Rosa Park. She was shown at the Capitol when Donald Trump was sworn in. I remember what she said during the first “boycott.” She said, “I am in favour of anything that my people do to show that they are dissatisfied with the way they are being treated in America.” Most people are dissatisfied with the way they are being treated in Nigeria — those from the South-East zone. That is why you see all kinds of fallouts and you see the Indigenous People of Biafra here and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Soverign State of Biafra there. It is not one movement. Everybody is saying (the government should) talk to this people (agitators) and dialogue with them.
Nobody owns Nigeria. It is exceedingly insulting for me to see somebody saying and showing he is more patriotic than I am to Nigeria. My track record as minister of health does not show that. When I was minister, I served Nigeria — I served the North, I served the South, I served the East and I served the West — to the best of my ability. Injustice is wrong and once we all realise that injustice is wrong, we will be able to talk to anybody from the East, West, South or North. The aim of Nigerians must be to build a fair and just society. But if some people feel they can rule forever, they will live the term apportioned to them on earth and all of us will die. Some of us will die before others. And the day we die, we will go and the problems will continue. You won’t know what will happen to your beloved children whose fees you’re trying to pay with gold, while the children of others pay their school fees with the dung of animals
