hurried midnight meeting of five South-East governors in Abakaliki on Sunday. They preached unity but were roundly denounced by pro- Biafra agitators who seem bent on a suicidal mission to separate from Nigeria.
The current political dilemma in Igbo land must, therefore, be seen for what it is. It is primarily the outcome of a colossal failure on the part of the establishment across the region to correctly read, predict and preempt the mood of the frustrated teeming youths who are in want of efficient leadership to harness and deploy resources for the greatest good.
The governors of the South- East, past and present, must hide their heads in shame. They must take responsibility for creating the Kanu monster that is threatening the stability of the entire country. Bare-faced looting of meagre state resources, boot-licking, nepotism, mal-administration, criminal neglect of both the young and elderly, enthronement of cronyism and corruption are some of the igniting factors for Kanu’s rise to power.
In Okorocha’s Imo, for instance, the governor shamelessly admits that his wife, Nneoma, oversees activities in three government ministries, including the Amnesty Programme with budgets running into billions of Naira. Elsewhere, it has become common knowledge that his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, is being schemed to succeed his father-in-law, Okorocha, in two years time. Who keeps shut in the face of such abuse of power?
The story out of Umahi’s Ebonyi is even more disturbing. The governor unwittingly tells all and sundry that he has no ideas of what it means to harness the potential of his domain, a State so blessed with agrarian resources. Or, what would you make of a man whose only reason for wanting to opt out of any restructuring or Biafra conversation is because he believes that Ebonyi is too economically disadvantaged to join the fray.
The toddler governors allowed the perceived injury done to Ndigbo to fester. They lack solid balls of the sort that Kanu is brandishing everywhere. They allowed themselves to become sitting targets because of short term gains that mattered to just a small clique of crumb-seeking errand boys. They failed to raise their voices when it was most expedient and must now clutch on Kanu’s aprons to seek future relevance.
The other salient point that must be noted is that the emergence of a powerful new force in Kanu is a desperate attempt to challenge the status quo that is largely perceived as having seriously marginalized the region and deprived its people of access to power at the centre.
If later day revelations are to be believed, and this has allegedly been reinforced by ailing President Muhammadu Buhari, the sustained northern pursuit of tagging Ndigbo as a group of people never to be trusted with power does more to challenge the hypocritical posturing of a country supposedly founded on equity, fairness and justice.
The Kanu enigma is real but this could evaporate as quickly as it came. The defined path to his Biafra dream looks just as clumsy as it is hazy. I have searched everywhere for the Igbo intelligentsia and still can’t locate them in the horizon. Where is the road map for this journey to nationhood? This whole project seems to be about the Supreme Leader, Chief Priest and Messiah, all rolled up into one individual, Kanu!
The Afara-born rebel may be basking in the sun but he must choose not to play Emperor and god if this struggle is to endure or last.
Ibemere writes from Lagos
