By SKC Ogbonnia
THIS outlook coupled with a stoic indifference by the president triggered outrage in the land. It straightaway provoked the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), then a sedate outfit, to declare “that Buhari is not seeing Ndigbo as part of Nigeria .” The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was not to be left behind, as it heightened its call for secession from the country.
Their activities, however, were met with brute force, including the detention without bail of its leader, Nnamdi Kalu. This plight is today commonly linked to the birth of a new militant group under the auspices of Niger Delta Avengers. We are all living witnesses to the economic repercussions of the Biafran movement and their Avengers ever since.
The title of this piece will not be apt if the empathy for the current wave of Igbo marginalization did not flow past east of River Niger . Recognizing that the ruling party treated it as business as usual, the opposition from the highly influential Southwest Nigeria led by the trio of Ayo Fayose, Femi Fani-Kayode, and Femi Aribisala capitalized on the saga to strike back.
What just took place here, and painfully so, is that Muhammadu Buhari has inadvertently provided a lifeline for the corrupt brigade of the immediate past regime—from the east, north, and west—to resurface and now grandstand as latter-day fighters against injustice to the people of the Southeast. And what followed, thereafter, was a montage of propaganda that successfully painted the president as an unapologetic bigot determined to punish not only the Igbo but also the entire Christian-dominated South.
The development caught the attention of the Northern zone of the Christian Association of Nigeria, which lamented as follows: “while there were volumes of allegations from the South that the appointments made so far were in favour of the north, facts on the ground revealed that those appointments were lopsided in favour of Muslim north to the detriment of Northern Christian community.”
More dauntingly, many blame part of the current crisis on Buhari’s economic policy, particularly foreign exchange, which is believed to be tribally skewed to specially benefit his Fulani kinsmen who control bureaux de change across the country.
Today, not only is the national economy in recession, the negative opinion of Buhari is growing beyond our shores. Although a number of world leaders showered praises on him during the recent UN session in New York for giant strides against corruption and terrorism, which is very gratifying, a creeping concern within the international community remains that Nigeria’s president is a dictator, tribalist, sectionalist, misogynist, and religious bigot—all in one person.
This emerging view—whether real or not—explains why US Congressman Tom Marino, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on a September 1, 2016 letter, would warn the United States to withhold selling arms to Nigeria until Buhari demonstrates true “commitment to inclusive government and the most basic tenets of democracy: freedom to assemble and freedom of speech.”
This spectre is gloomy, square. It does not bode well for an economy in recession. In short, it scares away investment whether local or foreign, especially in this era of economic globalization where millions of Nigerians in the Diaspora, the Igbo well included, represent the convex lens through which the world sees Nigeria.
This also goes to say that even as President Buhari might have done a good job in the area of corruption, the fact that he is generally perceived as condoning gross injustice in other area renders his entire efforts pyrrhic.
The central problem is complex and thus difficult to capture at once. But the solution is quite simple. For every question raised in this essay sufficiently answers itself. Buhari has to simply trek back to where the rain started beating him and make amends. Allowing the problem to linger not only threatens the chances of economic revival but also the hard-earned change.
Even if he is not thinking of 2019, which he should, Mr. President cannot feign ignorance of the fact that his queasy quandary with the Legislature has his Igbo problem written all over it. Very true!
– Concluded
Ogbonnia writes from Texas, US [email protected]