Each time I see the large army of youths following Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), I shake my head in pity for the Igbo political leadership, especially those with mandate to speak for their people.

Anytime I see Kanu and his crowd, what immediately comes to my mind is the glaring erosion of the power and influence of those elected to be  the voice for the South East.

All the IPOB leader has to do is announce a visit to any location, and a great multitude of young and energetic people will besiege that particular place.  A few days ago,  IPOB members went gaga over alleged plan to rearrest Kanu.

Many times, I had wondered if any of the political office holders/leaders in the zone can ever muster that kind of followership in Igbo land including in their immediate localities. There is no doubt that the Biafra movement is spreading like wild fire in the South east. Angered by the pitiable lot of the Igbo in the Nigerian system, the youths in the area join IPOB in droves at least to them, it portends hope.

I do not begrudge the IPOB leader, his “messiahic” status; hence, this piece is actually not about the Biafra agitators and their modus operandi. It is indeed about the implication for the elected representatives of the South East, particularly in the National Assembly.

Generally, the current obsession for Biafra mainly by the youth in the South east is seen as a move to get the region out of Nigeria.  But what many do not know is that the massive buy in into the agitation by a large army of angry youths is not only a protest against the Nigerian state.

For me, it is more of a vote of no confidence on the political leadership of the zone, particularly those at the federal level. Like most of their colleagues in the National Assembly, South east federal legislators have undeniably failed their people.

When it comes to federal government, members of the House of Representatives are presumably closest to the people.  This is because while a senator represents as much as five or more local government areas, the House of Representatives member in most cases represents one or two local government areas. The implication is that it ordinarily would be easier for the people to reach the lawmaker representing a federal constituency on issues that have to do with the federal government.

However, what I don’t know is whether the House of Representatives members from the zone understand the important position they occupy in the scheme of things.  If they do, they have not done much to show it. Over time, South east lawmakers by their actions and inactions have alienated themselves from the people, they claim to represent.

Suffice it to say that Nnamdi Kanu only rose to fill the leadership gap in the Igbo land.  The cult like followership he enjoys today is an indictment on Igbo political leaders particularly the federal lawmakers. The truth is that often time, the Igbo lawmaker shies away from salient issues affecting his people. Like the ostrich, they find it more convenient to hide their heads in the sand in the face of trouble.

Take for instance, when a coalition of Arewa Youths issued the vexatious notice for the Igbo in northern Nigeria to vacate the region by October 1, nothing much was heard from south east caucus of the House of Reps led by Hon Chukwuka Onyema.

The length and breadth of the South East is being ravaged by herdsmen, and not much is heard from them too. Apart from the South East Development Commission(SEDC) bill, which was thrown out in the House of Representatives,  the Igbo lawmakers in the House have not done much to address the plight of their people in the last two years.

Methinks that the rising army of Biafra agitators should be a wakeup call to the South east lawmakers.  It is time for a paradigm shift; Igbo lawmakers must change the way they represent their people.  It must no longer be business as usual.

With the House resumption for the third legislative year later next week, it is imperative for the South east caucus to come up with a strategic legislative plan on how to address the perceived neglect of the zone and other issues that gave rise to agitations in the zone.

Top on this  this legislative agenda should be the creation of an additional state in the zone to bring it at per with other zones in the country. Not a few people will think that getting an additional state for the South East is akin to a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Yet, it is a genuine demand which realisation would help in righting the wrong and dousing the palpable tension in the land.

Many might even argue that it is impossible for a civilian administration to create a state, so there should be no need trying.  But it happened in the first republic, when the defunct Mid-Western Region was created out of Western Region.  If it can happen then, it can also happen now.

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There is no doubt that the South east does not get its fair share of things in the country. However, I firmly believe that the marginalisation of the Igbo in the country can be addressed if their elected representatives pursue it conscientiously. It may take time. I agree. But no matter how long it takes, as my Edo brothers would say, “a stammerer must pronounce his father’s name.”

It is the interest of South east federal lawmakers to see the unfolding developments in their zone as a clarion call to rise up to their duties as elected representatives of the people.  South East lawmakers cannot pretend that all is well with their zone.  All is not well as these are perilous times in Igbo land.  They must constructively engage both their constituents and the federal government for the benefit of their zone.

The lawmakers have a choice to, individually and collectively, use the two years remaining in their tenure to redeem themselves.  If they do that, it will be to their benefit.  But if they decide, otherwise, their political careers may not survive the time bomb that IPOB currently represents in the zone.

Point of Order…

The 1999 Constitution (as amended) empowers the National Assembly to carry out oversight functions.  Apart from the jumbo pay and other benefits the lawmakers enjoy, the oversight function is one thing that makes the law making business in Nigeria very enticing.

Oversight gives lawmakers enormous influence over Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that they oversee. Through this avenue, the legislature is able conduct investigations into the activities of the MDAs.

Consequently, it is common to see lawmakers, who are often absent at plenary and committee sittings showing up during oversight visits to the MDAs. Ironically, the country appears not to be benefitting much from the many oversight duties, the various House committees embark on from time to time as these visits are fast turning to mere courtesy visits.  Many Nigerians believe that if the oversight functions are performed effectively, the many cases of bogus budget proposals, lopsided project implementation, irregular appointments and promotions and other issues that are raised on the floor of the House on regular basis would not arise.

It therefore becomes imperative for the House leadership to compel the various committees to be alive to their duties otherwise there would not be need for them in the first instance.


New realities on a troubled Peninsula

The latest phase of the crisis on the Korean Peninsula demonstrates the tenuous nature of positions, interests, and realities in the international system. It is one system that is uniquely fluid – existing in a permanent state of flux, in all ramifications. This is what provided context for its characterization by Lord Palmerston as a milieu in which friendship and enmity are wholly shifty; where only the interests of players bear the semblance of permanence. Speaking of England, in the House of Commons on March 1, 1848, the English lord proclaimed what came to be regarded as a cardinal rule of global diplomacy thus, ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.’ Extant crisis on the Korean Peninsula is simply about a new reality, which the wider world, not without a reason though, is quite reluctant to acknowledge and relate with. This is, hate it or leave it, the arrival of a nuclear-armed North Korea, and the change in strategic engagement in the region, nay the world, that should ordinarily be attendant upon that. 

Without much regard to this new reality, the United States and its allies, especially in the north Pacific region, continue to stand on the increasingly tenuous position of the United Nations that the Korean Peninsula be denuclearized. History suggests that this is a laudable objective, though. What with the horrific memories usage of the atomic bomb in World War II continue to evoke? To be sure, a nuclear war is one, which, as Jimmy Carter noted in 1979, ‘in horror and destruction and human death will dwarf all the combined wars of man’s long and bloody history!’ Elsewhere, he cautioned that ‘The survivors (of a nuclear war), if any, would live in despair amid the poisoned ruins of a civilization that had committed suicide.’ With this in focus, the moral platform on which a programme of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is predicated cannot be faulted. The challenge begging to be dealt with, however, is hinged on what the US has chosen to do in pushing this agenda, to wit, denial that indeed, North Korea has crossed the Rubicon and become nuclear armed!

To be sure, ours cannot be anything but the age of realpolitik. Were it not so, the question would have some significance, why the US that is itself armed-to-the-teeth with the nuclear bomb, would at the same time claim the moral authority to dispute other nations’ right to own what it already owns. It is evident that the regime in Pyongyang is truly in awe of what it assumes is the determination of Washington to destroy it, and lay its country to waste. Thus, for the regime, only a credible nuclear arsenal is its ultimate protection against US aggression; a position that, with the benefit of hindsight, comes with some degree of credibility. What with the way Libya, which under pressure from the West, dismantled its own nuclear weapons programme, has come to look like, consequent upon the regime change proclivity of the United States. How does that fear get allayed, such that amassing nuclear weapons, or preparing to ‘fight to finish’ with this terribly bad weapon becomes rather otiose for the North Koreans? Methink this is the challenge before global diplomacy today.   The queer logic of realpolitik allows everybody to wink at the contradiction inherent in a nuclear armed US moralizing on the inadmissibility of other nations into the nuclear club. That same logic now compels a huge paradigm shift in attitude towards North Korea. It requires that the US government, and indeed the United Nations, acknowledge the arrival of Pyongyang on the nuclear platform. The world then must begin to figure out ways of treating this rogue nation as a nuclear power, no matter how irritating that is. This, it is evident, is all the North Koreans think they deserve. It is what they want.

As things stand now, it is clear that blustering on the part of the US will not achieve much. Additional sanctions, as Vladimir Putin has now indicated, will also not just be unnecessary, but wholly ineffectual. The North Koreans, according to the Russian leader, will rather eat grass than abandon their atomic energy programme! At any event, the Kim dynasty has demonstrated well enough over the years that it cannot be bothered by the negative outcomes of additional sanctions on the country. It has taken time to condition its population to accept the most excruciating forms of privation as synonymous with service to the fatherland. Where does the world go from here?

In the past few days, Washington has made it clear that it has ran out of patience with North Korea. Its UN Ambassador, Nikky Haley, has assured the world that on North Korea, America’s patience is not unlimited. The Defense Secretary, General James Mattis, promised ‘massive retaliation,’ in the event that the North Koreans choose to press their luck too far. Their principal, President Donald Trump, had set the ball rolling by promising the North Koreans ‘fire and fury’ – like the world had not seen before! Meanwhile, the North Korean leader struts around with some queer confidence in his ability to inflict real damage on the United States. In the rhetoric of war, Carter’s admonition on the practical uselessness of nuclear weapons seems to be lost. Henry Kissinger once confirmed that when the US was putting nuclear weapons in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, it really did not know what to do with them. Everybody knew that these weapons, in spite of costing humongous amounts of money, were not supposed to be used. This is because the victory that a nuclear confrontation is capable of giving can at best only be pyrrhic – one that is so damaging and destructive, so tainted that it is not worthy of celebration. The question then is, why the concern, given that everyone knows that nuclear warfare is a ‘no, no’?

This is where the factor of miscalculation comes in. In 1963, J. F. Kennedy spoke truthfully on the reality of nuclear armament thus, ‘Every man, woman, or child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness.’ The world has come to a stage now in which it is not just that Kim Jong-un will not give up his nuclear programme as Putin has noted. There is indeed the possibility that things could spiral out of control if the maximum ruler in Pyongyang is convinced that a harsher fate awaits him, his regime, dynasty and country, if he does not act expeditiously. That is why the ‘fire and fury’ rhetoric of President Trump is worrisome. There is the possibility that a Trump desperately searching for respect at home and abroad; a man largely driven by ego, and the need to live the machismo image he tries to cultivate, may trigger a preemptive attack on North Korea. Lacking in the depth and sobriety needed to appreciate the true nature of a nuclear warfare, therefore, makes Trump a present danger in the evolving situation.

Prof. Mimiko, mni, is of the Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.