Albert Ngene and Chuka ChukwuanuBy Albert Ngene and Chuka Chukwuanu
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Something about the election of ”The Solution” in Anambra State is getting people engaged in governance at an intellectual level. I hope to see more of that in the days ahead. I hope a version of these bouncing of ideas also goes on at the Oby Ezekwesili panel.
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Below is an objective rejoinder to Chief Mbazulike’s eyewitness account (comes up at the end) of the events that led Zik, Owelle of Onitsha to forfeit a golden opportunity to lead this country in 1979:
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When Ekwueme formed G-34 that transformed to PDP, Tinubu was in exile while Obasanjo was in prison.
Ekwueme garnered that structure to stop Abacha from transforming from military to civilian president. Amidst their struggle Abacha died and they turned it to a political party…PDP.
Remember that both the Chairman and Secretary of G-34 were Igbo men … Ekwueme and Timothy Nwala.
Also remember that Tim Nwala was charged with drafting the PDP Constitution. He delivered it in a timely manner.
That constitution was vivid on the terms that must be fulfilled before anyone could fly the presidential flag for the party.
The constitution had made it mandatory that you must deliver your ward and L.G.A to the party in the Local Government Elections before you can be deemed qualified.
But Obasanjo who was in prison when the Ekwueme put up that structure was brought out and the military manipulated the whole primaries for him.
Many were not happy when that happened as some told Ekwueme to go to court and get judgement on the premise that OBJ lost his ward and L.G.A to AD in the 1999 local government elections.
But rather than go to court, Ekwueme came home and called us to forget what happened and support Obasanjo.
Game was over.
For this singular reason, Lagos state government hosted Ekwueme’s birthday every year till he died.
Ekwueme told Igbos that for the sake of June 12 , Igbos needed to make the necessary sacrifice to pacify our Yoruba brothers and we nodded in agreement. Since then, the Yoruba have also produced the vice president with the help of Igbo men like Chibuike Amaechi, Rochas Okorocha, Chris Ngige, Ogbonnaya Onu, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba etc who threw in their weight for that project.
Flip back and forth on everything that happened during the war. Remember the 3 Rs agreement that was never kept.
If the Yoruba should be pacified because of June 12, will it not be fair that the Yoruba should remember even worse things that happened to the Igbo and consider pacifying them?
Ok, lets keep the war behind as you would always want us to. What of the love we have shown you since 1999?
Should we also put that behind us?
Many of you argue that Igbos have no right to ask for their mandate in APC because according you, APC is more of a Yoruba party.
Now may I also ask you what business had Obasanjo flying the presidential ticket of a party that was solely put together by Ndigbo?
A little retrospect into these details would give any discerning mind a clear view on why the Yoruba must support Igbo presidency this time.
Well we have a choice to either put these things into consideration or throw them to the wind.
We are ever ready to play politics of national integration but it must not be always on whims and caprices of other tribes.
#wewait
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Below is my rejoinder to Chief Mbazulike Amaechi:
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Oh no! We don’t wait.
We must get off our entitlement mentality and do some critical thinking:
The person whom the villagers rejected does not have to reject himself. – Ndigbo proverb
That said, I agree with the authenticity of all your observations, but not its conclusion.
My point is that the Biafra War showed us that we had no friends – we fought the rest of Nigeria with Great Britain join bodi, all alone.
(Not forgetting here that Ojukwu turned his back to an opportunity to partner with USSR, as we read recently in a dump of CIA secret files)
Dike Chukwumerije talks up nationality but actually the Igbo is the only one who powers that unrealized concept of “Nationness’ because he conducts his business and lives in every nook and cranny of this country.
However, I want us to evolve our thinking into seeing not malice in the political actions of our fellow travellers but a big marketplace:
We need to stop looking for a political solution where economic prospects exist.
The Igbo presidency is overrated.
Friendship also is overrated.
I can almost hear an average shopkeeper saying to a customer – “Buy market and pay up. Na special price I dey give you because you are my friend.”
Because in his mind, friendship is a little bit nuanced:
Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. 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. – Lord Palmerston
So, too, the permanent interest of Ndigbo is trade, therefore, a world class manufacturing base in the homeland should drive it.
Even a performer governor like Peter Obi is from a prosperous merchant clan in Onitsha. He sees his own vocation in governance, and rightly so, as working to create an enabling environment for businesses.
My argument is that it does not need to be at the centre.
Let’s look inwards. Let that be our new mindset. I don’t want us to expend creative energies to contest power with those who seek and capture power for it’s own sake.
As long as they give us assurances that the Civil War has ended. Obasanjo can speak up in that. It appeared he had a lot to say when PDP was in power. But less now that APC is in power.
Again, Igbo presidency is overrated.
What I need is scheduled ordinary summits of Southeast governors with a singular agendum to develop the Southeast with a step by step imitation of whatever Israel did –
That Israel that built a prosperous economy in a hostile neighbourhood.
Scheduled summits where they talk up infrastructure:
- Road network
- Short distance freight railroad network in the Southeast from one trade centre to another to relief congestion on our roads. (You know Amaechi is not bringing his Chinese to the Southeast)
- Retail power stations. Instead of humongous power stations perhaps we can build retail units to serve particular industries Oil mills in the palm oil belt, Aba shoes, Spare parts, etc.
- 5G digital should come to the Southeast before it gets to any other place
- There must be a 50 mile stretch you can build a canal in the SE. Hint: What’s the distance from Aro to Calabar River to the Atlantic seaboard?
- A propaganda ministry is needed to start promoting prospects in Igboland among the international merchants using Cotonou, Lome, and Sekondi Takoradi ports
Those are the kind of matters that should occupy the collaborative energies of our governors.
And while they are at it, is it possible to start engaging the Taiwanese?
The reality is that while the Chinese knows the Igbo international merchant picking up goods in Wuhan right now, the Chinese has made a political decision to align with Tinubu, Buhari, and Amaechi and the political centres they represent.
Check this out:
A bonfire of cast votes was made in Ire Akari in 2019 during Buhari’s second term election.
That dispelled any doubts remaining that argued that Tinubu empowered Buhari that first time in error.
After using ‘Alejo’ (strangers) to develop Lagos Mainland and Lagos Island, from Iga Idunganran to Badagry, from Apapa to Oshodi, from Idumagbo to Sango Otta, he now pointed to the Lekki phases and Eti Osa.
Perhaps, he sensed a resistance on part of the strangers to his implicit order. His response was to align with the Mbororo to demonstrate that, electorally speaking, Ndigbo is redundant. That one can deliver a president in a national election without Ndigbo block vote.
In 2015, Tinubu proved it beyond any reasonable doubt when he delivered Nigeria to the Mbororo Fulfulde.
But at what cost?
He needs now to prove that the fundamentals of the political economy of Lagos are strong with or without strangers.
That is the context that you need to view the trade zone Buhari desires in the Sahel and Sudanian savanna catchment area.
I expect us to rise up to that kind of strategic thinking.
Tinubu and Buhari wanna partner with the Chinese to get goods into Nigeria. The Chinese has promised to deliver and are building manufacturing hobs all along countries that are contiguous with Nigeria.
And in case you missed it:
1. Dangote has a refinery in Lagos
2. Indomie Noodles family is building a port in Lagos
3. Makinde inherited a plan for a dry dock in Ibadan. He is a forward thinking man, so you know that furious work is going on there.
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Below is the eyewitness to history account of Chief Mbazulike Amaechi that triggered this contest of ideas:
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Ndigbo lost a bright chance of producing the president of Nigeria in 1979. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe called me in April 1978 and told me as his field man in his time to go back to Nigeria and tell them that he wanted to come back to politics.
I went to Lagos, I contacted Shehu Shagari and asked him how do we work together to get this done? Shagari summoned two other people from the North; Shetima Ali Monguno and Sunday Awoniyi from Kwara State. Then I went with Azubuike Okafor and Dennis Osadebe.
We were holding meetings in Lagos at the residence of Shehu Shagari and I was reporting to Zik until we eventually agreed on a platform – National Party of Nigeria (NPN); that Zik will be the presidential candidate, while Shagari will be his running mate.
So, I came back and reported to Zik and he said ‘that’s good, you know it is the emirs in the North who determines; are you sure they will not knock it off?
So, I went back to Lagos and told Shagari this is the fear of the old man. He said of course we were in consultation with the emirs.
Then the following week, the Sultan of Sokoto sent the Emir of Zaria to Zik at Nsukka that the entire emirs in the North are in support of what the politicians are planning.
Again, Zik said ‘what about the soldiers? The soldiers may take up the government again if I run.
I asked him: ‘Owelle, if they kill you now, did they kill you early?’
I went back to Lagos and told Shagari that this is what Zik is saying about the army.
Shagari asked:
‘Does that man really want to be president?
Okay, I will get in touch with the army, come back in the evening, we will have dinner.’
That evening, I went back to his house in Victoria Island and Theophilus Danjuma came. Danjuma was the Chief of Army Staff then. So, the three of us had dinner and Shagari told Danjuma about the fear Zik expressed.
Danjuma said:
‘No, no, no, but this is the real man we want, this the type of person that we want that will bind this country together. I can’t go to Nsukka because if I go back to Nsukka the press will catch me. Alright, go back and tell Zik that I am going to Calabar on Saturday to Army Sports and I will make a speech at the Army Sports and in this speech I will send a message to him.’
On that day, Danjuma went to Calabar and made a speech. He said:
‘I am reassuring the nation that the army is ready to hand over finally to civilian government and return to barracks but they must warn that the person they will handover to must be an elder-binding person in this country, will not be a person who will come and cause trouble again, must be a true father of the nation.’
Suddenly, Jim Nwobodo lost nomination to Onoh in the party and went back to Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) and told:
Zik, dump whatever arrangements, come to NPP, NPP is our own party, Igbo party, we will put you in government.
Suddenly, Zik changed mind.
… He changed mind and made announcement that a plan for his birthday in November 1978 in Enugu is cancelled and it was that day he was to be presented to the nation.
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A motion to be moved by Maitama Sule from Kano to be seconded by Anthony Enahoro from the West, then I will speak last from the East. I went back to him on the 17th of November and asked Zik what happened and he told me:
‘Jim came to me that I should go back to my people and I don’t want to go to a party where Adisa Akinloye will be the national chairman and I don’t want to belong to the same party with K.O. Mbadiwe because of what Mbadiwe did to me.’
In my book, in which I wrote the history of Nigeria, you will see where I said:
‘Zik made Jim Nwobodo governor and unmade himself president.’
So, that was what happened.
In that birthday party that was aborted, Osadebe came, it was aborted and he went to Zik’s house but they did not allow him to see Zik.
They told him Zik was sick.
He started going back and had accident at night mile corner and got paralyzed till he died.
Mojeed Agbaje from Ibadan, a close associate of Adegoke Adelabu came for the party at Enugu and it was aborted.
He went to Nsukka to see Zik and he was told that Zik was not feeling fine and he couldn’t see anybody.
On his way back he had accident and died four of them in his car died at Ore.
That was how we lost the opportunity of becoming the president and the party went and nominated Shagari.
Then on the 13th of January, 1978 at Kwara State Hotel, we were in campaign tour and Shagari was to announce his running mate, so, he called me in the hotel with Akinloye the national chairman and told me that he has selected me to be his running mate.
I told him thank you very much. I said as a sincere man, I can see myself for a lower position when Zik is running against me, I can’t run against Zik, I can’t run an election to defeat Zik, Igbo people will not forgive me and my children will not be able to explain it.
So, I nominated Alex Ekwueme to be the running mate.
That was how we had the opportunity we had.
Again, during this Fourth Republic, Ekwueme ran and the same Jim Nwobodo ran to the North again and betrayed Ekwueme at the Jos convention when the Peoples Democratic Party PDP was selecting its presidential candidate.
The same Jim Nwobodo …
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It’s not ancestral curse. It is weakness of character.
Whenever history called no Julius Nyerere- or Patrice Lumumba- or Nelson Mandela-type persona of a statesman has ever come out of Igboland.
No one ever rose to the moment on our behalf.
It is a sad and tragic and crying shame that Zik of Africa was at the centre of the events at independence, on January 1966, and in 1979 that left Ndigbo without a chair when the music stopped.
Ohaneze is concerned with the socio-political ramifications of our participation in the Nigeria project. The Think Tank I have in mind is both philosophical and technical – way of tasking them to come with workable ideas.
Mr. Albert Ngene, a Pharmacist, writes from Atlanta, United States of America.
Albert Ngene
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