Columns
Biafra, IPOB, OUK: How are the mighty fallen *Tale of a fallen hero!
By Sunny Igboanugo
Friends, Nigerians, countrymen! Lend me your ears! I have come to condemn Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and not to praise him! The evil that men do, in the past, lives after them, but today, not only lives after them, but with them. And so, it is with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who is today having his well-deserved comeuppance as a sole occupant in the dark, sticky and cold dungeon of the Sokoto Prison.
Yes! Such a deserving reward for a man who killed 30,000 of his brothers. Yes! You heard that – you heard well – you heard right – 30,000 souls wasted. Yes! Orji Uzor Kalu was keeping records. And you know, OUK is an honourable man! Was he not governor of Abia State at a time? Is he not a Senator now? Who should know if not the wise man from Igbere, Bende Local Government of Abia State?
Now, let me tell you what you might not know about OUK and this Biafra that has now brought such calamity of colossal proportion to Ndigbo through IPOB? How many of you, dear compatriots know that it was through this Biafra that OUK met his political nemesis – or waterloo – if you like?
How? You would ask me and I’ll answer. OUK, was at a point one of the most popular Onye Igbo living on mother earth. He was even as popular as MNK, if not more popular. I shall prove this because I was at the centre of it all. You know Ndigbo are forever in search of a mouthpiece or authentic leadership. At that time OUK provided both. It started with that outing on that day in the year 2000. I remember vividly, as a reporter representing The Guardian in Enugu.
We all had rushed to Hotel Presidential in the state capital, where the then five South East governors had met. It was yet another cry of marginalisation against Ndigbo in Obasanjo government as President. While his colleagues appeared reticent, cagy and prevaricating on the raison d’etre, it was this selfsame OUK that took the gauntlet and spoke forcefully. The next day, the headlines told the story. Newspapers were awash, feasting on Kalu’s acerbic words that lacerated the President deeply.
Of course, Obj, not one to be browbeaten or let sleeping dogs lie roared back like the lion he was. But surprisingly, while his other colleagues recoiled and returned to their shells like disturbed snails, OUK stood tall and fought back, sparing no unkind words in confronting Baba Iyabo. That was it! Ndigbo had found another man of courage to tell their story and confront their foes.
I still recall that fateful day at the Federation Hall, Hotel Presidential in Enugu in 2021. It was OUK’s day at that year’s edition of World Igbo Day Summit, organised by the World Igbo Congress, a conglomeration propelled by Igbo leaders in the various parts of the word teaming up with like minds at home in a forceful move to create a new base of Igbo leadership.
The only person that had created such crowd in the quantity, but quality of attendance, was the late Ikemba Nnewi, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Remember the Ezeigbogburugburu at such rare events like the 2004 Mkpoko Igbo meeting in Enugu. I recall how people were practically sitting on each other’s heads and how even an ant could not crawl freely by – how the doors and windows were thrown open and people who found no space inside the hall, primed themselves by the windows and stretching their necks to at least catch his words if they couldn’t see him.
It was at that event that Kalu referred to Igbo leaders as “errand boys” to people in authority. Remember how the media celebrated that event and feasted with that headline! It was not only OUK’s words that travelled far and wide. His image and influence too.
In fact, I remember a particularly personal experience. I had visited one of OUK’s colleagues, a governor with whom I had more than a formal relationship.
I recall as we discussed freely on every subject matter in the world including the obvious gossips men engage in. I had already destroyed two criminally-cold Odeku, which I downed with tastefully-spiced, highly-tempting assorted roast goat meat on the centre table in front of me and was on the third, when my friend, introduced the OUK matter.
“This thing Orji is saying. I agree with him. I admire him,” my friend had ventured. “But you know I can’t do it,” he added – an unsolicited angle that implied an admixture of several emotions ranging from admiration, envy, frustration and even lamentation about his own inability. “But you’re more educated that him,” I interjected, to which he offered again – “but I can’t.”
That was OUK at that time. But then, the cookie crumbled. Nobody knows what entered his head. It must have been the story of that nwa nza, who ate so much and became so full that he challenged his chi to a wrestling match. One morning, Nigerians woke up to screaming headlines in various national newspapers.
One screamed: “Kalu apologises for Ndigbo fighting Biafran war!” That was it. It was like the man who built the Burj Khalifa coming one night to bury dynamites at the base, igniting it to bring the world’s tallest building down to rubbles. A gale of anger swept across Igboland. Denunciation, odium, insult, curses! They came in torrents from individuals and groups. They disavowed; they denounced? Nwataa ekwuwaa onu! Who sent him?
Having been blown-up from the foundation, the intricately-organic, boisterous and humongous trust architecture erected on the Igbo question in Nigeria has since crumbled – dissolving and disappearing like salt on impact with water leaving the once dearly-loved OUK empty and vulnerable. But OUK is a wise man. He wouldn’t be where he is today without that highly-prized element of survival – wisdom – street-wisdom as we call it here.
He has since done the needful – he simply took his equipment elsewhere. Today, he is the official and unofficial mouthpiece of the same forces he appeared to have detested so much in that short period of his reign as, what did they call him then? – The authentic Igbo leader. He has firmly displaced the errand boys of Igboland and assumed their role with the same boldness and fearlessness he confronted Obj to the admiration of even his colleagues.
What is more? APC, has offered him the platform! Today, he is the one preening, burnishing, deodorising, advertising and trumpeting every fetid, stinking, smelly, scheme dished out against Ndigbo from the APC mountainous compost.
Yes! Every putrid, decomposed and rotten element from the APC dumpsite is now handed over to him to clean up and throw to the people as their due offering – the same people he claims to love and lead.
Just as he was never far from his “friend” Muhammadu Buhari, today he is not only by the side of Bola Tinubu, his supposed mate in the class of ’99, but apparently squats somewhere in the ante-room of the Villa, waiting for the bell summoning him to another errand to take to his people.
That is the only reason he will look Ndigbo, nay, the world in the face and tell them that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu killed 30,000 Igbo people – probably more than Osama Bin Laden did as leader of Al-Qaeda. Or wasn’t that what he meant? Don’t ask me if he deliberately withhold the angle of his “friend” – Buhari in the details of those deaths, which he gleefully fielded out to his audience. Ask him when you see him.
More importantly, ask him also, did these 30,000 wasted souls include the young men massacred at the Onitsha Headbridge for just waving the Biafran flag which Buhari considered an act of terrorism? Did it include those wasted through the bullets of Buhari’s men at a school in Emene Enugu, or those men and women seen in a primary school, said to be somewhere in Okigwe, clapping and singing, when men dressed in military gears arrived, knelt down, took aim as in a shooting range and opened fire on? Even Buhari, OUK’s friend could not brace himself to watch the replay when confronted with the video in his interview with Al-Jazeera.
Did it include those who died in Operation Python Dance, including those who were mowed down in Kanu’s Afara Ukwu home in Umuahia, OUK’s backyard.
Yes! OUK told Ndigbo not to be emotional at the fate of MNK but hold him responsible for those 30,000 souls. Why not? But before then, he also needs to clear another intriguing factor? How come since the death of his idol all seem to have suddenly gone quiet with the UGM? How come the same UGM whom Buhari, a General in the Nigerian Army and a former Military Head of State, couldn’t deal with are now being smoked out from their fortresses like bush rats.
How come that they are now being demystified? Recent videos have shown people in Ihiala, Orsu, Lilu and other communities in Anambra and Imo, who had been sacked by the so-called UGM are now returning to their home, clearing the bushes and restoring their houses?
Surprisingly, they are doing so under Tinubu – a bloody civilian – at the death of Buhari – a General? What happened? What magic did Tinubu do? Did I hear you say the difference is in the absence of the “Original Sin? That Tinubu is not continuing the Biafran war against Ndigbo the way Buhari was, which is actually at the root of the entire saga and the reason Ndigbo died wotowoto under his supervision – at least, if Tinubu is, not with the same passion, the same hatred, the same bitterness or the same vengeance? Well, well!
Suddenly, the camps of the UGM – those impregnable fortress not even the world-class Nigerian Army that saved the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone could not penetrate – are now being breached by ordinary ragtag civilian forces and their occupants pulled out and taken away, shaking like leaves – the cowards they are.
In Anambra, for instance, we hear stories and entertained with images of how the Agunechemba – Soludo’s army, daily storm the camps of the evil men, which before now, not even the most fortified soldiers in the world could attempt and vanquish the so-called dreaded occupants, who had remained untouchable for years.
Suddenly, South East governors, who hitherto threw their hands in the air to the daily bloody assaults of the blood-thirsty group during Buhari’s time, seem to have found not only a fresh gusto, but the final solution to the menace.
No more for the apparent and obvious invincibility of the gang of killers. No more storming of prisons and releasing inmates, no more burning of police stations, no more attacking and killings at military checkpoints or destroying INEC facilities. South East is now singing a new song! Only because Buhari is no more?
One more thing! MNK is not the only Igbo the APC appears interested in his case. Now, they have dealt with the noisy International Terrorist – apologies James Omotosho – Justice of the Federal High Court (JFHC), what about Peter Obi?
Tinubu, has just conveyed to him through Bayo Onanuga that he is in his radar. Before now the former Governor of Anambra State and Labour Party candidate in the 2023 presidential election has been accused of everything evil under the Nigerian sun.
Apart from accusing him of sponsoring the last hunger protest that reverberated across Nigeria, last year, Tinubu, through Onanugu and Reno Omokri, say he was the one who went to tell POTUS Donald Trump that Muslims are killing Christians in Nigeria. They say it was Obi who asked POTUS Trump to come gun-a-blazing!
For this “atrocious” act to Nigeria, the President has promised neither to forget or forgive.
Now the question to OUK: What should Obi do? It is evident that since that criminal act of undressing the big Lagos masquerade, exposing and disgracing it in that 2023 election, the Egugun house has neither forgotten nor forgiven and is out to have its pound of flesh.What should Ndigbo – nay – the world expect about their beloved son? Another MNK fate?
But ultimately, the bigger question is the bigger question. How are Ndigbo going to survive the APC-Nigeria now that it is obvious that handing them down the fourth-class citizen is not enough and the APC wants more. We must ask, because, OUK – you’re not only our eyes and ears – you’re an honourable man – a distinguished Senator!
_ The Tiny Voice
Justice Centus Nweze was one of the seven S’Court justices that gave the judgement sacking Emeka Ihedioha and pronouncing Hope Uzodinma Governor of Imo State on January 14, 2020.
He later recanted when Ihedioha returned to the same court and declared that Uzodinma was no longer fit and proper to be governor – the only one out of the seven to hold a different view out of the seven-man panel in a dissenting judgement.
These were his exact words on March 3, 2020, with which he emphasised his position after disavowing his earlier position, to capture the impact and import of that event: “The decision of Nigeria’s Supreme Court on the Imo governorship election is wrong and will continue to haunt our (Nigeria’s) electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come.”
But, on Monday, February 6, 2023, Nweze himself, was to lead the same Supreme Court to give another highly controversial judgement – one – legal purists considered no less impactful and damaging to Nigeria’s legal jurisprudence.
It was the 3-2 Supreme Court decision that paved the way for Ahmad Lawan, former Senate President, to return to the Senate, despite being supposedly barred by an existing law forbidding politicians to contest for two different positions in an election circle.
Recall that Lawan, was one of the candidates that contested for the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a few months earlier, which was eventually won by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, now President of Nigeria.
Many had practically laughed it off, dismissing him as a jester, when he returned with a fresh struggle for the Yobe North ticket for the Senate under the same APC.
But it turned out that the real joke was on these naysayer, who taunted, mocked and even pilloried the former Nigeria’s number three citizen, because in the end, he came out thumbing his chest and shinning his teeth in triumph.
Reason! On Monday, February 6, 2023, the Supreme Court practically wrenched the APC ticket from Bashir Machina, who had earlier picked it at the APC primaries months earlier and handed same over to Lawan.
Guess whom the mantle fell on to read the lead-judgement? The selfsame Nweze, who made the statement above. With two others in support, he went ahead to decapitate the decision of the Court of Appeal, which had earlier thrown into the thrash-can Lawan’s appeal to a Federal High Court decision slamming his claim to the ticket.
Interestingly, Lawan, seemed too ashamed to continue with the matter after the attempt at the appellate court collapsed. He had to hide under the umbrella of the APC, who appealed on his behalf to get the judgement at the apex court.
But you know what? On July 30, 2023, Centus Nweze, died! Just barely six months after the outing. He was just 64 – six years shy of age of retirement for Nigerian judges.
Now, the story. A little message-bearing-bird, squealed that the late eminent jurist didn’t die a happy man.
The establishment was said to have moved in to make him eat his words for stepping out of line in the Uzodinma case. The decision was supposed to be unanimous and giving a dissenting judgement was an affront – more like challenging the gods!
The Lawan outing was the height of teaching him a lesson on how to play ball next time. And play ball he did!
He was procured to read the lead judgement as a way to punish his impudence, underscore his vulnerability and prove where the real power laid.
An erudite scholar, judicial perfectionist and purist of the highest order, whose track record was known beyond the judicial circle, he not only became a wreck thereafter, and unable to live with his conscience, he apparently died a broken man.
Now, it is hard to authenticate this. Nweze is no longer alive to tell his story. But it all the same points as an indicator to the fact that a lot of water passes under the bridge in the nation’s high places, including the judiciary.
Were Nweze alive today, may be one day, in his memoir or other places, Nigeria could read the true story of what actually happened with Lawan, with powerful forces and with intimidation. But do we even need to go that far?
In which other country of the world has the homes of judges been burst open in the middle of the night – many still in their underpants or completely in their birthday suits?
In which other country, has the Chief Judge of the country suffered the fate meted out to Walter Onnoghen by the executive branch of government? Did we not see these with our own eyes?
Has Nigeria been the same ever since? So, if you looked around today and you didn’t find the Kayode Esos, Chukwudifu Oputas, Niki Tobis et al, who looked the military in the face and dispensed justice according to law, who do you blame?
Who is the culprit if the only people who you see are those who receive keys to mansions and sing lustfully – On Your Mandate We Shall Stand? Through where did water enter the coconut?
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
What was the offence that swept Adrew Cuomo out of office as former governor of New York? You don’t know? Okay, I’ll tell you. He was accused of touching women, including hugging them without their permission. That was considered inappropriate. Fiam! Out he went! That was the end of it.
But you know what? It is the culture of Italians, where Cuomo hails to grab people, embrace them and even kiss them as an expression of warmth and friendship – no string attached. But did that help his case? No! He was a politician, occupying a high position. And cuddling people – women or no – was inappropriate for such a position. And Cuomo doing so, it was not only fatal, it was final!
Now, there is a bigger example. What chased Boris Johnson out of office as Prime Minister of UK? You still don’t know? Again, here is the answer. First, he drank tea and shared a couple of drinks with his colleagues in government during COVID-19. Then the fatal blow – he appointed a cabinet Minister who had a case of abusing a woman.
O tan! Magana yakari! Okwu agwu! In both cases, the two apologised. But their apologies were not directed at retaining their offices. They were for their inappropriate behaviours. The apologies neither vitiated, mitigated, nor cured the consequences, prominent of which was loss of their individual jobs.
Now, imagine the selfsame Boris Johnson announcing the appointment of a dead man into his cabinet. What do you think would happen to him? But how many times has President Bola Tinubu announced the appointment of dead people for public institutions? How many times has he included the names of dead people for national awards as if they were living?
Again, imagine the fate of Cuomo, if he were the one who was caught in a private jet massaging the feet of a woman in such a cozy and lascivious manner as the one seen in a recent viral video? What do you think the American society would have done to him?
So, you hear Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, declaring on national television – with a chunk of global viewership that what stopped him from shooting and kpaying Seun Okinbaloye of Channels Television is the barrier of the TV screen.
Outside that, if he had the way of breaking the screen, our dear Seun would have been resting somewhere in the morgue in Abuja or joining his ancestors in his home of Kwara State.
As you read this, some 72 hours after, he is still in office signing papers for land allocations and supervising the carving out of plots for new estates to emerge out of Jabi Lake precincts – an enclave sustained and maintained by successive governments as probably the only remaining arena for public recreation – in an entire nation’s capital city – to boot!
Surely, you’re hearing the ballyhoo, abi? Some people are even calling for his head! What a laugh! Calling for Wike’s head! In this Nigeria? People joke too much. If Wike is no longer the Wike we know – if he is stripped of his Odogwu power – who would take over and do what he does? Remember if it is not Panadol, it cannot be the same as Panadol.
Who would hold PDP down to ensure that Tinubu has no opposition in 2027? Who has the blank mind to sequester Rivers State the way he is doing such that Sim Fubara, Governor of Rivers state is not only a shadow of himself but a shadow of what his office should be? You people should think! Don’t just talk. What you’re demanding is impossible.
Now, don’t even imagine that it were the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK that said that he would shoot Piers Morgan of US Secretary of State that said he was so angry over a comment made by Andy Cooper that he would have shot him! Don’t even go there. The heavens would fall! On their head! Practically!
But surely, you must have read Wike’s response. If you didn’t, know it that he is blaming Nigerians as usual. He says the outrage by citizens is engineered by those doing a hatchet job, “as instrument of blackmail and propaganda by those whose intent is to misrepresent facts for political gains!”
Now, you could be sure that’s the end of the matter. Go wager on it anywhere. Nothing would come out of it. You would probably be hearing about it for the last time within some more few hours from now. Soon, another drama will overshadow it from the theatre house that has become Tinubu’s Nigeria. Just watch.
Come to think of it, who would speak or act in such a manner to check Wike or make him circumspect, wiser or more prudent with his utterances? Who is Wike afraid of? Who would he fear? Is it Tinubu, who himself is full of drama? Didn’t you see the sordid show he put up in Jos, Plateau, hours before Wike’s outing? What is the worth of Nigerians that would make Tinubu sacrifice Wike? That’s a joke!
Which other President across the sane world would instead of visiting the locus in quo – the scene of kpaying of 30 persons in his country – stop at an airport and ask for the victims to be brought to him? And if you took in his puerile explanation that he was pressed for time, ask him if Jos was an isolated case.
Was it not an encore of Benue, when he visited the state over the slaughtering of more than 200 people in Yelwata. Did he visit Yelwata? Did he not stop in Makurdi where he left the grieving people with some phantom and banal words, just like he did in Jos last week.
The only element that politicians are afraid of is election. That is why Cuomo suffered his fate in the US. The snake that bit Cuomo in the US was the same that whipped Cameron with its tail. The reason even Donald Trump is thrashing around frantically today is because the mid-term elections are around the corner and he knows the consequences of losing out.
But here, it is a different kettle of fish. It is either a Yakubu Mahmoud is there in INEC to create “technical glitches” to ingratiate and enable the patrons of grab, snatch and run-away brand or a Joash Amupitan is ensuring that his own INEC will make sure that the patron becomes a sole candidate in his own show.
In other climes, citizens wait to use the power of their thumbs to create the change they need, but here, that door is completely shut in their face. INEC and the judiciary will make sure of that. And might you think of a different approach – I’m sure you saw the bigger show at INEC headquarters last week. Those mint military machines you saw on display were not for fancy.
It is no longer guesswork that the Nigerian military has the best equipment around in this part of the world, the ability to use them more on the citizens than the terrorists for whom they were acquired have also been clearly proven on many occasions. You don’t need to go far to see the left overs. The evidence is there at Lekki Tollgate and other parts of the country.
So, head or tail, Wike stays. Of course, if you do anyhow, you see anyhow! Naturally, there is always a consolation. In the instant case, Lere Olayinka, Wike’s spokesman, told the world that Brother Seun and Wike have spoken on phone about the incident. If you fail to understand that aspect of the conversation a la Nigeria – na you sabi! The joke is on you!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
By Sunny Igboango
Very Dark Man, you’re right to take umbrage against Obi Cubana for being coopted into the Tinubu campaigns. You’re right to have felt the way you did that a whole Obinna Iyiegbu would be reduced to singing that On Your Mandate we shall stand mantra.
Like you, many Nigerians are utterly disappointed! Now, who wouldn’t be? Obi Cubana has not only come to represent the grass to grace narrative every youth in Nigeria should emulate, but a special and specific brand, and like the golden serpent, ought to be mounted on a standard where each youth suffering from the snake bites the scotch-earth policies of the APC government has spread on the Nigerian landscape, should look up to for healing.
So, to see him descend from that Olympian height to kowtow to the level of renditioning that awful song, must be as disgusting as it is gutting. I’m equally gutted as I’m sure most Nigerians are.
But then here is where you’re wrong. You’re wrong when use that singular act to define the Igbo people. You gave the impression that Obi Cubana, by signing into that notorious project, represents Ndigbo and that, that gamble will make an impact in deciding where the pendulum of Ndigbo will swing in the 2027 presidential election. Nada! Negative. Not at all!
Now, let me tell you from the outset that it is a wasted effort – I mean that gambit. As far as what the political decision of the South East will be in that election – it is completely wasted without mincing word.
Speaking the way you did confirms that you VDM know very little about Ndigbo. But what you don’t know you’ll learn and some of us are here to teach you.
Now, let us take just a little peek into history to help you understand a small bit about the Igbo persona – I mean the character of Ndigbo either individually and collectively.
VDM! I don’t know how much you know about The Igbo Landing. Have you heard about it? Let me give you a snippet – not the whole story – just a scratch of it. It was about a group of Igbo men captured from their land and transported by ship into slavery in America.
But right there in the ship, they had discussed among themselves that instead of becoming slaves in a foreign land death was the better option. They plotted their operation in whispers as they lay like sardines inside the ship.
You know what they did? Immediately they emerged, even still bounded in chains, they lounged on their captors, not only fought and defeated them, but knowing that there was no escape despite their temporally victory, they collectively plunged themselves into the sea and sunk deep down.
In case you believe I just told you a fairy tale, go and read up the details. Most of the story was written by the white man. It is there available.
The Igbo tribe is the only people in human history known to have carried out such an escapade. VDM! Did you know why Igbo slaves were the cheapest at that time? Simple! They were the ones that questioned the orders of their masters and in many cases, refused to carry them out, choosing punishment or even death as a result.
So, for the slave merchants, whenever the products on sale were Igbo, they were sold last as cheap commodities, some as giveaways. Yes! As gbanjo! Why? Oyibo wanted those who could work without question with minimal resistance and Igbo slaves were not with those qualities. To them, resistance was bad for business and the Igbo spelled resistance and therefore, bad business.
What are we even talking about? Certainly, you’re not born during the war. But you could ask your parents to tell you. Look at that war? Is it not enough example to indicate who Ndigbo really are? This was a dot in the circle, as Buhari once described them – a group of people on a tiny space in Nigeria. But look at how they were able to hold on.
Within that tiny enclave came enough resistance, enough resilience and enough power that contained the combined fire power from entire Nigeria with Egypt, UK, US and Russia providing all the supports they could muster. Who else is capable of doing so?
Som, you talk about Obi Cubana when there is no stake that requires the collective Igbo spirit. That is when such characters matter in the scheme of things.
In the instant case Ndigbo have identified Peter Obi as the go-man and there is no going back. What will surprise you is that the choice of Obi, has very little to do with tribal thinking. It has more to do with the larger picture before them. In that picture, Tinubu doesn’t count.
The way things stand today, go and get 10 more Obi Cubanas, add 20 Charles Chukwuma Soludos and 50 more South East governors and combine them, Tinubu will not get 10,000 votes in the entire South East in 2027. I’m not exaggerating! From where will he get it? Who would do the voting and what would be the person’s convictions?
Yes! If you want to the Tinubu capable of competing with Obi in Igboland, then go and get the Tinubu of 2003-2007 or even Tinubu of 2014. That’s the Tinubu they will identify with and not the Tinubu that has been tainted and inherited the Buhari spirit. As I said, it has very little to do with tribe. Tribal politics means very little to the Igbo man.
In fact, to prove this, put a Yemi Osinbajo on the ballot today and see how the Igbo will react to him. He’s a Yoruba man. He has even worked with Buhari. But put him on the ballot and see Obi struggling to beat him in the South east.
So, don’t worry yourself VDM. You saw what happened to Soludo during the inauguration of the Nnewi Catholic Church Cathedral when Obi’s name was mentioned. Is it such people that you’re going to tell to vote for Tinubu. Soludo cannot even convince his own siblings or his household to join him in that odious project, no matter what he uses.
In fact, the mistake the APC and those engaging in this lost project are making today is the same NPN made ahead of the 1983 election when they believed that bringing back the late Ikemba Nnewi Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu would swing the Igbo votes for them. They wanted to ride on the wings of Ojukwu’s war record. But it was a futile attempt.
In the same vein, relying on that playbook in 2027 will backfire. In fact, go and bring out Nnamdi Kanu today – he is about one of the most popular Igbo currently – stand him on a podium and let him make a positive comment on Tinubu, let alone a suggestion that Ndigbo should vote for him and witness how everything about him crumbles.
I repeat, if Tinubu is able to garner up 10,000 votes in Igbo land, it will be a miracle! So, the only option available is toeing the rigging templates that NPN resorted to, which gave them the infamous landslide victories of 1983 and we all saw how that ended. As for organic votes of Ndigbo, that one is a no-go area.
Even Obi Cubana knows that much. He’s aware that even that young boy he started business for or the young girl he saw through school would disappoint him on election day if it comes to a choice between Obi and Tinubu.
Ndigbo have rejected the Jagaban the same way they rejected Buhari. So, the acquiescence of Obi Cubana in that wacky project, is purely a business decision. Of what use would it be to waste his resources or jeopardise his business for something he knows won’t bear any fruit?
It is not that he is dealing with an Obafemi Awolowo or Lateef Jakande government that favour physical development and economic enhancement over politics. Those in charge today, will think nothing of it to send bulldozers to level down the Cubana Nightclub at GRA Ikeja overnight if it comes to that. They’re that vicious. They’ve done worse than that already.
All it will take is to remind him that he is Igbo and accuse him of trying to take over Lagos or find any other flimsy or convenient excuse to latch on. Whether it makes any sense or not is another kettle of fish altogether. A mindset that decided to change all streets bearing Igbo names overnight, regardless of the history behind them, what will it take them to destroy that imposing structure and forget the revenue and other important purposes it serves.
They’re that desperate. Afterall, haven’t they started with the same Cubana in Abuja? That was a test-run to show him that they mean business.
So, VDM, instead of disappointment or disgust, let us show pity to our brother, Obi Cubana! What is greater than the cricket has visited it in its hole. Even Peter Obi will not encourage him to be too reckless with his choices knowing the consequences.
If it is about Igbo votes, forget about that one.
Obi Cubana’s attempt will be as effective as the fingernails of the lizard on the trunk of an iroko tree. Recall that Ojukwu contested presidency twice, without making any impact. That the late Ikemba could be given such a cold shoulder despite his gripping influence on Ndigbo, is an indication of how the Igbo man thinks.
As for an Igboman becoming President. The possibility has already been proven. Obi won the 2023 election with wide margin across the country. But for the machinations of Yakubu Mahmoud’s INEC with their technical glitches, he would be President today.
He will win again, ceteris paribus. In fact, if he secured 90 per cent in South East in 2023, expect him to up the stakes to 99 per cent in 2027. Not with the disaster Tinubu and his government have become.The only option the APC will have even with 10 Obi Cubanas and 50 Soludos is to rig the election like the NPN did. And that will be a national problem.
So, VDM, where your job is cut out for you. That job is not the South East. That one is sealed. You should be talking about the entire country. Mobilise 50 million Nigerians to storm the National Assembly next week. Get them to make it mandatory for the INEC to transmit election results into the IReV as part of the new electoral law for 2027.
After that, go and take a good rest. Even go on holidays with that your babe – satisfied that you’ve delivered – you’ve given Nigeria a secure process for free and fair election. That way, before the noon on election day, Peter Obi, an Igbo man will be declared the President-elect and on April 29, 2027 Tinubu’s disastrous government will come to an end.
Of course, that feat will not be achieved by the thumbprints of Ndigbo alone! Hausa, Yoruba, Efik, Edo, Nupe, Gbagi, Kanuri, Igbira, Tiv, Ijaw, Ogoni – Nigeria will have theirs in it. That way, Nigeria is set for the future and your decade-long advocacy for the good of Nigerians will have meaning.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
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