The induced Yoruba-Igbo prejudices

By. Ben Ogu

- Rev. Fr. Ogu is a Catholic Priest.

A certain religious woman has a burning ambition to solicit for and liberate with little or no cost, those who cannot afford the services of a Lawyer or those unjustly imprisoned and abandoned. But she had a scare of her life the first time she appeared and introduced herself as Rev. Sister Barrister in the court. They could not reconcile the contradiction and strangeness. Perhaps nothing could irritate people more than a priest writing on the politics of the supposedly mundane. But that is only to be expected and not be surprised at in an environment where politics meant to be a vehicle for serving and liberating the physical realm. But it is obvious too, that politicians would hardly be persuaded with the semantics and linguistics of the scripture more than the language of politics.

Reading Dapo Thomas' view entitled "Igbo presidency and the Yoruba example," in The Nation and The Sun of July 21, 2013 and previous Yoruba writers on the Igbo political destiny, I could not but in a sense of urgency write in appreciative complement and corroboration. In recent years I have come to appreciate the Yoruba collective personality and their sympathy for Igbo issues. I can't but simply jettison the induced Igbo-Yoruba prejudice and aversion previously fanned by the political struggles of late Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafami Awolowo, occasionally recycled by the Olusegun Obasanjo's vindictiveness and the hurriedly misconstrued late Chinua Achebe's "There Was a Country". For me, it is unfortunate and simply naive to conclude offhand that the Yoruba and the Igbo hate themselves and are enemies based on the past two elder statesmen. While appreciating the peculiarities of every socio-political group, intellectual honesty should admit of the Yoruba political superlative superiority over the Igbo, though the peacock of self-deceiving ego of the Igbo could rebuff this.

Yet, it stands incontrovertible that the Yoruba stands a tested virile political maturity than the Igbo and since after the war, have always been sympathetic, objective and candid in their analysis and assessment of Igbo political epilepsy the way no Igbo has ever done. I agree with Dapo on his assertion that "the Igbos are responsible for whatever humiliation they are suffering today within the Nigerian state, not because of the civil war but because they are deluded by the misconception that their economic power alone can make them relevant. They must understand that their economic power needs to be feasible only through a political revolution that they need to undertake with dispatch". Permit to me to add that even the claim to economic power is pure fantasy and superficial. The sooner they realize that what they actually have is the power of "buying and selling" which is as precarious and powerful as the errand boy's power, they would certainly look for power.

But Dapo regrets that "...most Igbo businessmen that could be counted upon to undertake this revolutionary agenda are government contractors who may not be ready to sacrifice their economic interests and political influence for an Igbo national cause. They are likely to succumb and kowtow to an vindictive government that may find the pursuit of their political agenda too antagonistic. With this kind of attitude and ennui to the Igbo cause, it is doubtful if the Igbos can come out of this political gridlock". The level of Igbo political inertia can best be felt in the fact that they can no longer feel, conjecture or write about it, having been rather so naturalized and acclimatized to it, that the feeling is so lost to fatality that only others can now feel for them. But certainly, the dead hardly feels dead but the living mourns in pain. The saying is then true that it is the mad man's brother that is blushed by his nakedness since the lunatic is unconscious and insensate of feeling ashamed. What a tragedy and calamity of a race. And the Yorubas are the brothers that now feel the Igbo shame and debacle and sympathize with them. But such an existential retardation and paralysis as the Igbo of present generation only questions the existential relevance of the living and equates him with the dead.

When the ancient Israelites slept into subordination and servitude in the hands of the Egyptians, God raised Moses in the symbolism of the blaze of fire which inclusively implied, not only the Israelites' suffering but also figurative of Moses' mission. Excusing his weakness in speech, Aaron was loaned to complement him and when the tribulations of the journey cut short his destiny, Joshua came on board to take them to the destination. It is to say the least, that for the Igbos of this generation to survive in their present political intertia they need nothing less than undaunted risk takers like Moses and Joshua. Such must not be men of soft texture, the chemistry of mean and food loving Esau, prone to the sale of birthright for stomach right or apologists as abounds in Igbo land today.

Such a collection like Moses and Joshua must not be found in the pedigree of faint-hearted men, susceptible to intimidation and easily cowed by criticism and blackmail. A driver of the Igbo political destiny that should measure after the progressive Yoruba, must, like late Odumegwu Ojukwu, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, be dominated by a sense of collective domestic destiny and more than a passing sensitivity to native consciousness which must relegate and sacrifice personal and individualistic priorities for the common Igbo patrimony. Like the late sage, Chief Awolowo and the entire Yoruba, they must not be addicted to the fancies and fantasies of the Nigerian nationalism and its enslaving tantalization. Unfortunately, the contrary is the case with the Igbo political elite.

While the Yorubas would always go for one of their own, protect and preserve their own, the Igbos are known for the penchant for the destruction of their own The spirit of Chief Awolowo and Abiola still live on after many years of demise. What an ingenuity and proficiency the Igbo elite exhibit for desecrating and stifling their own and never learn the example of the Yorubas!

The irony in the Igbo fate is that those who try to raise their level always find themselves in the Jews-Jesus metaphor of people killing their saviour. Experience shows that any Igbo who has ever attempted to identify his patriotism with the Igbo as Awo did always meets with domestic hostility, stiff aversion and prejudice from his people and the Federal government.

Whether for Igbo presidency or any other venture, the Yoruba example is too tall and unimaginable example for the Igbo given their apparent lack of patriotism to the Nigerian projectWhat the Igbo have are governors and leaders who can sing the eulogies of the president and presidency and reconcile conflicts in PDP in order to remain relevant in PDP even when they are irrelevant to their people. The Yorubas have passed this trade in servile sycophancy because their interests transcend personal exaltation and they know that their identity, relevance and right are not derived from marginal grafting to another but from the statutory dictates which does not need a stooping slavishness to have. Dapo perhaps stirred their conscience But they need first to nurture the Yoruba political discipline, courage, native patriotism, and a common voice.