The video went viral — of an Igbo priest applying his faith’s bully pulpit to Igbo nationalism and presidency. Since none of the two major parties has found an Igbo good enough for their presidential ticket, Ndigbo should secede — or something like that.
Now, don’t judge the man of God too harshly. He was Igbo first before he became man of God; and just couldn’t understand why neither APC nor PDP found one of his stock suitable as presidential standard bearer. The Igbo are one of the three majority ethnics, for God’s sake!
You could relate to that sort of frustration, in a trust-deficient Nigeria, always thick with mutual suspicion; and rippling with cross-ethnic bile. Indeed, the Igbo priest’s outburst is all too reminiscent of immediate post-Awolowo Yorubaland and pre-June 12, 1993 and immediate post-June 12 explosive activism.
Maximum ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha, was ready to kill. The Yoruba-led NADECO activists were ready to “die”. That was the hideous stalemate that birthed democracy in 1999. Yet, for the South West progressive mainstream, it was a pig in a poke, even if Olusegun Obasanjo, a peculiar “Yoruba man” was “arrangee” president!
It could really be roiling. Still, neither playing the victim nor issuing reckless, even if understandable, threats would get the result. Building pan-Nigerian bridges and linkages would.
That is one lesson the Igbo political elite must learn. You would wonder why, even in PDP which the mainstream Igbo political elite have backed since 1999, the likes of Nyesom Wike, after six years of Goodluck Jonathan, would face-off any Igbo for the PDP presidential ticket? And after all the Igbo support and near-extreme veneration of the president from Wike’s own South-South?
Even now the PDP, by its reported choice of Wike as Atiku’s running mate, would appear backing the South-South (with its comparative smaller numbers) over the South East (the great southern ethnic majority) which, with the Yoruba in the West and Hausa-Fulani in the North, make up the Nigerian ethnic majority tripod!
Even if Atiku’s reported picking of Delta’s Ifeanyi Okowa turns out to be true, the theory still holds: minority Igbo in the South-South for now still trump the South East majority in intra-PDP influence!
The lesson is grim but clear: the Igbo elite should build bridges. No matter your numbers, you can’t win the presidency without linkages with others. Besides, as Asiwaju Bola Tinubu always says, power is not served a la carte. You have to build nationwide bridges and structures to nab it. That played out, with all of its hard knuckles, in his own hard-earned triumph, in getting the APC ticket.
Let the South East political elite re-strategize and rebuild. Peter Obi snatching the Labour Party ticket is opportunism that leads nowhere. Their chances, for now, are brightest with PDP. It could also be excellent in future with APC. All these folks need is to re-strategize and change tack.