Hardball
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s response to the appointment of new service chiefs was instructive. Away from the hair-splitting, ethnic radicalism of the John Nwodo era, Prof. George Obiozor, famed academic, former ambassador and new Ohanaeze president-general, opted for a more conciliatory tone.
Ohanaeze hailed President Muhammadu Buhari’s choice of Major-Gen. Leo Irabor as new chief of Defence staff, especially saluting the nativity of the beneficiary as ethnic Igbo, though of the Niger Delta hue, from the Western Igbo stock of Delta State. That was commendable, he stressed, for the president ought to be hailed as finding a fellow Igbo worthy, as top dog, in his new security infrastructure.
Still, while ours is ours, mine would continue to be mine. While Gen. Irabor belonged to the South-South geo-political zone, no South East scion was still represented, in that core conclave.
So, the president should please make amends, when the retirement-bound current inspector-general of Police (IGP) exits — and everyone would live happily ever-after: except, of course, a counter-lobby growls that a “mere” IGP isn’t core security enough!
Technically, you could hardly fault the logic, tact and wisdom of the Ohanaeze pitch. True: South East is unrepresented as service chief. But true too: Ohanaeze risks being interpreted as saying Irabor, though Igbo, is not Igbo enough, under Ohanaeze’s acid test!
That sure could be mischief. But then mischief would appear part and parcel of the trade — of jockeying for legitimate share, in a multi-ethnic democracy like Nigeria’s.
Of course, there is also the politics of identity, fuelling vicarious satisfaction — no crime! That’s why CNN featured a Black American woman who said she broke down in joyful tears, at Kamara Harris’s pick, for US Vice President. In Barack Obama’s new book, A Promised Land, some African-American, Latino and Asian-American White House valets told President Obama he wouldn’t know what his emergence, as president, meant to their White House tribe!
Tingling pleasures, of the politics of identity! Again, no crime.
Still, the way Nigeria’s ethnic majors log on to the politics of identity racket is rather nauseating. Anytime appointments — major or minor — come, ethnic champions whip out their tribal microscopes to scour the list, for kith-and-kin.
Absence of such fuels jeremiads, that swear the country is cascading into a ditch. Presence powers jubilant triumphalism, suggesting that with a co-ethnic there, nothing can go wrong; and proclaiming the union recharged! Yet, neither assures the success or failure of the new appointee.
And what if the slew of minorities join the racket? Enter, babble of the neo-Tower of Babel!
Where an appointee comes from is elite noise. Without prejudice to fairness in appointive spread as befits a just federation, a heathier consensus should be on quality of service, not the nativity of the appointed.
