Junaid Mohammed, self acclaimed convener of the coalition of northern politicians, academics, professionals and businessmen is fast acquiring notoriety for reckless and incendiary statements against the Igbo race. Because his provocative rant has somehow, been largely ignored, he comes up often, talking down on the entire Igbo race as if he would want them disappear from the face of the earth.
What he thinks of himself, what it is that prompts him or those he purports to represent may not be of much relevance here. The objective of such irrational and sectional diatribe and what they portend for the overall peace of this country are issues we can continue to ignore at great peril. At each point he gets media mention, he is either hauling invectives on the Igbo or displaying crass preference for war as a quick-fix to festering national challenges.
His inordinate urge for war, conjures the impression that either the military will always act in the direction of his mindset, he is certain about what they will do in each circumstance or both. Often, he speaks with such a certainty that leads to the conclusion that those on whose behest he speaks, are in control of the military and capable of using them to achieve their goals. That was the essence of his classifying non-violent agitations for self-determination by pro-Biafra movements as terrorism. Yet, when the real terrorists were on rampage in the North-east, he was ambivalent in condemning their murderous escapades. That is Junaid for you.
In 2013 when agitations for a sovereign national conference were on high gear, he had said that its supporters were asking for civil war. Again, following complaints against non-inclusion of the South-east in Buhari’s appointments, he said, “If the Igbo don’t like it, they can attempt secession again. If they do it, they must be prepared to live with the consequences”.
And in a recent interview in a national daily, he not only spoke of the Igbo race in disparaging and irreverent manner but even averred with certainty that Obasanjo would have been “overthrown if he was caught in the tribal thing” during his last regime. It is not clear if he speaks for himself, the nebulous northern amalgam he purports to lead, or some other unseen hands. But he speaks with such arrogance and finality that suggests this country is the personal fiefdom of whatever interest he purports to represent.
That was my reading when he recklessly averred that the Igbo have always misbehaved and shown open nepotism each time they are given certain positions and that nepotism in whatever they do is their stock in trade. He cited the tenure of former Chief of Army Staff, General Azubuike Ihejirika and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim to support his weird logic.
Accusing Ihejirika of introducing tribalism in recruitment, training and promotions in the Nigerian Army, he labeled him the most corrupt army chief this country has ever had. His grouse with Anyim is that each time there was vacancy in parastatals under his office, he made sure an Igbo man occupied it. He singled out the case of the National Population Commission.
His allegation against Ihejirika bears the imprimatur of the blackmail from fifth columnists sometime in his tenure especially when intense heat was brought to wrestle the Boko Haram insurgents to the ground.
A faceless group had circulated documents alleging that at the recruitment in the Nigerian Army Depot in Zaria, Kaduna state; Abia state with a population of 2.8 million people had 450 recruits while Ebonyi with 2.2 million people had 377 recruits. In contrast, Kano, Kaduna and Lagos states that have populations of 9.3million, 9 million and 9 million respectively only got 258, 382 and 255. According to his traducers, this represented part of the plan to “Igbonize” the Nigerian army. The activities of this group may have had a direct link with the embarrassing indiscipline within the army at that time.
As this writer contended then, the group simply bandied figures that were lacking in real statistical value for their failure to show the entire staff disposition of the Nigerian army. Singling out one recruitment and promotion exercise to sustain the allegation of ‘Igbonization’ of Nigerian army is not only guilty of the fallacy of hasty generalization but exposes the mindset of its peddlers as a bunch of ethnic bigots unable to come to terms with the reality of an Igbo man occupying that position for the first time since after the civil war. It will not be surprising if Junaid is part and parcel of the waning tribe of these ethnic jingoists. Had they availed the public the staff disposition of the entire armed forces, state by state, they may have discovered that if Abia and Ebonyi states had an edge in that singular recruitment, it may have been part of efforts to redress the inequities of past recruitments under the supervision of Junaid’s kinsmen.
This point finds ample credence in events during the tenure of Lt Gen. Abdulraman Bello Dambazzau as Chief of Army Staff. Insider Weekly Magazine had in its June 2009 edition, reported that soldiers were grumbling over “parochial and unbalanced’ deployment in the army, wondering whether he “is building a Nigerian army, a Kano army or a northern army”. The magazine alleged that of the 32 key appointments, Dambazzau gave 27 to the north, the south-east three, south-west two and none to south-south. Yet, the tribal warlords saw nothing wrong with it and said nothing because “fouling the air is only good when it comes from the proverbial tortoise”.
The same jaundiced perceptions that smack of pathological hatred for the Igbo led Junaid in another occasion to assert that the Igbo “have also grabbed most of the land especially for estates in Abuja where they do not have any historical claims or other logical claim to even one square foot of land”.
This assertion is astonishing. It impliedly seeks to deny the Igbo or any other group, their rights to acquire legitimate property in any place of their choice including foreign countries. Grabbing most of the land in Abuja for estates connotes the impression that the lands in question were dispossessed from their rightful owners through unwholesome means.
If most of the lands in Abuja have been acquired by Igbo developers, it is by dint of their hard work, industry and enterprise. What right has anybody to deny them the fruit of their labour? Or when has it become a crime for any Nigerian or foreigner to invest his money in any part of the country? Perhaps, he would also need the all powerful Nigerian state to decree quota system in private land acquisition for those he represents to have fair share in Abuja.
The same parochialism blindfolded him to the point of asserting that without Nigeria, the Igbo presently living in neighbouring African countries will not be allowed to be there. The simple answer to this is that the Igbo nation predates the Nigerian nation. Nigeria came into being through the amalgamation of subsisting ethnic units.
If these units existed before Nigeria, there is nothing to suggest that without this political contraption, they will disappear from the face of the earth. Practically nothing! Moreover, some of the countries where he said the Igbo are living courtesy of their Nigerian citizenship are of little economic and political significance in comparison with the states where the Igbo are presently domiciled. It does not take a genius to work out the logical dynamics of this analogy.
We can go on to demonstrate the calamity which the views of Junaid have been to efforts at nation-building. Suffice it to say that the Igbo do not owe their existence to anybody. They are also not begging anybody for any favour. They only ask for their rights and equal opportunities as a key member of this unity in diversity. They have suffered and continue to suffer monumental losses in lives and property from the part of the country where Junaid comes. They need to be saved from the atavism of the likes of Junaid.
