By Chukwudi Nweje
Former Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, has decried what he called consistency by the present All Progressives Congress (APC) in pushing the Igbo out of Nigeria, warning that though the people believe in unity of the country, they will not reject themselves if they are rejected by Nigeria. He also spoke on other national issues.
January 15 marked the 50th anniversary of the end of Nigeria Civil War, looking back, what lessons have we learnt as a country?
The learning is somewhat enormous, we have learnt how not to do well, we have learnt what is good and what is bad, we have learnt that certain arrangements are best for economic progress and that some others are worse for economic progress. Unfortunately, what we have learnt shows that we have taken the wrong route in everything, we have taken the wrong route in development. Between 1954 and 1965, we were on the right track, we had a good structure, the World Bank rated us and said that Southern Nigeria including the East were growing faster than the rest of the world. What was the structure then? It was a Regional government as federating units. It was a federal system. We know how it was when we were doing well. But since the coup of 1966, especially after Gen. Gowon created 12 states in order to isolate the East because of Biafra, from then, things started going bad and we became more unitary than federal. We increased the number of federating units, now we have 36 plus the federal capital territory, Abuja and everything was done wrong since then. The states are incapable of running their affairs as it should be, the states are not taking the people as theirs. In the past, the indigenes of each state take the state as their own and if you are a governor, you must obey them because all money coming to the state are contributions from the people. But with oil money coming and the unitary government setting in and sharing money, the state governments don’t have the same sense of responsibility to their people and the people don’t look with the same incisive eyes at what government should be. With the massive corruption that has taken over, we cannot have it worse than we have it now. So, what am I saying? We have taken giant steps backwards, we are underdeveloping rather than developing our country. In every sphere, we are moving backwards; Is it security or economic development? Where are the groundnut pyramids? Where are the cocoa plantations, where are the oil palms? Now, we are merely surviving. Whatever happens to crude oil has direct effect on our survival. The worst that has happened is corruption and that is why it is correct to say that if you rate Nigeria, the movement we have made is so far, so bad. We have ethnic wars in Nigeria, we are divided so sharply along ethnic lines and it is madness.
Why is the ethnic and religious intolerance in Nigeria high, after all we are not the only multi ethnic and religious country. The USA for instance which has people from all over the world somehow has good degree of religious tolerance among the citizens?
I agree with you and I will advise Nigerians to go on their knees and pray God to preserve the gem of a country He gave us -good climate, no hurricane, no tsunami, no extreme bad weather. He gave us surplus more than any other country; is it land, is it minerals, is it animals, many talents from many tribes. God gave us a gem of a country which can lead the world in economic development and we are the largest black people on earth. Where we go, the world sees the black people as we are. So, a new Nigeria must come, a new Nigeria is in the offing, a new Nigeria must come with new structures and new arrangements. I cannot give timetable to God because I think God has seen that we are going towards disintegration and I don’t think God wants us to disintegrate. Fortunately, the people who are pushing us towards disintegration are the people who will lose most by disintegration. How come the Fulani are antagonising the rest of Nigeria? How many are they? May God make the other Nigerians love the Fulani; this is the first step. May God make Nigerians love their neighbours and conserve, not hate them because if there is hatred and we accept this challenge of fighting and killing, how many are the Fulani? How many hectares of land do they have other than antagonising and taking over? I am sad that Nigeria is as it is but I am happy that a new Nigeria is in the offing and must come to show that God made no mistake creating a gem of a country called Nigeria.
The 50th anniversary of the Civil war was marked in Lagos at an event organised by Nzuko Umunna and Ndigbo under the theme Never Again. Curiously, no South East governor was represented at the event. What does that say about the Igbo who were principal casualties of the war?
I don’t know how to answer this question because I didn’t know about the event, I wasn’t invited and I think I’m old enough to know how to address such event. I think the planners made a mistake. The governors are very busy people, they have to do what they were elected for. But I will tell you one thing, no major group in Nigeria is as united as the Igbo. This may sound as if I’m talking nonsense but I’m not. For more than 50 years, the Igbo have been out of central power. When you are out of power, you tend to go your different ways. For more than 50 years the Igbo have been out of central power, yet they will answer any Igbo call. Recently, I went to Owerri and met a cross-section of our people. Emeka Ihedioha hosted the 90th birthday celebration of Mbazuluike Amaechi, ‘The Boy is Good’. I was so impressed by the turnout. Olusegun Obasanjo was the chairman, Tanko Yakassai was there, and many other people. I was there and I enjoyed being there. Our Igbo people when we call them, they answer even after 50 years of being out of central power.
Why do you think no other South East governor or representative was at the event?
I don’t know how well planned it was but I saw Jim Nwobodo there, I also saw many of my colleagues there, I saw people from the PDP, APC and APGA there. When you are planning something for December, you know attention will be much. There could be some elements of jealousy, you can’t rule it out, so Ihedioha becomes an Igbo leader, a leader of the South East? I hope it didn’t contribute to his problem with the Supreme Court. But I think the verdict is a clear glaring mistake. It shows that elections are done without proper tabulation or that it is part of what has been planned to be done, I don’t know.
What is your view on the quest for Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023?
On the issue of presidency in 2023, we are ready, uniting ourselves to go and even kneel down to the North and beg them, kneel down to the West, beg them, kneel down to the South-South, beg them and kneel down to the Middle Belt and beg them. We are prepared to do everything that is necessary to win that election. I must tell you that I’m happy with what I’m hearing from the North. Some Northern youths came to my house in the village to tell me that they support a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023. Many groups in the Middle Belt have also shown their support for Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023.
If you know justice, if you know fairness, if you know equity and if you want the system to hold, you will know certain things that are inevitable. It is inevitable for 2023 to go to South East, but justice first. The Buhari government has been pushing the Igbo consistently out of Nigeria; the elders have been resisting the push, but the young ones are ready to push back. But if the push comes to a stage where we show everybody that we are ready to rule this country and because we are Igbo we are told we cannot rule, then that means Nigerian has denied citizenship to the Igbo and there will be no other way to look at it but that it is the final push out. If you are denying us citizenship, what are we doing here? We are pleading and not threatening anybody. But if they reject us, we cannot reject ourselves.
The Igbo have always pushed for one Nigeria and there is no real difference among us, so anybody saying the Igbo are disunited is wasting time and deceiving himself. The government that exists today is anti-Igbo and has been pushing the Igbo out of Nigeria in many, many ways. What Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is asking for is exactly what the government is doing to the Igbo. But we the elders are hopeful that God will intervene and will restore equality for all Nigerians.
Whenever a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction is mentioned, critics always accuse the Igbo of going to war against Nigeria. What is your reaction?
Who went to war? That is not true. I will tell you what happened because I was already in the civil service. There was a coup in 1966, some of the dramatist personae were Igbo, some were Yoruba and some were Hausa, but the most prominent person was Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, who happened to be Igbo. Why did they plot the coup? They thought Nigeria was not realising her potentials, not growing to super power as it should be. So, they asked, how do we make Nigeria great? So, they compared those that led Nigeria; Obafemi Awolowo brought free education, Awo brought first television and so many other things. So, Awo definitely seemed to be better than the rest of the leaders of Nigeria. Awo was in prison then, they decided to make a coup, bring out Awo as Prime Minister to lead the country. That was the coup, but it was misinterpreted because of those who died. No prominent Igbo was among the dead, but again, no prominent Igbo was in government. Zik was ceremonial president and he was not even in town when the coup happened. If you want to take over power, the people you attack are people in power. It was mistakenly called an Igbo coup which was wrong.
Not only that, even today, the Igbo have a problem, we succeed anywhere we go but what makes other people resent us anywhere we go is not just jealousy, we have ‘bad mouth’, we are arrogant and insensitive in speaking; who would absorb it? We get to one strange place, settle down and begin with minimal economic activity, then gradually we grow and build a house which in comparison with the houses of the indigenes will look palatial. We will stay in front of that palatial house and talk even to the hearing of the indigene; I saw this man when I came here and since then I haven’t seen him build even a chicken coop, is he alright? This kind of wild talk created resentment everywhere? But gradually, we are beginning to realise that there is need to make friends with people we need instead of making enemies of them.
On this issue of war, we did not cause the war. We did everything to prevent war, went even to Ghana and there was an agreement in Aburi; that Aburi agreement is still waiting, perhaps, ultimately, if Nigeria is to be one, it will be the basis of our oneness. What happened was that the Federal Government reneged on the Aburi agreement, therefore rejecting our people and when our people were trying to run back home from the North, they were killed in the Middle Belt by Middle Belters who formed majority of the people the Federal Government used to fight the war. But today, the Middle Belters are no longer usable as tools, they didn’t know what they were doing, they were deceived into killing the Igbo, but now, they have woken up. Who declared the war?