President of Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF), Prof Uzodinma Nwala has said that the North has no business competing for the presidency in 2023, even as he warned the southwest and south south regions to steer clear because they have all taken their turns to lead the country. In this interview by VINCENT KALU, the elder statesman however noted that Biafra remains the primary concern of every Igbo.
What is your view on the state of the nation- insecurity everywhere; Boko Haram still ravaging the Northeast, banditry in the Northwest states of Zamfara, Katsina Kaduna, kidnapping and other forms of criminality across the country in the country?
It is left for people to decide how they are going to defend and protect themselves. The terrorism, kidnapping and all the mayhem everywhere, but the government cannot do anything to stop them. So, the whole country is at the mercy of the bandits. We use the word, bandits, but we know who is doing what in this country. The revelation is a message from God; it is a re-echo or draws attention to what General Danjuma said in the past, that every group should go out to defend themselves. Our security is in the hands of God and my own hands. God has already told us that He is on the side of those who help themselves.
The ADF condemns unequivocally any attempt to give money to terrorists in order to placate them. We don’t have any reason to doubt that information because already last time, El-Rufai, who is alter ego of the President told the country that they had to go to Niger Republic to give money to killer herdsmen to cover for the loss of their cattle in order to stop them from coming in to kill Nigerians or to come and wage war against Nigerians.
I have never seen any government treating killers, lawless people, bandits and terrorists in this way, meanwhile they are doing all they can to disarm our own people. It is unfortunate, it is a shame to those who called themselves Igbo or Southerners, who are just folding their rams talking about running for presidency, vice president, senate president etc, when these are happening and they are not doing anything.
It is salutary that everybody is now a victim to lawlessness, to anarchy, to lack of government. So for the Talakawas themselves, particularly this time, when people like Aminu Kano are no longer there is a challenge and this challenge is not about social media. I feel sorry for, especially for the Igbo, whose pastime is the social media; everything social media, talking about irrelevant things and sometimes discussing serious things sometimes in the social media, and of course that is all they can do.
When you make move for some concrete action to be done, you don’t see anybody around. The Igbo are under siege; this is a very difficult moment in our history and I believe we can do something.
You said the Igbo are under siege, how do they come out of it?
It is for Igbo leaders to meet and decide how to come out of it.
IPOB is planning another sit at home on May 30; will it help the Igbo cause?
Igbo should adopt May 30 as their remembrance day. We are saying this based on our own reasoning and our own calculation of what is good for our people. We are not asking specifically for sit at home, but we say it must be observed in various ways; we have suggested various ways, but if the people want to sit at home they can do so. There are various ways of remembering a historic day, a tragic day in a period in our history that is what ADF is saying.
In 2017, when a sit at home ordered by IPOB was observed, it led to a backlash leading to issuance of quit notice to Igbo by Arewa youths
I’m not sure that was the result of the sit at home thing, if it’s, it’s rubbish. That threat from the Arewa was a calculated move not by the youth but the elders but they hanged it on the youths. It is part of the whole psychological warfare, physical warfare against the Igbo. Whether they are threatening or not, we say the Igbo wherever you are, remember May 30, and observe it.
While talking about Igbo under siege, some young men are agitating for Biafra, is Biafra still relevant at this stage of Nigeria’s history?
I will ask, are you happy the way things are going for the Igbo, are you happy that we are completely marginalised, completely removed from the governance of this country, are you happy that our resources are being controlled and that we do not have economic infrastructure, are you happy the way our businessmen are being hounded from pillar to post, are you happy over the killing our people everywhere? I think we are no better than the Jews in those terrible days in Europe. The Igbo deserve their God’s given right to self-determination to do what they want to do for themselves. This union has become a Golgotha for the Igbo. God never created us as Nigerians; God created us Igbo with a definite language and culture. It was the British that brought us together.
Time has come when we should begin to organise ourselves as a nation and protect ourselves, that is the point. Whether people call it Biafra or what, it is not relevant. What is important is that the Igbo deserve their right to survival, to self-determination, to control their God’s given resources to provide for themselves and use what they have to provide infrastructure, provide seaports, provide good roads, provide quality education. Those fundamental rights of freedom are what Igbo are asking for, and if we get it as independent republic, so be it; if we get it as an autonomous region having that rights, the kind of rights that the Italians, the French, the Germans have in Europe, so be it.
God didn’t create us to be slaves to anybody, we must defend ourselves, defend our women and children. Our youths are demanding Biafra, not just our youths; our elders are also demanding Biafra. I hope you remember Chief Eze Ozobu, a retired judge and former president general of Ohanaeze; you also remember the late Dr. Dozie Ikedife, also president general of Ohanaeze; you remember Chief Joe Achuzie, former secretary general of Ohanaeze; you remember Debe, the late Ojukwu’ son, all of them went to court demanding the restoration of Biafra, they are not mad men. So, Biafra is not Nnamdi Kanu’s property or Uwazuruike’s property, it is the concern of every one of us.
Will restructuring not address these issues you raised?
A language of restructuring is a language of the slave who is asking his master for less tortious routine or freedom; it is the language of the worker begging his master for increase of wages. What is needed and what we are asking for is to sit down and renegotiate the basis of existence.
That renegotiation will assume that our land is in our hands as Igbo and our resources are in our hands as Igbo, our judiciary is our own, our security forces are our own, the police is our own. Those are the things that we should sit down to affirm our right to control, not just restructuring.
Incidentally, the people you are dealing with have total freedom of their own. They have their own police; they have their own defence, they can go to any of the Arab countries and get money and negotiate anything for their states, why can’t ourselves move to China, move out to Germany or Russia or anywhere and directly get economic and other forms of resources, which we can get as a collaborative venture for people, who are out to look after their destiny.
Why can’t we reach out to international bodies and get resources, get the support directly and the right resources, which we can get from the World Bank, instead of somebody telling them to concentrate on Northeast.
Restructuring will need pushing this case of our freedom to self-determination, putting it on the table of National Assembly, which they control. The National Assembly whose composition was determined by series of so-called restructuring they did to give themselves more local governments, give themselves greater representation in the House, give themselves more population than they deserved, give themselves everything that they deserved. When we begin to talk of restructuring, we are just unfolding their hands to see what we can get from them.
Do you remember how many time we really sat down to organise Nigeria, each time the outcome is aborted because they are controlling the military. We did it under Abacha in 1994, I was a delegate. We came up with a political arrangement that can help this country in a way that we can live together. What we did under Abacha was thrown into the wastebasket for the resuscitation of the 1979 Constitution, which they reproduced to strengthen their hold on the federation. What of the national dialogue under Obasanjo? It was aborted, using their military dictators to refuse to go and answer questions even when they were no longer in power.
What of the 2014 Confab organised by Jonathan? When everything was going on fine and majority was supporting what was going on, but one of their leaders, Coomasse, had the right to get up and say that you can do what you want to do, but I can assure you that it would not fly; that if it goes to National Assembly that we shoot it down. That is the situation we have and you are talking of restructuring.
It is true that we believed in the last election that a new president other than Buhari comes into power, somebody like Atiku, that there can be a basis to begin to talk of reorganising the country, that was the reason for our support for Abubakar.
I don’t know if you have read the history of Nigeria’s struggle for independence, and throw your mind back to all the things our people did in order to free themselves from Britain, that is what they should do to free themselves from Fulani hegemony. Remember what our women did in 1949, the women should do that now. If you remember the battle of the churches, the priests, Akanu Ibiam and others, that is what our priests should do today, if you remember what our students, youths did. We should encourage our people to stand firm and to protect their freedom. If they stay firm, all these military people occupying the whole territory will not have the courage to resist the people’s power when it is on the move. That is the road we should go, to tell our people to stay firm and protect themselves and not for begging for restructuring which you know they will not give you.
If what you have proposed is applied, are we not on the road to another civil war?
Did we have civil war with the British when we were resisting them?
But there were different people?
That means we should surrender? That civil war as you know, we did not get up to wage war. That civil war was not properly handled, Ojukwu made very serious mistakes. He loved his people, he had good intention, but he was politically naïve. Other people have freed themselves across the world. Remember Mozambique, remember Namibia, remember Angola and remember others that are free country today.
You pressmen should not be instruments in demoralising our people from protecting themselves. You should not. By the way, there are too many things to be done. We may not need to fight with anybody. We know people will carry war to you as things presently stand and if somebody carries war to you, you should protect yourself, but we should not wage war or fight anybody. We can get what we want constitutionally, politically, and legally through international diplomacy, and above all, we must unite, we must be courageous.
People are already clamouring for 2023 election and the zone that should produce the president. What do you say to this?
I was in the 1993/94 constitutional conference, the first time that zoning was raised. I was one of those that fought for it. The idea was to move the presidency round among the six geo-political zones – North and South alternation. The presidency goes to one zone in the North and next time to another zone in the South until it goes round among the six political zones, but you can see that they have messed it up.
The North has no business asking for presidency in 2023, as the presidency should go to the South. In the South, the Southwest should not look towards that direction as Obasanjo has taken their turn. In the same way, the South-south, as Jonathan has taken their turn. It is the turn of the Southeast. But the problem is that if we are not united to decide who should represent us, you find out that they will from long range pick a candidate for us.
I’m happy with what happened in the last election, the Igbo voted as one people, as they voted for Atiku and Obi. If we sustain this, when 2023 comes, we should be able to determine who will be there for us. As things stand now, at the constitutional conference, we were able to forge a national alliance that will make the hegemony take the back seat as minority. As things are now, if there is no rigging and the field is left open, there will be a pattern of voting – majority of Southwest, majority in the South-South, majority in Igbo land, majority in Southern Kaduna, majority in the Middle Belt, the Talakawas in the North all of them will vote as one people.
What is important for us as Igbo is to try and hold ourselves together as a people; president or no president, let us hold ourselves as one people, fight for our own internal autonomy. If we do that they will be looking for us. By right and if things are done correctly, 2023 has to be the turn of the Igbo.
We should make sure that their agents, who they have empowered and made very rich and who are fooling themselves playing all sorts of devilish politics; we should make sure that there is no place for them as people representing us.