The Python Dance (Egwu Eke) Part 2 of Nigerian Army in the South-East reportedly aimed to check crimes in the ember months has reportedly left some people dead and others wounded. It has also heightened the political tension in the country. Videos and images of dehumanized members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in mud water, some being slapped, caned and bruised mercilessly, have been trending in the social media and they do not paint the Nigerian military and the federal government in glowing colours.
The attack on IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu’s country home and their members by those involved in the python dance is in bad taste and condemnable. In fact, the Army/IPOB clash is indeed avoidable if the military has conformed to rules of engagement and restricted itself to the python dance. It is regrettable that what ought to be a dance, turned bloody and further opened our fault lines and divisions. I don’t want to go into the semiotics of python dance and its cultural implication to people in the South-East. But let me say that python dance is a cultural taboo in Igbo land. Our pythons hardly dance. They crawl and at times raise their heads up. They are sacred and harmless creatures. They can be seen in people’s homes. They don’t bite. They sleep with human beings at times. Most parts of Igbo land don’t kill or eat pythons. Python is the totem of some deities/gods in Igbo religious cosmology in some communities. Anybody that kills a python in some Igbo cultures will organize its funeral like that of a human being.
Apart from deaths and wanton destruction of properties, the python dance has led to proscription of IPOB activities in the South-East by South-East governors while the military authorities have reportedly designated it as a terrorist organization, a label that IPOB has rejected.
Designating IPOB as a terrorist organization is still debatable within and outside our shores because the group has never been a violent organization. Getting a court pronouncement to that effect does not necessarily translate to its being tagged a terrorist organization. Let’s keep watching as the matter unfolds.
Thank goodness that we are in a democratic dispensation where due process ought to take precedence over brute force. IPOB is known and generally regarded as a freedom fighting organization. Their members are agitating for a Biafran Republic. Why are they agitating for a Biafran Republic? This question should worry the Nigerian authorities.
But let me suggest some of the reasons behind the agitation. The IPOB members felt that Nigeria is not treating them well. As a result of this maltreatment, they are aggrieved. They resent and repudiate Nigeria. No doubt, they have the right to be angry. They are venting their anger on a nation that neglects them. All things considered, they have a genuine case that should attract the sympathy of all Nigerians. However, their methodology is problematic, especially the fiery and bile rhetoric of their leader, Kanu. His hate utterances are attracting enemies to their cause. The IPOB leader is well armed with potent and lethal words and he releases them at will.
Words come to him easily and he utters them without crosschecking their effects on the polity. He lacks restraint and tact which old age bestows on people. He is a young man full of zest and energy. He is fearless, courageous and strongly believes in the conviction of his cause. He is obsessed with Biafra. And many of his followers, mostly unemployed youths, okada riders, artisans and petty traders share the same belief and conviction.
To them, IPOB is a movement and a religion while the IPOB leader is its symbolized messiah. IPOB has advantage of social media presence and international visibility. They have tactically put the government on the defensive. The Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, struggles everyday to counter IPOB’s media offensives. His simplification of IPOB’s agitation as emanating from politicians that lost election in 2015, whose intent is to rubbish the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is, at best, cheap propaganda. The minister should understand that IPOB is never a localized group even though Nigeria is its main base. It attracts local and global sympathy as a politically and religiously marginalized group seeking for freedom from long years of oppression. This is one point Mohammed should not gloss over while defending the federal government.
I believe that isolation of IPOB by Nigerian authorities will worsen the crisis and make their members go underground. This is one ugly pitfall the federal government must guard against. IPOB has political and religious ideologies. These ideologies can hardly be proscribed. They cannot be killed or exterminated by force or legality. I strongly believe that IPOB agitation is a political issue that requires political solution. It requires constructive engagement by the federal government. Dialogue and not war is the best option to handle the matter. President Muhammadu Buhari should dialogue with IPOB leader as former president Olusegun Obasanjo has wisely advised.
Government should recognize that IPOB and its leader are by-products of Nigeria’s years of inept and bad leadership. IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu are just symptoms of a deeper national malaise. The malaise cannot be cured or eliminated by shutting down Kanu and his group. Doing so would be counter-productive. Instead, government must find solutions to the national malaise. Taking adequate care of the national malaise is likely to douse the current tension in the country and whittle down the agitations.
The Northern governors that visited the South-East in the heat of the tension to douse the tension in the country are indeed on the right track. Likewise the Arewa and Igbo youths that met recently and agreed to work for peace in the country.
Nigeria is still a work in progress. It is not perfect yet. And I don’t think that any country is perfect, too. Nigeria needs tinkering and retouching from time to time to suit the times we are in and our needs. The welfare of all Nigerians, irrespective of their political affiliations and how they vote, should be the number one duty of any government in power.
Let me lay emphasis that IPOB agitation is as a result of marginalization and unfair treatment of the people of the South-East by this change government. The theory of 97 percent and 5 percent of votes in the 2015 poll; and the doling of appointments and projects based on that ratio that defies all mathematical logic, contributed to IPOB agitation and even intensified it.
The federal government’s appointments so far do not reflect the federal character. Let members of the council of states and other Nigerian elders rally round President Buhari to resolve all issues besieging the nation. It is good to look for a black goat in the day time rather than in the night. This is not the time to play the ostrich.