The Igbo people are known to have a genetic tendency towards republicanism. They do not worship at the feet of any man, which is why everyone seeks to speak their mind in meetings. They would tell you how they feel, but you could still do what you wish. If you deny them that opportunity to speak, you would have hurt them fundamentally. Those who lack understanding of their psychological makeup assume they are arrogant and disrespect to constituted authority.
Before the advent of warrant chiefs, a creation of the colonial masters to expedite governance and access to the people, there was the patently erroneous saying in the peoples’ language, to wit, “Igbo enwe Eze”(the Igbo have no King). That saying, as I have noted, is erroneous. The reality is that the people would not heed to the unquestioned command of the king, should he impose rules arbitrarily and without the reasoned consent of the people.
They would tell the king to his face that they do not understand the basis for his order and how it would impact the society, and they would, therefore, not obey, if he does not explain. This tendency irks other groups in Nigeria, whose kings give orders and they obey without questioning. They misconstrue the foregoing to mean that the Igbo denigrate authority and control. This is far from the truth. They see leadership as service backed with authority, not authority backed with service.
If a leader convinces them and they see through the leader as genuine in his intentions, they support him limitlessly, throwing their resources, and even lives, in the fray. Anyone who has done any extensive study, or even a casual one about the First Republic and the genesis of the civil war would know that Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, who led the secession, had extensive support of the people, in spite of his human foibles. His soldiers were hardly paid, as against his opponent’s; he had no amours, his territory was under blockade, yet the people rallied round him until it became impossible to continue.
The Igbo people have kings and leaders who get support, if their good intentions are transparently convincing. Other tribes in Nigeria, who are prone to obeying their king or leader without question, tend to see the Igbo as a people walking in parallel lines. They seek to control them through the instrumentality of money, perhaps, because the people are overtly enterprising. That means of control may have worked, but that is a matter for another day.
I have given the foregoing background to prepare for this intervention on the recent physical assault on former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, in Nuremberg, Germany, during a New Yam Festival organised by a group of Igbo people there. Members of the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB), an orginaisation led by Nnamdi Kanu, claim to have carried out the unwarranted attack. In a statement, IPOB not only owned up to the attack but was categorical that, “Our leaders shall ventilate the issues and offer guidance on what shall become the fate of corrupt politicians, collaborators and their families whenever they set foot on foreign soil. Our own revolution has commenced and things would never be the same again. It is up to other ethnic nationalities to deal with corrupt politicians and merchants of misery within themselves. We have started ours and Nuremberg is only a tip of the iceberg.’
Kanu reportedly corroborated this in a broadcast on Radio Biafra when he said, “We shall attack any politician seen outside Nigeria, even if they are in hospital. We shall go there and carry them out with their oxygen. If anyone goes down as a result of Operation Python Dance 3, we shall hunt down your family abroad, no matter the state government.”
Their major grouse against Ekweremadu, and other South East governors, is that they collaborated to proscribe their organisation. I do not know the undercurrents leading to the ban, but I know that the accused people do not have the constitutional powers to do so. IBOP may have their sources but this is misguided aggression. The elite have often had the short end of the stick in revolutions, which is why the attack on Ekweremadu may have hit the target, in their view, but I am now perplexed that IPOB seems to have reneged on its resolve to be a non-violent organisation.
The attack on Ewkeremadu may have been instigated by information privy to IPOB as against that in the public domain, to wit: Ekweremadu played pivotal role in the bailing of Kanu, which is why the attack should puzzle some of us. I watched a video wherein a supposed IPOB member denigrated the organisers of the event. That, again, raises eyebrows because the Igbo are very mobile people, reason they should organise such events if only to keep their children abreast of the cultural nuances of their people. Is IPOB opposed to such acts? I condemned the attack on Kanu’s home when it happened, and in accordance with our tendency to stand on the side of truth, I have stuck out my neck in utter condemnation of this attack, which has virtually railroaded the German government into sending scores of Nigerians, mostly of Igbo stock, home. Is that what IPOB wants?
That attack was ill-conceived, with no bearing with the republican nature of the Igbo. It has affinity with unbridled rascality. If the group redirects attention of foreign governments of its members and gets them returned to Nigeria, it is cutting its nose to spite its face as their numbers would be depleted, and thus their strength. They may have sent a signal but a simple protest would have achieved the same purpose. A physical assault, as we saw in that video, was reprehensible. It is a clear indication that IPOB has abandoned its non-violence stance, and thus opened itself up for greater attacks by a government that abhors them. The German government has acquiesced to the requests of Nigerian government to do something about the incident. There is no betting that other foreign governments would, too. The incident has detracted rather than added to the ideals of IPOB.