Column
By Steve Osuji
Here we have two Igbo leaders going to the press to sing and dance about something as basic as a Federal Executive Council contract award.
Orji Uzor Kalu, a sitting senator of the Federal Republic and a former two-time governor of Abia State, and Alex Otti, a former bank MD and guber aspirant of the same state recently rolled out the drums over the award of a contract for the repairs of a federal highway that traverses their domain, Abia North.
This fast emerging trend of SLAVE MENTALITY in Igboland must be condemned strongly and stopped forthwith.
We call on these and other servile Igbo leaders to ponder on these points:
- You cannot commend the president and his council for awarding a project contract or repairing a highway because they are doing their job!
- As citizens and taxpayers, we are entitled to any services rendered to us. That is why they are voted into office. It’s very illiterate to describe such as “great favour to the people of Abia North.”
- It is most silly to commend a government for mere CONTRACT AWARD. What would you do when the job is eventually done? Look around you, the landscape of Nigeria is littered with abandoned contracts!
- This undignified behaviour is not known in any other part of Nigeria except in Igboland! And to think that some of the biggest projects of this administration are being carried out in the northwest and southwest (AKK Pipelines project, Lagos-Ibadan modern railline, etc), yet no leader from these areas has gone to press to sing lullaby to the president.
- It is this kind of self-demeaning, self-defeating posture that loused up the repair work at Akanu Ibiam Airport, Enugu where an international airport was commissioned without toilet facilities and cargo sheds…
Yet so-called Igbo leaders trooped to the place like sheep and commissioned it with fanfare and without the courage to ask Aviation Minister,Hadi Sirika simple questions.
- It is the same serf syndrome that made somebody called Arthur Eze to herd Anambra monarchs like cattle to the Presidential Villa Abuja to prostrate and genuflect. In Abuja, he rubbished them, made them look like hungry, costumed touts and then the odious images were post up on social media.
- One has seen such deprecating act of a southeast governor going to the press to commend the president for a federal appointment… those who hold juicy and strategic positions in this government have you heard them?!
- Let it be known that our puny leaders, in there quest for federal recognition and federal contracts are damaging the Igbo psyche, our essence, our prestige, our dignity and our self-esteem.
- All self-respecting Igbo man and woman must realise that these wayward leaders in their maniacal quest for vain glory and power, are dragging the Igbo race in the mud. It is unacceptable.
- We are born free, let them stop putting a rein around our neck.
- We are part of this federation, and we shall not beg for our rights, we shall DEMAND for it and insist that we get it in time and in good, fair and right measures!
STOP THIS SLAVE MENTALITY! STOP DAMAGING IGBO PSYCHE!!
**Culled from Steve Osuji Facebook wall Saturday, October 3, 2020
– Oct. 3, 2020 @ 14:15 GMT |
Tags: Igbo leaders must stop damaging the Igbo Psyche
