Politics
Before the protest began, there were already insinuations that the Southeast was behind the planned 10-day protests. Their leaders therefore came out in full force to advise the youths to boycott the protests and avert any likely loss of lives and destruction of properties in the zone. Fortunately this advice was well taken and has been described in some quarters as a protest against the nationwide protests.
By Anthony Isibor
FOR many Nigerians, especially those from the Southeastern part of the country, the non participation of the five states in the zone in the recently concluded 10-day nationwide protests against bad governance was a welcome development.
It will be recalled that before the August 1 protests, some officials of the federal government had said that the protests were being planned by those who lost the 2023 polls and that their motive was a regime change.
For instance, Bayo Onanuga, the special adviser on information and strategy to President Bola Tinubu had warned the persons behind the protests that the protests could be hijacked and alleged that the supporters of Peter Obi were behind the proposed protests.
According to him, those “instigating” the protest are calling for a “civilian coup”.
“Obi should be held responsible for anarchy. Don’t be fooled: the malcontents planning to stage nationwide protests are supporters of Peter Obi, the failed presidential candidate of the Labour Party. And he should be held responsible for whatever crisis emanates from the action.
“The protest planners are also the same people who were instigated by IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, to launch the destructive ENDSARS protest in Nigeria in October 2020.
“IPOB members planning to extricate the SouthEast region from Nigeria infiltrated the protest and hijacked it for their own agenda,” Onanuga wrote on X.
These allegations were enough reasons for leaders from the Southeast zone to call for the boycott of the protests.
Apart from the #EndBadGovernance protests, the Southeast had over the years, been the theatre of unwarranted killings by state and non state actors.
However, the story of the gruesome murder of some youths in Enugu on August 23, 2020 during a clamp down on members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, was still fresh in the minds of many in the zone. According to reports, these youths were unarmed.
And for years now, the youths in the zone have resorted to such peaceful ways of protests like the Sit-At-Home protest every Monday. This Sit-At-Home protest has continued for years and may not stop until their demand for the release of Nnamdi Kanu is met. Meanwhile some prominent indigens from the Southeast zone have reacted for the byecott of the protests by the five states.
Speaking on the issue, Okey Bakassi, a veteran actor and an engineer said the Igbos had been taught a lesson in the past. Therefore, it was only wise that Obi and the Igbos must continue to stay away from anything that will give the government a reason to arrest them and as seen, the 10 days protest was truly without the support of the Igbo.
In the same vein, Prof. Udenta O. Udenta said that the decision by the Igbos not to take part in the protests was in itself a form of protest.
According to the Professor, the Igbo, particularly, the elites have been caught between the rock and a hard place. ”Defeated in war, structurally disadvantaged and excluded from the commanding heights of the nation’s institutional designs.
“The End-Hunger Protests, State of the Nation and Hon. Dogora’s descent to the Internal regions, the Prof. declared that the reasons for the Igbo abstention from the end hunger protests could be found within the “Disruptive nuances of Igbo exceptionalism in Nigeria’s political geography; not the exceptionalist mindset incubated by their prodigious entrepreneurial spirit and acumen, but a notion of a people set apart as a consequence of the Biafra experience,” he said in a statement.
He noted that the “Historical romanticization of the dawning of a neo-Biafran eldorado has gripped the imagination of millions of its youth and Diaspora communities, and with Nnamdi Kanu still inexplicably rotting away in detention while bigger threats to the survival of the nation state freely roam the land the regrettable contemporary Igbo attitude is – To hell with all this.
“Sure they are hurting, may be more than many other national groups, but with the strong belief that they will be exceptionally treated harsher than others as was done to the Eastern Mandate Union (EMU) in relation to NADECO in 1994 when the two groups issued ultimatum to Gen Sani Abacha to vacate office by end of June 1994, whereupon NADECO was rewarded with a begging and supplication visit by Gen Diya while Enugu – EMU’s headquarters- was surrounded by Army tanks, low flying fighter jets and our first dose of detention.
“So the Igbo non participation in the just concluded protests, in itself a form of protest against the Nigerian state, is a vexatious matter that requires rigorous interrogation and negotiation so that Igbo people can continue to play their very important role in the conversation about the future direction of the country and their place in it.” he added.
He, however, called on the government to fix the nation’s politics if it must solve the economic problems being experienced.
“Until we get the politics right, we can never get the economics right. Bola Tinubu’s government has not gotten the politics right so it can NEVER get the economics right.
“I am not an economist and neither am I a policy wonk. But even if I am one, let it be stated clearly that given the way national politics is currently being played no amount of policy prescriptions will solve the current economic and social challenges that the nation faces. The economic foundation or base incarnates the political superstructure in a complex pattern of cause and effect relationship but again as Marx averred, the history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle (over economic determinants) but all class struggles are political struggles.
“Until we get the politics right we can never get the economics right. Bola Tinubu’s government has not gotten the politics right so it can never get the economics right,” he added.
A.I
Aug. 19, 2024
