Much Ado About IPOB’s Proscription

The right to self-determination is as old as mankind. All through history, people have been bound by the idea of a better life than they currently have through the idealism of living in a homeland where their shared culture reigns supreme. For centuries, England was the colonial master of Ireland. It was so bad that the Irish satirist, Jonathan Swift wrote an evergreen piece ‘Modest Proposal’ which was an expose of the horrors the Irish faced living in England. This was the remote reason behind the formation of the Irish Resistance Army (IRA) which pressed for the independence of Ireland. It morphed from using an intellectual, non-violent approach to full-fledged violence which made the English cede some parts of the country which is today known as the Republic of Ireland.

India at independence in 1947 witnessed the most bloody of pogroms as the cry for the creation of Pakistan led to the deaths of millions during the first partition under the leadership of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The agitations continued and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were further carved out.

The rise in popularity of the mafia in Italy was as a result of the determination of the people of southern Sicily to take their destiny in their own hands against the raw oppression of the north. The quest for their homeland led to the spread of its tentacles to the ends of the earth even though the reality of a physical homeland is still a pipedream to this day.

The crisis in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine has its roots in the 1914 Balfours Declaration which unilaterally allocated the Israeli homeland to its present location without any consultations with the Arabs. The 1948 dream of an Israeli homeland was as a result of thousands of years of agitation especially in Europe for a place of their own after the Jerusalem sacking which was the root cause of the massive dispersals.

Ever since the civil war ended with the famous ‘No victor, no vanquished’ statement by General Yakubu Gowon, the south-east zone is still being treated as a conquered territory. There is the dearth of federal presence there and the federal government appointments don’t tend to be in their favour. In the defunct Second Republic, apologists of the Kaduna mafia opined that the easterners had no right to complain since the vice-presidency was ceded to the zone barely less than a decade ago. I humbly beg to vehemently disagree as the position which Alex Ekwueme held was powerless to effect any real change. No sensitive appointment in the then Shehu Shagari led cabinet was manned by easterners. The position of the vice-president was so powerless that it couldn’t influence the award of a single contract. In 1982, the then ruling NPN sensing its unpopularity, decided to bring back the Biafran warlord, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu from exile in Cote d’Ivoire. They made it a condition that he must join the NPN as they wanted to make inroads in the south-east especially in the then old Anambra State. The then FEDECO smartly fixed the gubernatorial elections before the senatorial and after Chukwuma Christian Onoh won the gubernatorial, it then moved against Ojukwu by backing the NPP candidate, Alex Onwudiwe whom the Ikemba Nnewi said he had never even heard of. The biggest Igbo symbol was effectively kept out of the nation’s highest law making body – the Senate.

The Igbos rose to economic pre-eminence from the sheer dint of hard work and not because any favourable economic or political policy affected them. The few good roads and amenities that work in the east are largely built from the collective efforts of the entrepreneurs in the beleaguered zone. The zone is still largely treated like a conquered fiefdom. Ruthless politics by successive administrations is being played with their welfare. Tony Ademiluyi, anthonyademiluyi@yahoo.com