EURO-LOGIC AND BIAFRAN FUTURE
Felix-Uche Akam
Julius Malema’s suggestion to Jacob Zuma is a classical recommendation to those who seek respect without sacrifice, benefits of power without responsibility, oily mouths without soiled hands. Responding to Jacob Zuma’s recent demand that he be treated the same way Nelson Mandela was treated, Julius Malema, the parliamentary leader of opposition in South Africa said: “What a great idea. Let us start with the 27 years in prison.”
Nothing in life is given; if you want peace prepare for war. Freedom is sacrifice and comes when people unite themselves under a strong leadership with determination to surmount their obstacles. Any group who wants to go far must first of all go together as a team, hand-in-hand.
Euro is both a legal tender and a lesson in diversity. When the euro was introduced, the European Central Bank allowed just one concession to national identity. Twelve countries would voluntarily deprive themselves of their national currencies and their control over interest rates to pool economic sovereignty on an unprecedented scale.
From Athens to Lisbon and Sardinia to Helsinki, all the notes would now be the same- but each country would get to emboss coins with its own local insignia. So a one-cent piece, for example, in Austria, bears a gentian (an Alpine flower), in Spain the façade of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, and in Portugal the Royal Seal of 1134. In so doing, enormous economic progress was unleashed without destroying identity.
In Eurozone, the change in your pocket tells a story about who moves where. Small purchases leave traces of with other nationals; yet Euro is supreme.
Without strong leadership, unity looks like motion without movement. Leadership defines destination. It organizes resources, human and otherwise, distributes burdens and privileges, and takes a people to their dream.
Take United Arab Emirates as an example. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum ignored creedal prejudice and went for the best brains across the world. He mobilized them to action and they delivered what he wanted, a city that has become the envy of the whole world. In 1985, Nigeria has 17 planes while Emirates had only 3. Today, Nigeria Airways has ceased to exist but Emirates has 256 planes and still counting.
Buhari’s unparallel hatred of Ndigbo is not without good lessons. There is an emerging Igbo consciousness, a new debate on the future of Igbo nation. Against all risks, people are more determined to secure a future that is dignified.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” said the African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lighting. They want the ocean without awful roar of its many waters…Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and it never will.”
This conveys the urgency of concessions on the side of Ndigbo in areas of unity and leadership. A kingdom divided against itself does not resist external aggression. Internal rancors, unfounded rivalry and unjustifiable mentality of some-animals-are-more-equal-than-others are eating deep into Igbo consciousness.
Notice that three movements are sweeping across the world. Contrary to expected identity diffusion of e-age, people are closing up either to defend themselves, attack others or do both. Ndigbo must join the resistance against attempts to undermine their identity as a group, the long queue to protect ego, and defend creed and ingenuity. From there they can emit much energy to drive indigenous industrialization, groom talents and export goods and services.
The people are no less hardworking nor the brain less productive than decades ago. The power to greatness remains. It does not matter whatever geo-political entity they find themselves, Nigeria or in Africa, Biafra is a consciousness, entrepreneurial ideology, and a spirit.
The power to direct this new energy must come from strong leadership devoid of self-interest. This is where Ndigbo have been shooting themselves on the feet. We have been held back not by the failure of federal government but bad leadership provided by our sons and daughters in leadership. The results are clear: no road, no power, industries, schools, hospitals and most annoyingly, disoriented mindset.
On Saturday, May 5, 2017, the governors of Igbo States under the auspices of the Southeast Governors’ Forum rose from their meeting to constitute strong economic team as well as a committee to proffer enduring solution to the problem of power supply. The membership of the economic committee to be inaugurated on June 4, 2017, is drawn from the five states of the region and is saddled with responsibility of setting economic agenda for southeast including the economic integration and certain projects in the zone like the railway and seaports, agriculture among other.
This is a welcome development and one would wish it does not go the normal way. The problem of Nigeria has not been knowledge but political will power to do the needful. Sometimes, we use good policies to play politics knowing very well that continuity does not exist in our national policy. President Goodluck Jonathan had six years in office, yet, the Second Niger Bridge had to wait as a symbol of what could have been done if we had re-elected him again.
A committee of the above may be one of the ways to begin. In every movement, there are always false starts. It is strengthened as weaknesses reveal themselves. The new committee must look left and right to chart a new way for Igbo land. The Southeast Assembly needs to give legal backing to the committees to make them stronger than one regime.
The committee besides designing plans to fix our infrastructures must beam its light on the falling Igbo Culture and values. No people go far unless they unite as a moral community. We need greater understanding and constructive appropriation of culture into governance. First, insensitivity to where we come from never achieved much. Baiting, ridiculing and humiliations are poor substitutes for satire, irony and humor, although they often masquerade as such. Secondly, when we abandon our cultural identity, we are not clever but cowards.
The Ndigbo cannot succumb to perils of political panic and division. They must leverage their potential through solidarity in search of common higher ground. Think Euro-logic, think Biafra’s future.