From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Elder Ibe Njoku Kalu, former deputy managing director of Champion Newspapers and university teacher, has said that Nigeria derailed when succeeding leaders failed to continue with the positive dreams of its founding fathers. Kalu, now an Ezie-Elect in his Akanu Ukwu community, Ohafia, in Abia State, wants the present generation of youths, who knew nothing about the civil war and its politics, to urgently take over governance, to salvage and return the nation to its glorious days.
Your highness, it seems a bit difficult to have encounter with someone who had been exposed to national discourse on issues of governance, one like you that rose to the echelon of the journalism profession, with day to day knowledge of events as they happened. However, let’s start with the country’s leadership woes, how would you describe the present situation that we are in?
I will start by saying that our leaders have failed us. Those that took over from the founding fathers down to the present day, have lost the dreams of their predecessors, and have not been able to recover that dream. The civil war that was fought for three gruesome years, contributed a lot to what has happened to Nigeria. The war itself, was fought as a result of leadership failure.
The inability of those in charge then, to keep the momentum that sustained the dream of the founding fathers in having a one Nigerian nation, the Herbert Macaulays, the Nnamdi Azikiwes, the Obafemi Awolowos, the Ahmadu Bellos, the Abubakar Tafawa Balewas, Dennis Osadebes. Then about other foot-soldiers, one talks about the Michael Okparas, KO Mbadiwes, the Eyo Itas, and many others across the nation. We lost the dream. Though at that time, many of the leaders were sectional, they didn’t make any pretences about their stance. Chief Awolowo, was a tribalist. He didn’t pretend about it.
The Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, was a regionalist, yet he played key roles in national development. It was only Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, that went global in that group. The Nigerian system at that time, accommodated all when we had regional governments. Everybody had opportunity to develop at his own pace. The West, was making waves. They were leaders in many areas but when Dr Michael Okpara, came to the saddle, the East, got recognition as the fastest growing economy in Africa. People were allowed to develop at their own pace, to tap the resources in their areas, develop and they were making much progress. It was a healthy competition and not in any rivalry. Each of the regions paid tax to the centre, the Federal Government.
On one occasion, the premier of Eastern Nigeria, Dr Okpara said, the University of Nigeria (UNN), was built with proceeds from palm oil and coal. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, premier of Western Region, built structures in the region, up to giving free education to people with proceeds from cocoa, among others. The North, was developing. They had cotton. They had textile industries everywhere dotting the entire North. The famous groundnuts pyramid was giving them money. Hyde’s and skins, also. Each of the regions was making a lot of money and nobody envied them. Neither did they envy one another.
People came to them depending on what their needs were and knowing what they were producing. Each of them approached the other to get what was available that they did not have in their own area. However, the war destroyed all of that perhaps, due to the not well thought out unitary system which the military imposed on us.
But the states are recognized entities having independent governments and recognized by the Constitution to carry out certain unrestricted developmental activities…?
Since after the war, though we pretend to be a democracy, we have continued to run a unitary system of government which has decimated the states. This does not give them room to act independently, or develop as was conceived before the war. The Federal Government, does not allow them to enjoy the liberty of utilizing the resources available in their land.
What should have been accepted, would’ve been to mine the resources, in their areas and pay tax to the central government, who is providing security. We lost it. We lost it again as a result of the failure of the Nigerian system to, in truth reabsorb the Igbo, back into the mainstream of governance. I watched a video not long ago, in which a man was complaining that the Igbo were buying back properties taken away from them after the war, the so called abandoned property.
The man was however, kind to admit that those properties, originally had belonged to the Igbo but forcefully taken from them and now they are buying them back. Part of that speaks volumes about the hatred of the Igbo by other Nigerian communities. I am not saying this, because I am an Igbo. People that are not Igbo, have been saying that.
Until we recognize that the Igbo are a special group of people that have a lot to offer to Nigeria, we will continue to pay lip service to its unity and development. We got it wrong at the point where hatred came to the fire and divided us as Nigerians, people of one, united country; to the point that we became envious of one another, instead of being happy for the other person. Before the war, the East was happy for the North that they could produce what they needed and could also spread it. We were also happy that the North could come to the East to take what its people lacked, as brothers. As it was, the East had no problem with the West then, but today, there is so much hatred, so much envy leading to open hatred against one another.
Today, we have lost Nigeria, that Nigeria, some of us thought was possible to bring back, is not there and cannot be there. Even those benefitting from the rejection of the Igbo and thought it was their time to blossom and shine, are regretting. It was said that after the civil war, Chief Awolowo, said it would have been unfair for the Igbo that left their positions in the service, to return to the jobs they had abandoned.
That was the beginning of keeping them away from the federal civil service. Once the Igbo left the service, things began to go from bad to worse. They were trained for the jobs of administering the services. They had and still have the acumen and the British colonialists recognized that and left the service to them at Independence. They left the economy in the hands of the Yoruba, the West. So, while the Igbo (East), were at the top echelon of the civil service, they worked for the overall good of the entire country.
For instance, a farmer in Maiduguri, Northern Nigeria, his counterpart in a rural village in the West, as well as one in an eastern community, would all benefit from that service, the system that the Igbo was asked to oversee and grow to affect all Nigerians, with positive impact.
All of a sudden, the others began to see it as Igbo domination. That made them not to allow the Igbo return to their seats after the war and those that took over the seats, with little or no knowledge of the system operations, were not qualified to run the offices.
They didn’t understand the system and since then, everything has been coming down in Nigeria. The Hausa man, would prefer to hire a man from China or India, to become the principal of a secondary school in the North, whereas, the Igbo, who is more qualified, more on the ground and understands the people’s mentality and feelings, is not allowed to take the position.
You’ve dealt much on the problems befalling the nation. The current government in power, has promised to tackle what it said we’re amiss and was working hard to arrest the situation, but still, Ndigbo feel they have continued to be marginalized. What are the remedies towards bringing them back into the fold, what do you suggest on this recurring issue?
Today, some people are dreaming dreams, while others like us, have lost interest. When we talk about Nigeria, we are only participating because, we have no other country to call our own. We have no other option.
The best thing to do, if the country must be salvaged, is to return to regionalism, to practise a government that supports healthy competition, not rivalry which will not help us. Resource control, is key.
Decentralization of the apparatus of state security, is also key. As it is today, many people are saying that the presidential system is expensive. It is only because, we copied only one aspect of the system while refusing to go into others. What is wrong if we operate the American system of policing – federal (national police), state and local governments (counties)? There’s a demarcation of responsibilities as well as areas of authority.
If one assigns roles, he must also assign limits of operations. If we do that in Nigeria, states will be able to fight insecurity in their territories. In the United States of America (USA) from where we copied the system we are currently running, states are powerful. States like California, and a few others, have annual budgets bigger than others and those ones don’t quarrel about it.
One uses what is available to it, to work for its people, pay its workers. Today in Nigeria, someone will be sitting in Abuja, the nation’s capital, and announce that civil servants across the country should be paid N30,000. Some states like Osun, those up north and even here in the Southeast, can’t afford that. How much do they get from the federation accounts allocation? So, the Federal Government collects our commonwealth, go to Abuja, to share it with the insincerity surrounding the system.
The Igbo have been asking for an additional state out of the Southeast, and it has been difficult for Nigeria to grant it. When one goes to the North, there is huge land mass to create local governments and not human mass, but here in the South, see how we live in our Akanu Ohafia communities, roof to roof. In the North, one sees a thatched house here and travels 50 kilometers before seeing another. Do we budget for the land or the welfare of the people? Some of these imbalances, inequities, are the things that have contributed to making people lose faith in the country called Nigeria. When we have people who are dedicated, still seeing the country as a unit though made up of an amalgam of many ethnic groups, things will work out for the better.
However, when one looks at some policies like pushing the almajari system of educating the child down to the South, where it has no meaning, what it is translating into is creating a system of making the poor poorer. Nomadic education cannot work in our areas because our people don’t follow cattle routes as occupation.
This is sustenance of poverty. Once, as a features editor with Champion Newspapers, I went to the North, to cover the turbanning of a former minister of finance, Alhaji Alhaji, as Sardauna of Sokoto; I noticed that every morning, afternoon and evening, a colony of people with plates, gather in front of a prominent man’s house to sing his praises, and be fed.
They had no jobs and the authorities do nothing about them rather, the big men enjoy the affluence of being praised while the people continue to wallow in poverty. The politicians are happy living with them that way.
This made me rejoice at being Igbo. Many politicians of our unitary system of governance across the country, are helping to breed poverty instead of working on finding ways to eliminate it. Such dependency approach to governance, make them feel good and the inequities will only divide us more. We need people that will give back hope to the people, recreate a new nation. Such hope, however for now, is distant. If it has to be realizable, the journey should start now.
Prior to the February 25th, 2023, elections, many Nigerians, especially youths, felt that it was possible to have a new country, where things will work well. Are you saying that such beliefs have fizzled out, in view of the outcome of that election?
We lost the opportunity of a new beginning when Prof Mahmood Yakubu’s Independent National Elections Commission (INEC) and the judiciary, jointly robbed Nigeria, of the opportunity of having a new beginning. Some people still think that there’s still hope. Can you imagine the level of banditry going on in this country! It has become big business. Someone, knows them, the bandits. He goes to talk and negotiate with them and we (the authorities), leave the man.
He is benefitting from it and we allow him to go and discuss with abductors and comes back to tell us like the olden days of the Court messenger. He interprets the white man’s statements for his own personal benefits. Let’s look at what is happening in Delta State, though I don’t like or support it. Soldiers were killed and then the whole Nigerian Army, is unleashed on the people, just like former president Obasanjo, during his tenure, did in Odii, Rivers State; they raised down the community.
One may ask, where is this army? Why can’t they go after those bandits terrorizing the North? Once in a while, they come out to tell us they have caught two people. So, where is the will to work for Nigeria’s unity, for one Nigeria? Some people have been blaming it on karma at work. Apart from Odii, the Obasanjo regime, visited Zaki Ibiam in Benue State. Gen Theophilus Danjuma is today crying. In all honesty, I don’t wish him well.
He was the officer who killed his head of state and slapped a General, in the name of the North. That North, is paying them back. What is happening in Benue, is flowing over from Jos. It is a good present to Gen Yakubu Gowon, for his lack of will to implement what he needed to do to make Nigeria remain united. He won the war but lost the nation. The Middle Belters, who now claim not being part of the North, were the ones that fought the war for Nigeria, to keep the Igbo subjugated. People were surprised that the Igbo didn’t participate in the recent protests against hardship in parts of the country.
We are not enjoying but we’re not protesting because we are not part of those doing so. We are a peculiar people in God’s hand. Let those protesting sort themselves out. There’s a strong hand of God, that is shielding us, all Igbo territory from the rampaging Fulani, destroying everywhere.
Even when they try, there’s a force that will rise against them. Nigerians need to begin to recover themselves. The present generation knew nothing about the war and what led to it. The older people wiped out history and its study in schools to misinform them.
They should allow this generation that knew nothing about it to come out and remake the country, redesign Nigeria and take it back to become what its founding fathers dreamt about. It should be returned to the Nigeria of the dreams of Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo, Eyo Ita, the likes of Chiefs Adeniran Ogunsanya and Olu Akinfosile, who worked with Zik, to dream a better nation for their children. Like I said earlier, though there were ethnic divides then, they did not overshadow unity and oneness.
There was consciousness in the development of the regions. Okpara, was not bothered about what Awolowo, did in the West, nor Sardauna, worried about development in the East. They all worked for peace at the centre, with a healthy competition at home. Let the present generation that has nothing to do with the war, take back and rebuild Nigeria.
In Nigeria presently, we have very weak institutions including the judiciary, that have always caved in when politicians roar, do you see them doing differently, when those you are calling upon rise to take over?
We need strong institutions to solidify our democracy like it is in other countries. We need to build institutions, not human beings. In the United States of America (USA), the system is surviving because of its strong institutions. Current president, Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was charged to court for an offence.
Here in Nigeria, can we charge president Tinubu’s son, to court or even report him to the police, if he commits a crime; the one that is dictating what should be done and using our presidential jet to travel to other countries for party jamborees? Is he the one anyone will subject to questioning? That is the difficulty we have in this country, so we need to build strong institutions to be able to sustain our democracy.
You know the other day, one man was asking what the president’s son does for a living, how he makes his income. Another person began to insulting him, calling him names, for daring to ask. This is the situation we find ourselves and until we do it right, all those organs of government will continue to bow to politicians. That’s what we have at the moment.
Coming to the media, a typical example of institutions that become established and fortified, includes the Guardian Newspapers, whose policies remain the same no matter who becomes its managing director or Editor. Every new leader follows laid down rules. For instance, one cannot say that since its leader has left, the person that took over from him, will bring in and start his own style of management.
No, the approved system must be adhered to. That is why the newspaper outfit will not go down easily. Many of the newspaper organizations that went under were established around individuals; that is why when they exit the scene, the organizations will collapse.
Nigeria does not need a strong president, what we need are institutions to checkmate office holders and ensure they were doing the right thing in governance. I recently heard that a serving Senator, had been detained for forging a National Youth Service discharge certificate. A former minister of finance and a serving governor, both were alleged to have done the same.
Now, why is the Senator being held while the governor and the former minister are going about free? A strong institution will say, “No Sir.” We need strong institutions with individuals that are humble with a will to drive the system and humility to accept when found to be going the wrong way.
You have been a media practitioner reaching the peak in your career and now a university teacher. Recently, we began hearing Ezie-elect, Ezie-elect, how did it happen because one would hardly believe that you will accept such call to royalty, going by your known simple lifestyle?
During the tenure of our late traditional ruler, late Ezie (Elder) Away Nwosu Irish, I served as the Secretary of his council, and got involved in all community matters, in relationships with the government. In Ohafia, we currently have two systems of the traditional rulership. One is reserved for a particular family, known as “Umu Odoawukwu” to produce the Ezieogo, who is the custodian of the cultures and traditions of the community. It is hereditary.
The second one, to which we have found ourselves, is known as Autonomous Community Ezie, who is vested with liaising with the government, working as the state representative of the government in the community. At the end of the mourning period for our late Ezie, Elder Awa Nwosu Iroh “Onyiriegbe 1”, the community began a process of electing a new traditional ruler. It was in the process, that I got unanimously elected to take the vacant seat with the title of, “Onyiriegbe, the Second (Onyiriegbe 11), of Akanu Ukwu Autonomous. Community, Ohafia.
All the necessary presentations and documentations, have been made and we are waiting for a formal recognition and issuance of staff of office by the government. With the experience and exposure that we have gathered, we hope to contribute our quota to the overall development of the community, the state and nation at large. It is a responsibility we will not fail to deliver for the good of our people.