We are better situated to begin this article with the pioneers of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo which I quite believe is vital to what we are set to achieve.
Ohanaeze Ndiigbo was formed immediately after the Nigerian-Biafran War which ended in 1970 by seven men of Igbo extraction, namely Chief K. O. Mbadiwe, Dr. Akanu Ibiam, Chief Dennis Osadebe (notice that Chief Osadebe was from Anioma because we shall revert to him at the last paragraph of this article) Chief Ugochukwu, Dr. Pius Okigbo, and two other notable Igbo men. These men with absolute beliefs in the unity of the Igbo greatly began and advanced the course of bringing together and reshaping the destiny of the Igbo people, with the aim of making them one nation with one destiny.
Ohanaeze shortly after foundation moved on as one nation without any evidence of discrimination, every Igbo speaking area was counted as part of Igbo land, I guess the war situation which the people were just getting relief from was a major catalyst for this, because every Igbo speaking area felt the evils of the war masterly and gruesomely imposed on them by the Nigerian government and its ravaging federal troop, but decades later, something went wrong with Ohanaeze psyche towards Igbo from other parts of the country, discriminations set in, Ohanaeze became an umbrella for discrimination, a tool for determining minority and majority Igbo.
That Ndiigbo has not actually benefited from Ohanaeze is one issue, because it has really never done what it ought to, and the discriminations of the socio-cultural group which in many ways sees certain of their Igbo kinsmen from States other than South Eastern part of the country as another issue, all of these have effected the agenda of the group, leaving the group incapable of making any meaningful achievements.
The name OHANAEZE NDIIGBO is something of a misnomer, which needs to be redressed to perhaps sound as OHA NDIIGBO. The later as it sounds or expresses completely excludes the people, giving us the impression that chiefs and traditional rulers are more of paramount interest in the affairs of Ohanaeze than the general Igbo men and women. This is where I tend to disagree with Hon Emmanuel Okocha in an interview he granted BiafraNigeria world titled “Face-2- Face: Ohanaeze on the Hot Seat-Part 1”, in what he tried to justify as the necessity of chiefs and traditional rulers who must preside over Ohanaeze sessions.
The Association has been misnamed to preclude the generality of the Igbo speaking areas of Nigeria. I urge the newly elected executive to make drastic changes in the Association which must start from the name of the organization down to membership. OHA NDIIGBO would have made better sense, because the socio-cultural organization should represent the general and equal interest of the entire Igbo speaking people of Nigeria within and outside the country, and must not be seen as placing special emphasis on chief and traditional rulers of Igboland.
The problem of Ohanaeze begins with the refusal of the teeming number of Igbo people to acknowledge that the organization is being confronted with several problems which the people as a whole must battle. Most times, it baffles me to hear our Igbo brothers in clear remarks state that the Igbo have no problems and that the problems of the Igbo are not different from that of Nigeria as a whole, but these are wide apart in describing the Igbo who before the Nigerian-Biafran civil War were in the forefront in all endeavours in the polity of Nigeria. In Nigeria of today, if the Anioma are counted among the Igbo, then I would agree with my self that no ethnic group has contributed more towards the development of Nigeria than the Igbo. But what does it profit a group if while working, others are benefiting? This is where the Ohanaeze question comes in.
Comrade Uchenna Madu, Director of Information, MASSOB has this to say about Ohanaeze:
“Who are the Ohanaeze people and what do they stand for? Do you mean those people that hold meetings of Ndiigbo and speak English language all the way? Is it the Ohanaeze that some of the leaders go to look for contract in Aso Rock? Is it the Ohanaeze that cannot have one voice and speak for Ndiigbo? When they hold meetings, some of them would go to Aso Rockto tell them all that happened? When the North are together fighting for the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the Niger Delta are gaining political mileage and winning all the amenities for their people, our own Ohanaeze would keep mum and watch the emperors in Aso Rock infiltrate their ranks, create disunity and sentence servitudes”
Today, Uchenna is still in prison with no sentence handed down on him, and Ohanaeze has done nothing about it.
The problems militating against Ohanaeze is too numerous to mention here but I know that any socio-cultural organization of this magnitude should posses the wherewithal to direct its people and lead them to the promised land with the abundant human resources and materials within its reach. Series of infightings have derailed the organization and has been most unfriendly to the cause of Ohanaeze. The Ojukwus, Ekwuemes and Okadigbos left nothing but legacies of leadership struggles not being able to enthrone any meaningful impact that I can point out in my article. Infighting in Ohanaeze is as old as the organization, quite typical of our people.
In the era of Justice Eze Ozobu Ohanaeze climaxed into many Igbo Historians have describes as a period bewilderment, this era highly polarized the organization and left it playing into the hands of many powers that be in Abuja. Ohanaeze rocked, and crash became very imminent, only a thin line separated the organization from near collapse because emperors in Abuja had the leeway the interfere in the activities of the organization with conspiracy from the members of the organization who jostled and wanted to win contracts and appointments from the federal Government of Ngeria to the detriment of the Igbo
Ohanaeze is like PDP the self-acclaimed biggest political party in Africa that lacks clear cut agenda for the people, thus studying the Group with a view to providing it with the way forward becomes the most difficult assignment any student of History or Political Science would encounters. With numerous cases in our court which has reduced the dwarf height of the umbrella group, Ohanaeze is supposed to a pressure group but all we see is an irrelevant organization with leaders trying to be careful in other not to draw further court cases. It therefore follows that a group like this cannot deliver to the people because of constant sabotage it is bound to experience.
Another gigantic problem of Ohanaeze is the situation whereby the organization has refused to carry along Igbo from other parts of the nation other than the South East. This is why I sometimes wonder if Ohanaeze is aware that there are still Igbo in Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Benue States not to mention Delta and Rivers States because these peoples are not included in the mainstream of Igbo affairs in Ohanaeze since they live across the River Niger.
This has not readily provided excuses for Afenifere, the Yoruba Socio-cultural organization which has continued to carry along the Yoruba speaking people in Kwara State. A situation like this will never occur in Igboland, for reasons beyond my comprehension. When most of us deny our Igbo ancestry, we do so not because we do not have full understanding of our history and where our forefathers took off from but because we tend to be rejected by Ohanaeze.
This article will provide evidences to back this up for those who dispute this to see reasons why the Igbo must move ahead in the Nigerian polity. “Icheoku wonders aloud why the Delta Igbo speaking areas of Ogwashi-UKU, Onitcha-Ugbo, Onitcha-Olona etc should not be included in any Associations articulated for the Igboman” (Ohanaeze Ndiigbo of Nigeria, which way forward? November 11, 2008) For the avoidance of doubt, I wish to remind Ohanaeze that Arewa Consultative Forum ha amongst its membership ethnic groups that cut across the northern part of country such as Hausa, Fulani, Birom, Tiv, Junku, Igbira, Gwari, Bornu, Kataf, zuru, Zango, Idoma, and the organization has performed so effectively well that we view the various ethnic groups as one ethnic groups.
Most times we are tempted to refer to all of them as Hausa, forgetting that linguistically they lack the knowledge of one another. We have been told of how Orji Kalu and Pat Utomi both approached Ohanaeze to declare their presidential ambitions to the Igbo socio-cultural organization but rather than welcome the ambition of Pat Utomi as a credible Igbo man from Delta state, and see him as one of their own, Ohanaeze members began to ask themselves whether Utomi was actually a proper Igbo man who could carry on with Igbo ticket or not.
Does this not amount to a denial of his ancestry? Ohanaeze members would not sham ignorance of the knowledge of the ancestral background of Ibusa from where Utomi hails, knowing that the Ibusa are from Isu as claimed by the oral account of the people. What Ohanaeze members had done to Utomi is that for anyone to properly claim to be an Igbo man, he must posses the South East Identity card. Ohanaeze is like a Hen that cannot gather her chicks, or has the intent of gathering only the chicks hatched at a particular location. What Ohanaeze has done to Utomi is absolute rejection, and other ethnic nationalities are laughing at us.
Ohanaeze should tell us in clear terms what it considers the definition of an Igboness or who an Igbo man is. We are obviously tired of being Igbo men and women only on papers. Incidentally Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, an Anioma injdigene from Delta State has been elected the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo, and already, as expected knocks and rejections is currently trailing his emergence. I expected this anyway.
Those against his election as the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo are contending that the leadership of Ndiigbo shouldn’t have emerged from a minority section of Igbo which is Anioma in Delta State (Sunday Independent, December 14, 2008) It grieves me so much when I hear the Igbo reject the Anioma people of Delta state as Igbo people because the Anioma is a well endowed region which should not be pushed around by any ethnic group. Towns and communities of Anioma cut across covering even Onitsha Mili (in Anambra state) The Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who today is the pride of the Igbo, Nigerians and Africa is an Anioma man.
Does Ohanaeze know this? If the members of Ohanaeze claim not to know this, then they are being disingenuous. Nnamdi Azikiwe hails from an Anioma community of Onitsha founded by the same Prince who was responsible for founding Onicha-Ugbo, Onicha-Olona, Parts of Agbor (Ika), Issele Uku, Issele-Mkpitime etc but the River Niger has naturally separated them from the rest of Anioma well concluded by the loss of Ekumeku wars.
All I am saying is that the Anioma people have abundant human materials capable of moving them upward developmentally, and in an ideal social environment free from what I call “presidency fixing” Pat Utomi is capable of winning an election, he therefore needs no support of Ohanaeze since there are still many Igbo men and women who believe him as one of their own. If Ohanaeze Ndiigbo rejects us and denies us as proper Igbo Igbo people, then we cannot reject ourselves because he who is rejected cannot reject himself, it is an Igbo adage.
Still on Uwechue.
“They further contend that Uwechue’s election would snowball into the ultimate collapse of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo since the president is not from the core five states of the South Eastern zone” (See same source quoted above) It beats my imagine why Ohanaze would readily disclaim us, I mean the whole lot of Igbo outside the South East but when an issue is political or requires population statistics and figure Ohanaeze tend to claim ownership of our region from Agbor-Aboh-Ukwuani down to Asaba. It is terrible, as no group whether labeled subgroup or not will not freely to play a second fiddle role. While oral accounts, folklores, History books, wikipedia.org record the ancestry of Igbo as extending beyond the confines of the South East it is not the same politically from the understanding of Ohanaeze.
I expect Ohanaeze to pointedly tell us that we are no longer considered as Igbo and as result cannot be trusted with the sensitive leadership of the socio-cultural organization for fear of betrayal rather than refer to us as minority Igbo. We are aware that many so-called Igbo people who are enjoying the political dividends using influence of the ethnic group never fought to defend the cause of Biafra as did the Anioma people.
We know them, we know many of them, we also know the roles our people played, commanding in the forefront of Biafran battles, where people who today refer to themselves as “core Igbo’ failed when the battle was fierce. We saw and experienced it, the massacres which started in Asaba, spread to Ibusa, Ogwashi-Uku, Ishiagu, Igbodo, Aboh, Ushisha, and Ubulu Kingdom, it touched us, the Anioma people, we lost the finest of our youths and people. Is it not for this reason that Asaba is today denied of reasonable number of youths they were naturally entitled to?
In Ibusa, the federal forces who entered the town defecated right inside churches in the town. We know these things, they seemed to be over, but they still ring in us because one is not expected to forget where the rain started beating her, if she does she becomes a fool who cannot tell her history to her children. We were gradually losing everything, Anioma towns and communities through state creations that followed. Ogbemudia used the opportunity to carve out our Igbankiri, an Anioma town which he carefully situated in Edo state; Ogbemudia till today will not claim Igbanke to be his hometown.
This is an affront, because no matter how small a community is its future should not be toyed with. Igbanke can today pass for the least developed territory in Edo state courtesy of the wonderful job executed by Ogbemudia, the same Ogbemudia who has not offered the Igbankiri people anything to console them. History will remember us in everything we do.
They want to see us as “Anioma calamity” Our Igbo brother by describing us minority Igbo and treating us as same, are helping our enemies to sink us, even as they deepen our problems. It is absurd that Ohanaeze reason that fake Igbo exist among us. We have no fakeness in us, we have been reduced enough, sustaining the highest genocide in Africa and cannot be further reduced to nothing.
The world does not see it to be so because we have no voice to speak for us. Has the “core Igbo” forgotten so soon, all we have suffered, and just how the name “Murtala Mohammed” became the most dreaded names in Asaba, Ibusa and Ogwashi-Uku? What Ohanaeze has told us by denying us our ancestry is that the Presidency of the socio-cultural organization is for Igbo people, and we are not Igbo. Kwa ya? If the Igbo people forget too soon, we do not because we have a lot to tell our children, children. This is a clear indication that Ohanaeze will not achieve anything because in the first instance, the so-called “core Igbo” do not believe in the ancestry of Uwechue, their new leader. He is therefore an alien in leadership.
Nothing is so puzzling as understanding the Blackman, only recently an Obama, a complete Blackman whose father hails from Keya in East Africa won the presidential election of USA, and Africans from our continent celebrated, the same Africans that cannot allow similar event to take place in its continent jubilated, prophesized and hailed Americans. Well a notable Igbo man in the person of Dr Ikedife defers from the dissenting views of his Igbo counterparts.
His position is recorded below:
Dr. Ikedife, the outgoing President-General will not accept that.
“You know there is an organization called Arewa Consultative Forum for the Hausa and Fulanis. The person who headed them last was Chief Sunday Awoniyi, a pure and simple Christian Yoruba. He is a fringe northerner but their head…” He goes on: “The issue of being a core Igbo man man does not arise. There is no quarter Igbo or fractional Igbo. There are no fringe Igbo… They (Anioma people) are our brothers. Never mind that the vicissitude of politics has done a lot of things and the geography of River Niger makes it that they are distant from u, they are our brothers. The fact that they were part of western Nigeria before Midwest was created does not make them less Igbo. They are our brothers and we must continue to play along with them. Even if some of them are reluctant to identify with us. I think we must encourage them to associate with us” (Sunday Independent, December 14, 2008)
That Ohanaeze which we should have taken to mean an umbrella for the entire Igbo is discriminating against the rest of Igbo, telling us who should and should not be Igbo in the entire polity of Nigeria is disheartening because it will only encourage the Igbo from the other parts of the nation to flee. The feeling of these peoples is that they cannot entrust Ohanaeze with their fate since Ohanaeze has nothing but disclaim of their precious tribe. Ohanaeze must realize that the Anioma people are not desperate to identify with the cause group of Ohanaze. And the rejection, bad treatment and discriminatory manners of Anioma people will amount to nothing but distant in association of other Igbo from the other states of the federation.
In time to come I am only hoping that it does not become too late for Ohanaeze to realize the harm it has caused itself as I advise the group to restructure itself and incorporate every Igbo speaking part of Nigeria not minding dialects and many rivers dividing the ethnic group. I am not begging the “core Igbo” but I would have thought that the policy makers from this part of the country should have realized that only dialectical differences separate the vast people of the ethnic group and if Igwebuike was to be considered it will mean unity and not disunity.
It is particularly painful to me as I recall that Theodore Orji of Abia State was the only Governor from the South East geo-political zone that attended the election of the new national executive council of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, just because an Anioma man was to be elected the president-general of Ohanaeze considered to be the sole property of the “core Igbo” as they have come to identify themselves.
Theodore Orji, regretted the action of his colleagues who typically of them were absent and advised them thus:
“We should forget fighting each other, we should eschew violence and confusion and any day Ohanaeze Ndiigbo collapses, Ndiigbo are finished”
Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu who was also absent said thus:
“The major problem tearing the body apart is greed.” The Igbo need more lessons to learn in other to understand political dynamism of Nigeria. As an Igbo man which I am said to be having hailed from Ibusa in Delta State nothing would give me more pleasure than see an Igbo man emerge as the president of Nigeria come 2016, if only to shame those who believe that Ambassador Uwechue, an Anioma man has come to ruin or worsen the problems of Ohanaeze just because he is not a “core Igbo” man as they see us, and the enemies of Igbo nation whether within or outside the Igbo nation who believe that the Igbo must sink. But Ohanaeze Ndiigbo has a great role to play in this.
Finally in reference to my second paragraph above, I wish to remind my readers that Chief Dennis Osadebe, an Anioma man was one of the seven founders of Ohanaeze Ndiigbo as presently constituted, will it then be wise to deny his fellow Anioma kinsmen and Igbo from other states the leadership of the organization? This question is for Ohanaeze Ndiigbo.
Will a Socio-cultural organization that discriminates against its ancestral members of race grow? One however, must not fail to acknowledge that Ohanaeze has decided to walk in the right direction by appointing Amb. Ralph Uwechue from Delta State as the Presient-General of the organization, expectedly this will go a long in giving all sons and daughters a sense of belonging that we are all Igbo no matter where we comefrom.
Emeka Esogbue
http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/uwechue-ohanaeze-ndiigbo-and-the-future-of-anioma-688316.html
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