IPOB’s Stay-At-Home And The Counterproductivity

The Insight

By Lateef Adewole

Everytime I read news which are negative or retrogressive about South-East, my heart breaks! Why? After being born and bred in the South-West, went to schools up to the university in the region, the next parts of the country I knew was the South-East and South-South. I did my youth service in Akwa-Ibom state. At that time, travelling by road using luxurious buses overnight was the norm and common practice.

That was the first time I travelled across the country towards that region, criss-crossing nine states from Lagos, through Ogun, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Anambra, Imo, Abia to Akwa Ibom. There were fears of highway armed robberies at the time but not as frequent as to deter people from travelling. I had my share of the scare when an incident happened during one of my trips as a corps member. Highway robberies were driven largely by the movement of cash by traders who often travelled to Lagos from other parts of the country to buy goods. At that time, there were no electronic transfers and all kinds of banking systems that have now made financial transactions “cake” and easy as we have now. I often wondered how we managed to survive those years or how we were able to carry on.

After my national youth service, I returned to Lagos where I worked for few years before I joined an Oil and Gas company. I was later transferred to Aba, Abia state, under our Regional Office in Port Harcourt, Rivers state. There, in my official assignment, I covered Abia and Imo states in the South-East and part of Akwa-Ibom state. Deliberately on my own, I chose to explore the regions. I travelled to all the states in South-East and South-South. I drove myself on all those trips. In all, I spent nearly a decade in the regions.

Up till this moment, many of my best friends are Igbos. Many partners I still work with in business are Igbos. In fact, it was my living in Igboland that boosted the inspiration and my determination to go into personal business, after I met so many hard working, smart and successful young men and women who were involved in various business ventures. I told myself I could do it if all these guys could. Afterall, “dey no get two heads nah” (lol).

I would likely have married an Igbo lady had it mean I was not already engaged to my sweet, beautiful and lovely Latifah at the time I was transferred to the region. Igbo babes are beautiful, breathtaking and homely! I must have mentioned a few times in the past about my brother’s marriage to one of them. They have built a great family and have been blessed with wonderful kids. That was over ten years now. They have lived together in the heart of Igboland, Orlu, in Imo state.

However, anyone familiar with happenings in the South-East should have heard about Orlu. In the past months, it remained the hotbed of the crisis that have engulfed the region. In fact, it was the headquarters of the Eastern Security Network (ESN), the militia arm of the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB). My brother narrated many harrowing experiences to me, including how he picked bullet shells in his compound sometimes. The once peaceful community, where I also worked those years, has become a danger zone.

Ironically, that’s the area where the sitting governor of Imo state, Senator Hope Uzodinma and his predecessor, Senator Rochas Okorocha, hail from. The kind of insecurities that enveloped the region, Imo state and Orlu axis in particular, have been overwhelming and unexpected. It has gotten so bad that my brother is now planning to relocate with his family back to Lagos.

So, when I read all kind of negative news about Igboland, I weep in my heart. How could this happen? Why would the leaders allow it fester this long and to such extent? Didn’t the Yorubas say that; “agba kii wa loja, k’ori omo tuntun wo” (the elders cannot be in the market place while a goat delivers in tether). What about the people, the citizens and residents of that region? Why would they encourage, enable and cheer on such destructive activities?

It is understandable that the issue of Biafra is historical. The desire for an independent country by the Igbos never ended with the war, largely. Moreover, with their perception of being “marginalised” in the scheme of things in Nigeria. I have written a few times about this where I disputed some claims. It might happen that such “perceived marginalisation” is more pronounced since the inception of this administration. However, the region benefitted substantially from the previous administrations. I don’t want to start with that again.

The struggle for the actualisation or promotion of Biafra has remained a rallying point in Igboland and for many Igbos. From the Movement for the Actualisation of Biafra (MASSOB) to IPOB. Ohaneze ndigbo and other social cultural groups exist to defend the position, interest and rights of the Igbos. They have carried their agitations on peacefully for many years until IPOB came into the mix. IPOB has been more aggressive in their approach and transited to being violent, a style many disagreed with and condemned.

Sadly, like the Yorubas will say: “a ti kekere la ti n pekan iroko, t’oba dagba tan, yio gbebo” (an iroko tree must be tamed at early stage, when it grows up, it will demand sacrifices). People were cheering IPOB when they started. They felt that the “true” emancipators had come. Rallies called by the organisation, headed by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, were always mammoth and impressive. They would shut down everywhere, not by force, but due to overwhelming crowd. It was unprecedented. Many people gave their hearts to them.

Before you could say “Jack Robinson”, the leaders started becoming full of themselves. They started lording it over the people, their followers and supporters. They began to intimidate them and coercing them to obey their orders. The worst happened in the last six months when the region was set on fire. There was massive and coordinated attacks across the region, especially in Imo state. The IPOB’s ESN was accused of being responsible. They denied many times. Police stations, Correctional facilities, and many other government institutions came under attacks. Security agents became endangered species. They were killed ruthlessly. It was similar to how bokoharam started. No wonder many government officials started comparing IPOB to bokoharam.

They began to attack individuals too. We saw how many people, the same citizens they claimed to be fighting for, were butchered. Many killed in cold blood. Houses and properties of perceived antagonists or people with dissenting opinions, were destroyed. Many burnt down. Declaring “stay-at-home” has become so frequent now that many wondered what IPOB intends to achieve with it. They have become so vicious and do not heed any advice. As the Yorubas will say: “aja ti yio sonu, kii gbo fere olode” (a dog that will go astray will never follow the hunter’s whistle”.

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Contrary to the past when people supported their activities wholeheartedly, they now force them to obey by creating fear in them with killings, maiming and arson. We read numerous accounts of how people who defied their orders were killed. Buses carrying passengers in defiances of such order were burnt with the people in them. People’s home were visited in the dead of the night and they were killed. The examinations of students, who were writing their WAEC, were disrupted some days ago when gunmen invaded their premises and began to shoot. All these in whose interest? Definitely not in the interests of the Igbos and Igboland. How could they be?

In Nigeria, the economy is controlled by the Igbos. All over the country, Igbos run the commercial life. There is hardly any nook or cranny of Nigeria where you won’t find an Igbo person operating a small shop. The markets, shopping malls and complexes, corporate businesses, and anywhere buy and selling take place, are dominated by the Igbos.

Back home too, a lot of commercial activities take place. Production of goods and manufacturing of all kinds of items, up to cars and vehicles as seen in INNOSON Motors, happen in the South-East. I have always dreamt of when the ingenuity of the Igbos will be maximally tapped, be more organised and coordinated within the region to become a hub of manufacturing.

I have been to some places in Aba, Abia state, Onitsha and Nnewi in Anambra state, and Enugu State, where massive manufacturing of parts, equipment fabrications and the likes take place. With the brilliance of the Igbo race and their gifted nature, we should ordinarily have no business going to China to import many things. Given the right incubation conditions and conducive environment, the Igbos will produce nearly everything we need in Nigeria and in many Africa countries. Nigeria should have been the hub of manufacturing in Africa, courtesy of our Igbo brothers. But, that’s not to be. Ironically, it’s still the same people who flood Nigerian market with imported goods from China and other part of the world.

With the minimal production going on and socio-economic life in the region, of what benefit is the constant stay-at-home often declared by IPOB in the region while the rest of the country moves on? The overall economy of the country and even that of the world, is already challenged enough with the incursion of Coronavirus into our lives since last year, why do more devastating damages to the region’s socio-economic lives of the residents and indigenes? Why made life more unbearable for them? People now feel very unsafe in that region. There have been exodus of people to Lagos and South-west in general. If the Yorubas have done similarly, would there have been any safe haven for people leaving the Igboland for Lagos and South-West region? Who will bring his business to places where he could be killed or his business destroyed?

There are some professional bodies which take their annual conferences and AGMs to different parts of the country. The Nigerian Society of Engineers is one of them. This year’s conference was initially scheduled to take place in Enugu. Now, it has just been moved to Abuja due to the insecurities in the region. Participants would have come from all over the country and converge in Enugu. How safe will they feel to come? Sincerely, even me, who lived in the region for almost a decade, have my reservations. With what I have read, watched in the media and heard in the news, I doubt if I would have attended it. This is the kind of socio-economic disruption that the activities of IPOB and ESN are causing.

As it were now, it is high time well-meaning Igbos rose to the occasion. The people need to unite and say enough is enough! While the demand for justice, fairness and equity by the Igbos can continue at dialogue level, such should eschew violence. Violence can never achieve anything but misery and regrets. Who are the majority killed and whose properties were destroyed? They were still the Igbos. Therefore, who is doing who? If IPOB claims not to be responsible for all these atrocities, they must flush out and apprehend those who perpetrate them in their name then. That will exonerate them substantially.

Many of us have criticised the federal government for the way the IPOB issue was handled and mismanaged. However, we do not agree with the modus operandi of the organisation in deploying violence to attain their aim. That’s counterproductive. The leadership of the region needs to call their youths to order to cease hostilities, before it is too late. That will be in the interest of everyone. No development or progress can be achieved without peace. Federal government should also give listening ears to the complaints from the citizens, look into the root causes of various agitations across the country and address them sincerely, rather than deploying brutal force at all time. Fairness, justice and equity are recipes for peace and unity, not force!

May God continue to protect us and guide us aright.

God Bless Nigeria.

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