Okenyi Kenechi
It is laughable that some IPOB members expected Nnia Nwodo and the South-East governors to come to Port Harcourt and be guns smoking. Those at the top don’t see things the way you see it. There is what is called courtesy, you give people their respect even when you don’t agree with them.
All these won’t have happened if someone didn’t start claiming responsibility for arson carried out by ordinary angry Nigerians in Lagos, Uyo, Calabar, Oyigbo et cetera, and you are what you claim. You cannot claim something and then turn around to deny it. You cannot claim someone that is not your member and then later say he wasn’t your member. Politicians will be the last set of people to treat you with kindness when politics is involved and, the sending of soldiers, the denials, the ‘ethnicisation’ of the whole thing, the blowbacks, the Ohanaeze and South-East governors involvement are all politics. Stop being pawns in political chess games if you claim to be apolitical.
Rivers State is a multi-ethnic state and the governor represents every one of them.
Here is another thing; stop forcing people who say they are not Igbo to be Igbo. Stop dragging with people who say they are from a place, telling them that they are not from where they said they were from. You are only fooling yourself.
It is time for soul searching. It is time to evaluate the outcomes of the last 5 years and look at where there should be amendments. Were there new alignments or did the number of enemies increase? I know that some of you wield words like loaded AK47 but there is no one approach to a problem, and claiming to be apolitical is no longer tenable with the current realities.
When Kanu visited Anambra before their last election, the crowd that came to welcome him couldn’t have come to see Buhari even if he paid everyone in the state 200k each. It sent shock waves into the spines of the political leaders in the East. Then you had people like Osita Chidoka who is young, with the ideology of MI Ọkpara. He even braved the odds of appearing in court for Kanu. Had he been supported by IPOB, he would have won and that would be a shift in South East politics with Economic development as the core policy. Imagine taking the whole of the East which was very much achievable as at then, and having IPOB members as NASS members, governors and state House of Assembly members. Then, the speaker of the House of Reps or the Senate president will not just wake up and approve every nonsense Buhari does. With the strength of your opposition, you will find acceptance in those Igbo areas of South-South and beyond while re-creating some of the footprints of MI Okpara. It is a gradual process that was 80 per cent achievable. But what did Kanu do? He said “don’t vote” and you agreed.
Now, it is the same people you didn’t vote for that found it easy to agree with the Federal Government to proscribe you as a terrorist organization, the same people who rehabilitate Boko haram terrorists ask that you be dealt with. So before you call anyone names, look into the mirror and ask hard questions.
Umahi said what he said during that meeting with Wike but you won’t do anything other than writing expletive comments because you threw away your power to hold him to ransom.
One defence that has become rife is that elections do not count and that FG does not allow economic development of the East. Economic development in Nigeria is largely private-sector driven. That’s why Katsina is not more economically viable than Enugwu despite producing two presidents. The Igbo have the skills and knowledge, and then financial power. However, there is no central galvanising force like Zik and Ọkpara were.
Elections count for a people who are vigilant, and in the area of economic development, people also said that Innoson would be frustrated. Nnewi has tens of companies. Buhari has not sent soldiers there to destroy them.
It is not Dan Yerima from Zamfara that has stopped the lighting up of Aba by Bath Nnaji’s Geometric. It is Emeka Offor, our own. It has been over 5 years that the 188mw gas-powered plant built by Nnaji for the purpose of giving Aba 24 hours electricity and bring about its full industrial potentials has been lying fallow due to lengthy court cases with Interstate electricity. The gas for the plant is supplied by Oilserve, one of our own. Imagine what Aba has lost in terms of energy efficiency within that period.
Dangote sources 80 per cent of his trucks from Enugwu. The Sino Trucks Dangote uses are assembled in Emene and he was forced to invest billions in the factory. These should be where our focus should be. America is the world’s number one power because it has money and manufactures. China, Germany are powerhouses because of their manufacturing power. Yinka Odumakin of Afanifere once said that 70 per cent of companies in Lagos belong to our people. We have so many in Port Harcourt etc. The scattered method of these companies and bringing them together into a cluster should be what we should be agitating for.
So, you have to vote and have people like Chidoka in power in the East who understands the importance power in economic development, who will liaise with the Likes of Emeka Offor to open up a little and work with the likes of Bath Nnaji to give you electricity while Oilserve plays a crucial role in supplying gas. South East has some of the biggest gas reserves in the whole of Africa. If you have electricity, and there is full industrialisation, those who rejected you will rush to claim you. Everyone follows the dollar. Think! Stop dying for nothing.
