Ndigbo: Soyinka, Tinubu as Metaphors of Anti-Yoruba Obsession

   By kola Johnson

In the ensemble of political actors in the contemporary politics of the Fourth Republic, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu easily stands out within the mix, and clearly far above others, in terms of his unalloyed puritanism as the most detribalized and extremely excellent bridge builder, whose cosmopolitan worldview, the humanistic creed of the universal brotherhood of men, and magnanimous large-heartedness, rebuff, and with unguarded effortlessness too, illusive segregationist trifles of race, tribe, ethnicity, religion, sex or distortively jaundiced vision of any sort. This indeed is an aspect which even his sworn enemies will concede, and all so readily too, in conscionable sincerity, if they really would.

To be sure, during his memorable gubernatorial epoch in Lagos State, Tinubu ran an all-inclusive government, in which Ibos were regaled with key appointments in government, ranging from commissionership, local government chairmanship, supervisory councillorship, councillorship, and even membership of the Federal House of Reps, and Lagos State House of Assembly.

You will agree with me, that in the medley of the heterogeneous diversities of tribes domiciled in Lagos State, Ibos constitute about the greatest numbers of tribal blocs. Empirical evidence availing illustrates in poignant clarity, that a good number of Igbo immigrants had decided to relocate to Lagos, in order to enjoy the health and educational amenities, which are not only excellent, but considerably liberal and devoid of discriminatory cleavages on tribal ground, or prejudicial conditionalities of any sort, to access.

And for the Igbos engaged in big-time businesses, one could well succinctly attest to the fact that successive governments in Lagos State, have often accorded them the optimum hospitality, as could ever be imagined.

However, under Tinubu, especially during his memorable gubernatorial epoch, our Igbo brothers have never had it so good, in terms of the conducive ambiance they have continued to enjoy in Lagos State, surpassing in quantum measures, the milieu as extant in regimes prior to Asiwaju’s tenure as governor of Lagos State.

We needn’t overly elaborate on this feature, which is crystally self-evident, in terms of his spiritedly sustained, and of course, intensified efforts, expended in integrating the Igbos into the mainstream of affairs, both in the sphere of political administration and governance and socially too, in the bid to instill a reciprocal sense of belonging which comfortably settles them to feel at home, as members of the same family, with the vast mass of natives of their home states, especially Lagos and Yorubas as a whole

This is why developments unfolding over the years, had signally expressed no cause for cheers, in terms of the inability of our Igbo brothers to reciprocate his markedly affectionate passion, through their patently unfriendly attitude, bordering on outright hostility, indubitably reckoned in the general mind, in their ever sustained and intensified consistency, ever before Asiwaju’s gubernatorial ascension, as a genetic staple of common behavior

Remember that it was no other personality than Oba Rilwan Akiolu, who sometime in 2015, summoned a meeting of Igbo leaders, during which he gave them a bitter piece of his mind, with regards to their broiling belligerence, notoriously stuck over the years, as a distinctively unique epaulet, perennially unleashed against their ever hospitable Yoruba hosts, and worse still, Tinubu, who presided as the political leader of the ruling party in the state, and who by that token, appertain to their chief host.

On this, could it be recalled, how a highly disturbed Asiwaju, quickly rallied the Ibos together, with a spiritedly passionate appeal, to assuage their aggrieved mind?

To be sure, Tinubu’s passion and manifest sense of kinship for the Ibos, going by the manner in which he had ostensibly gone beyond himself to accord them a filial sense of oneness, as an integral part and parcel of the community of Lagosians, is simply amazing.

Indeed some of those privileged to be quite close to Tinubu, could divulge with competent authority, that quite a good number of times, not a few of the intensely concerned ones, had perennially essayed to awaken the renowned APC leader to the mortal danger, posed by the Ibos, particularly in Lagos State, citing their purulent pus of bad blood, bordering on intensely unbridled hate-mongering, despite all spirited attempts by Asiwaju to encourage and re-assure them from time to time, that not only are they an integral part and parcel of the community of Lagosians, but an esteemed and privileged one for that matter. However, Tinubu in his characteristic quixotry and magnanimous large-heartedness had often dismissed such insinuations as mere figments of the imagination.

But today, Tinubu will need no one sounding the reveille for an intelligible cognizance of the message, visibly unfurled in its ominous augury.

This lamentable show of bad blood, which had quite lingered over the years, sadly attained a climax, the moment Asiwaju emerged at the recently concluded primaries as the APC flag bearer for the 2023 presidential election.

Right from that moment, hell was immediately let loose, with an orchestrated campaign of hatred and calumny, emanating from our Igbo brothers, becoming increasingly vicious, worrisome, and extremely alarming, bordering on something else.

Ordinarily and of course sincerely, one perceives nothing bad or odious with criticisms constructively offered, just as giving your mind, a free rein of expression in the public space, in as much as the laws of the land entrenches the inalienable right to free speech; however, the critical moment of departure, that it begins to negotiate an alarming descent to inflammatory hate words and a flurry of conflagratory verbiage, as our Igbo brothers have indulgently elevated to trivial pleasurable razzmatazz, then every right thinking Nigerian, and lover of peace, should be so verily concerned as to raising an eye brow, for the premium sake of peace, growth and unity of this potentially great nation.

No wonder, popular spectacles of fierce and bitter verbal exchanges between the shamelessly ungrateful Igbos on one hand and their highly considerate and hospitable Yoruba hosts continue to greet the public space with disturbing ubiquity, just as the social media is ever awash with vitriols of all sorts, unleashed with unmitigated fury, by these overzealous dacoits of pan Igbo irredentism, giving a clear and undoubted impression that these are clearly the handiwork of hired hatchet men, at the behest of their “invisible” taskmasters, dictating the shot.

As we could all recall, it soon attained a most infuriating point that FolashadeTinubu Ojo, the Iyaloja-General, who also happened to be Asiwaju’s daughter, could not but chip in a piece of her mind, on the need for these ungrateful stock, to temper their vitriolic vituperations, daily being orchestrated, against the eminent Nigerian statesman, with unfettered restraint.

Indeed, it couldn’t have been anything but shock, an exceedingly severe one for that matter, when a group of Igbos, in an unwarranted rage of defiance, stirred tremors of warning that she was fanning the embers of wild belligerence; hauling, in a rave of uncontrolled lunacy, that they were ready, and indeed more than capable to respond squarely to any drum-beat of battle, as their hospitable Yoruba hosts might bring to bear in the contest. Haba!

A curious aspect of the charade in progress was that as Asiwaju was all this while, at the receiving end of the untrammeled aspersions, perennially hurled by the Igbos, in their possessive fury of hate words, Atiku had all along remained virtually off their scurrilous purview, except for occasional scratchers, which in no way compared in severity, with the lethal verbal assault and saber-rattling incendiaries increasingly being orchestrated against Asiwaju, with sustained and intensified angst.

Yet, this is a man, who as governor, presided over the affairs of Lagos, at a time, when the nagging question of high-frequency migration of the Igbos to Lagos State, attained a peak, continually stretching the existing infrastructure almost beyond the limit of endurance, thus keeping successive administrations sleeplessly on their toes in the herculean toilsomeness that grappled to cope with the increasingly alarming population explosion, daily being witnessed as a result of the accelerating incursion of people in quest of greener pastures, on account of it’s a conducive ambiance to flourishing endeavors.

Of course, it cannot be too often emphasized that Igbos constitute the most considerable chunk of this category. This is why their pestiferous and patently uncouth outpourings against Tinubu indeed herald such a huge surprise, so to say.

Why is it, that Igbos incubate such pathologically inscrutable loathsomeness for their Yoruba brothers, perennially let loose, with frenetic ruthlessness and the most unimaginable vitriol on Asiwaju, who ironically happens, in exceedingly befitting terms, to be their foremost benefactor and ardent lover of their progress?

During Asiwaju’s heroic reign as governor of Lagos State, he succeeded in lifting Lagos to hitherto unprecedented heights, while in the process, making the state, not only the premier state of the federation but also the benchmark of excellence, whose dynamic policies, spreading like an amazing contagion, were emulated with religious fervor, by other states, far and wide.

Why is it therefore, that our Igbo brothers would always with fervent impulsiveness be ready to throw reason to the dogs, ever haunting and hounding this unusually detribalized statesman, at their capriciously whimsical will, and woolly sentimentality, while literally looking less at the individual governors presiding in their own primordial states of the South-East?

Why is it that you come to Lagos; make a huge fortune and big money, and yet, reserve nothing but sheer bilious angst and hate, for your accommodating hosts and their leaders, who hitherto have accorded you such a bosomy familial embrace devoid of any shred of discrimination?

If the governors in your respective native states of the South-East had done even a fraction of Tinubu’s accomplishments in Lagos, with the transformative impetus that has elevated it to one of the leading cities in Africa, would you dare have descended on them with such whorish pang of depredation, so terrifying to imagine? Pray. Why are Igbos so envious, panicky, and intensely jittery even of the slightest shadows of the Yorubas?

Imagine again, the umbrage devoid of the traditional African deference for old age, quite in tune with the Igbo behavioral stereo-type, befittingly evocative of the landmark “ranting of an ant” of Chuba Okadigbo, in his message to the Great Zik, with which they swooped on Wole Soyinka just for his reasoned elderly admonishment on the nutsy band of off-hook scoundrels, parading as pyrate fraters; consigning the cultivated virtue of home training to the dogs, in their reprobative burlesquing of the revered patriot and statesman?

Could you imagine their effusive gibberish rant answering, quite in character with the monocultural racial herd in their wanton abrasiveness against the Yoruba-born globally acclaimed genius of all times, who dominates the global literary fraternity like a colossus, for no imaginable reason whatsoever? Imagine again, the latest in their primitive savage streak, displayed with untamed recklessness, in their churlish and petulant pepper-market jabs unleashed in their brusquely uncouth mannerisms, against the global literary giant, just because of his latest post-election commentaries, in which he made very apt and cogent points.

In the same vein of bilious ingratitude, one recalls that Victor Adebunkola Banjo, a lieutenant colonel of Yoruba extraction, in a sacrificial fit of immolation, discountenanced the implicating tag of a traitor, expectedly coming from his Yoruba kinsmen, to fight on the side of Biafra; but as it were to turn out, Ojukwu’s reciprocal code of appreciation, was an outright summary execution by firing squad, of that brilliant, charismatic and courageous soldier and intellectual.

Same with Adekunle Fajuyi, the then Governor of the old western region, who in an exemplary fit of chivalry, unprecedented in the annals of human existence, staked his life, by choosing to die with his guest and the then military Head of State, Major-General Aguiyi ironsi. Yet our Igbo brothers will far from appreciate it.

On this patrimonial inheritance of genetic anti-Yoruba obsession, Chinua Achebe, a foremost exemplar of anti-Yoruba racial hatred, could poignantly be seen as taking the lead, as of course signally evident in the retrospective play-back, 37 years ago, when in the wake of the frabjous ambiance heralding the exhilarating announcement of the Yoruba-born literary giant, he (Achebe)ascended the roof-top, with an unwarranted gaffe, that the global literary diadem, was by no implicit assumption, a caveat for the Asiwaju title of African literature.

Indeed, looking back decades ago; that moment of destiny when Soyinka bagged the Nobel literary diadem; unarguably a staggering all-time feat in the annals of black achievements, he had, even if unknown to him, unwittingly stepped on the wounded toes of the collective mass of envious and inferiority-ridden Ndigbos, who in turn, will never forgive him, just for that singular feat, which they had cherished with passionate fervor, that it should have belonged to one of them or a non-Yoruba rather than a Yoruba.  

Indeed, Soyinka himself could not help but describe the banal effusion of the arch-Igbo tribalist as “uncalled for and disappointing”. “I was a little bit disappointed, and didn’t see the necessity…that particular subject under contention didn’t relate to literature”, stressed the world-renowned writer.

Even Soyinka himself, in an article personally written years ago, in an edition of this Day Newspaper, could again, not help but lament a conspiratorial wave of propaganda, insurgently saturating the public space; then championed by an Igbo-born professor; animated by a weird hunch of diabolism, had mischievously sought to forge an interpretatively suspicious link between Achebe’s fatal accident, that rendered him mortally crippled, shortly after a particular edition of his birthday anniversary; to the gift of a live cow, presented to him on that particular occasion by Soyinka; ostensibly as an innocent well-intentioned goodwill gesture, to a comrade in the literary fraternity; but which the arch Igbo tribalist, and a supposedly enlightened professor, had in an unguarded magisterial whim effectively poisoned the vulnerable willing herd of fellow arch tribalists who in their bizarre flight of fancy, had came to construe in the grotesque coloration of occultic wickedness.

Yet, this was the same Soyinka, whose sacrificial immolation for the Biafran cause, in the thick of the civil war, earned him a harrowing 22-month ordeal in the gulag, during the Gowon era.

Again, Achebe would not allow any moment to slip by, without a paludal inveighing of Awo, as the ominous harbinger, paving the fenestra for the demonizing incursion of the tribal monster, into the political firmament.

In the inexpungible quibble of revisionism, we would all recall the ever unrepentantly chronic tribal bigot, who was so quick to the post, harassing Awo as the primordial agent of dispersal of tribal infiltration, advancing a rather meretricious make-belief that the revered statesman of the Yoruba stock, it was, that engineered the parliamentary cross-carpeting that put paid to Zik, in oppilating his visionary misadventure for the Leviathan premiership of the Old West.

Lamentably, his curious quirk for selective amnesia would least avail to advert in reference to the doctrinaire chauvinism of the great Zik, as of course unfolded in his reprobative heresy, way back in 1949, that “….the god of Africa, has created the Igbo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of ages.”

It is, of course, a popular staple of common knowledge, how Zik as the incumbent vice-gerent, in the NCNC, following the glorious demise of the legendary Herbert Heelas Macaulay, would without qualms of conscience, cannibalize the NCNC as an exclusive inheritance, of which the Igbos were the sole legatees; a signally disturbing trend, which in turn elicited the vexatious discountenance of people like Adegoke Adelabu, who were verily uncomfortable with the unstatesmanly descent to base pertavinity.

At this juncture, I shall proceed to expound three signally illustrative instances, in which the defective strabism of Igbo leaders, Zik and Ojukwu in particular,  in terms of their myopic preferences of political alliances, had not only dragged the larger mass of their collective filial kins into the excruciating marginalization conundrum, celebrated over the years, in inconsolable crocodilian canticles, but also in the process, dragooned the collective Nigerian nationhood into its contemporary tumult.

However, let me affirm, right before the narrative just about coming on the heels, that this does not in any way, vitiate a jot, the credible moral force, latent in Asiwaju’s fraternizing parley with a vastly enlightened North, as currently extant – contrasting in its progressive paradigm with the feudal fascism of the era of old; for which Awo desperately needed fellow progressive fraters in collaborative synergy; to square up to; for ultimate libertarian triumph, of the Northern Talakawas in an avowed visionary pursuit which unfortunately footled to failure for lack of a willing mate in response to the clarion call, for a united solidarous front, particularly from the strategic North.

Going down memory lane,1959 to be precise, one recalls that Awolowo advanced an alliance overture towards Zik, premised on the logic that a combination of the Action Group, led by him, and the Zik-led NCNC, will overwhelm the Hausa-Fulani NPC, whose narrow feudal bent was clearly ill at variance with the vision of a united and virile Nigeria, and the liberation of the down-trodden, especially the highly pauperized Talakawas of the north.

Zik was crystally enamored of Awo’s unassailable logic, or so it seemed. But dramatically, all of a sudden, Nigerians woke up one day, only to discover that the great Zik had indeed gone with the Hausa-Fulanis! Thus did the Hausa-Fulani NPC seize power, and promptly grabbed it as a much-awaited opportunity to annihilate Awo.

Of course, those who knew at that time would easily recall Akintola’s machiavellian deployment, being a willing myrmidon of the north, for a head-on collision against Awo, his erstwhile leader – as inspired and engineered by the Hausa-Fulani oligarchs, animated by a subterranean cant for a greater Lebensraum and hegemonic continuity – and the violent conundrum in the West; eventually culminating in January 15, 1966, military coup, master-minded by a cross-section of Igbo-born army officers, and the assumption of power by Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi, as the first military Head of State, after the gruesome assassination of the then Prime-Minister of the federation, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and the then premier of Northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, a direct great-grandson of Shehu Usman Dan Fodio.

 The January coup was to inspire the July 29 coup, spear-headed by the Hausa-Fulani elements in the army, in unconsolable revanche to the killing of Balewa and Ahmadu Bello.

Of course, the then ruling military Head of State, Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi, among sundry top army officers of Igbo extraction, also lost their lives in the retributive backlash of the same tribal-motivated coup, which in disastrously fatal turn, catalyzed a massive wave of inter-tribal killings between the Igbos and Hausas; triggering the declaration of Biafra, by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, and the inevitable consecution of a civil war; a gory celebration of blood bath, in which an estimated two million souls perished.

In yet another ominous turn, 1979 would again witness an unfortunate rehash of the same charade, as Awo again made an alliance overture to Zik, ostensibly premised on a mutual synergy between the Awo-led Unity Party of Nigeria, on one hand, and the Zik-led  Nigerian People’s Party, aimed at counteracting the Hausa-Fulani-led NPN, a feudal ideological resurgence of the Northern People’s Congress of the First Republic. Again, the entire nation woke up one day, only to discover that the Zik-led NPP had unabashedly flocked along, in parley with the Hausa-Fulani NPN, a feudal reincarnation of the First Republic Northern People’s Congress.

Of course, we could all well attest to how the alliance fortified the NPN, which had ripped off on their fortune-hunting partners, the NPP, to install their men into principal offices in the legislature, now embarked on a pleasurable binge of massive tyranny, as unfolded in the politically motivated mass killings of the Bakolori farmers in Sokoto, the deportation of the Majority Leader of GNPP, Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Shugaba, the terrifying tomfoolery of the 1983 elections, and the devastating quake and tumult, coupled with the demonic prodigality in public spending; a saturnalian frenzy of high-wire corruption, which again was to culminate in the Buhari-Idiagbon coup of December 31, 1983.

Of course, as an intensely agitated  Zik cried out, following the massive electoral chicanery, we would all recall the horrifying reckless rant of the notorious rantipole, ChubaOkadigbo, who unsurprisingly typical of his coprolitic gutter-rant style, which would go down as a locus classicus in intellectual hooliganism, dismissed the rightful democratic remonstrance of the great Zik as” the ranting of an ant”

Looking back, one could well affirm without any shred of doubt, that Zik’s preferential cohabitation with the then Northern People’s Congress at the time in question, was motivated by a pathologically embedded narcissism that he could use the benefit of an alliance with the then feudal Northern People’s Congress, to acquire greater leverage for his fellow Igbo brethren against the Yorubas, then renowned for their elevated notch of superior education. Unfortunately, as it would turn out on each occasion, none else, but the Igbos, came out the greatest losers as patently expressed in an unremitting pathos of mournful dirge, in their lachrymal canticles on marginalization.

     This unimaginable faux pas of history would also derive an unfortunate replication in the inexplicable choice that saw the Ikemba of Nnewi, Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu who on his return from exilic sojourn in Ivory Coast, now Cote d’Ivoire, had sought for a political party to enlist in, and found none, except the Hausa-Fulani NPN, thus betraying an arrant lack of grasp of the causative dynamics of history.

On what note does one, therefore, reckon with such a big goof in cognitive dissonance, emanating from a supposedly learned Oxford-educated historian of an elevated Master’s degree cadre, as the Ikemba of blessed memory, one may ask?

Not until the devastating defeat he suffered in the Senatorial duel from Dr. Onwudiwe of the NPP, just as his party, the NPN, barely did reckon with him, did it eventually dawn on him that he was already demystified and his terror value which hitherto had stared the Northern feudal oligarchs inwardly scared stiff, effectively defused.

Still, on the Biafran warlord of blessed memory, it would well be apt and relevant at this point, to ask:”In taking recourse to the Hausa-Fulani NPN, as it were, at that time, whose interest was he serving? The collective interest of the Igbos or his own personal interest? If the interest of the Igbos, he should tell that to the marines.

Similarly, in a back-track reminder as might well be deemed for strategic emphasis, we would all witness the manner in which Zik had jettisoned two crucial and strategic overtures for progressive synergy, as advanced by Awo, firstly in 1959, and secondly in 1979, exactly twenty years after; and the catastrophic aftermath for the corporate national existence.

No wonder, Sir James Robertson, the last British governor-general of Nigeria, during the colonial era, daubed him in his memoirs, as mercurial, unpredictable, and unreliable, while the Late Professor Ayodele Awojobi, the engineering genius of blessed memory described him categorically as ‘consistently inconsistent’.    

Now pray: in taking recourse to the feudal Hausa-Fulani NPC, and NPN in 1959 and 1979 respectively, exactly 20 years after, whose interest was Zik, indeed the Great Zik of Africa serving? National interest or the interest of his Igbo kith and kin? As for national interest, he could well tell that to the Marines!

Ironically, going down the lane of history, one recalls with definitive clarity, that Zik actually rode to dominantly prosilient fame and eminence, on the political war chest of the legendary Herbert Heelas Macaulay – the then leader of the NCNC, at a time that Zik held forte as the Secretary-General ­­– who at various public fora, openly expressed his passionate love for Zik, as his beloved son, in whom he was well pleased.

This in effect is to say that the wider national appeal that the Zik-led NCNC enjoyed after the demisé of Macaulay, erstwhile leader of the party, was largely due to the immense populist clout and towering larger-than-life imagery of the legendary Macaulay, who at the zenith of his fame and glory, bestrode the Nigerian political hemisphere like a colossus.

It was a tribute to these grave political miscalculations of the great Zik, that no less a personality than the former Premier of the Eastern region, Dr. M.l. Okpara of blessed memory, recanted in agonizing lament, that he will regret till his dying day, his failure to advise Zik, to rather go with the Awo-led Action Group, as against the parochial expedience of the Hausa-Fulani feudal NPC.

Unfortunately, by the time the Zik-led NPP would negotiate corrective ideological repentance for the progressive configuration, of “The Twelve Progressive Governors”, Awolowo’s brain-child in progressive synergy, which Zik had twice rejected, initially in 1959 and again in 1979, it was already too late in the day, as the looming surge of anarchy, had irrepressibly waxed beyond redemption, and could thus not avail as a viable counter-force to rebuff the incursion of the Buhari-Idiagbon duo, who on December 31st, 1983, sprung forth to upstage the apple-cart of the corrupt and purulently decadent Shagari-led civilian administration of the second republic.

And in the case of Ojukwu, we would all recall, how having been politically demystified and deflated sequel to his attendant fiasco at the Senatorial election, he in angered repudiation of his erstwhile Hausa-Fulani allies, recanted in the fashion of a new convert to doctrinaire proselytism of an East-West understanding fanatically propounded and propagated as a counter-force to the monolithic geo-political behemoth of the north.

Unfortunately, and on a tragic note of paradox, the average Igbo man would see nothing wrong in the political leaders of their own genitive breed, let alone the discerning cognitive intellect that essentially exposes these two key leaders of the Igbo tribe, in the context of the endemic faux pas in their choices and preferences borne of narrow personal and at best, tribal promptings, in terms of their dialectical linkage to the conundrum prevalently etched for decades, with increasing virulence on the polity; of which the Igbos were to come out the worse, arising from the seminal outpourings of the blighted vision of their own leaders.

On this, the Ghanaian statesman of blessed memory, Joe Appiah remarked in his autobiography, in which he exposed Zik as the veritable fugleman providing the primeval irritant for the irruption of the anti-Yoruba racial hate, uncontrollably festering the general Igbo psyche.

Going down the lane of history, Appiah recalled the historic moment of the formation of Egbe Omo Oduduwa in London, and the conflagratory rhetorics immediately following on the heels, as Zik in the September 8 edition of the West African Pilot, thus issued the provocative cassus belli: “Henceforth, the cry must be one of the battles against Egbe Omo Oduduwa, its leaders at home and abroad, uphill and down dale, in the streets of Nigeria and in the streets of London and the residence of its advocates’.

According to Chinweizu, a notable Igbo intellectual, “the testimony from a Ghanaian, who for many years, was a member and president of W.A.S.U in London, should give Igbos pause about the version of the Igbo-Yoruba cold war they had accepted. The key point is that the Ibo Union had been in existence before the Egbe Omo Oduduwa was founded. Yet Zik declared war on Egbe Omo Oduduwa. Why? If it was because the Egbe Omo Oduduwa was not pan-Nigerian, then what of the pre-existing Ibo Union?”

“In other words, it wasn’t the Yorubas who introduced tribal unions and tribal politics into Nigeria but the Igbos. But whatever his reason, Zik was the one who declared war on the Yorubas; he was the aggressor”.

“With that aggression as background, the carpet-crossing becomes an understandable response to Zik’s declaration of war. If somebody who declared war on your people arrives to govern your homeland, what should your leaders do? Welcome him and let him govern, or drive him out by any means necessary? The carpet crossing accomplished just that, and Igbos following Zik, the instigator of the response, I commend the Yorubas for defending themselves against aggression”.

“Zik’s conduct is an example of how Igbos can act without thinking of how their actions might look to those their proposed action might adversely affect. That is a weakness Igbos should be on guard against and should work to eliminate by extra self-awareness and constant self-criticism.”

“For seven decades we have paid for Zik’s aggression against the Yorubas. The cold war, which Zik started, made it possible for the British to install the NPC in power in 1959 when Zik refused to join with Awo to form the federal government. He explained it away by alluding to his distrust of Awo that stemmed from the carpet-crossing affair. In other words, Zik is ultimately responsible for our disasters and oppression under the caliphate. But the pertinent issue at this time is that we, not the Yorubas, are responsible for the Yoruba-Igbo feud. We are not the innocent victims of Yoruba tribalism and hatred. That fact should inform our attitude in seeking reproach with the Yorubas, especially now that we need a Yoruba – Igbo alliance to help create conditions.”

Unlike Achebe, whose world-view horrifyingly begins and ends with a segregationist chauvinism of pan Igboism, to the extent that he would see nothing bad in Zik, Ojukwu, and the primitively untamed Onyeama, but rather a blanket sweep sentiment of everything good, while in the obverse, he will faint blink an eye, before taking Awolowo, the foremost heroic symbol, to the cleaners on sheer sentimental illogic, which exposes his grossly deficient intellect – Soyinka on the other hand, had more than sufficiently ample space to literally take the three-some to the hangers by virtue of their incredibly horrifying fumblings, sacrilegious deportments, and heretic rantings and vituperations; but he would rather not plow that path, borne of his magnanimous large-heartedness and unifying propensity.

Similarly, he had the discretion to take on Achebe and his demented, warped, infantile, and mediocre intellect, yet he would rather choose to lie low, actuated by sheer pacifist impulse and of course a macro-dimensional, all-encompassing vision of a united and indivisible Nigeria.

To be sure, as could not be too often repeated, Tinubu succeeded in lifting Lagos State to hitherto unprecedented eminence, thereby making it, not only the premier state of the federation, but also the benchmark of excellence, whose progressive, dynamic, and pragmatic policies were emulated all over the federation.

In the libertarian struggle for democracy, he was prosiliently sui-generis as the hero of the struggle, as of course attested to, by the likes of Wole Soyinka, Colonel Nyiam, Dele Momodu, Kayode Fayemi, and even the Ayo Adebanjos, Abraham Adesanyas, Olanihun Ajayis among several others.

Besides, Asiwaju’s vast expanse of the network built over the years, coupled with his personal charms, mobilization, and organizational acumen, and his peculiar gift of the sixth sense, which his competitors could verily not match, are such rare but highly cherished treasures that money cannot buy.

But apart from the fact of his personal talent and endowment, is the law of Divine compensation, which is to say that Asiwaju is a man who had paid his dues.

As an arrowhead of NADECO’s struggle for democracy under the totalitarian fascism of General Sanni Abacha, Asiwaju’s heroic role in this regard, will as much, demand an entire voluminous book to do justice to.

Of course, it’s a generally acknowledged fact of history that, unlike the reactionary elements who would not give a damn in parleying with Abacha, Asiwaju refused to sell his conscience, but would rather negotiate a tedious journey to exile, despite the assurance by the management of Mobil, where he held forte as the Chief Treasurer, that he should not hesitate to retrace his step back to his plum job if his romance with politics appeared bleak.

Evidence abounds from the very horse mouth of people like Dele Momodu, Colonel Tony Nyiam, Kayode Fayemi, Bayo Onanuga, and co, as to the immense sacrifice which Asiwaju made in assisting financially disadvantaged exiles whom he quartered in his houses both in the U.K .and the U.S., and even assisted financially, with regards to their daily upkeep.

At least, Bayo Onanuga did not mince words in divulging Asiwaju’s benevolent gestures in permitting him to draw a regular allowance of hundreds of dollars weekly, from proceeds issued from Asiwaju’s Gas Station in Chicago.

Femi Ojudu, Osibajo’s Chief Campaign Man, similarly did reveal, how Asiwaju from his base in the U.S. was regularly remitting money for the payment of staff salary, and also for the daily running cost of PM NEWS and THE NEWS, at the harrowing moment when Abacha’s killer squad were let loose against the newspaper organization and its editorial staff.

Asiwaju did all these, despite the fact that he was not a shareholder in the organization. Rather, as a progressive politician and democrat to the core, he was solely fired by the zeal to boost the morale of the rank-and-file staff of the newspaper, in the struggle for democracy. The same thing Asiwaju did for TELL Magazine when things were direly so rough.

Similarly, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, also narrated how at a point in time, as an exile in the U.S., Asiwaju embarked on the sale of Rice which involved a shuttle between Thailand and some African countries, while dedicating the proceeds from the business to the collective cause of the NADECO struggle.

Kayode Fayemi in his writings, also attested to this, in his remarks on how Asiwaju stretched his financial resources to the limit in the collective struggle for democracy.

The same incumbent governor of Ekiti State also narrated the crucial role that Asiwaju as a member of the Board of Trustees of NALICON, founded by Wole Soyinka, during that era in exile, played in encouraging and convincing the Olof Palme Foundation, based in Sweden, to assist NALICON with the urgently needed fund for the establishment of the Radio Station which subsequently contributed in no mean measure, to a formidable propaganda armada which attracted international condemnation that increasingly debilitated and devastated the defenses of the Abacha regime, making its eventual exit a matter of time, before the dramatic demise of the notorious military dictator.

At this juncture, the crucial point to be noted is that Asiwaju had barely spent two years as a senator before Abacha took over. In this circumstance, a lesser mind would have wallowed in regret, cursing the day he went into politics; and would surely not hesitate in retracing his step back to his plum job, or fall headlong in romance with Abacha, just like a huge lot of members of his political class actually kowtowed at that time, while throwing honor and principles to the dogs. To be sure, it was apparent that Asiwaju was not looking forward to any gains. Rather, his main point of satisfaction consists in the fact that it was a worthy struggle.

In a nutshell, this is the democracy we all enjoy today. How many people ever bordered to imagine, the valley of the shadow of death, Asiwaju passed through in his struggle for civilian governance which we are all enjoying today, and how many of us who knew, do indeed appreciate it?

All the political eaglets, neophytes, and nonstarters, including state governors who had hardly spent 100 days in office, to whom an Angel had appeared and handed them the divine mandate to be president overnight, including those of them that Asiwaju made, where were they at that harrowing moment when Asiwaju was leading the battle from the trenches, far away in exile? How many members of the political class, who would not like to see even Asiwaju’s shadow, ever knew or appreciate or remember, as the case may be, what Asiwaju went through in those days; the dastardly vandalization of his residence in Lagos and eight of his cars destroyed beyond repairs, the accusation that he wanted to plant a bomb at Ejigbo NNPC Depot, just because of his frontline involvement in the June 12 struggle, and how he escaped death by the whiskers by wangling through the borders of Benin Republic, for a harrowing life in exile?

Yet, Asiwaju never allowed his distinguished achievements in the struggle, to get into his head, through an overnight fancy for the presidency.

Reliable authority even had it that on arrival from exile, Asiwaju in his characteristic selflessness, had actually intended to go for a Senatorial seat, but Afenifere top-notchers at that time, prevailed upon him to head on for governorship.

For close to thirty years, after he had been in politics, Asiwaju had refrained from announcing any ambition for the presidency, rather, he had over the years, provided a platform for others like Falae, Atiku, Ribadu, Buhari, and Co; to run for the presidency, while in the process, risking his life, and everything dear to him, to accord them maximum support.

Imagine, for instance, the immense role he played in the formation of APC, which eventually provided the platform for the fructification of Buhari’s passionate presidential ambition after three previously failed attempts which on a particular occasion, publicly drew tearful pathos of lament from him. For this, Asiwaju was bugged by some morally suspect media which obviously had kowtowed for the bargain of settlement; yet he refused to budge, until his unflagging support, inspired Buhari to a roller-coaster ride to presidential victory.

As an eminent political figure, an accomplished veteran of the battle for political liberty, a courageous leader of the opposition, and an arrowhead of the progressive forces, coupled with the fact that Asiwaju commanded more States in his own regional constituency than any other politician could claim to command in their own respective regions, Asiwaju nevertheless conceded to Buhari.

Indeed in a more civilized clime, Asiwaju would have had no need to embark on any campaign spree or consultation. Rather, he would have been literally co-opted, without the slightest opposition, and with strong plea and persuasion too.

To be sure, people in Asiwaju’s class are rare. Not only is he an enigma, but an enigma within an enigma, the category that the Yorubas would describe as “Akanda Eeyan”. You can only toy with him at your own peril.

In all the geo-political Igbo-speaking states of the South-East, how many of Asiwaju’s contemporaries as state governors, command any conspicuity on the political radar, in astonishingly wide-berth comparison with Tinubu, who has continued to rise and rise like a meteor, to the enviable height which has deservedly earned him the treasurable eulogium of the  ” Main Issue In Nigerian Politics”.

Imagine Igbos boasting that Lagos is no man’s land. Imagine the falsidical bunkum that they contributed the most in building Lagos. Why then do they not take recourse to their primordial native home and bring it to par with Lagos, after all, charity, they say, begins from home.

Familiar popular domiciles like Kaduna, Kano, and Abuja, are notable spots with beehive ubiquity of Igbos. In other words, Igbos are virtually etched on the minutest space in these places; yet they would only tread cautiously, and would never stretch their luck too far, contrary to their licentious spoilt sport brag in Lagos, cashing in on the traditional hospitality of Yorubas and Lagosians in particular, stretched more than ever before, during the Tinubu era – in the embrace of our Igbo brothers whom the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello would daub in the awry imagery of pathologically ungrateful usurpers.

All the excesses Igbos perpetrate in their host states, how many non-Igbos dare try an inch of that, in their own land, knowing Igbos for their characteristic hostile intolerance of non-Igbos in their own land?

When will Igbos rise above their genetically ingrained anti-yoruba hate and phobia, truculently unleashed this time around, on Soyinka and Tinubu, simply borne of their Leviathan stature and glowing distinction, waxing so discomfiting, dizzying, and unbearably unsettling in bewildering wide-breadth gap to their lilliputian frame.

The magnitude of hate words and outright rage of curses daily being unleashed on these great leaders of African continental and global renown by these over-zealous hordes of incurable anti-Yoruba Igbo haters, is not only amazing but simply unimaginable, in this civilized epoch of modernity. It is amazing that Tinubu’s innocent biological offsprings are not even spared on this celebrative savage haul of unremitting outright curses.

The same threat of searing hate words, they also unleashed on Sam Omatseye. In one of the finest pieces, ever written, the cerebral chairman, the editorial board of the NATION newspapers marshaled a forensic psychosis of primeval savage deportment of the Igbo mass behavior in the dotting voyage to electoral destiny, come 2023; as a ready revanche; ever latent in the Igbo mass sub-conscious driven by a cathartic vent of the Biafran frustration.

No, sooner had the publication greeted the public space, than all hell, literally let loose on the highly endowed writer, courtesy of the unabashed herd of bigots, putting his precious life on the hanger with all manner of threats; which in turn elicited an outcry, from the larger mass of the Omatseye clan, pleading that nothing must touch their son.

But here are the same herd of over-zealous pleasure bullies making so much fetish of their miniature political god-head, who like Napoleon, can never be wrong and therefore above any reproof, or else Amadiora  the mythical god of thunder, will descend in terrimotive wrath on the accuser  

It is amazing that over fifty years after the civil war, Igbos would simply refuse to let go, as they continuously let loose the subdued pang of their latent Biafran frustration and   segregationist chauvinism of anti Tinubu-Soyinka-cum-Yoruba hatred expressed through their primitively effusive farrago of empty balderdash

Just because they saw Tinubu as their main obstacle to the garrison conquest of Lagos State and the totalitarian circumambience of the larger Nigerian frame.  Dear Ndigbo, why embroiled in a battle you know you cannot win, with all your soaring din of loud, but ineffectual pleasure stunt of empty grandstanding? Come May 29, 2023, the great leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will surely keep faith with history.

Kola Johnson   Is A Writer And Journalist 

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