The Time To Do It Is Now!

AMAM B. ANUNOBI

By choosing this topic I have decided to shake the table a little. I also know that many people will take exception to what I am going to say here. Unlike Mazi Nnamdi Kanu who is a diehard Biafran, I am recently becoming a diehard Critic of the Igbo Race. You know what? I have lost hope in whatever we the Igbos are doing to ourselves as a race.

We have to admit that we have lost the game already. The popular saying that if you can’t beat them join them is the only advocacy needed for and by the Igbos now. The Igbo Race is like a bat now. Neither being truly Igbos nor truly Nigerians. On the one hand they hate being at home to fortify the bond that united our forefathers in Ụmụnna Bụ Ike. We have chosen to comfortably live the life of servitude to our various host communities in Nigeria. Building skyscrapers across the country and beyond. On the other hand we have refused equally to embrace holy the life of obedience to the laws of our host communities. In mind we are Igbos but in body we are Nigerians. Each day we are faced with the dichotomy raging inside us whether we want to be Igbos or whether we want to be Nigerians.

In every event that tends to be followed by crisis we run to Igboland for safety like elections. During population Census we stay put where we are ọ we the pretence that ebe onye bi ka ọ na-awachi. By so doing adding to the number of our host communities and of course their wealth while living their home domain impoverished. What an ironic situation.

In our political space, we have thrown to the trash bin the idea of one Political Leadership on the ground of Igbo enwe eze. We neither uphold the Nationalist Spirit of Nnamdi Azikiwe nor the Patriotic Spirit of Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu for the Igbo Race. In body we remain Ojukwu but in mind we are nothing but Nnamdi Azikiwe. Even in death the two are still fight for and within us. In Igboland today the masses are keeping alive the Spirit of Ojukwu, while various strata of government remains an embodiment of the ideology and principles of Nnamdi Azikiwe. In my vision I continue to see a war that has been won and lost as was the case between 1967 and 1970. It was obvious that Zik saw the end before the War started and opted for dialogue as a means of resolving the issues Ojukwu being a military saw it from the view point of the military. 

The War was lost because it started without plan. Today, we are still the two personalities clashing with IPOB representing Ojukwu yet without any plan from my personal standpoint and have already started counting losses and adding to the millions we lost in the war. On the other hand, the political class is still seeing the option of dialogue as the only way. Looking the state of the Igbo Race as it is today my position is that dialogue remains our best option. First to avoid the repeat of abandoned property saga which was the case after the Civil War. Second to keep working on how to live harmoniously with others. In line with this view, it is my candid opinion that we have come to that stage in our national life, where the review of our indigenization law is reviewed whereby an indigene is determined by where a person is born. Once done the issue of this or that state belonging to this or that group will be closed up. The time for such a review is now. Have a nice day!

Amam B. Anunobi from Anambra State.