The Igbo think tank, Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF), has dismissed the wrong notion that Ndigbo were not in support of the nationwide protest to end bad governance, tagged ‘EndBadGovernance Protest’ by the organisers.
This clarification was contained in a statement by ADF, jointly signed by the National President, Professor Ukachukwu A. Awuzie, and the National Secretary, Abia Onyike, yesterday.
According to the statement, ADF condemned the threats issued to Ndigbo in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria, warning the perpetrators to desist from such reprehensible act, forthwith.
It called on the security agencies, especially the Department of State Services (DSS) to quickly go after the persons behind the threats.
The group warned that isolating Ndigbo as people who are against the protest, does not properly capture who they are, as their history is replete with die-hard resistance to bad governance, even to the extent of resisting gods who refused to perform their administrative and governance mandate.
The ADF informed the good-spirited protesters that they were not against their protests, but were recounting past experiences where negative people profiled and condemned them as a race, for what every segment of Nigeria agreed on.
It said Ndigbo supports the protest but could not hit the streets for obvious reasons, stressing that several days before the commencement of the protest on August 1, Igboland had already been militarised, with heavily armed soldiers (not policemen), carrying tanks and gun trucks, taking over the streets of the major cities in the region.
The group observed that the security forces looked on while some unknown gunmen have been on rampage in Imo State, killing anyone they met outside their homes.
The foundation insisted that the non-violent resistance of sit-at-home is more effective for Ndigbo who are also victims of bad governance from some of their governors, often foisted on them from outside Igboland.
It maintained that the sit-at-home like the Gandhian one in India, was adopted to protest against bad leadership in Igboland, to prevent Ndigbo from coming out to become cannon fodder for security agents once again.
Frowning at the Nigerian leaders for having different rules for different peoples of the country, the think tank wondered why Nnamdi Kanu remains in the custody of the DSS, while Sunday Igboho and the President of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN), who were accused of the same offence with the former, are out of prison and moving about freely.
According to the ADF, Ndigbo understood their endangered nature in the wake of the protest, when certain despicable characters started their devilish plan in an unsuccessful attempt at profiling them as bad election losers who wanted to use the back door to get into power.
It, therefore, wondered why a group of people who had gained global recognition in the history of resistance to bad government but had decided to abstain from the ongoing protest, would be falsely accused of what they were not interested in.
The ADF recalled how the same characters engaging in ethnic profiling and their criminal gang decided to mobilise, loot and attack Ndigbo during the 2023 election in Lagos, with so many lives and properties lost.
The statement further read: “All of us were in this country and observed the flawed nature of the 2023 election in Nigeria, adjudged as the worst in Nigerian history? How can Bayo Onanuga be so shameless to raise the issue of getting to power through the back door? The Lagos State Government has imposed all kinds of negative economic policies to hack Ndigbo down.
“Today, Chief Nwajiagu is still incarcerated in Lagos for daring to retort back to those trying to annihilate Ndigbo. Yet, a certain political thug known as M.C. Oluomo strides and trots the length and breadth of Lagos as a colossus, causing mayhem unabated with security agents looking away.
“In fact, the X space, formally known as twitter, is awash with genocide threat against Ndigbo in Western Nigeria without any reaction from the security agents. One wonders how a group of people that declared their non-interest in the bad governance protest would be primed for genocide by Onanuga and his ilk.
“If it were not for the good-spirited Yoruba like Pa Ayo Adebanjo and others, Ndigbo would have been questioning why they are still yoked with those who want to annihilate them from the face of the earth. We, therefore, salute the courage of those who still give us, as a race, the hope to live in a united Nigeria.
“We are not fearful people, we are very courageous. This is why during the ill-fated colonial experience in Nigeria, Ndigbo took the lead in all ramifications, such that they caught the ire of the colonial overlords, who interpreted their stance on ending colonial bad governance as challenging the colonial status quo.
“The resultant effect is the orchestration of a 36-month genocide that almost annihilated Ndigbo from the surface of the earth, which was the first and last time that all the world powers agreed on a mission and administered it to the finality. In 1945, the first orchestration of the massacre of Ndigbo occurred in Kano, as there was the “Kano riot” against colonial bad governance. Many Igbo people lost their lives during that episode. Yet another massacre happened in 1956 for the same reason and for the singular reason that Ahmadu Bello was defeated in the Lagos parliament for his opposition to granting Independence to Nigeria.”
The foundation noted that Enahoro, who moved the motion for Independence, was not Igbo, but Ndigbo were massacred in Northern Nigeria, while the Northern region, represented by Tafawa Balewa, which rejected independence and replaced the timing of the period of self-rule with “as soon as practicable,” was rewarded with power for not rejecting colonial rule.
According to the statement, Ndigbo carried on with the usual fervent commitment against misrule to the end, to the extent that they were selected and isolated for punishment for daring to organise the ouster of the British colonial subjugation in Nigeria.
The group remembered how the same Igbo were punished six years after Independence in 1960 for a crime that they never committed.
“The Western region crisis between Chief Awolowo and Chief Akintola blossomed into the level of senseless violence known as ‘Operation Wetie.’ The threat that the situation brought to the nation led to two things, namely: a coup d’état that was slated to happen on January 17, 1966, and a preemptive one that then occurred on January 15, 1966. The latter was organised to enthrone Chief Awolowo who was imprisoned for daring to subjugate Chief Akintola, the man in charge of the Northern outpost in Western Nigeria.
The ADF recalled that Nigerians received the January 15, 1966 coup with a few Igbo participants as patriotic, but in a twist of negative and revisionist history, a coup of which Chief Awolowo would have been the immediate beneficiary, was dubbed an Igbo coup.
“This precipitated an unwarranted proportion of pogrom against Ndigbo in Nigeria, with its climax in the first black-on-black genocide in the world between May 30, 1967 and January 10, 1970. Worthy of mention is that till date, no other coup in the history of Nigeria has ever been dubbed a sectional coup.
“The tragedy was that Chief Awolowo, who was released from Calabar Prison by General Emeka Ojukwu, joined the federal side to perpetuate all kinds of war crimes, such as food blockade and economic impoverishment in the post-war era, resulting in the confiscation of all bank deposits, no matter how much, in exchange for 20 pounds. Since that time, it has been one negative profiling by substantive governments with ceilings for only Ndigbo as regards positions, both politically and in the civil service.”