In a classic case of ‘the more you look, the less you see’, the Igbo people of South East Nigeria have continued to dumbfound Nigerians from other geopolitical zones by their (the Igbo) resolve to unequivocally support the administration of president Bola Tinubu amid the economic downturn in the country.
Before the advent of the Tinubu administration, the Igbo were known to have a deep distrust of Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, which came to power in 2015 after ex-president Muhammadu Buhari rode on the wings of the merger of three of Nigeria’s biggest opposition parties to unseat the People’s Democratic Party, the Igbo people’s preferred political and then ruling party.
According to analysts, though another political party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance is present in the South East, the PDP debacle in 2015 had left the region battling to shed the toga of “political orphans” and also accentuated the ethnic group’s cries of marginalisation.
The three opposition parties which collaborated to bring the PDP to its knees were the Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change and the All Nigeria Peoples Party; the brainchild of the merger, the APC, on its part, had also been struggling to warm up to Ndigbo.
This was because the Igbo viewed the ACN as a “Yoruba party” while the CPC and ANPP were both designated as “Hausa parties” and this perception had been a contributing factor in their allegiance to the PDP which dominated election proceedings in the South East from the get-go, when democracy berthed in the country in 1999.
But after the APC-led government of Buhari came to power in 2015, Southeasterners, like never before, began to raise the alarm about the former military dictator having a political vendetta against them because of their support for the candidate of the PDP, Goodluck Jonathan, in the election.
Buhari himself did not help matters. During a question and answer segment at an event organized by the United States Institute of Peace in 2015 and moderated by Johnnie Carson, a former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs of the United States, Buhari infamously used his highly controversial “97 percent to 5 percent” analogy to vent his displeasure about how votes were cast for him by the Igbo during the election.
Buhari said, “I hope you have a copy of the election results. The constituents that, for example, gave me 97 percent (of the vote) cannot in all honesty be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5 percent,” and later retorted, “I think these are a political reality.”
By commission or omission, Buhari, instead of saying 3 percent, had stated that the Igbo gave him only 5 percent of his total votes and that his government’s policy implementation would be skewed in favour of regions in the country who voted overwhelmingly for him.
Thus, when most decisions on infrastructural development were made or employment letters were given to Nigerians, those from the Igbo tribe were usually neglected or exempted, and as hard as Buhari’s spokespersons tried to deny their boss’ culpability, they could not convince Nigerians otherwise.
Before the 2023 presidential election, Nigerians, especially the Igbo, had seen Tinubu hobnobbing with Buhari and the thinking then was that the former Governor of Lagos State and the APC would continue the marginalisation of the Igbo if victory was to swing in their favour.
Tinubu did win the election and removed fuel subsidies in order to revamp the economy and pry the wealth of Nigeria away from the hands of a few individuals. The President’s decision on subsidies, however, plunged Nigerians into hardship, raising the cost of living which put Nigerians in a fix.
To bail Nigerians out, the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress and Civil Society Organisations declared a two-day nationwide mass protest, which was held on February 27, over the economic hardship confronting millions of Nigerians since the removal of petrol subsidies on May 29, 2023.
Even though Nigerians were urged to come out en masse to air their grievances about their predicament, the Ohaneze Ndigbo begged to differ on the plan, urging Igbo groups not to take part in the protests and also to support Tinubu’s government because the Supreme Court had affirmed his election victory.
“If supporting Tinubu will make the Igbo to get some or all of their demands and dues, then so be it. This is politics and you must use what you have to get what you want”
The Igbo socio-cultural organisation’s president general, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, said there was no better time than now to invoke the indomitable Igbo spirit of brotherliness, hard work, ingenuity, wisdom, resilience, inventiveness, perseverance and capacity to turn adversities into diverse opportunities.
Iwuanyanwu also said his organisation had reviewed with intense passion the level of unemployment, poverty, hardships, especially the rising costs of goods and services, the rate of depreciation of the Nigerian currency and the excruciating effects on the masses and reminded Ndigbo to quickly readjust themselves to the reality of the times.
A legal practitioner, Clement Iloh, told The Point, “It is hard to say whether the Igbo are doing the right thing or not when they decided against joining the protests.
Time will tell if they made the right choice.
“The Igbo were neglected by Buhari and suffered a lot under his government but now they have decided to apply wisdom and give Tinubu this unexpected support.
“But in my opinion, giving Tinubu their support could be risky; but for Ohaneze Ndigbo, it’s a risk worth taking.”
There was a bit of uproar in the polity after Ohaneze took the controversial position. Most Nigerians could not wrap their heads around the fact that Ndigbo were jettisoning the mass protests and adopting a “siddon look” approach.
A former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Usman Yusuf, was asked during a television interview he granted why the agitation for better governance was loudest in the North and South West but mellowed out in the South East, and the erudite physician said Tinubu should find out why the Igbo have not spoken out about Nigeria’s worsening economic condition.
“I honestly don’t know why the South East is uncharacteristically quiet. The President needs to find out why,” Yusuf said.
Perhaps, to bring “clarity” to the situation, a popular Nollywood actor and businessman, Kanayo O. Kanayo, told Nigerians like Yusuf who don’t know why the Igbo are indifferent to the appalling economic situation in the country that the Igbo would not join the protests because they were always the target whenever there was a civil obedience.
Kanayo, who also asked the Igbo to sing along to Davido’s hit track, Unavailable, because the Igbo were not available for protests, also said Ndigbo should ensure that those who said they could not be trusted with leadership were told that they (the Igbo) could not also be trusted with protests.
Some analysts have said it is possible the Igbo have started seeing some of the dividends of democracy the Tinubu administration is bringing to their doorstep and which could be responsible for their decision to give the government the benefit of the doubt.
For instance, there is the passage of the South East Development Commission bill by the National Assembly.
According to the sponsors of the bill which is waiting for the president’s assent, the agency which will be established will use allocations from the federation account to develop the South East and address the entire infrastructural deficit visited upon the region because of the devastation caused by the civil war.
Tinubu’s government has also received commendations for the Light Up Nigeria Project which flagged off from Enugu State.
The initiative is seen as the much-expected solution to the power supply deficit that has undermined the nation’s economy and industrialisation.
At the event, Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, while emphasizing on the critical roles the Igbo play in national development, said that the hope of the country rested with the ambitious and industrious people of the region.
A political analyst, Damion Ugorji, who spoke to The Point said, “If supporting Tinubu will make the Igbo to get some or all of their demands and dues, then so be it. This is politics and you must use what you have to get what you want.
“The Igbo were kicked around because the APC lost Lagos. But if you ask me, they were not the only tribe who supported the Labour Party candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour. Yet, they were singled out for embarrassment and their businesses were threatened and shut down.
“I think Nigerians should bear with the Igbo on this matter (support for Tinubu). They also deserve the good things of democracy.”
