By Ethelbert Okere
It is most unlikely that President Muhammadu Buhari took particular notice that the routes through which he was taken while on a one-day official visit to Imo state last Thursday had scanty human and vehicular traffic. How did I know? Presidents, at least in the Nigerian context, are used to be driven through empty roads or avenues while on official movements. The practice is usually to clear the routes of a presidential convoy of both human and vehicular traffic for obvious security reasons.
Therefore, except if someone had earlier told the president that a “sit-at-home” was going to be observed in Imo state on the day of his visit, he most certainly might not have felt anything different. He might have, however, noticed the pockets of crowds of people along the route from the airport into the city.
At the airport junction along the Owerri-Aba road, Ulakwo, Agbala and Naze, up to the popular “Poly junction” where the president had his first assignment, natives were seen waving at his convoy. This gesture by the people merely goes to show that they most probably felt suppressed by the sit-at-home order. In any case, the absence of vehicular and human traffic within the Owerri metropolis effectively reduced the security challenges the government might have been faced with during the presidential visit.
Given the reckless abandon with which commercial motorists operate in Owerri, it would have been impossible to prevent clashes between them and the ubiquitous security personnel that were on duty that day. Without the sit-at-home, the state government probably would have toyed with the idea of restricting movement in some of the key routes, particularly Wetheral road, the only presidential route in the state capital. And the so called opposition would have accused the governor of blocking the people from their means of livelihood! Providence? Happenstance?
There was this photograph that surfaced on Facebook while the president was still in Owerri. The photograph was an old one taken during an earlier visit to the state by Buhari, in 2015 to be precise, depicting him in the midst of a crowd of people. Obviously, the reason behind the post was to show that whereas President Buhari was received by a crowd of people then, he met empty streets this time around. But those behind the post failed to mention that the earlier photograph was taken during a campaign tour before the 2015 general elections. This time around, the president was not on any campaign and as already seen, presidential visits in Nigeria are usually not inundated with crowds.
In any case, it is contradictory to canvass a sit-at-home and at the same time query why there was no crowd to cheer the president. Which do we want? To eat our cake and still have it? During a phone-in radio programme in which I was the guest at the weekend, at least four callers voiced out their disappointment over the failure of the handlers of the presidential visit to involve the youths, market women, student etc, in the meeting between Igbo stakeholders and the president, which was one of the highlights of the visit.
Really? How could that have happened? How could the youths, the market women etc have participated in the stakeholders meeting on a day they were asked to stay at home? Could we have asked the youths and market women to stay away from welcoming the president and at the same time crave to present them for a meeting with him? Can’t we see the clear contradiction here? Can’t we see that the sit-at-home is a knee jerk approach to the problems afflicting the Igbo nation?
A posturing declaring President Buhari a persona non grata in Igbo land should have been matched with a repudiation of all attempts or intentions to sit with him to discuss anything, whatsoever. It would have meant that we were ready to say to him: “To hell with your republic”. That some of us felt slighted for not being given the opportunity to meet with President Buhari in Owerri last Thursday means that, taken together, we are wallowing in a grand delusion. I was asked to react to the denial by a former governor of the state that he was invited to the meeting. My response was simply that the former governor should have been man enough to admit that he chose not to have anything that has to do with Governor Uzodimma instead of deceiving the people.
In my view, what happened last Thursday offers Ndigbo an opportunity to change tactics. Fortunately, Ohaneze Ndigbo president-general, Professor George Obiozor, who was at the head of the Igbo representation, understood the situation and filled the void, even sounding more radical than most of the so-called Igbo liberators that abound on Facebook. His speech was at once diplomatic and unsparing; such that except if President Muhammadu Buhari has cast his opinion of Ndigbo irreversibly on stone, he must have gotten one or two takeaways from that outing that will make him have a rethink. Said Obiozor to Buhari: “In a manner of symbolism, the visit has thrown light in the cloudiness and doubts surrounding the perception of the relationship between your government and Ndigbo”. Obiozor further told the president that the visit “will mark the beginning of a new chapter of dialogue, co-operation and understanding between Ndigbo and your administration”.
Yet, the Ohaneze leader tells the Nigerian president that “after … the spectacular patriotic role of Ndigbo to ensure the unity and survival of Nigeria, the consistent perception that the Igbos are separatists and secessionists agitators is a historical fallacy”, adding that “in spite of all the threats of secessionists elements, they cannot succeed in Nigeria provided there is good governance based on equity, justice and fairness to all citizens”.
As far as I am concerned, what Obiozor was saying was that no matter what might been perceived as the sins of Ndigbo, they cannot be held responsible for what is happening in the country. The statement is strong enough and I don’t think the president was expecting a surrender either. In other words, the Owerri parley, last Thursday, offered a good opportunity for Ndigbo and the “Buhari presidency”, as Obiozor put it, to explore common grounds.
By coming to Imo state in spite of the invectives thrown at him and the threats that he must not step his foot on Igbo soil, President Buhari, in my view, has gestured an acceptance for a “genuine” dialogue between his administration and Ndigbo. His wish to “be remembered as the President who stabilized Nigeria” suggests that he is ready to make concessions in order to realize that noble objective. But he could let go if the shouting down becomes unbearable.
In a setting where the practice is to blame everything on incumbent leaders while we show curious nostalgia about those who ruled earlier, President Buhari, who has just about twenty more months to be in office, may well be persuaded to leave the headache of stability or lack of it for those coming behind him and return to Daura for a well deserve rest. Nothing prevents him from telling Governor Hope Uzodimma to go and settle with his people and leave him alone. But the president’s body language, last Thursday, did not in any way suggest that he thinks that the things Ndigbo are asking for – from the release of detained Igbo youths to a president of Igbo extraction in 2023 – are impossibilities.
Some Facebook activists in Imo state, apparently on the behest of the so called opposition in the state, have shifted their frustration over the huge success the event was to claims that what the president came to commission were not worthy of attracting a presidential attention. Some actually claim that projects executed by state governors ought not to be commissioned at all. But this argument on commissioning of projects and what is commissionable betrays the insincerity of some of those who purport to be the watchdog on behalf of the people.
Take two of the projects commissioned by the president in Imo last Thursday: The balloon driven flood control tunnel at Trans Egbu/Dick Tiger road area, and the Nekede-Ihiagwa-Obinze link road. The flood control tunnel is one of the most ambitious projects ever embarked upon by any administration in the state. With it, the state has finally solved the problem of flood of imaginable magnitude that had, in the past twenty years, submerged buildings, destroyed means of livelihood and rendered many homeless. To suggest that it is not worth acknowledging that the state itself, albeit through the Uzodimma administration, has finally found a lasting solution to that night mare is to reduce public commentary to its most abysmal level and make sheer mockery of opposition politics.
As for the Poly junction-Nekede-Ihiagwa road, which has been a nightmare for more than twenty years, could we have gotten a better opportunity to draw the attention of the federal government to the fact that it leads to two of its most prestigious institutions of high learning of higher learning in the country, perhaps the only visible federal presence in the state? So, what offence did Governor Hope Uzodimma commit in taking President Buhari there?
A people get what they deserve. You cannot, as a so called opposition, keep inundating the space with false claims over those in public office and expect them not to look for ways of proving you wrong. When we stop telling lies about people in government or stop making allegations that we cannot substantiate against them, then we can expect something different. Now that we had seen the fool hardiness in the posturing that preceded last Thursday’s presidential visit in Imo state, might we not do things differently?