Joe Igbokwe And The Politics Of Being Igbo

A few weeks ago, a video appeared online showing Anambra-born APC chieftain, Engr. Joe Igbokwe, being harassed by a crowd of Igbo traders at the Ladipo motor spare parts market, Lagos. According to his own account on his Facebook handle, he had gone to buy some spare parts at the market

when he noticed some persons pointing at him and making some comments. He ignored them and went about his business. Soon, he noticed that many of the traders were trooping towards him saying a lot of things, which made him enter his friend’s shop. His friend went and called the leadership of the market. In the midst of the tense atmosphere, he simply asked to leave. While he walked to his car, the crowd followed him making all sorts of hostile comments. Even though the video that circulated online did not show all these details, it clearly showed a crowd that appeared to be after a person, albeit with no indication of actual violent intent.

Joe Igbokwe’s long-running ordeal in the hands of his Igbo kinsmen has been well-known. He has been accused of being a saboteur who has chosen to please outsiders to the detriment of his own people – just for the political patronage he gets from these outsiders. This view is so widespread among the Igbo that the treatment meted to Igbokwe at Ladipo market will hardly surprise anyone.

For many years, I have followed Joe’s political views and activities – long before he became nationally well-known. In the late 1990s, I read his book, IGBOS 25 YEARS AFTER BIAFRA (published in 1995), in which he passionately advocated for a more equitable treatment of Ndigbo in Nigeria. He strongly argued that the Igbo have been suffering marginalisation since losing the civil war. He blamed members of other ethnic groups for treating the race unfairly even as he did not spare some Igbo leaders for letting down their people. I was also an ardent reader of Igbokwe’s articles in national dailies where he intelligently commented on national issues. He eventually became a notable media personality appearing on radio and television programmes, especially in Lagos. In one such TV appearance in 2000, I saw him unwilling to condemn Ralph Uwazuruike’s Biafra project, saying something like, “Uwazuruike, being a lawyer, can indeed be expected to lead a revolution for the good of his people.” In 2003, he was on TV again defending Peter Obi’s governorship mandate after it was stolen by the PDP. I remember he was asked by the presenter whether he was sure Obi would make a good governor and he confidently vouched that he would be one, recalling that Obi was his schoolmate at the legendary Christ the King College (CKC), Onitsha, where his entrepreneurial prowess was already showing.

Igbokwe later became the publicity secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) (later APC) in Lagos State. As the party spokesperson in the state, his voice was loud and regular in the media. In fact, between 2008 and 2010, while working for a national daily newspaper in Lagos, I regularly interviewed him while preparing my pieces for the Weekend Politics column of the paper. I was particularly impressed by his penetrating insights into issues as well as articulate and strong submissions, hence my readiness to often seek his opinion.

Instructively, as of this time, Igbokwe was not being seen as an enemy of his Igbo kinsmen. Towards the end of 2008, I was at Surulere to cover an event organised by Igbo-Speaking Community Lagos, where Igbokwe alongside other prominent Igbo persons like former military administrator of Imo and Lagos states, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kano, and ace gospel singer, Rosemary Chukwu, were honoured for making Ndigbo proud. This honour to Igbokwe as well as his speech at the event did not in any way portray a man who had a quarrel with his ethnic group.

In July, 2012, I had what proved to be my last interview (and indeed communication with Igbokwe to date). It was a phone interview as I gathered opinions for my analysis piece on 45 years since the first shots were fired in the Nigeria civil war. Again, Igbokwe spoke about the need for ethnic justice that would ensure full reconciliation and integration of Ndigbo into national life.

Now fast-forward to a few years later; Igbokwe’s public image has become the exact opposite of what it was. What then changed? Did the man suddenly start nursing hatred against his people? Has he suddenly ceased feeling like an Igbo to start feeling like a Yoruba or Fulani?

I would not confidently answer yes or no to any of the above posers simply because it may be difficult to explain what loving one’s people is or what feeling like an Igbo, Yoruba, Fulani etc. is in actual fact. Rather, I would simply postulate that what has changed is less about Igbokwe than it is about the mood of ethnic politics in Nigeria.

The strength of this diagnosis would become clearer if we turn our mind to the fact that Igbokwe was not the only Igbo that suddenly became “saboteurs” at the material time. Virtually all governors of the Igbo states have somehow become affected by this collective sigmatisation. These governors have either joined the APC or closely associated with it. However, this is not the first time Igbo leaders are joining political parties perceived as dominated by another ethnic group. Alex Ekwueme, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, C. C. Onoh, and Edwin Ume-Ezeoke all belonged to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) as against the Nnamdi Azikiwe-led Nigerian People’s Party (NPP). They contested elections against what was seen as an Igbo party and some of them won. Before then, in the First Republic, we had the likes of S.G. Ikoku who was a member of Awolowo-led Action Group (AG). Instructively, these respected Igbo figures were never ostracized irrespective of their speeches and actions in defence of their political interests as rooted in the party they embraced.

Their counterparts of today, such as Igbokwe, are unfortunate to be part of an era when belonging to a political party seen as dominated by another ethnic group or supporting a political party which is a rival to a party fielding a strong Igbo candidate has acquired a different meaning. It positions one as a veritable saboteur. Several factors have brought about this. One of them is the kind of politics seen with the APC, the party that has dominanted the political space since 2015. It was a politics so poor in inclusion that the Buhari government was understandably accused of “Fulanisation” in the pattern of its appointments – an example which President Tinubu appears to be working hard at copying.

Another important factor is the Biafra project championed by Nnamdi Kanu and the IPOB. Their obstinate readiness to brand any disagreement with their methods as anti-Igbo seriously reduced being a loyal Igbo to accepting unquestionably the tenets of Kanu’s Biafranism, and narrowed love for the race to loving Kanu and his ideology. IPOB and Kanu’s employment of derogatory names like “efulefu,” “saboteur,” “Fulani stooges” “otellectuals” etc. successfully entrenched a powerful identity binary wherein one is a loyal Igbo if one is for Kanu’s Biafra and saboteur if they are not – nothing more nothing less. The US-based Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) has given us insight into how much name-calling aids propaganda and mind management.

It is under this atmosphere that many Igbo leaders have become “saboteurs” due to their political choices. At the National Assembly, only Senator Enyinnanya Abaribe became a “good” Igbo representative. The reason is not far-fetched; his views were largely pro-IPOB and he was the person that volunteered to act as a suretey to bail Kanu in 2017. Kanu praised him and called all others traitors. His supporters toed his line.

The outcome of this toxic labelling was the demonisation and ostracising of many prominent Igbo persons. In many instances, it resulted in physical attacks. For instance, the house of then President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozo, at Awo-Omamma, Oru East LGA, Imo State, was attacked with explosives by unknown assailants, burning it to ashes. His offence apparently was the popular belief that he was sponsored to the leadership of Ohanaeze by Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State. Similarly, the house of Uzodinma, at his country home of Omuma, Oru East LGA, was attacked. Instructively, Joe Igbokwe was soon to suffer the same fate when his Nnewi, Anambra State home, was set on fire.

We have almost come to a stage where political opinion and participation outside the ideological boundaries of Kanu’s secessionism is regarded as sabotage. Many may still remember how Valentine Ozigbo, the PDP candidate in the 2021 Anambra governorship election, and his campaign train were harassed by a crowd of traders who walked behind them singing praises of Nnamdi Kanu.

The same toxic atmosphere was witnessed during the civil war when the likes of Zik were branded saboteurs. All of Zik’s contributions to the progress of the Igbo, including his role in the founding and leadership of the Igbo State Union(ISU), the first pan-Igbo interest organisation in Nigeria, his promotion of education among the Igbo through his Lincoln University scholarship programme that produced the first set of US-trained Igbo graduates, and his role in placing the Igbo nation in the mainstream pre-independence and post-independence national politics, were discarded in that one moment of Biafran hysteria. In fact, it was his more pragmatic approach, which could have ended the war faster through negotiations without the humiliation of surrender and more losses in lives and property, that earned him the tag of a saboteur. I have written on this in much detail earlier, but for further insight on this, see Ralph Uwechue’s REFLECTIONS ON THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR: FACING THE FUTURE (1971, Paris, Jeune Afrique). Uwechue was Biafra’s envoy to France having switched from being Nigeria’s ambassador to that country when the war started. Alexander Madiebo, the commander of the Biafran Army, equally dedicated a chapter of his book, THE NIGERIAN REVOLUTION AND BIAFRAN WAR (1980, Enugu, Fourth Dimension), to what he described as “sabotage politics” – a penetrating insight into how the war-time Biafra suffered avoidable setbacks as a result of a toxic politics of identity binary of “loyalists” and “saboteurs” (see chapter 8, pg.145 – 188). At the time in question, an intolerant, adversarial imagining of who a true Igbo is prevailed, partly due to the acrimonious mood of the war and partly due to propaganda. Today, we are seeing a recrudescence of this scenario mainly due to exclusionist ethnic politics in Nigeria as well as Nnamdi Kanu/IPOB-engineered indoctrination

But then I have unanswered questions which I want to repeat here: What really does it take to be a true, loyal Igbo person? What does loving the Igbo race actually mean? These questions always come to my mind because I feel that what people confuse as love for one’s race is that identity pride and protective sentiments that instinctively arises in most persons who find themselves in the sort of atmosphere of intense inter-ethnic rivalry prevailing in Nigeria. Genuine love for one’s people should birth practical commitment to their good and progress. A former neighbour of mine who works at a Federal High Court in the southeast told me how they (some of the staff members) shared the air conditioners procured for the court by the federal government. He was disappointed that the Deputy Registrar of the court, a Kwara State indigene, took the lion’s share of the appliances leaving an indigene like him with just one unit. I immediately remarked that his disappointment should be with himself and other indigenous staff members who colluded with a non-Igbo to deprive a public facility in Igbo land of a critical resource that would have made it richer. Instructively, this neighbour of mine is a fanatical follower of Kanu, IPOB, and their Biafran nationalism. I also know a university don who nurses strong positive sentiments for IPOB and its ideology, yet as head of a tertiary institution in Igbo land, he had employed his highly incompetent in-law as a member of the teaching staff. I have encountered this fellow and was alarmed at her poor speaking and writing abilities. I happen to know her master’s thesis supervisor who, like me, wondered how she found her way into a higher institution as a lecturer. The “Igbo lover” that gave her the job never considered it as anti-Igbo to populate schools in Igboland with personnel who lack the ability to do the job.

Now, is this former neighbour of mine seeking for a Biafra nation where he will continue to steal air conditioners and other resources meant for public good? Is the university don in question supporting IPOB towards having an independent nation where he will continue to populate tertiary schools with his barely literate in-laws and other cronies? Love of one’s people, I repeat, does not lie in the familiar sentiments that arise from identity pride and competition, but in practical actions that matter.

People profess love for their ethnic group yet mindlessly undermine the growth of the same people through self-aggrandising acts like stealing and nepotism. Northern Nigeria is a classic example as the political elite vehemently avow love for their people even though their real actions are self-serving, thus condemning the majority of the masses to the very nadir of poverty and underdevelopment. It is exactly for this reason that Ahmadu Bello’s much talked-about north-centric ethnicism did not succeed beyond leaving a horde of hungry, illiterate, and hopeless folks throughout the length and breadth of that region till this day. This has remained a huge burden to Nigeria including by fertilising the ground for germination of the seed of religious fundamentalism in the hue of Boko Haram and ISWAP. Laughably, some persons have described Azikiwe as not having the interest of Ndigbo at heart for not imitating Bello’s sort of politics. Today, history tells us better.

When people assume the role of ethnic advocates, whether by way of leading groups like IPOB, Ohanaeze, ACF and Afenifere or merely supporting the cause of such groups, their position and actions tend to project them as being more Igbo, Yoruba, or Hausa etc. than other members of the ethnic group. People tend to fall for such impressions due to their lack of understanding of what sociologists call role playing – individuals tend to behave according to the demands of the social role they find themselves in at any point in time. Such behaviour, are thus more a product of role commitment and interest than of real character and conviction. Thus, we have seen individuals who, as civil society activists, appeared uncompromisingly principled, turn overnight to defenders of bad government once their role changes to a government official. The same thing has been witnessed regarding some individuals who once spoke vigorously for their ethnic group until they found themselves in a certain place of political privilege.

It has therefore always been my conviction that the usual avowals of ethnic love and patriotism are, in many cases, FALSE and UNREAL when it comes to the things that really matter for the collective growth of the people of the ethnic groups in question.

It is based on this conviction that I am easily suspicious when individuals like Igbokwe or other politicians of southeast origin are vilified for allegedly sabotaging the Igbo race. In Igbokwe in particular, I see a politician who discovered his political destiny under the mentorship and patronage umbrella provided by Tinubu. One would be indeed unrealistic to expect him to at the same time play the role of a Kanu and IPOB apologist or a campaigner for Peter Obi. He is also not to be expected to take all the bullets fired at him without replying with his own salvos. This is more so for the reason that, in the midst of the ideological war, he has suffered verbal assaults and destruction of his property, and would naturally nurse animosity against those that disagree with him.

However, whatever that can be said in Igbokwe’s defence, Karma appears to have caught up with him. The same measure he used for others is now being used for him. He was not fair to the likes of Chief Alex Ekwueme whom, in his book, 25 YEARS, AFTER BIAFRA, he castigated for “betraying” the Igbo. In particular, he expected Ekwueme, as then Vice President, to play Igbo politics when his thriving political career stood on the pedestal of a party that was a rival to the one the Igbo had dominantly embraced. Ekwueme had written a letter to him following the castigating remarks, and he eventually penned down a strong apology to the statesman in his next book, HEROES OF DEMOCRACY.

Nonetheless, the bottom line is this: given the treacheries and opaque vagaries of ethnic politics in Nigeria, I would be suspicious of any conclusion that one is less an Igbo simply because they have at one point or the other chosen not to support a cause perceived as pro-Igbo or chosen to support one perceived as anti-Igbo.

Henry Chigozie Duru teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.