Nigerian Politics, Ndi Igbo And Poverty Of Strategy

Since late Gen. Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi’s six months reign as the Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces in 1966, producing another president of Nigeria has remained an unattainable ambition for the people of the southeast. The zone’s exclusion from the military politics that produced successive military rulers may have been understandable given that most commissioned military officers of Igbo extraction were not absorbed back into the Nigerian military after the civil war, meaning that hardly any Igbo was well positioned to emerge as a junta head after any coup d’état. However, the same cannot be said of the continuous exclusion of the region in the periodic electoral politics that has determined the democratic presidents of the country since 1999.

Particularly since 2003, no general elections have come without advocacy and agitations for emergence of an Igbo as president being prominent. Notwithstanding, the ambition for a president from the southeast of the country has so far failed to materialize.

This state of affairs has led to two clearly observable reactions from the people of the zone. First, they have tended to accuse people of other zones and ethnicities of conspiring to deprive them of their right to occupy the number one leadership position in their country. They see this as the climax of the grand anti-Igbo agenda being pursued by the rest of Nigeria, especially the Hausa-Fulani. The other reaction is the tendency to accuse Igbo politicians of betrayal, of complicity, in the exclusion of the zone from the politics of the nation’s presidency. Most recently, we have seen the likes of Governors Soludo, Umahi and Uzodinma being chastised for not supporting one of their own, Obi – nay for working against his ambition to become the president.

The above two reactions, in my view, stem from clear ignorance as to the dynamics of partisan politics and the real nature of ethnic power play in Nigeria. To begin with, partisan politics is inherently selfish; it is rooted in interest, an interest so narrow that every other thing and person is at risk of being offered on the altar of the ambition of the politician. No politician, therefore, would normally make concessions or go into any alliance except on the conviction that such will advance his personal political interest. This would explain why several prominent Igbo politicians in PDP would kick against the emergence of Peter Obi as their party’s vice presidential candidate in 2019. While this could amount to working against the interest of their party, their reaction would be easily explainable when the circumstances of Obi’s emergence are closely scrutinized. First, his becoming the running mate to Atiku Abubakar, though would enhance the chances of their party at the polls, does not align with the personal political interests of these Igbo politicians in the party. It would elevate Obi as the leader of the party in the southeast meaning that these colleagues of his would inevitably be condemned to playing second fiddle.

These protesting politicians must have felt that Obi was too much a newcomer to upstage them and become their leader and a powerbroker in a party some of them were founding members and longtime supporters and financiers. Envy, therefore, would naturally set in.

On the contrary, no such sense of rivalry occurred when Azikiwe emerged as the leader of Igbo politics in the 1950s onward. The reason is simply because Zik’s emergence was predicated on his being the first Igbo man to gain national political stature in the emerging nation. He was the first Igbo university graduate (and indeed the first Nigerian to be educated in the United States). He was a founding member of Nigeria’s first national party, the NCNC, and which leadership he inherited upon the death of Herbert Macaulay. When that party eventually became the rallying point for the people of eastern Nigeria, Zik’s emergence as the region’s political leader became natural. Besides, many of those politicians that worked under Zik in the NCNC were a product of his educational, political and even professional (journalism) mentorship, hence naturally deferred to Zik as not only a mentor but an idol. In fact, Nwafor Orizu, Ozumba Mbadiwe and Okechukwu Ikejiani were among the “seven Argonauts” that sailed across the Atlantic in 1938 to acquire university education in the United States under the auspices of Zik. It was therefore natural that this first generation of Igbo politicians felt indebted to Azikiwe, saw him as a charismatic mentor, and naturally submitted to his leadership. More importantly, being a follower of Zik was, for them, a prized route to political relevance.

However, no other Igbo politician, past and present, has possessed such clout since Zik left the scene. Thus, the likes of Ekweremadu, Governors Soludo, Uzodinma, Umahi and others would not see in Obi a leader but a rival. It is a natural reaction. Besides, those of them in the PDP would even consider him an opportunist when he was made Atiku’s running mate in 2019. Those who have compared the attitude of these Igbo politicians with the deference Tinubu has enjoyed among the Yoruba political class are making a fundamental mistake. The two cases cannot be compared. Many of these Yoruba politicians are beneficiaries of Tinubu’s mentorship and patronage. He has facilitated their emergence as governors, ministers, commissioners, and party leaders among others. Many of them would not have attained any political relevance without him, hence he naturally emerges as their leader with so much influence. Can this be said of any Igbo politician currently aiming to emerge as a leader of others?

Against this backdrop, it does not seem exactly realistic that Kalu, Umahi, Uzodinma or Soludo would abandon their political interest in support of Obi’s presidential ambition. Those who were expecting such alliance are not looking at reality. No politician would give support to a political movement that threatens their own political success.

This fact was even more glaring in 2023 when Obi ran under a political party different from those of the governors and most of other prominent Igbo politicians. The victory of Labour Party in the presidential election would likely trigger a tsunamic effect that would undermine the political success of these politicians. Obiano knew this about 2019 election and did not support Obi as the vice presidential candidate of PDP and Soludo knew same in 2023 and acted exactly the same way. Politics is patently selfish, and not even Obi would have aligned with a political project that carries the risk of neutralising him politically.

This brings me to another very important reality which is that Igbo politicians will continue to sing in discordant tones and will not be able to present a formidable common front in the national politics as long as they do not share any common political identity by way of a political party. Having a political party within which majority of Igbo politicians pursue their political interests will help reconcile ambitions and forge a common front. This was seen in the first and second republic with the NCNC and the NPP respectively. Without this, not only will there be a divergence of interests, we will also have a politically weakened southeast. Without doubt, common interest shared in a political party ensures that everyone has something to benefit once the party wins in an election. On the contrary, when people belong to different political parties, interests hardly converge as victory for one is loss for the other. As it stands today, the southeast is a battle ground for three political parties – APC, APGA, LP and PDP, with none exactly enjoying dominance. While the PDP had dominated in the zone for the better part of the fourth republic, unlike the NCNC and the NPP, the party cannot be said to represent Igbo interest.

Since 1999, politicians of the southwest have been able to achieve commonality of interest through the unifying role variously played by AD, AC, ACN and now APC. Though names have been changing, the identity remains the same. A similar scenario has been seen in the North especially the Northwest where APP, ANPP, CPC and now APC have successively engendered reconciliation of interests and forging of a common front. Thus, in the southwest, for instance, a presidential victory for Tinubu is a victory for Gbajabiamila, for Falake, for Fayemi, for Oyetola etc. In the same vein, in the North, victory for Buhari is victory for El-Rufai, for Ganduje and others. In the southeast, on the contrary, a presidential victory for Obi is a defeat for Uzodinma, for Soludo, for Umahi and for Ugwuanyi. You cannot expect anything to contrary; the dynamics of partisan politics is grounded in self-interest. Not even Obi would have acted differently.

Many people spoke as though they were expecting these politicians to support the LP, but truth is that when a member of a political party engages in anti-party activities to support a candidate of a different party, then his/her self-interest must be the reason. We saw it with Nyesom Wike in the last presidential election. There is also a rare instance where a political party as a body supports a candidate of another party – but this is based on shared interests. We saw it when Peter Obi-led APGA supported PDP in 2011 presidential election and when the same party led by Obi’s successor, Obiano, did same with APC in 2019. This was based on the understanding that the two parties were no rivals in the presidential election and so could work together, while APGA would enjoy the patronage of the ruling party at the centre when it came to the governorship polls. It was a case of rub my back I rub yours. This was so glaring that Obasanjo, in his famous long letter to President Jonathan, mentioned that he supported a governorship candidate of another party against that of his own party just for his “personal” political interest. Such alliance, however, could be risky as seen in 2003 when AC decided to support the PDP presidential candidate and ended up losing the governorship of all the southwest states, except Lagos, to the party.

However, it must be stated at this point that the regional unity seen with politicians of the southwest just as seen with those of the north is not born out of love for the people of their respective ethnic groups; rather it was born of the self-interest of the politicians but with their ethnic groups becoming a tool for realising this interest. In other words, by doing their partisanship across ethnic lines, they retain the patronage of the people of their tribes and which assures them of election victories. This is the exploitative dimension that constitutes the soul of ethnic politics in Nigeria. Every other appearance assumed by ethnic politics is mere pretentious. Otherwise, why would the masses of northern Nigeria, a region that is the supposed beneficiary of the acclaimed successful hegemonic politics of the Hausa-Fulani, be the worst in the country in terms of poverty, illiteracy and indeed in most indices of low living standard?

My realisation of this deceitful and exploitative essence of ethnic politics has made me unenthusiastic about the ethnic group of whoever becomes the president of Nigeria. But then this piece is for the many who are passionate about the perennial failure of Ndi Igbo to hold their own in the politics of the Nigerian presidency; they need to understand some of the roots of this failure in order to be better placed to advance this cause. Playing the victim and endlessly hunting for both internal and external enemies cannot replace the strategic efficiency required to make this dream a reality. Power is taken and not given. For now, it is still crying, moaning and blame game as against strategic thinking.

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