…Can Joe Igbokwe Deny This Fact?
By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD
It is not often the weird dancer that is ashamed of his performance in the public square but his relatives among the spectators. So, the relationship between Anioma people and their Southeast core-Igbo kinsmen is neither a matter of hatred nor denial of Igbo identity as it is now being insinuated by some politically and intellectually gullible fiends from the Southeast.
This is my case with the Igbo of Southeast Nigeria who often style themselves core-Igbo, while the rest Igbo subgroups domiciled outside the Southeast are described as peripheral or fake Igbo who are only useful as foot-stools for their exclusive political interests.
To theme, these are people who should be cowered to either join the Southeast geopolitical zone without question or dance to their dastard political drum-beat in order to be identified as proper or true Igbo.
It does not matter how much an Igbo from Anioma or Rivers State Igbo sacrifices his life, energy and time in pursuit of collective Igbo interest, he remains an incomplete Igbo worthy of acclamation and only good as instrument of sabotage and reckless contempt.
On the other hand, no matter the degree of crime or sabotage committed against the Igbo by any political leader from the Southeast, such a person remains a hero to the people protected under the vile political cover of any criticism against him is anti-Igbo.
You become an Igbo hater when you as an Igbo from Anioma or Rivers State criticize an Igbo leader of Southeast descent whose policies and actions go against collective interests of Igbo ethnic nation.
To these political torn-coats what defines a true Igbo identity is not one’s degree of patriotism to collective Igbo cause but physical belongingness to the geographical expression called the Southeast Igboland.
To them therefore, unless Anioma people dance stupidly in support of Senator Ned Nwoko’s reckless Bill of their annexation to Southeast, they are not truly Igbo.
Unless Anioma people decide to raise the defunct Biafran flag and join the IPOB leprous chorus of Nnamdi Kanu’s supreme leadership they are not truly Igbo.
Yet these same people are telling us that such conquest mentality does not translate to annexation! Where has it happened in Nigeria that outsiders should be more concerned about the creation of a State than the indigenes? Was it not through that means that the British started their colonization of present Nigeria?
It is only in Anioma because some people believe in their vile imagination that Anioma people are so historically daft and politically spineless that they can just walk over them with a cacophony of incendiary campaigns of calumny and ahistorical debauchery of common language means commonality of origins and political destiny driven by swarms of political nonentities and intellectual minions.
Anioma people in spite of their diverse ethnic origins have always seen themselves as part and parcel of the wider Igbo ethnic nation without anyone reminding them of the degree of their Igboness.
They are always willing to contribute their best quota to advance the common interests of the Igbo ethnic nation with unequalled dedication driven by untainted ethnic patriotism.
But oftentimes their Southeast kinsmen have come to see such sacrifices as the acts of the foolish in the service of the wise; a sort of domineering syndrome that makes Anioma people feel their strangeness of being Igbo.
Anioma people have also tried by examples to inculcate into the minds of their Southeast Igbo kinsmen the true spirit of being Igbo, which does not lie in wearing spotted Isi-Agu attire adorned with red Moroccan Fez-Cap and dancing around hilariously to the mono sound-beat of tired Igba ndi Eze drums, or syndicated abuse of the spirit of their ancestor and desecration of their time-honored ancestral deities under the guise of unfulfilled Christianity.
I need not recount the records of gallant Anioma soldiers and commanders of the Biafran Forces which remain untainted till date without any record of sabotage against the Biafran cause.
While most Anioma were occupied by the Federal Forces, Ibusa remained a battle ground while Oko-Ogbele remained under the control of the Biafran troops under the command of Anioma sons who protected their people in their forests that linked up with Southeast through Atani.
Indeed, it took our elders with the support of Federal troops to enter the forests to plead with them that the war had ended.
There has also been the deliberate and devilish attempt of some of our Southeast brothers to demonize the illustrious icon of the finest but aborted revolution in Nigeria, Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu as the leader of the January 15, 1966 coup and subsequent cause of current Nigeria’s political problems.
But the truth is that, not only was Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna from Southeast the authentic leader of the coup, but Major Nzeogwu who diligently executed his own part of the coup without recourse to ethnic considerations, was sabotaged by his Igbo kinsmen who decided without his consent to work towards transferring political power to Major General Aguiyi-Iron against the original plan of transferring power to Chief Obafemi Awolowo; hence Ironsi was spared against the original plan of eliminating him.
If General Aguiy-Ironsi together with Dr. Michael Okpara and Chief Dennis Osadebay were killed like others, there shouldn’t have been any excuse for a counter-coup or pogrom; not even any reason for secession and the resulting civil war.
They spared these corrupt politicians because of vile ethnic considerations against the wish of Major Nzeogwu.
Even till today, the Igbo leadership is yet to learn from the lessons of that episode; that a single act colored in ethnic bigotry could reverberate disastrously against the entire Igbo population.
Ambassador Raph Uwaechue as Biafra”s Representative in France stood dedicatedly with Ojukwu till the end of the war, while Ojukwu’s Southeast kinsmen were sabotaging him and diverting money meant to purchase arms.
He did the same as the President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo sacrificing his time and money but went down to his grave unsung without a single honor from the same Southeast leaders during his burial.
Similarly, Professor Frank Ndili took over a University of Nigeria dotted with wooden prefabricated buildings constructed by his predecessor-Southeast Vice Chancellors—Professors Kodilinye and Ezeilo with the huge sums of money given to them by the Federal Government, and decided to initiate a massive post-civil war reconstruction of the University with solid building structures.
Midway into his tenure the same Southeast ganged up against him and threw him out of office ignominiously.
Today it is on record that after the retirement of Bishop Eneje of Enugu Roman Catholic Diocese there was in-fighting among the Southeast over who should succeed him. It took an Anioma son—the pioneer Bishop of Issele-Uku Diocese, Bishop Anthony Gbuji to stabilize the Diocese, and he did it very passionately until his retirement as Catholic Bishop of Enugu Diocese.
Similarly, almost at the same time Bishop Anthony Gbuji was presiding at Enugu Catholic Diocese, another Anioma son—the recently retired Archbishop of Enugu Province of the Anglican Communion, Most Reverend Emmanuel Chukwuma, was presiding as the Bishop of Enugu Anglican Diocese, again with the aim of bringing stability that arose after the retirement of Bishop Otubelu of Ukpo in Anambra State.
Not only did he perform extraordinarily but did what no other Southeasterner could do. He presided over the splitting of his original Diocese into seven Anglican Dioceses at a time most of his Southeast colleagues were resisting the splitting of their Episcopal realms into two.
While working at Enugu-Airport as Assistant Superintendent-in-Training of Air Traffic Signals of Civil Aviation Department, I began to notice injustices and frauds in administration especially against those of us on the technical line.
Out of anger I began a one-man protest writing for the public opinion pages of the Enugu-based Satelite and Daily Star newspapers. Not long after that, I was elected in absentia as Propaganda Secretary of Civil Service Technical Workers’ Union of Nigeria (CSTWUN), Enugu Airport Branch.
I became in the process a covert member of “Jim’s Vanguard” under the guidance of later Senator Fidelis Okoro of Nru-Nsukka, then officially the Chairman of Anambra State Road Safety Corps (Jim Nwobodo Police), and Chief Frank Oloto of Ovoko-Nsukka, NPP Youth Leader and Operational Head of Jim’s Vanguard, formed by Governor Jim Nwobodo to curtail the excesses of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s “Ikemba Front” which was unleashing mayhem on defenseless NPP supporters of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.
I was enraged by the saboteur tendencies of the NPN Igbo Fulani stooges at the time, the infamous NTA-sponsored “Federal Government Presence in Anambra State” by Chike Ubaka, the Ojukwu-led Ikemba-Front attack on Governor Jim Nwobodo at Nkpor Junction, the dastard activities of Police Commissioner Bishop Eyitene, the burning of ABC Transmitting Station at Ngwo, the struggle over the construction of Nnewi-Igbo Ukwu-Ekwulobia road and, a host of other acts of sabotage against the spirit and soul of Igbo victims of 1966 pogroms and Nigerian civil war.
Today as I am writing this essay, nothing has changed in that age-long quisling mentality of those individuals who present themselves as the political leaders of the Igbo of Southeast.
This explains why there is massive support for the now trending Anioma-Fulani stooge Senator Ned Nwoko from his likes in Southeast against the collective will of Anioma people.
On April 30, 1999, I was dismissed by University of Nigeria, Nsukka, for what they described as “by the order of the Visitor of the University and Head of State of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria”, then Gen Abdusalami Abubakar for no stated crime.
But I knew it was not unconnected with my role in the struggles to defend the Igbo cause within University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the wider Nigerian polity, especially against the attempt to demonize the progressive Vice Chancellor of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, from Item, Abia State, Prof Oleka Udeala by his Southeast Igbo kinsmen; during which I was suspended five times, arrested five times, charged to court five times and acquitted of the whole five cases.
After my dismissal I consequently relocated to Lagos where I formally joined NADECO through the General Secretary of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) Chief Frank Ovie-Kokori under whom I served as Personal Adviser.
The first day I met Ubani Chima in his office in Surulere he was apprehensive of my presence thinking that I had come to undermine the pro-democracy activism in Lagos State.
He even warned one of his old-time colleagues at University of Nigeria, Comrade Adewale Adeoye to avoid me as possible as he could because I was still as dangerous as before. But Adeoye told him not to be disturbed because the Tony he was seeing was a different Tony of the Campus Students’ politics.
At the time I entered Lagos in 1999, the Igbo in Lagos State were in a precarious situation; more serious than what is happening today. The OPC was carrying out unprecedented harassment of the Igbo residents in the State because of the provocative roles of some Igbo elements against June 12, 1993 Presidential election as agents of Fulani oligarchy; at the same time engaging in constant violent confrontations with the Hausa and Fulani settlers, and later with the Ijaw.
The Igbo in Lagos were like sheep without a shepherd. They were constantly harassed in their markets by both wayward OPC members and miscreants called Alaye.
The Ohaneze Ndigbo led then by Prof Ben Nwabueze, SAN was dancing to the melody of Fulani political sabada dance; and was openly antagonistic to Afenifere, who were then the backbone of the pro-democracy struggles.
The few NADECO progressives of Igbo extraction—Rear Admiral Godwin Ndubuisi Kanu, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, Okwadike Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, among others were treated as political persona non grata by their Igbo kinsmen.
Meanwhile Chiefs Ohazurike (Tokas Pure Water) from Ihiala, Anambra State, and Christian Nwachukwu from Obodoukwu, Imo State were slugging it out over who would be the authentic Eze Ndigbo of Lagos State.
The only functional apex Igbo organization in Lagos was the Igbo Speaking Community led by Chief Uche Momah from Nnewi which was more or less an appendage to the Northern oligarchy, since the President’s elder brother, Major General Momah was before then the Minister of Science and Technology.
Nobody could speak for the Igbo or defend the Igbo at that point in time. The harassments became so pronounced that Chief Ovie-Kokori had to call me one day and said in a mocking manner, “Tony, what is happening to your Igbo people? Is it because they were defeated in war that they cannot stand up and defend themselves in Lagos?”
Disturbed by Chief Ovie-Kokori’s admonition and fired by the zeal to save my people from their second fiddle predicament in Lagos State, I moved straight to Besthope Hospital, Mushin Lagos, where I met the Leader of OPC Dr. Frederick Faseun.
We discussed at length over the need for the protection of the Igbo residents in Lagos State against constant harassment by his boys, as well as the need for Igbo-Yoruba alliance, since it would not augur well for the Yoruba to be at war with many ethnic groups at the same time.
He informed me that their problem was that both Ohaneze Ndigbo and other Igbo groups in Lagos State were working with the Fulani to undermine collective Yoruba interests in Nigeria right from the time of annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election, and that he was not ready to work with any of them.
I then proposed forming an independent organization to work directly in collaboration with OPC; which he subsequently endorsed. That was how Igbo People’s Congress (IPC) came into existence.
We soon went ahead and signed a memorandum of understanding between the OPC and IPC with respect to Igbo-Yoruba cooperation and protection of Igbo interests in Lagos State. I was the sole signatory representing collective Igbo interest and Dr. Faseun the sole signatory representing collective Yoruba interest in that memorandum of understanding.
There was no Southeast Igbo present at that stage until I started to gradually mobilize the few willing ones.
At that stage a number of Igbo leaders now resident at Abuja were in Lagos State. Okwadike Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife was living at Apapa with his office at Awolowo Road, Ikoyi.
Joe Igbokwe had just published his book on Heroes of Democracy and had his office along Western Avenue where he sold imported Second-hand cars and published a local Nnewi newspaper; while the Igbo Speaking Community were meeting at Apapa Road by Costain, as well as at the residence of Chief Anonneze from Orlu, Imo State, at Ikate, Surulere by Kilo Bus-Stop.
At the initial stage, all my entreaties to these Igbo groups to buy my idea of joint Igbo-Yoruba alliance fell on deaf ears.
Not until the Apapa Wharf attack that led to the loss of one Igbo life and destruction of their property did they realize my importance and the necessity of such alliance.
The OPC and other Yoruba groups had invaded Apapa Wharf and attacked the Igbo workers there, killing one person. There was pandemonium in Lagos State since nobody could confront either the OPC or their leaders.
At the Igbo community meeting at Chief Anonneze’s house in the midst of the crisis and the dilemma posed by the threat of further attacks, I proposed that a delegation be sent to the OPC leader at Century Hotel to plead for truce and reconciliation. None among the Igbo leaders present at the meeting was willing to go for the fear of being attacked and killed by OPC.
It was at that point I proposed to them to instead fix the meeting somewhere outside Century Hotel, Okota, and then I would invite Dr. Faseun to come and address them.
But they could not believe I had such influence over Dr. Faseun to the extent of honoring my invitation. They were later proved wrong.
Nevertheless, they eventually accepted and fixed the meeting at Apapa Road with the condition that Dr. Faseun should not come with his OPC members, which I promised to ensure.
Immediately after the approval of the meeting every one of them began to boast of how they would caution Dr. Faseun over the activities of his boys.
Although, we came with a bus load of OPC members in case of emergency, they were however stationed at Costain Bus-Stop nearby waiting for any signal; I proceeded to the meeting with Dr. Faseun and one of his closest Assistants called Mukaila.
Ironically when Faseun eventually came and addressed them, promising that there would be no further attacks against the Igbo anywhere in Lagos State, it was the same group of people who earlier boasted of how they would reprimand him that struggled more than others to collect his contact telephone number.
It was at that point that he informed them to use me as their main link person to him in the event of any conflict or attack against the Igbo in Lagos State.
However, the first baptism of fire I received from my Southeast Igbo kinsmen was when this same group of Igbo Speaking Community leaders I used my time and resources to bring Dr. Faseun to the same table with them decided to pay a thank-you courtesy visit to Dr. Faseun at his Century Hotel Okota for the return of peace at Apapa Wharf.
They did not deem it necessary to either inform me or invite me to join them as the person who initiated and facilitated the meeting and subsequent return of peace at Apapa Wharf.
I was no body as far as they were concerned. I had been used to advance Igbo harmony with the Yoruba in Apapa Wharf and the rest were my business as Anioma stranger among the Igbo.
As they landed at the Hotel and sat down, Dr. Faseun came down to join them. Looking around without seeing me, he asked them about my whereabouts. But Chief Momah and his men had no explanation. He then told them to excuse him for some few minutes to attend to some people.
He then took his phone and called me and said “Tony where are you now?” I said I was in Surulere. He asked if I could make it in thirty minutes and that he was going to give me a surprise, and I said I can.
I then drove straight to Century Hotel, Okota, entered the Hotel, lo and behold, sitting with Dr. Faseun were the cream of Igbo Speaking Community leaders in Lagos State.
On sighting me, they were all too embarrassed to look straight at me and began to mumble one excuse or the other. Dr. Faseun immediately directed me to sit beside him and introduced me to them as the leader of Igbo People’s Congress who should be contacted in any matter involving the OPC and Igbo people in Lagos State.
After the meeting, Dr. Faseun specifically warned me to be very careful with those people I call my Igbo brothers because they were not trustworthy. This was a Yoruba man warning me to be cautious of my Igbo kinsmen.
How then can any Igbo man tell me leave that a Yoruba man because he is my enemy and follow the Igbo man because he is my brother, and expect me to believe him without any reservation?
The second baptism of fire was when Dr. Faseun directed me to prepare a proposal for the inclusion of Igbo people in the Lagos State Government Executive Council, a proposal that eventually led to the appointment of Mr. Akabueze as Lagos State Commissioner for Budget and Planning.
After writing the draft of the proposal, I gave it to Dr. Faseun to go through. He went through, did some corrections and handed it over to me to produce the final copy.
After producing the final draft, I called my Deputy Mr. Chris Ezeiyiaku from Akaeze town in Ebonyi State and gave him the copy to go through before final submission to Dr. Faseun. Everything about the proposal soon skipped off my mind. I did not think of collecting it back from Mr. Ezeiyiaku.
But what happened was that as soon as Mr. Ezeiyiaku collected it from me, he took it to Mr. Joe Igbokwe and they both used another third party to submit it to Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu with Joe Igbokwe now assuming the IPC leader in my palace. Being that the proposal still bore Igbo People’s Congress, the Governor had to make further inquiries from the OPC leader, Dr. Frederick Faseun.
After about a month, Dr. Faseun called me and said I should come quickly to his office.
When I got there, he demanded to have the proposal he gave me for corrections and return back to him. I was mopping like a Sallah ram awaiting slaughter.
He told me that he had just returned from Alausa where he spoke with the Governor over my proposal which the Governor accepted as a laudable idea. But that he knew that he did not either submit the paper to the Governor nor did I return it to him.
He however told me that he had instructed the Chief of Staff Alhaji Lai Mohammed to kill it.
But I pleaded with him to rescind his action since I was not doing it so that I would personally benefit.
He looked at me for a while and said, Tony, you are a different person. He said OKAY, if I insist, he would inform Lai Mohammed to go along with the proposal. I said yes, I insist Baba. Again, he warned me to be very careful with the people I call my Igbo brothers.
The third baptism of fire came when I stood firmly to defend Mr. Michael Ololo-Ogwu from Umuahia whose inheritance from his father—a four-storey building at Ikate, Surulere, Lagos, was confiscated by his mother and junior brothers and clandestinely sold to a Yoruba man at the ridiculous price of two million naira.
The buyer Mr. Akintomide subsequently invited members of OPC to eject him and his tenants who were mainly Igbo, from the house, until the Police came to their rescue that day.
It should be noted that at the time I left University of Nigeria, Nsukka I had no car and the car I was using then at Lagos—a Daewoo Racer was bought with the support of Dr. Faseun. Yet that did not in any manner obliterate my sense of objectivity in any matter concerning Igbo interest between us.
At a stage, he was queried by the then National Security Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo, General Mohammed Gusau why he was so close with unparalleled trust to that Igbo boy.
His response was that Tony was a different person unlike every other Igbo man he had made contact with. He was not with me for the sake of money but to fight injustice. This indeed explains his indelible trust in me till his death while I was already in exile.
He believed in me and rarely disagreed with my opinion on certain national issues.
Indeed, when he informed that he strongly opposed the marriage of his only daughter—a Medical Doctor to an Igbo man against his wife’s support, because he wanted her to be close to home, I reminded him of our objectives in the struggle and that his feelings and actions matter a lot in that struggle and advised him to rescind his position.
He agreed, even went further to confess to me that to be fair to the young girl, he never instructed her where to marry and where not to marry.
Back to Michael Ololo-Ogwu matter. One fateful afternoon, Dr. Faseun called me as usual to come to his office quickly for a very serious and urgent matter.
Meanwhile no Igbo individual paid me a kobo for all the sacrifices. the source of my meager albeit unstable income was few consultancy levies I received for specific jobs assigned to me Dr. Faseun.
When I got to his office at Century Hotel, Ago-Palace Way, Okota, he at once brandished before me a copy of the original Survey Plan of the property in dispute which was built in the early 1950s.
He immediately instructed to go and ensure that the young man quits the house immediately for the Yoruba buyer otherwise he would no longer restrain his boys from further action.
I said okay Baba, but let me go there and investigate the matter first and return back to you latest the next day. He said okay and that I should do it quickly. I then left and moved straight to the property which was on a short street that links Folawiyo Bankole Street with the main Ikate Street by the popular Kilo Hotel Bus Stop, just directly opposite number 28 Folawiyo Bankole Street, my kinsman’s office—Mr. Bialonwu Okonta where he published our town’s local newspaper—Ibusa Pathfinder, which I later used as my office.
So, the location was a familiar terrain to me. But even though I was familiar with the area I never took notice of the building until that fateful moment of the crisis.
Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD, Odogwu of Ibusa, Delta State is the President, International Coalition against Christian Genocide and can be reached Email: Nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com
Website: https://icac-gen.org
