By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD
I am greatly amused by the amount of support for Senator Ned Munir Nwoko’s clandestine Anioma State project exhuming from the Southeast. One of the fanatical proponents of annexation of Anioma to the Southeast boasted to me that over ninety percent of Ndigbo Southeast are in full support of Ned Nwoko’s Anioma State proposal. The question is what effect has 100 percent Southeast support for Senator Ned Nwoko for his clandestine Anioma State proposal if Anioma people say otherwise?
It is not politically right and morally correct for our Southeast brethren to come unsolicited and tell Anioma people that they are supporting their Senator 100 percent for the creation of Anioma State against their will. Do they know how and when the agitation for Anioma State began? This is simply an absurd domineering mentality; one of the fundamental reasons Anioma people are loathsomely opposed to any form of annexation to the Southeast.
Senator Nwoko represents Delta North Senatorial District in Delta State with the South-South geopolitical region and, not Anambra or any State in the Southeast. It is left for the people of Delta North whom he represents at the Senate to either support or oppose whatever Bill he presents on the floor of the Senate on their behalf. And in this case, Anioma people and their leaders have said no to Senator Nwoko and his obnoxious Anioma State Project which is laden with selfish intentions and ulterior motives.
Our revered traditional rulers have spoken, and no outsider can decide otherwise. Ika people have spoken and, Ndokwa people have spoken. Senator Ned Nwoko is aware that he cannot cross the political bounds of these people. With the presence of traditional rulers of Aniocha/Oshimili in the Delta North Council of Traditional Rulers, it stands that whatever decision they took at their last meeting at Owa-Oyibu remains binding on the people, including Senator Ned Nwoko.
Senator Nwoko cannot take Anioma people for a ride as if they are his serfs in his Islamic-style political conundrum, where his words and actions are law unto the people and perpetually binding. Delta State is not part of Southeast geopolitical zone where political megalomaniacs like Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, Chief Emeka Ofor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, and Governor Hope Uzodinma among others hold sway with audacious impunity, thereby recklessly gripping their people’s political fate in their leprous political hands. Anioma people are Lions and Tigers in their own rights, tested and proven and, no one uses a Lion or Tiger for sacrifice. That is exactly what Senator Nwoko thinks he can do with Anioma people.
Ned Nwoko is the Senator. His cousin Dr. Michael Nwoko is his Chief of staff. Another cousin Mr. Maxwell Nwoko is his Special Assistant on Media. His newest wife Regina Daniels is his Special Assistant on Special Duties. His mother-in-law, Mrs. Rita Daniels is his Special Assistant on Southeast Affairs, in addition to being positioned respectively as Ohaneze Ndigbo Women Leader representing Anioma without either consultations or elections, and member of the notorious Ohaneze Ndigbo Committee on Apology to the Fulani over the January 15, 1966 military coup led by the indomitable son of Anioma, Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu.
Is this not an attempt to put collective Anioma political interests in one pocket of his family? To state the obvious, this is no more and no less a modicum mentality of the obnoxious Northern Muslim feudalism; yet our Southeast Igbo kinsmen think it is normal to have somebody like Ned Nwoko as a Senator for Anioma people and trusted partner in defending the collective interests of Igbo ethnic nation. Haba Senator Chinedu Nwoko, u no fit swallow Anioma people just like that! Na we go swallow u instead.
As far as Anioma people are concerned, Senator Ned Nwoko became a Senator by default of the 2023 fraudulent General Elections and thus does not see himself as a true representative of Anioma people. He is demonstrably an agent of Sokoto Caliphate working in tandem with their jihad project in Igboland. This explains why he is concentrating the weight of his support for his fraudulent Anioma project on the Southeast; who unfortunately have so quickly fallen to his scammed and untenable design of inclusion of Anioma people in the Southeast.
He truly knows that such contraption can never work. Hence to justify his dud political cheque, he clandestinely appeared as the Man-Friday to Southeast, masquerading as Anioma champion of Igbo unity; believing that his provocative announcement of including Anioma State to Southeast without the least consultation with the people who elected him and on whose behalf the said State is being advance can automatically turn him into a political legend. Unfortunately the reverse has become the case.
One is further amused by the high degree of sadistic vilification of Anioma people by some addle-brained elements and political morons from the Southeast for opposing Ned Nwoko’s clandestine attempt to lump them with the Southeast without consultations. Did they expect Anioma people to start dancing in celebration of a fraudulent action undertaken without consultations? Delta State does not work that way. Elected politicians are responsible to the people who elected them. Indeed, there is nothing spectacularly interesting about Anioma people joining the Southeast.
The doctrine of irredentism is that it should fundamentally start with the people concerned, and not from outsiders. When the forces of irredentism from outsiders overwhelm those of the people specifically concern, there is the danger of assumption of annexation with intent to dominate. The Southeast should not cry more than the bereaved in this instance. Any intent to join the Southeast must emanate from the collective decision of the Anioma people and not by the solo act of one selfish man masquerading as their Senator.
Speaking of the benefits of lumping Anioma people with the Southeast, there are no such things as benefits, other than the chaos and supremacist sense of insecurity associated with Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB)’s economic strangulating sit-at-home order, Eastern Security Network (ESN) lawlessness, and the rampaging unknown gunmen heinously shading the innocent blood of the same people they claim to be fighting on their behalf.
Anioma people have an all-inclusive mechanism for advancing their common interests at various levels within the calculus of their sub-ethnic diversities, of which the quest for Anioma State is part. Senator Nwoko alone cannot constitute himself as that all-inclusive mechanism. Anioma people are neither the Southeast nor the Northern Muslim Emirates where politicians act recklessly against their people’s collective interests with stubborn arrogance. Whatever Senator Ned Nwoko thinks is his status, Anioma people do not tolerate representation without consultation.
And this is just what Senator Nwoko is attempting to do; otherwise by now he should have mobilized other Anioma law-makers and political stakeholders both at the National and State levels to take a common stand. Instead he resorts to mobilizing bands of political rabble-rousers from the Southeast to drum up obnoxious support for him. Does Senator Nwoko think that 10 million supporters from the Southeast can change the position of Anioma Traditional Rulers and those of the various apex socio-cultural organizations in Ika and Ndokwa?
Being a Senator for Anioma people is no more and no less a political messenger responsibility and does not automatically translate to decisive political leadership. Senator or not a Senator, Ned Nwoko parades a pariah political status among the people. Put him to contest the President-General election of his Idumuje Ugboko Development Town Union and you will find pummeled with infantile ignominy.
A serial blackmailer, he criminally utilized his heinous network of jihadists in power to blackmail Senator Peter Nwoboshi into false conviction in order to pave way for his fraudulent election into the Senate. To substantiate this fact, this was what the Supreme Court Judgment said in part in respect of Senator Peter’s conviction over alleged corruption instigated by Senator Ned Nwoko:
“The facts of this case as established by the evidence of the prosecution do not disclose any basis for the initiation of the criminal case against the appellant, 2nd and 3rd respondents. It is of grave concern for the safety of persons in Nigeria that EFCC with a large number of very senior lawyers in its legal department, supported with senior advocates as external lawyers, subjected the appellant, 2nd and 3rd respondents to the criminal process of arrest, detention, prosecution and trial on the basis of facts that glaringly show that there was no basis for the initiation of such criminal processes against them. Case such as this one creates reasonable belief that the criminal process was initiated against the appellant and two others with malice afore thought, spite and extreme Ill-will and that therefore the entire process is malicious.What is even more disturbing, scandalous and fearful is that the court of Appeal did not see this glaring lack of basis for the criminal process against them and even convicted them for an offence they were not charged with and were not charged for.”
Senator Peter Nwoboshi was not alone in this heinous stream of blackmail by Ned Nwoko using his network of Northern Muslims in power. On November 12, 2020, Ned Nwoko petitioned his more cerebral and enterprising kinsman from the same Idumuje Ugbo, Dr. Gabriel Ogbechie, OON, the Group Managing Director of Rainoil Limited, for alleged attempt to assassinate him. In response, Dr. Ogbechie filed a suit against him at FCT High Court, Abuja for threatening his life and assassination of character in 2022.
An insatiable illegal appropriator of the communal lands of his Idumuje Ugbo people, the Premium Times issue of December 12, 2020 in a report investigated by Alfred Olufemi, revealed how Ned Nwoko fraudulently acquired vast expanse of his town’s farmlands for his scam projects:
“PREMIUM TIMES reported how the community allocated 90 hectares of land and another two miles by two miles to Mr Nwoko, a businessman and politician, to build a private university and a golf course. Some natives of the community farming on the land were displaced in the process. The community had in the early 2000s gifted the ex-lawmaker a separate 33 hectares to build a dairy farm. After that project failed, Mr Nwoko used the land for poultry and fish farms as well as a zoo. He is now building the temporary campus of his university on the remaining portion of the land. However, in early 2015, he applied for another 90 hectares to build an international standard golf course and a two mile-by-two mile land for building a university. Some members of the community, led by his kin from the royal family, kicked against these fresh demands.”
In another investigative report dated December 15, 2021, this time by Sahara Reporters titled: “Ex-House of Representatives Member, Ned Nwoko Accused of Scamming African Leaders with ‘White Elephant Projects’”, the news media exposed Senator Ned Nwoko’s fraudulent escapades in acquisition of his people’s land:
“A source told SaharaReporters that Nwoko is not only subjecting his people in Delta State to destitution by forcibly taking their land, he also uses his political influence to detain those who object to his schemes. SaharaReporters had published in May how Nwoko ordered Delta State Police Command to arrest Okey Ifejoku, the elected President-General of Idumeje-Ugboko Development Union, in 2017. The former lawmaker had accused Ifejoku of sponsoring the indigenes of Aniocha North Local Government Area to protest against him and kick against his bid to forcibly acquire additional 90 hectares of land from an area earmarked for all indigenes of the community. Also, the President of Idumuje-Ugboko in the Aniocha North Local Government Area of the state, Raymond Omesiete has spent months in prison for allegedly resisting Nwoko’s attempt to forcibly acquire additional 90 hectares of land from an area earmarked for all indigenes of the community.”
As far as Anioma people are concerned, Senator Ned Nwoko is a man of chameleonic diabolism constructed on fatalistic infectious hoodoo. The truth of the matter in this respect is that anyone who comes close to him without superior sense of clairvoyance or proper spiritual fortification is bound to be hoodooed.
The records of violence and disunity that emanated from his fraudulent acquisition of vast expanse of his community’s land are irrefutable evidence of this fatalistic hoodoo. The reckless and questionable death of his Legislative Aide, Barrister Chris Agidy further brings into question the spirito-moral deportment of Senator Ned Nwoko. Most pathetic was indeed the tragic death of the celebrated Omu of Okpanam and Anioma, Her Highness Omu Martha Dunkwu, immediately after visiting Senator Ned Nwoko in Abuja. Returning from her ill-fated visit to Ned Nwoko in Abuja, she entered her house never to be heard again.
These are the political and moral credentials of the man Ndigbo Southeast are using to destabilize Anioma people through his Greek gift of “Anioma State for the Southeast.” They forgot that this was the same Ned Nwoko who, in the heat of the 2023 Presidential campaigns said that Peter Obi was not qualified to be President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; except as “Minister of Economy”, when in truth there is nothing like “Minister of Economy” in Nigeria.
The question is can any clean water carried by a leprous hand be deemed clean? This is Senator Alhaji Ned Munir Nwoko for sure. An Anioma adage says that, “Onye ni noho n’ebe wa no ni ozo na-esi n’ukwu aboa” (Someone who was not present when a corpse was buried often exhumes it from the legs). This is the case with our Southeast kinsmen who were recklessly enthused by Ned Nwoko’s solo pronouncement of adding Anioma to Southeast, without even the slightest thought of referendum.
The words of Hon. Amobi Ogah from Uturu, who currently represents Isikwuato/Umunneochi Federal Constituency even though embedded with organic lies, should act as an instruction to those our Southeast kinsmen dreaming of an Anioma State in Southeast:
“Give the South-East what is due for them. Balance the South-East, at least six, six, six. We are not even talking about seven. So when we now talk about seven to get to other people, then we can now call our brothers who are in Anioma, if they are ready. Because, during presidential election they will now be South-South, after the election they will now be Igbos. Let us be sincere in this country.”
Hon. Ogah’s number one organic lie is that it is the Southeast that will decide if Anioma State would be created after additional States in the Southeast might have been created. This is one of the many contraptions of superiority mentality that puts off Anioma people from any idea of joining the Southeast. Right from pre-colonial period till date, Anioma people have never depended on the Southeast for any form of political support or requested their assistance in any form in their agitation for Anioma State. Hon. Ogah was therefore drunk with an iniquitous arrogance over a bond that never existed in time and space.
The second organic lie by Hon. Ogah which moves further to a state of insult on Anioma people is that during the Presidential election Anioma people will claim South-South, but after Presidential election they would claim to be Igbo. Ironically this is the Anioma people a lot people from the Southeast are recklessly accusing of denying their Igbo identity. Furthermore, is it in dispute that during the last Presidential election Anioma people together with their non-Igbo kinsmen of Delta State voted en masse for Peter Obi, against their sitting Governor and kinsman Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, who was PDP Vice Presidential candidate?
Has Hon. Ogah forgotten that Hon. Ngozi Okolie of the same Federal House of Representatives representing Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency in Delta State is of Labour Party? This is one of the myopic and addle-brained Southeast political leaders whose moronic actions and utterances distance the Igbo of South-South from their Southeast kinsmen.
Speaking on the Southeast endorsement of Etiti State as the equalization-State for the Southeast geopolitical zone during the 2014 National Constitutional Conference, the pioneer Director General of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Chief Chuku Wachuku said:
“Our joint recommendation was Etiti State followed by Aba State in that order. We agreed that Etiti State be created first, and if any other state would be, it should be Aba. All these people agitating for other states are not being fair. We settled for Aba as the next after Etiti because Aba is the only Old Province in Nigeria that has not become a State.”
In fact, it might look painful to state, but it has to be stated anyway, that the palpable fears of Anioma people over unification with the Southeast are justified by the actions and utterances of people like Amobi Ogah who parade a carriage of irrational ethnic superiority. The question is, are such actions and utterances not capable of sowing the seeds of distrust between the Igbo of Southeast and their South-South kinsmen?
This could explain why there are strong fears among many Anioma people against the zeal with which multiple Southeast organizations, political leaders and individuals are throwing their weight behind Senator Nwoko’s Anioma State project. Such zeal definitely raises a number of intractable questions that anchor on the fear of annexation and domination.
The first question is why are the people of Southeast so much enthused with Anioma State more than similar agitations in the Southeast? Secondly, what is special about Anioma State that makes its quest more imperative than similar agitations in in the Southeast? Thirdly, what are Anioma people expected to benefit by joining the Southeast which they are not presently benefitting in the present South-South geopolitical zone? Fourthly, why are the Southeast not interested in agitating for Port Harcourt State which is Igbo-speaking like Anioma people and even has the advantage being part of defunct Eastern Region together with Southeast?
We have Adada State movement among Nsukka people; Orlu State Movement proposed for Orlu Senatorial District of Imo State and Southern section of Anambra State; and the all-inclusive Etiti State that centers around the meeting-point of the five Southeast States. Ironically, Etiti State was one of the States whose requests were adopted by the 2014 National Constitutional Confab.
The palpable question is how come the Southeast suddenly abandoned these agitations to concentrate on Anioma State through Senator Ned Nwoko with a force of enthusiasm never experienced before in the annals of any agitation for new States? If it was a collective decision among Ndigbo to abandon other agitations and concentrate on Anioma State, which leaders and groups were consulted in Anioma? Does inclusion without consultation not amount to annexation?
The second palpable fear is that of classification as second-class Igbo citizens in the Southeast, in line with what stealthily obtains today, especially judging from what exhumed from Hon. Ogah’s mouth. It is no news that some of us from Anioma who lived, worked and struggled together with our Southeast kinsmen as Ndigbo under common Igbo fora often experienced subtle discrimination from our Southeast kinsmen.
I am aware that with what I have sacrificed for Ndigbo as an ethnic nation, if I were from Southeast my story should have been different. But as an Anioma Igbo man, I have learned how to manage my little space among my Southeast Igbo kinsmen with dignified principle of Igbo patriotism laced with aggressive sense of commitment and sincerity. Nobody knows the spatial political mentality of the Igbo more than I do.
It was this exclusion mentality and superiority complex that led the Southeast political leaders to exclude Ndigbo of South-South from contesting the Presidency as Ndigbo in 2023, after all Ndigbo from both Southeast and South-south had fought for Igbo Presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In other words, when we started the campaign for the President of Igbo extraction, it was a clarion-call for “Igbo Presidency” without geopolitical boundaries. But when the time for sharing the booty arrived, it automatically transformed into “Southeast Presidency”. Ironically, no personality of worth from the Southeast within political, religious, traditional and intellectual leadership strata courageously stood up to voice disapproval to that obnoxious discrimination by Ndigbo Southeast against Ndigbo South-South.
What that action meant in moral terms is that the Southeast Igbo cannot be trusted when it comes to matters of common Igbo aspirations. We could notice this moral debility from the specter of notable Igbo political leaders who boldly opposed Peter Obi’s Presidential candidacy in favor of a Fulani and a Yoruba Muslim. Does such state of moral debility create the enabling moral environments for mutual trust between Anioma people who are mostly spirited principled, and their Southeast kinsmen who allow political quislings to dominate their affairs?
Being Igbo does not start and end with coming from Southeast geopolitical region. To be an Igbo in the true cosmological and not mundane sense of the word, one must be patriotically driven in his response to problems of national Igbo concern. To be an Igbo, one must be spiritually guided and guarded with utmost sanctity in his moral drive and carriage.
To be an Igbo, one must be historically conscious and adequately guided by the possible consequences of his actions both positive and negative in respect of collective Igbo interests, for the present and future generations. To be an Igbo, while maintaining and guiding jealously his sub-ethnic identity and traditional values, one must be blind to sub-ethnic divisions in matters of collective interests.
To be an Igbo, one must properly define his true enemies and true friend in the comity of other ethnic groups and other peoples. To be an Igbo, one should see money fundamentally as a means of creating an enabling environment for his and his kinsmen’s sustainable survival as threatened ethnic specie in the Nigerian Federation. Above all, to be an Igbo, one must not delight in playing the role of a saboteur for any reason of personal or group interest against the collective interests of his people.
Being an Igbo without the above qualities is like a man carrying a huge penis yet cannot impregnate a woman. Being an Igbo is therefore not speaking or not speaking Igbo. It is not about coming from Southeast or being an Igbo from South-South geopolitical zone. Being an Igbo is not about destroying the people’s economic, political and traditional value systems in the name of IPOB, ESN, and Unknown gunmen.
When the recklessly mouthy Femi Fani-Kayode was insulting Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu on the pages of newspaper, our now departed political sage Okwadike (Dr.) Chukwuemeka Ezeife called me and said, “Odogwu, are we going to keep quiet while that fool of a man called Femi Fani-Kayode abuse the soul of Ndigbo in name of abusing Bianca? Can’t you do something about it?” My response was swift and pungent. Within 24 hours I was able to shut Femi Fani-Kayode’s mouth. My response is still there online. This was the mark of being Igbo. Till date I have never talked to Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu or met her in life.
Similarly, when the President of Arewa Consultative Forum Alhaji Shettima Yerima, who incidentally is my friend in the struggles, treacherously ordered the Igbo to quit the North, I was again called upon to respond to him; which, I carried out with utmost dispatch and diligence. The record is there online.
It is therefore necessary to conclude that common Igbo language cannot be a deciding factor for lumping Anioma people with Southeast geopolitical zone. Beyond commonality of Igbo language, the association between Anioma people with their Southeast Igbo brethren during the pre-colonial era was spontaneous and uncoordinated. Economically, Anioma people were closer to the Igala and Ijaw than they were with their Southeast kinsmen. This explains why some Anioma people trace their origins to Igalaland.
In political terms Anioma people were mostly under the political influence of Benin Empire with some towns under direct Benin suzerainty till the fall of Benin City in 1897 and consequent imposition of British colonial rule. Indeed to the entire Anioma people, the Oba of Benin is to Anioma and other ethnic groups in Delta, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Bayelsa what the King of England is to the Commonwealth nations today.
The conclusion of the matter therefore is that Anioma people are not ready to leave their time-honored and politically-tested Commonwealth of Benin Empire to join the 20th Century Commonwealth of Southeast Igbo States.
Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD
Odogwu of Ibusa
President, International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN)
Email: Nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com Visit us at https://icac-gen.org for more news and your financial support