IPOB: The limits of hate and irredentism

Pity the irredentist – the beauty in the face of the other is ugly is his estimation. Pity the tribalist – whatever is good in the other is evil in his reality. Pity the man of hate – love and compassion have no space in his lexicon. The bearer of animus, the man who hates […]

Pity the irredentist – the beauty in the face of the other is ugly is his estimation. Pity the tribalist – whatever is good in the other is evil in his reality. Pity the man of hate – love and compassion have no space in his lexicon. The bearer of animus, the man who hates you could do so for no fault of yours. The man who loves you could love you for reasons he too cannot explain.

But that appears to be different from the hate some people nurse for President Muhammad Buhari, for Islam and for Muslims. To him, Buhari represents everything he does not want to be in life. He does not want to be Muslim; Buhari is a Muslim; he detest the north; Buhari is a northerner. He hates the Fulani, Buhari is a Fulani. The hatred of Islam, known as Islamophobia, is, however, not new.

Thus the circle of hatred continues to grow bigger by the day. The bearer of hate often births sons and daughters of hate. He who hates is a bearer of an ulcerous cancer; he is usually sore from head to toe; he is a poor devil; an evil even if he is rich in material terms. Wherever he goes the putrid smell of hate oozes from the tiny pores on his body; there is not a square inch of healthy flesh on his carcass; he is sore to the touch; his mouth is full of putrefaction, of faithlessness, of dis-ease.

The man who hates sees no good in the other. Such has been the fate of Mr Buhari in the hands of those who love to hate him. It has always been the fate of those before him who sought to rebuild and reposition their nations and societies that they are pilloried and attacked for daring to soar with their imagination. No revolutionary ever enjoyed the praise of his traducers; no bearer of change can achieve his purpose except he is attacked by those who are resistant to change.

I have carefully reflected on the reason hate now thrives in the land. Yes. The roads are bad. But I thought the road has been bad since the past twenty years when those other than Buhari were at the helm of affairs of this country. Yes. The roads are bad but I equally know that contracts for their reconstruction were awarded and re-awarded several times in the past and nothing was done. That this current government is doing better than those before is there for all to see: the Lagos-Ibadan expressway is now being fixed after close to two decades of abandonment. Contract for the East-West road in the South-south which was not fixed even when a South-south President was in power has been awarded. Pray! How could a President correct the ills of over two decades within two years? 

Yes. Buhari’s appointments appear to tilt more in favour of northerners. But do we have the complete data of previous appointments made by former Presidents and have we compared that with the ones the current President has made? Where were you when the last President populated his cabinet with South-south appointees? Why should this innocent President be blamed for all the evils that have been plaguing this country since the past twenty years?

Brethen, the last time I checked, I discovered that no other ethnic group in Nigeria moves and settles in other parts of the country like the Igbo. Talk of the business, my Igbo compatriot would be there. Talk of the space that can be turned into naira and kobo, the Igbos would try to appropriate and dominate same, and exclusively to themselves. There is an uncanny narcissism in the credo of my compatriots; there is an uncanny gene that makes an Igbo feels the land belongs to him. The Igbos are there in Sokoto, Kano, Bauchi and Adamawa. Do not mention Lagos. In recent past, the Igbos in Lagos even thought they own certain parts of the city; that Alaba has become an extension of Onitsha, same as Lagos Island and Aba. All ethnic groups in Nigeria is extremely accommodating of the other, of the Igbo. In other words, unlike “Biafra”, many parts of the north and southwest are full of petrol stations owned by the Igbos. However from Enugu to Ebonyi, the number of petrol stations owned by the non-Igbos is as rare as hope diamonds. There are certain businesses you cannot do if you are in Aba but not of Aba. There is a big difference in living in Onitsha and being of Onitsha.

Let me close as follows: just as there are limitations to insanity, there should be limitations to hate and animus. Our compatriots should remember that the number of the Igbos outside Igboland are far higher than those inside the so-called Biafra; that what the Igbos would gain through peaceful engagement is far greater than what they would through resort to violence and disorder. I thought it was Chinua Achebe who once said that the elders cannot afford to go to sleep while the kids wear snakes as necklaces.