Ndigbo As President-Elect Buhari Gets Set For Take-Off by Boniface C E Egboka

Early in the morning of Wednesday, 01 April 2015, the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) gave the certificate for winning 2015 Presidential Election to General Muhammadu Buhari of All Peoples Congress (APC). The nation is bubbling with mixed feelings of joy and laughter, tears and grief, depending on what boundary of national divide one belongs to-be one a politician or not.
There are victors and vanquished at the end of this national complex sociopolitical-cumeconomic exercise. Ndigbo are, once more, adversely affected in one way or the other. The usual Nigerian political setting is on the horizon whereby the northern and western elements are massed on one side while the easterners are in opposite direction. 

All northern states together with most western states voted for the winning party, APC, while all the eastern states and few western States voted for the losing party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Ndigbo are, again, at the cross-road of history; they form a large bulk of those that voted for the PDP. They must get well-prepared to face/confront the outcome of their repeated fate/faith in the habitual loss of Presidential Elections in Nigeria. Ndigbo have made futile efforts to become Presidents in this country vide Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Gen. Odumegwu Ojukwu etc. Even their attempt to break away from Nigeria as Republic of Biafra failed. The political alignments Igbo politicians entered into with political compatriots from other parts of the country as in UPGA, NPP, SDP, NPN, PDP were unsuccessful, Ndigbo hardly benefit from the eventual political outcome; they may even become fatal victims of bad governance. 

The main cause of such problems is that Ndigbo usually go into political arrangements without getting firm agreements on what is at stake and the fate that would befall them within such emerging governance. After each election, there would be disturbances/ riots nationwide; these are usually not caused by Igbos but, eventually, Ndigbo would become the innocent victims whereby they loose property, be robbed, tortured, killed etc. 
When new governments usually take-off, Ndigbo hardly-secure sensitive/worthy positions. When such positions are secured by Igbos, they may be sabotaged or prevented from doing their work or may be forced to lose such positions. Sometimes the sabotage may emanate from Igbos against Igbos themselves. At a time, presidents of the Senate from Igbol and could not have stability in office; they were impeached out of office thrice.
 There have been occasions where Igbo ministers or senior federal appointees were blackmailed or hustled out of offices without completing their tenures. These events happened in/after most Nigerian General Elections and government services that have occurred in the country from 1963 to the present experiences. Ndigbo must get well-prepared to guard against repeat of such sordid history of Igbospoil Igbo treachery in governance as Gen. Buhari team begins to set up a new Federal Government in this April/May period; our people must meet him to discuss and agree firmly.
No matter how republican Ndigbo may be, they must learn to work politically as hard as the Yorubas and Fulanis. Ndigbo must forge divine unity among themselves and always present a majority common front over national issues. This can be done by eschewing self-centredness and bitterness among themselves. They must learn to be their brother’s keeper and continue to uphold/cherish the undying philosophy of extended family system that has saved lands, lives and property of our forefathers in perpetuity. Ndigbo must continue to widen and forge ahead the various relationship channels between the states/ethnic groups in the Southsouth zone/states, Benue and Kogi States with whom they have similar tradition/culture and have had long socioeconomic relationships over the years.
 Except in the southeastern states where Igbos form the majority population, in almost every community/town outside Igboland in Nigeria, Ndigbo have always had the second largest population in relation to the indigenous people. The Igbo leadership is presently badly disunited; Igbos must quickly come together in unity and form outreach forces to go out and secure friendship/political relations with our neighbors and others for our betterment and the future. Ndigbo in Lagos are doing well in coming together to celebrate their successes and also confront their problems whenever they arise. Ndigbo must evaluate arising issues in present times and think seriously about their future and that of generations yet unborn. While we must solemnly-ruminate over the past such as the unfortunate experiences of Biafra, we must learn from our mistakes and evaluate what our adversaries did in order to succeed in the Nigerian equation and do likewise. Let us no more only isolate and bury ourselves in prayers; we can use our bounteous human endowments and natural resources, all from God, to support our prayers as heaven helps those who help themselves.
 We must not give up, whatever the circumstances that may develop or be involved, a people must survive really. After the three years of Nigeria-Biafra war, many people within and outside Nigeria thought that the people of Biafra were all finished; but no, they came out from their hiding places of refuge and bounced back to life in Nigeria and beyond. Today, the southeasterners and brother southsoutherners have made mammoth successes in commerce, industry, education etc. all over Nigeria and beyond. What remains for the Igbos is real political acceptance and success in Nigeria as the emergence and six-years-experience of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan opened the window of such opportunity for the oppressed.

Ndigbo in APC, PDP, APGA, UPP etc. together with Igbo leaders (governors, politicians, businessmen and women, church leaders, traditional leaders etc.) must, as a matter of utmost urgency, meet immediately to seriously tinker over issues in their minds/hearts and reach agreements on the position/fate of the Igbos vis-à-vis the oncoming Gen. Buhari government. This must be done urgently in consultation with our neighbors of the Southsouth Zone. Our leaders must not vacillate or feel humiliated or left out in anyway; it is all about politics for the people. We must give credence to those Igbo leaders who are in APC such as Dr. Chris Ngige, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu etc. with whom we should work closely together since they are higher-ups in the APC. On no account must we neglect these people since they have been declared as winners of the Presidential seat. A team must leave Igboland to see Gen. Buhari with a shopping bag/list of what must come to the Southeast and the Southsouth Zones. 

We must make the President-elect realize right from the onset that he will surely need the human and natural resources of Igboland and the south-southerners in order for his federal government to eventually fully succeed. He must not take the support of a people for granted or allow the situation where people are used without equivalent group benefits and are disposed of just like that. Existence of positive pressure groups in governance is acceptable in true democracy. A situation where a people are used and dumped is distasteful and politically unacceptable.
Ndigbo and south-southerners must form a solid united front in order to be able to get positive responses from the incoming new Federal Government. The Southeast zone must be given more states and local government areas for balance of political opportunities, justice, equity and fairplay in governance. The federal projects started by the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan government have to be completed. The federal roads all over the two zones are in very bad state, they require major rehabilitations; there is a great need for the construction of new roads all over the east as a result of the high transportation, commercial, industrial and agricultural activities in the area. Many communities in the southeast are ravaged by environmental disasters of floods, soil and gully erosion and landslides; there is great need to declare some of the places as disaster areas and injection of federal and international funds to check/control the massive environmental disasters that have emasculated many communities in the Southeast/Southsouth zones. The Ministries of Environment, Water Resources, Transport, Education, Energy, Health etc, should have special foci on the eastern states. It must be realized that the areas suffered heavy infrastructural failures/decay as a result of damages caused during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Despite the honest efforts over the years by the Federal and state governments, there is a great need for a lot of work to be done to raise the tone of development plans for various infrastructure such as roads, water supplies, hygiene/sanitation, buildings for and furnishings of schools, polytechnics and universities, equipping of healthcare institutions, electricity, railways, airports etc. The Igbo leadership should prepare a work plan/demand list of the needs and submit to the President-elect so that he will be quite aware of the needs of the people of the area early enough and not those of individual opportunists. The combined team of the Southeast/Southsouth Zones should get the positions for President of Senate and Speaker of House of Representatives in order to assuage their feelings since northern states and western states have grabbed the seats of the President and Vice-President respectively. The leadership of our zones must be allowed to make inputs on who becomes ministers, parastatals etc. so that people can benefit from selfless representation in governance; appointments to these offices should be based more on issues of merit and less on political membership/exigencies. It must be clearly-stated that there are many good people out there who are not politicians but who can selflessly serve; such individuals can provide durable services for Nigeria if called upon to do so.
•Prof Boniface C E Egboka, former UNIZIK VC, Awka, Anambra State; E-mail: [email protected]