- By Eberekpe Ogho
The political jostling and politicking start hence. It is Nigeria and it is the way it has always been, and none of can shy away from it even though we continue to shout from the rooftops down that we do not need 2023 presently but smoothening the rough roads to a better future.
It is Nigeria; it is its mental configuration, and none can help it.
I am open minded enough not to be a hypocrite or sycophant for the gains to jettison my deep conviction that if Biafra or Oduduwa Republic or It would be a welcome and a positive diversion for what all the unity continues to call to question.
But here is the realism: There shall not be a Biafra or an Oduduwa Republic or in 2023. It is the reality and we do not have to build a castle of deceit about this.
So, the agitations, at least for now, has to be redefined and redirected.
2023 matters. Power and the politics of it matter in a country used to political drunkenness to deal with such a matter.
So, who takes the responsibility of the mantle upon the shoulders?
The southeast!
As usual, being a realist, I still cannot shy away from the fact that I am in complete disagreement with zoning or rotational or what-have-you- make up of forming a government from whichever levels; this too, is our reality; the reality of tribe, ethnicity and political balancing.
Not good and palatable, but until something better comes up.
In this tribe, ethnicity and political balancing, the truth also remains that amongst the tribes and ethnicities and political balancing, the best too can be sought and got.
In all this, 2023 should be a southeast political phenomenon.
Those who do not believe in the above and would work towards achieving it are just nuisance, novice and outright stupid, because they shall be failing to identify with the reality that is Nigeria, what constitutes peace and unity and what the Power and Order have been all these years coming.
It is good for the country’s tribal and ethnic nonsense as well as the wellness of political balancing; also comprehensively, in order for the testament and vibrancy of the Igbo person.
And these testament and vibrancy over the years have been played down and rubbished by the other members of the Nigerian template because of fear, and this fear is north birthed by the other political houses, but by the southeasterners themselves: the unnecessary aggression and baseless attitude.
It is politics, and politics has its codes and rules.
Biafra shall not happen soon, nor any division, but one day Some day; but, right now, the Igbo persons should toe the line of their reality, their talent and industry, their native intelligence and most assuredly importantly, their responsibility of cause and course.
This is Nigeria and the Igbo persons cannot afford not to participate in it until the far desire is achieved.
Their desire should be 2023, not abuse, insult, bad-mouthing, name calling; trying to be more justice sensitive than the other members of the Nigeria’s chain.
If before 2023 arrives and the Igbo persons do not start brushing themselves up ahead and they still continue and rely on their dysfunctional ways and thinking, they will only be opening and furthering the great laugh of the north and west and the south and others while the southeast and the Igbo persons remain the ridicule of the pack.
It is the way it is and had always been, and the Igbo persons must know this; no point dancing in the gallery of the unnecessary and the unfathomable in the meantime.
Nigerian politics is sometimes a delusion but evidently an illusion and openly a place like every politics in the world that lacks an iota of perfection, so, let not one Igbo person come out with that saintly attitude to lay claim to any such political perfection or any perfection at all; this should be the interest of the Igbo persons in the present time ahead of the 2023 huge call to a political responsibility from the peak: support, loyalty, unity and maturity.
And not any form of its baseness and un-proclaimed righteousness.
Who needs righteousness where there are no perfectionists or perfection? The Igbo persons must think and must reason, instead, and so often, continue to be politically hopeless.
I have my doubts if Shagari, Yar’Adua, Obasanjo, Awolowo, Azikiwe, Jonathan, and who else, or even Buhari, enjoyed any political perfection, yet they led and still leading without the perfectionist wand to take the country to the next level.
Why did those men lead and still leading? Simple: the understanding of the political game and dynamics of the politics and power narrative of the country.
The Igbo persons, I dare say, cannot afford their present lukewarmness and arrogance and trying to play the role of a saint that never existed left only to the one created by men.
The Igbo persons are known for their creativity and industry and building from nowhere to somewhere, and it would be a shame to let all these go to waste because of some naivety that can be tamed.
At the end of the day, the pointer should be directed at Chief Uzor Orji Kalu, the present Chief Whip of the Nigerian Senate.
The author knows what he is writing about…