EHIRIM FILES CLASSIC: Igbo Political Errors and the Leadership Debates

The following article was published all around the web including Kilima on October 01, 2000. I am dedicating it to Egbebelu Ugobelu (Samuel Obi) who passed away last month after a long battle with cancer. The last time I spoke to Ugobelu was sometime in 2003 when he shipped to me some of his published books. In the symposium following this article in Igbo Forum, Ugobelu wrote;

"Umu-Igbo:

Mazi Ehirim's argument on this topic is unimpeachable. I thank him very much for taking his time and patience to go to the length he went to. In doing so he was able to delineate the facts about Igbo culture and the modus operandi of Igbo government. His statement that things worked very well under such a state of affair is also true and unimpeachable. Those of us who are not aware of these facts or gospel truths are aware of the present state of affairs with the Igbo or Igbo government,which is another truth he talked about.The question then is if it worked so well with the former system, why should we try to replace it with something that is not working, hasn't worked and never going to work?

Our forebears built an enviable egalitarian system. A system where everybody is equal. A system where the leader is only a 'figure head.' We can even call this leader orator or speaker. A condition that the rest of the world dream of achieving.

Ehirim did not try to state his idea of the solution except in the insinuation of writing that we would be better off going back to the old system. I am not given to such political finese or Western way of writing. I do like to think and write the way we do in Igboland. As people who are nuts about justice, we cannot help by being judgemental and we are. It works too. We see things and we say them the way we see them. If we think we have an answer to anything, we do attempt to be diplomatic about it..."

And giving an eye witness account to the pogrom and Civil War, Ugobelu in his book Biafra War Revisited: A Concise and Accurate Account of the Events That Led to the Nigerian Civil War, wrote:

“…Before long we were eating rats, lizards, grasshoppers and frogs. Snakes and tortoise were known to be eaten by some towns... The first time I tasted a snake, it was just the juice…We would be searching for food at times and encounter some civilians who braved it and came to search for food also, I mean within a mile to the forward location. Often they came to see if there were some ripe palm fruits to cut down or some fairly ripe bananas and plantains to cut down…When someone discovered a bunch of bananas somewhere, he kept checking and praying that someone else didn’t see it; sometimes he covered it up. The idea was to allow it to be fairly ripe. Nine times out of ten, he lost because maybe ten or more others had indeed seen it and were also waiting and praying….Besides, I was looking for a family member principally for the purpose of knowing his or her address in order to fill out an allotment form so that he or she would be drawing my allotment, and in the event of my death, if it so happened…”

I salute your courage and Rest In Peace!


Once upon a time, it was easily perceived and predicted with near-certainty where people actively concerned about Igbo leadership would stand on any issue that might arise from an economical, social and political standpoint. But since the end of the civil war and especially with the eruption first of Igbos marginalization, the Abandon Property Case, reparations, and the cleansing of ethnic minorities, so many have taken positions so different from what would have been natural to them in the past that it has become impossible to tell where they will come out in any new situation.

This weird occurrence has triggered a whole series of heated debates over Igbos role in Nigeria--in which again, many people, Igbo intellectuals, hardliners and merchants, have sided with ideas they once battled against with all their might, and have allied themselves with longtime ideological enemies. The case of MASSOB is just one example. The result has been to vindicate, to a degree that may be unprecedented in the annals of political warfare and leadership crises, the old adage that Igbos have no king (Igbo enwe eze). The most general of these debates has focused on an old question since the tussle for leadership began over which Igbo intellectuals, scholars, professionals, merchants, thoughtful laymen, have never stopped quarreling; whether or not the Igbos need a leader.

Let me pause here and recall an incident from my childhood. This was an era when my friends and I would go out into the fields or parks and play football just for the sake of it, until sunset, while our parents would hold meetings long into the night with the abstract points of Zikism, Michael Okpara, K. O. Mbadiwe, Akanu Ibiam, Nwafor Orizu, Mbonu Ojike, and other notable Igbo intellectuals and pragmatists. It agitated and excited them; my non Igbo friends would say to me, your people are always "together and conferencing"--which is good. My father with no formal education headed these meetings, then, and it turned out with prospects. It was collectivity that led to utopia. These were Igbos of the 60s.

My question here is, do Igbos need a leader as in monarchical imperialism? Would that change our ways of thinking to "bow" because it is a prescription? Or do we appoint our leaders based on wealth, academia, privilege and flamboyancy--the ability to influence a local village chief in order to be ordained the "Ogbuefi 1 of Ugwumagala?" That these questions were anything academic or farce was made patently clear, when on this past August 12, 2000, Chigbo Tagbo wrote:

"In Nigeria, Igbo society has always been something of an anomaly in not having power concentrated in a few leaders. The British on conquering the Igbos in the nineteenth century were frustrated by the absence of traditional rulers. Where is your Sultan of Sokoto, your Ooni of Ife, they asked? Receiving the answer in the negative, they sought to create them for their new subjects and came up with the much hated and politically ineffectual warrant chiefs."

I would agree partly. But I would add that the "devaluation" of leadership was a nasty contention over this matter and it helped destroy Igbo organizational effectiveness, in its entirety. On the other hand, I would say I had problems agreeing that the adoption of chieftaincy titles was not influential. The obvious reason here is, the chiefs whether through coercion or by merit were kingmakers, whether in their locality or at the elite levels. That era, however, saw the steady crystallization of some principles carried out by these chiefs in its entirety which was a mark of leadership.

For nearly six months, Igbos mounted a heated debate to determine an Igbo agenda with a profound Igbo leadership come the just concluded World Igbo Congress (WIC) convention held in Dallas and sponsored by Igbo Cultural Association of Nigeria, Dallas/Fort Worth. The decidedly mixed reaction to the convention and its report, and the persistent Igbo problems have raised more questions about the plight of the Igbos in Nigeria and the Diaspora. From the report, many questions should be asked dating back to the First Republic with a clear acknowledgement of errors. Errors, so pervasive that it is now baked in every Igbo gene.

In 1978, when the Murtala Mohammed/Olusegun Obasanjo administration lifted the ban on political activities, Igbos did not have a sense of direction, while Obafemi Awolowo had already scheduled his plan as a prospective leader of the Second Republic and other political parties in the making, Igbos had no agenda; without a political party and without form. It was not until Ibrahim Waziri invited Nnamdi Azikiwe and other Igbo dignitaries to his party that they became actively engaged in the political campaigns of the Second Republic. On that note, and on the course of Shehu Shagari's ruling party (National Party of Nigeria) in the Second Republic, Igbos, confused, lacking political wisdom and tact, formed an alliance with NPN whose accord would head to "splitville" in a matter of time. However Awo maintained opposition, normal of nascent democracies.

In 1992, when Ibrahim Babangida wrote the platforms of the still borne Third Republic and gathered his cronies--Moshood Abiola and Bashir Tofa--as presidential aspirants, Igbos still marginalized, divided and conquered had no idea what to make of the widespread scandal of "wuruwuru," "jipiti" and "magomago" in Humphrey Nwosu's organized infamous June 12, 1993 elections. Save for the fearless and no nonsense Arthur Nzeribe, who assembled his own gang and threatened the formations of a Third Republic for Babangida's "wizard dribbling" and Abiola's neglect of the Igbos, thus, (Abiola) adding more insult to dishonor, Igbos had no practical endeavor to be part of the Third Republic had it survived the hostilities tailored by Babangida and his gang of Northern ruling elites. That election was declared null and void on the grounds of too many irregularities, while Babangida left office under pressure and in disgrace. Nigeria, henceforth, would never be the same again.

The transition that brought in Sani Abacha was the only administration that got Igbos into mainstream Nigeria politics since the post Civil War era. Though not very fanciful as in Abacha's reign of terror with a service chief to their credit, the descendants of Oduduwa, once again, grouped and formed an opposition using all diplomatic tools within their reach to unseat Abacha. And what would that diplomatic tool be? An effective and efficient press. Luck and psychology had played its role and Abacha would die in office.

In 1998, as the government of Abdulsalami Abubakar lifted the ban on political activities, Igbos, again, would be divided to a point finding the needed populist theme was bastardized by some Igbo cohorts who parted ways with Alex Ekwueme and found solace in giving Obasanjo all the votes he could lay his hands on during the primaries. Obasanjo, just out from prison and close to death, rose to the occasion, fully backed by his American cronies and the Hausa-Fulani Brahmins he has dined and wined with all his life. Ekwueme lost in the primaries and the rest is now history. Igbos would never grasp with the simple truth; that they are a finished people.

Somehow, it sounds plausible that Igbo politicians are particularly uncomfortable with the role history has thrust upon them: the people of ideas and intellectualism in an era well defined by the exhaustion of academia and powered by a centered and efficient press. Axis press as a form of propaganda has played a more important role in partisanship based on the interest, causes and effect. To take the salient example, during Abacha's reign of terror, NADECO and the press sent Abacha to his grave without bombing Aso Rock. If the Igbos think they can win the nasty war of political impotence, they must have an axis press; of a complete conservative Igbo writers and thinkers.

Igbos seems to have abandoned their original faith. Both home and abroad, there are thousands of Igbo organizations, all with a seemingly equally intense inclination towards political errors, often crossing over into the realm of the politically suicidal. My experience has shown me how totally disorganized the Igbos are. For instance, their meetings, at special conventions like the one just concluded in Dallas, and all gatherings of that nature, in most cases, end up in chaos. The well publicized Dallas Convention was no exception. Our meetings are no longer a place of solutions and dialogue, rather the magnitude of wealth and showing off hauls of academic records indicated who would be honored, applauded, and for money worshippers, kow-towed.

But that wasn't the case in the 60s. The meetings I watched my father and his Igbo colleagues conduct in the 60's, as a seven year old child, are no longer the same. Then, in the 60's, they were so organized they spoke with one voice. There was no leaning to the left or right, no preaching of sort (pacifism and isolationism), neither were there "hawking" and "doving". It was an atmosphere of diplomacy and dialogue programmed unquestionably to effect change in Igboland. It was transparency and accountability. It was full of objectivity from which standpoint they dominated Nigeria's polity.

My real question again here is, what accounted for so momentous a change in the ethos of Nd'igbo, Ohaneze and local chapters of Igbo organizations? The short answer, as it is clearly known, was the civil war. "Igbo enwe eze," we must divide and conquer you. The Eastern Region prior to the civil war had been an Igbo state with ethnic minorities widely distributed down the riverine areas and being economically and politically revamped by Igbo merchants and politicians. But the key element to this dramatic change was honestly the creation of more Igbo states.

At the same time, the progress Nigeria made steadily was more states created in Igboland giving it a great boost to the final call: a defeated and conquered people, as land and border disputes between these new states (Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi) became inevitable. It became a brothers war over who is the superior Igbo and who merits the leadership. The uprisings between Akokwa and Osina; Umuleri and Aguleri are perfect examples of ugly seeds of discord sown in the Igbo nation. I have taken these issues very seriously and I'm greatly perturbed by it, seeing in it how we allowed external forces and influence to destroy our myths and legends.

There are uncountable Igbo organizations in the Diaspora. But one cannot count any of these organizations as being feasible, profound and intact in addressing the plight of the Igbo man on the street, in a hospital, in jail unjustly incarcerated, or the flea market; rather, one would easily encounter an Igbo man speaking ill of his own kin. It is, in fact, disturbing. So where does this leave us? Well, at the very least, there remains not a shadow of a doubt that standards so recently prevalent in the areas I outlined--politics, cultural organizations, and collectivism and/or utopia have dramatically surged and gotten worse. Of course, I consider these fragile issues a problem.

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, in his speech at the WIC's Dallas Convention had warned that if the mantle of Igbo leadership is not given adequate attention, emphasizing on the privileged Diasporan Igbos, that we are destined to collapse as a nation (Igbo nation). He told the Dallas audience he did it at a very young age, urging Diasporan Igbos to "grab" the mantle of leadership for onward objectivity. Rudolf Okonkwo who took note at the convention, in his translation summed it up; Ojukwu's speech:

"I am now an old man. I have done mine. I have not seen who will take the baton from me. I was 33 years when I did it. That the old did not agree to hand over power is not true. Come and take the baton. If we refuse to give it to you, grab it by force. You Igbos abroad are the window of the world to us. Don't turn your back on anything Igbo. Come and join. Our time is gone."

It is an earnest call for action required of the Diasporan Igbos. The question here is, can the more privileged Diasporan Igbos willing by a consensus take over the affairs of state in the much craved Igbo leadership? Are we determined to make that sacrifice in order to effect change? Do we have the "guts" to be tolerant and accept the nonsense that comes along with true leadership? Are we (Diasporan Igbos, particularly the American sojourns), we who do not exactly have a brilliant record and competent enough to bring about the desired result? Can we "wholly" achieve this very phenomenon, in other words, community in propelling the Igbo nation to the forefront and back to its past path?

I must freely admit, I am too disturbed by these list of questions, to which I freely confess I do not have answers. But there is one thing that I do know. Igbos of the Diaspora are skeptical and can no longer trust themselves. In fact, the "most disorganized bunch" as specified in several occasions by many Igbo writers and commentators. The question may then lie on what do the Diasporan Igbos believe in? Are our children being raised as Igbos or Americans? Do they speak Igbo fluently? Are we becoming to the fact Igbos of the Diaspora have pursued away and lost the true meaning of our creed? And what are we doing about these rigmaroles seemingly destroying the way things use to be--the 40's, the 50's and the 60's? Who among our children in the Diaspora, even at home, for example, reads Flora Nwapa, John Munonye, Ogbalu, Cyprien Ekwensi, Emmanuel Ifejika, Arthur Nwankwo, Adiele Eberechukwu Afigbo, Obi Egbuna and of course, Chinua Achebe today? When I was growing up everyone read all these authors I just outlined. They were Igbos leading writers, political philosophers and thinkers. These writers are not read anymore in Igbo literature, political science classes and fundamentals in cultural anthropology. Some of these books are out of print and no one cares to reprint them for the elegancy and ideas of enduring value they contained. These are the Igbo thinking one should rely on, of permanent term and relevant and not contemporary as "this is America, man," has destroyed the good fate of Igbo ideals.

If we could go back to this tradition, our children in the Diaspora would have the enabling factors to know, have the awareness, in its totality, their origin and where they came from. To effect this, we must have Igbo institutions of ethnic and cultural studies. It has become obvious and really dramatic, a problem for the Igbos in the Diaspora, since we appreciate the importance of freedom and democracy; hence, now having difficulties understanding the role played in a healthy society by tradition and vice versa.

So far, we have gotten away with this arrogance. We have abandoned our culture. We are lost. Within this range, how do we take over the mantle of Igbo leadership seriously asked by Ojukwu. Ojukwu, once again, (from Okonkwo's translation):

"My people, I will not lie to you. We came from home, we laugh and embrace, but I can tell you that big rain is falling. Our land is not good. Our condition is like a war. Nobody loves Igbos. The person who is scared of you will not love you. But that we are not loved is Nigeria's problem not ours. If they love you, it is good. But the greatest is to be feared. We want to be feared."

The various disputes now unfolding, even with the recent mess at the Dallas Convention, and since the post civil war era, are not unprecedented, with respect either to the basic issues they raise or to the intensity with which they are being fought, can be attributed to the same question being asked over and over again: leadership. Ojukwu is worried and I too 'am very much disturbed by this phenomenon.

We must act now to bring about change. There is much work to be done in Igboland. Leadership, education, technology, industrialization and employment opportunities are the entailed issues that must be addressed immediately. These issues cannot be done by our Igbo brethrens at home alone. A greater input is required of the Diasporan Igbos. Without our brethrens at home, the Diasporan Igbos cannot survive and without the Diasporan Igbos our brethrens would not survive. And neither community can survive without working together for the development of a sound Igbo tradition which will teach us among many things: our history, our culture, our economics and relationships with our neighbors. We must help ourselves now because our destinies are fused.