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The Igbo Question. A Response To Jibrin Ibrahim by explorer250(m): 7:34am On Dec 16, 2015 |
IDENTITY politics in Nigeria
is very much alive, well and
thriving. It’s an elite
preoccupation. Dr. Jibrin
Ibrahim is one of Nigeria’s
most astute and reputable
political scientists.
He is a very able thought
leader, civic activist and
intellectual and an unlikely
convert to the visceral world
of Nigeria’s rent politics of
identities and “tribes”. That
is why his recent article on
the “Igbo Question” merits
attention and deserves a
response.
In the article, Dr. Ibrahim
organises his argument
around the assertion that
“the Igbo elite has a strong
empirical basis to read
Nigerian political history as
one of failure and frustration
for them.” In support of this,
he asserts that “after the
civil war, there was a co-
ordinated policy of
pauperising the Igbo middle
class” and “this was
followed by routing the Igbos
from the commanding heights
of the economy”.
According to Dr. Ibrahim, the
“Igbo elite…. refused to
change their narrative about
the Nigerian state and today
the initiative is out of their
hands.” He does not
necessarily say what this
constant narrative is or
when it began. However, the
article laments that “the
biggest failure of the Igbo
elite is the incapacity to play
the political game” and,
switching from analysis to
clairvoyance, concludes that
“teaming up with Goodluck
Jonathan produced petty
rewards for a few but it
rolled back the schedule for
an Igbo Presidency.”
Some people will read the
article as somewhat
favourable even if
patronisingly so, to the
“Igbo”. The declared goal of
Dr. Ibrahim’s column is
“Deepening Democracy”. Far
from deepening democracy,
however, the article stunts
it. From a long-standing
advocate of inclusive civics,
this article corrodes
coexistence and disappoints
on many fronts.
There are many flaws with
both the methodology and
argumentation in the article.
Let me begin with the
methodology. Clearly,
ethnicism remains an
effective organisational tool
of Nigerian politics and many
would argue that it is the
province of political
scientists to observe and
analyse it. How this is done,
however, matters.
The historic methodological
flaw of ethnicism is to
racialise the politics of
opinions and association and
then homogenise them based
on genes or tribal identity.
That is manifestly
unsustainable. Whoever the
Igbo are, they are not a
horde of undifferentiated
morons. They’re capable of
and have always had political
difference. In a democracy,
tribes don’t vote; citizens
do. To imprison political
analysis in the mindset of
homogenised tribalisations,
therefore, is to deny the
possibility of an evolved
civic capability in Nigeria
generally and in the Igbo in
particular.
A related point is the
convenient adaptability of
deployments to which tribe
and ethnicity are put in such
analysis, with the effect of
denying the considerable
progress that Nigerians
have made towards mutual
co-existence. Take the case
of former Kano State
Governor, Sabo Bakin Zuwo.
Governor Bakin Zuwo was
Nupe.
That would place his origins
somewhere in present Niger
State. But he was elected
first as a Senator and then
as Governor by the people
of Kano. Yet, to most in
Southern Nigeria, he was
“Hausa” or just
“Northerner”. Similarly, Kogi
and Kwara states are part of
the historic Northern Nigeria.
So, persons from these
states would be
“Northerners” but, if they
are of Yoruba stock, then
many would rather prefer to
exclude them from “the
North” by referring to them
as “Yorubas” because the
Yoruba are supposedly not
of the North even if millions
of them are in it.
However, when it comes to
“flexing” (to use a
contemporary Nigerian slang)
with demographic politics, the
Yoruba of Kogi and Kwara
are conveniently counted as
“We North…” . By the way,
Kaduna Nzeogwu was from
the Mid-West (and until 1963
of the Western Region) but it
was convenient in the
narrative of the 1966 coup
to re-create him exclusively
as “Igbo”. |
Re: The Igbo Question. A Response To Jibrin Ibrahim by explorer250(m): 7:37am On Dec 16, 2015 |
Dr. Ibrahim’s article didn’t
just indulge in staple
homogenisations and
mutabilities of Nigerian ethnic
politics, it also conflated race
and geo-politics in its
analysis. Its focus was
probably on the South-East
of Nigeria but his framing
was Igbo. Just as the North
and Hausa or South-West
and Yoruba are not the same
thing, Igbo and the South
East aren’t the same. One is
a geo-political invention; the
other is an immutable racial
identity. One can be
reinvented; the other can’t.
As with all things incapable of
being changed,
generalisations about tribe
and race risk and invite
credible accusations of
bigotry.
In reality, though, the
underlying generalisation
that is evident from the
article arguably reflects its
author’s personal views
about “the Igbo”. If that is
so, then this is quite
troubling because it could
suggest his cupboards of
tribalisation in Nigeria are in
gross arrears of his
professed ideals.
This leads to the more
substantive problem with the
article: its banalisation of
politics and its commitment to
the Bantustanisation of
Nigeria. Dr. Ibrahim’s article
speaks about the “political
game” and, somewhat
hubristically, determines
losers (and therefore
winners). But, surely the
question must be what
winning means in Nigeria’s
politics.
In an earlier article, Dr.
Ibrahim had recently written
about Barewa College, the
legendary High School in
Katsina State that appears to
hold a patent on producing
Presidents and powerful
people in Nigerian politics.
But what have these people
accomplished for Barewa, for
their people or for Nigeria?
All the Presidents he pointed
to are from “the North”.
But what have the peoples of
this region had to show for
their political musical chairs?
Despite this lock on power,
all the three zones and 19
States of Northern Nigeria
put together have less
Internally Generated
Revenue, IGR, than the six
states of South-South
Nigeria; the seven states of
North West Nigeria (a zone
that is a net importer of
human resources from other
parts and with nearly 30% of
Nigeria’s population)
together have just a little
over half of the IGR of the
five states of South East
Nigeria which is a net
exporter of human
resources to the rest of
Nigeria. How can that be
progress and what does that
mean for politics and our
notions of winning and
losing?
Speaking about political game
and how it has been
banalised, the Niger Delta
produced President Jonathan
for five years and three
months and yet the East-
West Road which leads to his
village remains for the most
part a crater. The road to
President Obasanjo’s house
in Otta (the Abeokuta-Lagos
Express Way) was, similarly,
one of the worst in Nigeria
under his Presidency. In this
Nigerian political game, the
people seem to be the
football that the elites use
for their kick-abouts.
I can honestly understand a
claim that any people have
lost out in the political game
if Dr. Ibrahim or anyone
could point to any verifiable
legacies left by the supposed
tribes of winners except the
supposed Brownie Points
that come from producing
elites with an equal
opportunity commitment to
the pauperisation of all of
the country. The most far
reaching of such legacies
have come from people who
didn’t exercise federal
power: Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi
Awolowo and Michael Okpara.
Nigeria deserves to be freed
from the tragic
consciousness in which
enlightened people think that
politics is about capturing
power with no real benefits
to the human beings who
make power worth
exercising. If we cannot
elevate the tone of our
politics or its analysis, we
can at least decide not to
continue to trivialise it. www.vanguardngr.com/2015/12/the-igbo-question-a-response-to-jibrin-ibrahim/ |
Re: The Igbo Question. A Response To Jibrin Ibrahim by nicerod(m): 7:42am On Dec 16, 2015 |
I take God beg u summarize am 4me |
Re: The Igbo Question. A Response To Jibrin Ibrahim by kossyablaze(m): 7:49am On Dec 16, 2015 |
Hmmmm smh |
Re: The Igbo Question. A Response To Jibrin Ibrahim by explorer250(m): 10:22am On Dec 16, 2015 |
nicerod:hehehe |
(1) (Reply)
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