THE SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE IPOB SIT-AT-HOME ORDERS

In every civilised society, it is normally the prerogative or the monopoly of the federal, regional or state government to declare public holidays or curfews within its jurisdiction. The first sign of a failed or failing state therefore is when a non state actor begins to successfully make and enforce such declarations. It means that the state security architecture has collapsed. This is the primary implication of the successful sit-at-home orders being enforced by the IPOB in the Southeast Nigeria. It is a great shame to the federal and state governments and the Nigerian security agency. It shows that either the people don’t like the government as to obey it or they don’t trust the government to protect their lives and properties should they obey it against the order of the non state actor. Either way it’s a clear sign that the government of the day has lost its authority. This is in part why the state governments especially are fighting hard to counter the sit-at-home orders albeit unsuccessful.

But moving forward, what does the IPOB intend to achieve with these sit-at-home orders? Let’s look critically at each of them.

May 30th Sit-at-Home: This is the mother of all the Sit-at-Homes. It is the success of this sit-at-home that encouraged IPOB to deploy subsequent ones. IPOB declared 30th May as Biafran Day, a day in which we remember and celebrate all the fallen heroes of the Biafran war. Indeed that’s a noble idea. However, there’s no where in the world where a memorial day is celebrated by declaring dawn to dusk curfew. This is literally what IPOB does on May 30th. Usually curfews are declared only when there is danger in the land. Normally such remembrance event is celebrated with religious services, processions/rallies, conferences/lectures, dramas and competitions. In this way, not only would the memory of the heroes be etched in the mind of the people but also the knowledge of the event past would be inculcated into the young ones.

One would have expected therefore that the IPOB, desirous that our fallen heroes be celebrated, instead of declaring a whole day curfew on 30th May, should rather embark on a vigorous sensitisation and campaign on the need to celebrate our heroes properly. Thankfully, the people and the government of the Southeast seem now well disposed for the celebration. The IPOB should then seize the opportunity to liaise with the state governments and plan events for the celebration. Public holiday instead of Curfew could be declared on that day in the whole of Southeast. The people could be encouraged to wear black for market or any occasion throughout that day. Public lectures could be organised. Dramas, debate and quiz competitions for schools on the topic could be organised. Television and Radio stations within the region could be made to show or broadcast movies and events of the Biafran war that day. In this way it will truly be a Remembrance Day celebration. Right now, what the IPOB is doing is simply using the excuse of the Remembrance Day to display their forceful grip over the people of the region.

The Sit-at-Home against Buhari visit to Imo State: This particular Sit-at-home was aimed at shaming the president and showing displeasure over the way his government has treated the region. It was indeed an effective way of registering our displeasure with the present federal government. However methinks that a better way, as done in other climes would have been, instead of forcing the people to sit-at-home, mobilise them to come out and boo the president. Experience has shown that there’s nothing as humiliating and embarrassing to a leader as to be booed by his people. In this way, not only would have the shame and displeasure be registered but also the people who wanted could have still gone about their normal business. Again, if the sit-at-home was the only option, why extend it to the whole of the Southeast region. Why would a business man in Enugu state that doesn’t even share a border with Imo not go about his business just because Buhari visited Imo State? That was indeed a sit-at-home extended too far. Methinks that while it hurt the presidency a little, it hurt the economy of the Southeast more. However, we move on.

The Mondays Weekly Sit-at-Home: This sit-at-home has become a great source of contention and agitation for many reasons. It’s aimed, according to IPOB, to put pressure on the federal government to release their leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (MNK). The question now is, is it working or will it eventually work? Well, from all indication it’s not working and there’s nothing that suggests that it will eventually work. It will only work if the government at the centre has shame, a shame that a non state actor has become the Lord of a part of its jurisdiction. But unfortunately the government we are dealing with not only doesn’t have such shame but also doesn’t care much about the welfare of the region in question. So it’s left for the people of the region to sort themselves out. And that raises the question, at what cost to the region compared to the federal government is the IPOB enforcing the weekly sit-at-home? It is indeed at a great cost.

In every fight for liberation, two things that ought to be protected most are the people’s economy and education of its children. However, in our case, these are the two things that are being most adversely affected by the weekly sit-at-home. In the absence of national headquarters of government parastatals and multi-national businesses in the southeast, the economy of the southeast is in the main individually driven. Again, many households depend on daily hustle to feed themselves. So shutting down the region every Monday would rather hurt the people you claim you are trying to liberate than the oppressor. You don’t win a war with a bad economy. A lot of people don’t understand this because they haven’t been directly affected by it.

The IPOB sympathisers have argued that this is a necessary sacrifice we must make to achieve what we want, and that if people could survive covid-19 lockdown, they could also survive this one. However the real issue is not making sacrifice but achieving what with the sacrifice. A sacrifice that achieves nothing while hurting the one sacrificing it is truly a stupid sacrifice. As for the argument about Covid-19 lockdown, they forget that a lot of people up till now have not recovered from the Covid-19 lockdown; it ruined many families and has changed many lives forever. Indeed sociologists and economists are agreed that the world cannot survive another lockdown.

Education is one area the Southeast seems to be hitherto ahead of other region. Now, this sit-at-home would gradually erode this gain as our children would lose the precious time of every Monday to learn. That’s indeed most unfortunate. And you hear stupid argument that those who have studied, what have they achieved with their education? It’s disheartening that even in this 21st century some people don’t still appreciate the value of education. They think education is all about getting a certificate, a job, or making money. If these are what education is all about, then we can do away with it because even the uneducated can make money more than the educated. But then education is much more than these. Indeed it will take a whole book to write on the value of formal education. Suffice it to say that even the uneducated rich go for adult education, encourage their children to get educated, and employ the educated to help them do their things. We must NEVER toil with the education of our children.

To its credit, the IPOB hierarchy has listened and understood these arguments, and so has officially suspended the weekly sit-at-home. However it came a little too late, as a renegade group within the same IPOB family has insisted that the sit-at-home must continue. This has exposed a serious fault line in the IPOB hierarchy. In the absence of their supreme leader, there’s no clear chain of command. The Simon Ekpa group has refused to listen to the Emma Powerful group. And in the absence of a unified voice of the IPOB and the protection by the state security, the people are simply too afraid to come out. You can’t blame them. IPOB has continued to claim that it’s no longer their people who are enforcing the order, that it’s hoodlums who have now cashed in on the suspended order. Well, one thing is becoming clear; IPOB seems to have lost the control of its foot soldiers.

This brings us to the issue of the Uknown Gunmen currently terrorising the Southeast. When the Eastern Security Network, ESN, was formed to tackle the herdsmen disturbance, most people applauded IPOB for that because at the failure of state security network, we really needed an alternative outfit to halt the rampaging herders. However, with time, as we began hearing less of herdsmen attacks, we began hearing more of Unknown Gunmen attacks, initially only on state security formations in the Southeast but now assassination of civilians too.

One cannot but wonder if there’s a connection between the ESN and the Unknown Gunmen. Is the ESN still in the forest guarding against the Fulani herdsmen or have they, at the retreat of the herdsmen, turned into unknown gunmen in the society. When IPOB leadership threatened to attack security personnel in the Southeast in retaliation of the killings and incarceration of their members, Unknown gunmen went into action and carried out the threat, though IPOB denied responsibility for it. And when IPOB threatened to deal with people flouting the sit-at-home order, unknown gunmen carried out the threat. Yet the IPOB denies responsibility for these. The question is, why dishing out a threat you don’t intend to carry out, especially when you know hoodlums can take advantage of it. It is exactly this fear of ESN later transforming into armed hoodlums and running over the region, terrorising and killing people that made some people oppose its set up in the first place. Now their fears seem to be becoming a reality.

The summary of it all is that the IPOB urgently needs to reform and restructure itself. Already it doesn’t have the support of the Southeast political class. Now due to its decisions that have brought us to the present situation, it’s fast losing the support of the southeast intelligensia too (the top business class, the academia and the religious class). To successfully lead us to the Biafra of our dreams, IPOB needs to set up a broad based think-thank group that will formulate its principles and constantly review its decisions. Instead of just having a supreme leader, it should also have a supreme council that will ratify its decisions. It should be more democratic than autocratic. It needs also to form a political branch to the struggle that will liaise with other pro-Biafra groups and woo the southeast political class. It has to realise that to achieve Biafra, it cannot go it all alone. It needs all the support and alliances it can get. It has to get involved with Ohanaeze because that is the only officially recognised mouthpiece of the Igbos. It considers the Ohanaeze leadership a sell-out, but that is all the reason more it should get involved with it, become a pressure group in it and effect a change of its leadership to one sympathetic to Biafran cause.

It has to realise that in this life, to get what you want, there comes a time you have to dine with the enemy albeit with a long spoon. Every struggle for liberation must at a point come to the political table. The struggle to free MNK cannot be achieved through sit-at-homes; it can only be achieved through legal and political means. Thankfully the Southeast National Assembly caucus has taking up the political challenge. It’s like a man threatening to drown his junior brothers (and actually drowning them) and burn down their house if the captor of his senior brother doesn’t release him. And now the father who is himself despised by the man and his senior brother decides for the sake of the junior brothers, to go and negotiate for the release of the senior brother. Now how can the man claim that he loves his junior brothers? The simple truth is that he loves his senior brother more and would rather sacrifice the junior brothers for him. Meanwhile in all of these, the captor of the senior brother has virtually nothing to lose. This is the analogy of the situation we currently find ourselves with the IPOB in its effort to force the release of MNK.
Some IPOB defenders have argued that it’s necessary to maintain the weekly sit-at-home so as to keep the case of MNK in the consciousness of the people. Well, if that is there major aim, then there are better and less harmful ways to do it. They can call for weekly demonstrations in support of MNK in various cities of the Southeast and even beyond. In this way, people can still go about their business while the consciousness is maintained. I however understand why IPOB is weary of demonstrations. Most of their past demonstrations ended in fatalities. However, this doesn’t mean that subsequent ones if well organised will end the same way. First of all, for obvious reasons it has to be Igbo rally not IPOB rally. Secondly the police should be informed before hand and the press invited to cover it. Thirdly the protesters should be well disciplined so that hoodlums won’t infiltrate them and use the opportunity to harass people. And most importantly, the demonstrations should be led by prominent Igbo sons and daughters. The organisers should woo Igbo celebrities like top musicians, actors, clerics, politicians, activists, etc., to lead the protest. When these things are done, it will be hard for the police to open fire on the demonstrators. This is exactly why the ENDSARS protest was hugely successful. And this is why protests led by people like Charlie Boy and Sowore are always successful. The highest thing police can do is to use tear gas to disperse them and arrest some of them. But not opening fire on them in broad day light. IPOB should seriously consider this alternative.

IPOB wants the world to believe that the Southeast people willingly abide by the sit-at-home orders, yet it attaches threat to the orders. It claims to be a non-violent freedom fighting group, but it’s constant militant threats makes it seem more like an oppressive group. The world is watching and cannot be fooled. Why is it that the Igbos living outside the southeast don’t observe these sit-at-homes, even those living as close as Asaba, Delta State? The day the world will begin to listen to us is the day the Igbos will put out an agenda and almost all the Igbos in Nigeria if not all over the world abide by it. But this can only be achieved through vigorous sensitization, persuasions, and alliances, not through threats, because your threat ends only in the Southeast. Currently what IPOB is doing is rather taking us far from the realisation of the Biafra of our dreams. It seems to me they have tasted power and become drunk by it that they now feel like deploying it at will. Now they have declared every 14th September another sit-at-home to celebrate saboteurs’ day. They have declared 1st October another sit-at-home. They have declared November election day in Anambra another sit-at-home. They are threatening to declare a month long sit-at-home if MNK is not released. Indeed we should expect more sit-at-home orders from them as their fancy dictates. I really pity our people. Indeed Power corrupts.

Ikechukwu S. Onuora

God forgive me for reading this shit.
Ikechukwu Onuora, ESN dont terorrise us, they protect us from invaders killing us. They discipline idiots like you who are selling us to the invaders.
You talk of "sensitisation" ? Only IPOB is with what it takes to sensitise('VIGOROUSLY' as you put it) an onuku head like yours(though you may be calling yourself 'an Igbo elite).

" A dog that is destined for destruction can never heed the hunter's whistle."
Yoruba Proverb

My Edo people go say.....dog nor fit sniff him death..... wetin dey kill dog, dog nor dey smell am.

LokoH:
God forgive me for reading this shit.

hahahaha

The story I received from locals is different, take for instance in imo state last week a fuel station owner was said to have to have had an encounter between him, four policemen and two men he believed are either esn members or unknown gunmen due to the biafran chants he observed from them, according to him, the policemen came to him with their patrol vehicle and forced the owner to fill-up ten, fifty litres of diesel without paying, the man was gutted but was at a loss on what to do. After they left, two men who were fetching fuel as of the time of this incident asked him what was the issue with the security men, and he told them exactly what happened, the left him and pursued the security men, later caught-up with them and seized their police id after retrieving the diesel from them and commandeered the policemen and their vehicle, Later they returned the diesel to the owner but the owner begged them to release the policemen and return their id, to which they obliged.
I believe it is this kind of criminal attitude displayed by our security personnels, that alienates them from the people they were supposed to protect.

Abeg abeg we have gone beyond discussing sit at home on social media these days... E no concern people again what you do on Mondays.

We have moved on. How many newspapers carry sit at home anymore?

dammit....you ipobians talk too much nonesense....!!

sheisse....!!

Okoroawusa:
Abeg abeg we have gone beyond discussing sit at home on social media these days... E no concern people again what you do on Mondays.

We have moved on. How many newspapers carry sit at home anymore?

So after all, you are tired of claiming Igbo?

Okoroawusa:
Abeg abeg we have gone beyond discussing sit at home on social media these days... E no concern people again what you do on Mondays.

We have moved on. How many newspapers carry sit at home anymore?

very useless people....

who realy gives a shitt....??

at the start,nigerians were amused....now they are just bored about anything south east....