Koyewon:
2023, SE Idiocy and the Way Forward.
It has become almost a daily sight on this forum to see threads authored by Igbos solely aimed at blackmailing the SW concerning the 2023 Presidential race.
This has been by pushing mostly unsound arguments, lies and throwing basely accusations and tags like 'betrayal' and 'greedy' around with reckless abandon, tags which if you are to look at in the truest Nigerian context, both empirically and historically, they better describe and fit elements from the SE region.
I must say that it has largely been amusing and sort of comic relief, seeing again and again how a people, unable to see, let alone come to terms with their collective idiocy and miscalculations, scramble and result to 'blackmail' of the Yorubas with 'we will vote the Fulanis if the Yorubas are greedy enough to contest in 2023'. This, in their warped thinking, might scare the SW into dropping any presidential ambitions from the region.
Let me say categorically at this junction, as I will expand on later, that this recent barrage of blackmail, misrepresentation of history, and propaganda against the Yorubas by the Igbos is not only childish, it will not work.
They like to base their shallow outbursts on the 2015 general elections. But Nigeria did not begin in 2015, not the least its electoral history, as the Igbos through their recent noise will make us believe. Every election in the entity Nigeria before and after independence had seen the Igbos, both the political elites and the rank and file, preferring to align with or vote the Hausa-Fulani against the Southern candidates.
History is unequivocal about the 1950s and 1960s elections, where for instance, Azikiwe refused to form a progressive government between his Igbo NCNC and Awolowo's AG (even when Awolowo offered him the Prime Minister position); it is unequivocal about the Igbos forming an alliance with another Northerner, Shehu Shagari, in the 1979 and 1983 elections while splitting the southern votes by fielding Azikiwe too. They never stepped down for Awolowo; it is unequivocal still as was seen in Nigeria's freest and fairest election to date, the 1993 Presidential election between MKO Abiola and Bashir Tofa, where the Igbos again voted against a southern candidate!
Here is a fun fact about the 1993 Election: Moshood Abiola, the Southern candidate, won in all Nigeria's geopolitical zones but the Igbo SE:
- MKO Abiola won the South-South by 4 states to 1;
- MKO Abiola won the North Central by 4 states to 2;
- MKO Abiola won all South West's 5 states;
- MKO Abiola won in the Core North by 6 states to 5 (3 states to 2 in the North East, 3 states to 3 in the North West, where Abiola won both Kaduna and Kano and the popular votes);
And wait for it ........
- MKO Abiola lost the South East by 3 states to 1;
[b]So, it has always been the Igbos who are the betrayals by repeatedly aligning with, and voting for the North against the South in every election pre and post Independence! [/b]Which is why it is amusing when they play the silly card of 'Don't contest in 2023, support Igbo presidency or we'll vote the Hausa-Fulani!'
When have you not voted the Hausa-Fulani? What makes you think threatening to do so again shocks anyone or has any blackmail value to be used against the Yorubas? We are neither shocked nor blackmailed by your repeated 'threats' to vote the North in 2023, it is expected! It is what your forefathers have been doing from the beginning, doing so again will simply mean you were being the true sons and daughters of your forefathers.
The Igbos like to deceive the unsuspecting that they joined the rest of Nigeria to cede the presidency to SW in 1999. That cannot be farther from the truth! It is on record that it was only the Igbos, through Alex Ekwueme at the 1998 PDP Jos Convention, that challenged OBJ for the PDP Presidential ticket. That there was no other candidate from any region but the SE doing so should tell you that the Igbos did not agree to step down or cede the presidency to the SW in 1999, they were rather pummeled into submission by a rounding defeat in the hands of Obasanjo.
Even then the Igbos still did not vote the Southern, Yoruba candidate in that Election. It is no news that Olu-Falae was preferred by, and was the Southern (SW) candidate in 1999.
One can only then wonder whether the fear of the 1998 Convention outcome, where the Igbo were soundly rejected by the rest of Nigeria in favour of a Yoruba man, is not the beginning, and indeed the end, of the Igbo wisdom (read foolishness) of resulting to cheap blackmail to stop the Yoruba contesting the 2023 election.
All Igbo political alliances to date have been with the Hausa-Fulani North. They have not allied with any other region outside the Core North Hausa-Fulani region! Not once! and not once has anyone, big or small, in the SW ever accused them of being betrayals or any other such tags they have recently fallen in love with, and love throwing around. You play your politics, we play ours. Even though much of your politics are borne out of deep hatred for, and vain jealousy of the Yorubas, still we let you play your politics. No one called you names. It is worth repeating here again that Nigeria did not start in 2015.
The Way Forward: A proposal.
The 2011 Presidential Election was supposed to be a defining moment. It came with a singularity of voice that I have always thought was needed to return the country to regionalism, or if you like, restructure the entity.
It was the 'Goodluck Moment'. The entire South and the Middlebelt, the majority of the country, voted in unison. It was a scary and jittery moment for those who, for odd and selfish reasons, are opposed to the idea of true federalism and resource control.
Nigeria could easily have been restructured by the Jonathan Administration, he had the mandate. The Yorubas voted him, the Igbos voted him, the Niger-Delta region voted him, the Middlebelt voted him. That is the majority in this country. That is the mandate you need to restructure the country.
But the unthinkable happened.
A region, I mean the SE region, highjacked his government and turned it against others. It quickly became the tool in the hands of Igbos to spite the Yorubas, and settle fantom political scores. This forum of course cannot forget.
Hence Nigeria lost a golden chance to peacefully return the country to the only path where progress is possible. The blame of course does not squarely rest on the SE. Goodluck Jonathan, for all the excitement with which he was voted to power, was a big disappointment. Only a weak, clueless man lacking in ambition can be so easily highjacked against the collective mandate of the people.
He once said, "My ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian." He failed to realize that his lack of ambition might cost the blood of countless Nigerians. Ambition is not always personal, it could also be collective, communal, and even ideological. It was this collective ambition that gave him the 2011 mandate. In failing to realize it, and allowing himself to be so easily highjacked by a region, to the disaffection of others, he failed millions of Nigerians. I can only hope that his statement was not ironically prophetic!
The aftermath of the Jonathan Administration highjack was the Yoruba political leaders' realignment, which was with the North. It is worth noting that this was only the second major time in Nigeria's political history that the Yorubas will have such an alliance with the Hausa-Fulani North. The first was Abiola-Kingibe. Some might say the 1983 Awolowo-Muhammad Kura was the first. That was no true alliance, counting it will be like counting the Sowore-Ahmed Rufai combo. It produced zero northern votes. The real 1983 alliance was the Hausa-Fulani-Igbo alliance of Shagari-Ekwueme and the Azikiwe spoiler.
the Yoruba political block, ACN merged with the Northern CPC. It was clear that that merger was a Yoruba-North political merger. The understanding, though unwritten and largely gentlemanly, was undoubtedly for one to go first, then after 8 years, the other.
The SE seeing their machination backfire, have been practically on steroid with propaganda and childish attempt at blackmail. No one has ever asked you to step down in all your alliances with the North, ever! So why the stupid, daily rants of 'betrayals', 'greedy', and the nonstop madness you've chosen to don as your favorite red caps?
Azikiwe never stepped down for Awolowo in 1979 and 1983, Ekwueme did not step down for Obasanjo in 1998 and 2003, so why are the Igbos suddenly afraid of contesting against the Yorubas and only interested in, again, highjacking an alliance they have no idea how it was formed?
I for one don't care who becomes president or not, I only care for one thing: cultural, political, and economic autonomy for my region.
I strongly think we need another 'Goodluck moment'. A workable template has been revealed, why abandon it? A candidate to reclaim the 2011-like mandate. For it to happen, such a candidate will not come from the SW or the SE. We need to look again at the so-called minority regions for someone with strong character and conviction, completely committed to true federalism. Not one who prioritizes his ogogoro over and above the collective ambition of the people. Such a candidate, when elected, will be given all the needed legislative support from the allied regions to bring about the agreed changes.
It has to necessarily be in 2023. And we might have to look to the Middlebelt for such a candidate. But before then, we need to harmonize our demands and agitations into a single document, which such a candidate must show and pledge complete fidelity to.
Yorubas, as I stated above, want cultural, political, and economic autonomy. Here I mean all the Yorubas in SW, in most of Kwara state, in Kogi West, in Delta state (the Itshekiri), and in Edo state, all in a single region and undivided; with control over our space and resources.
In this, there is no conflict with the demands of the ethnicities in the Middlebelt, or with the demands of the Igbos, whatever they may be, or those of the ethnicities in the Niger Delta. A confederating Nigeria will benefit everyone, particularly the Core North.
-Koyewon. Well written and articulated.  |
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How? 
