When two
cultures with differing ideological outlooks are brought together to mesh
willy-nilly, there are usually problems of gargantuan proportions. The Igbo Biafran
worldview with its Judeo-Christian (Occidental) orientation has always been at
odds with the Hausa-Fulani Islamic-Arabist (Oriental) worldview. In many
respects, the Igbo Biafran mind, psychology and emotions work rather differently
from the Hausa-Fulani (Oriental) mind, psychology and emotions. For instance,
the Igbo see the human being, madu,
short for mmandu, as the beauty of
creation, or the beauty life, and so place a high premium on human life. For
the Igbo, life is the greatest gift and so should not be destroyed unnecessarily.
The Igbo can only destroy life when it poses an unappeasable threat to another
life or in retribution for murder. But the Hausa-Fulani have an insatiable
bloodlust, with bloodletting written deep in their DNA. It explains why they are
habitual and pathological killers, and are ready to kill with little or no
provocation. It explains why Buhari could unleash his soldiers and policemen on
unarmed, innocent youths—boys young enough to be his children—who were holding
a prayer meeting, singing and calling upon their God to grant their most
cherished aspirations—the restoration of the state of Biafra, having been
failed by Nigeria.
Furthermore,
the Igbo are naturally republicans and had practised village-based democracy
before the intrusion of Europe. Democratic ideals are etched deep in the DNA of
every Igbo. Chinua Achebe, the late novelist in There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra, agrees in these
words: “The Igbo are a very democratic people…Their culture illustrates a
clear-cut opposition to kings, because…the Igbo people had seen what the
uncontrolled power of kings could do.” The Igbo built no monarchies because
they did not trust a king to exercise power justly. However, in those few Igbo
communities which had semblances of monarchy like the priestly kingship of
Eze-Nri, or the Obi institutions, the monarchs did not exercise dictatorship
over the people. They were more or less figureheads. There is an Igbo saying
that goes like this: ‘Ama nile wu eze eze.’
Every homestead has its own king. The Igbo believe that every man is a king in
his own right. Every man is as good as the next man. And so, the man who seeks
to lord it over his fellows has his work cut out for him since convincing his
fellows to accept him as their leader is not going to be easy. An Igbo proverb states
that if a god proves too aggressive it is shown the wood from which it was
carved. In other words, if a leader proves too troublesome, he will be shown
the way out of office. A people who did not hesitate to burn the image of a god
that had failed them would not hesitate to dethrone a leader who was going
against their will. That is the full ramification of Igbo traditional
democracy. British colonial rule destroyed indigenous Igbo democracy and did
greater harm to the people by amalgamating them with other ethnic groups to
form the geographical and political space called Nigeria. The Igbo were dragged
willy-nilly into the amalgamation. At independence, the British mischievously handed
the Igbo over to the Hausa-Fulani, rather than return them to status quo ante
i.e., disintegrating the country and decolonizing the federalized regions as sovereign,
independent units. The Islamic Hausa-Fulani traditionally belong to a
feudalistic, dictatorial world and have a different understanding of reality
altogether. Even before the conquest of the Hausa and much of northern Nigeria by
the Fulani jihadists, the Hausa and other northern peoples were ruled by kings
who exercised despotic powers over them. Despotism is natural and traditional
to the north, the Yoruba and the Benin peoples, but it is abnormal to the Igbo
because it was not there ab initio. That is the point I am trying to make.
Frederick Forsyth who apparently knows the Igbo and the easterners better than
the northerners do avers without any equivocation: “The whole traditional
structure of the East makes it virtually immune to dictatorship…” This distaste
for dictatorship was one of the reasons for the Aba Women’s Riots of 1929, the
failure of indirect rule in the Eastern region and the Biafra-Nigeria war of
1967-1970. The Igbo resent any form of imposition and like their opinion to be
asked before one might take action on matters that impinge on their destiny. That
they have accepted northern Nigeria (Hausa-Fulani) repressive feudal domination
since 1970 does not mean that their nature has changed and that they have
finally come to accept dictatorship as a way of life; rather it is because
faced with no other option they had to adapt to the new historical reality in
order to survive. The years of northern military cum feudal repression of the
Igbo including the present regime have severely tested Igbo endurance. But
there is a limit to human endurance, and that is why IPOB and other
secessionist groups are saying that Nigeria does not appeal to them any longer.
The majority
of the Igbo are Christians, and quite an appreciable number has converted to
Judaism recently. Nigeria has, it is rumoured, surreptitiously become a member
of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) despite its much touted
secularism. And the Muslim North has never lost the dream or ambition to
Islamize the entire country including Biafraland. However, the Biafrans have
stated their opposition to the OIC outing and the dream or plan to Islamize
them. So there is clearly a conflict between what the Islamic North is doing
and what the Igbo want with regard to the OIC and Islamization agenda. The
country faces the risk of being torn to pieces by conflict between
fundamentalists and secularists.
The secession
of Biafra in 1967 was an attempt by the Igbo to revert to the status quo ante (as
it was before colonialism). The Biafra-Nigerian war was a collision of
civilizations, and although the Igbo lost, those democratic ideals in them remained
alive, crying to be reborn. It is clear, as clear as the sun in the sky, that
there is a world of difference between the Igbo Biafrans and the Hausa-Fulani. The
Igbo are not used to despotism. It is alien to their civilization, nature and
lives. Despotism defies their worldview. Despotism constricts their creative
freedom. Despotism alienates them. In the traditional Igbo imagination, despotism
over the Igbo is an abnormality, nay; it is an augury of the end of the world. The
successive Nigerian leaders from the north have continued to rule the Igbo
despotically while blatantly ignoring the fact that despotic rule strikes at
every sensitive point in these people. If the northern leaders must practise
despotism, let them practise it on their own people and leave the Igbo alone. All
that the Igbo have asked for is to be allowed to go and work out their destiny
according to their vision and energy, nothing more, nothing less. But if the
northerners insist on keeping the Igbo with them in this stupid, directionless
contraption called Nigeria, then they should get ready to reap a bitter harvest
one day. Let me state it once more. The Igbo (Biafrans) and the Islamic
Hausa-Fulani are not one people, and will never be. Let’s stop this ridiculous fibbing
simply because some of us have a vested interest in the polity called Nigeria,
and face the truth. The greatest harm ever done to my people was the
destruction of autochthonous Igbo freedom by the British in the name of
colonialism and the amalgamation of 1914. To continue to keep them in Nigeria
by force willy-nilly is against nature, history and the will of God. Those people
who spout unity in diversity and pretend to believe in it should read or
re-read the story of the Tower of Babel and reflect deeply.
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