Former governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife has said that the struggle by IPOB is in the interest of all Igbo. In this interview, the elder statesman warned that Nigeria is pushing Igbo out of the country.
Some opinion leaders say that Nigeria has not been as divided as it is today, not even during the civil war. Do you agree with them?
I agree that Nigeria has not been as divided as it is now; Nigeria has never been a failure as it is now. What do we do about it? My suggestion is that man has failed in Nigeria. What do we do, we should only go on our knees to pray to God to change things for us before total collapse.
The country is, in everybody’s assessment a failure, and we are fooling ourselves as Nigerians, but we have failed black men all over the world. This country has the kind of weather; the kind of resources that cannot be found on earth, yet we human beings have messed up ourselves; the mess up has become a tradition, a culture. For our people, corruption is no longer something you frown at; people consider corruption to be something normal, we are not talking of politicians eating money; it is everywhere now, in the church, in trade unions, everywhere and I think it is time for us to call on God and surrender to Him to help us.
Some leaders are talking about restructuring as the only way for the nation to begin to make progress, but the president doesn’t seem to agree. He said recently that there was nothing wrong with the 1999 constitution, as it is fair to all. Where do we go from here?
I don’t believe that the president understands what is going on in Nigeria. I don’t think that he is aware of the extent of the problem. The people who are messing up more are Junaid Mohammed and Ango Abdullahi. These are people who are leading those who are in greatest danger; if you are leading a people and you make enemies for those people you are not doing well.
Ango Abdullahi and Junaid Mohammed are talking about ruling Nigeria in the next 100 years, and they are talking in favour of Hausa/Fulani or Fulani. The Fulani have the greatest to lose if this country breaks up. The issue is why should people be against going back to things that worked. Nigeria worked. Towards the mid-50s and 1965 Nigeria was growing faster than the rest of the world, this is World Bank statement and not mine. Why were we growing faster than the rest of the world? It was because we have perfect structure for advancement – the regional structure, which was agreed by our founding fathers. That regional structure gave regions the right to pursue their own interests with the speed they wanted, and it gave control of regions to be rewarding people in the regions who were contributing their resources for development.
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We didn’t depend on oil money at that time. It is what we contribute from our pocket, and whoever was the governor was concerned about development. I wouldn’t reckon with the views of Mr. President, because I think something must have happened that makes him not to understand what Nigeria is talking about.
Look, the Igbo people had to go and beg for Enugu airport before money is released to give attention to the airport. That is humiliating. What are they begging for? Kano, did they beg, Kaduna, did they beg, who begged for their airport to be renovated? It is a matter of saying what we are doing for Igbo people when they are pushing us out of Nigeria.
Some statesmen, especially in the South say Nigeria is not workable, complaining that a section of the country has made itself the rider and the rest the horse. As such, they are asking that the enterprise be broken and every group going its way to enjoy peace. What is your take on this?
Negative; but understandable. I understand their reaction. Nobody applied to be a slave in Nigeria. Whether we applied or not, we don’t accept to be slaves, you are superior in some ways and you become politically inferior to them, and what is the consequence? We are not making progress as a country.
The people who are riding the horse are the people who can be hurt by the collapse of the horse; so let them come down from the horse so that there will be no calamity when the horse stumbles. If I were Hausa/Fulani, no, let me leave Hausa out of this, they are not able to bring themselves out of the problem they are in, but the Fulani will lose most for the disintegration of Nigeria, and they are in the best position to stop the disintegration of Nigeria by going back to the structure that we know that worked. Some of them say they will never support the 2014 confab report implementation, it means they are saying, ‘Nigeria break up’. It is not those who make noise that say the country should break up, IPOB is complaining about many things done against the Igbo; the same way those who know are aware that Buhari government is pushing the Igbo people very hard out of Nigeria in everywhere.
So, what do we do? We go to God; only God can save Nigeria now. We have passed a stage where man can help Nigeria. No man is even willing, those who are enjoying power don’t want to help, and so we have only one chance, which is to pray to God to change things.
