THE CASE AGAINST NNAMDI KANU, IGBO ALMAJIRIS AND ENEMIES OF NIGERIA BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE

Igbo Almajiris can’t help their alliteration. You don’t get a safe and progressive country by being lawless. This is the attitude of the folks contributing to the lawlessness in the South-East.

They cannot articulate an issue without frothing in the mouth with bile. Their angst is due to their failure to make Nigerians feel guilty for the dislocation and war the Biafrans brought to Nigeria.

We will not feel guilty. Biafrans drew the first blood. A recognition and acceptance of this fact will bring healing to the restless souls. They have a right to self-determination which should be exercised under the rule of law.

The last time these people had a fever; they invaded the Midwest Region and caused a lot of havoc. It was a season of mayhem and murder. If they did not start that war, I would be living in the semi-autonomous Midwest Region with control of our resources.

My question is: To what extent does the agitation for your self-determination nullify my right to self-determination? This is what Igbo Almajiris don’t think about. They are very selfish people. Think of the repercussions of your actions. They are not the only tribe in Nigeria.

Isaac Boro declared Niger Delta Republic and your beloved Ojukwu and Ironsi abrogated it and sentenced Boro to death. Do Biafra agitators think they have a right to Biafra? Don’t you have a right to the Niger Delta Republic? This is why no one wants to deal with the South-East people.

You are not sincere. There is nothing the South-East is contributing to Nigeria except the anarchy.

Why so much pride and puffiness. You contribute nothing to the federation and you complain the most. There will be no war this time. If Nnamdi Kanu and his co-travellers continue these criminal enterprises in the name of self-determination, we should treat it as a criminal issue.

It is becoming tiresome to live in the same country with a group of people who always throw tantrums for attention. I am an Isoko man. The fact that I am not a president does not make me less Nigerian.

How can Nigeria develop when the South-East people want war in every generation? Are the South-East agitators controlled by foreign secret intelligence services? This is not normal.

You want to compare everything to America when you lack the mental capacity to do or think like an American. You hold grudges and lack love. Bitterness is not an ingredient in nation building. Learn some humility and learn to love your fellow citizens. Killing your own people and crippling businesses is not a developmental agenda.

Some people have always asked me why I am not talking about Boko Haram. I have done that on several occasions. I have said that if Gumi preaches his brand of terrorist Islam in Saudi Arabia, he will be beheaded. He did not call me a moron. I am an equal opportunity offender. Do you destroy your house and seek shelter from other people? That is not wise. Do you set your house ablaze because your neighbor’s house is burning? That sounds stupid.

This lack of love and empathy is what has led to the sclerosis of the thought process of Biafra agitators. You think you hate Nigerians, you actually hate yourself. This hate has blinded you and has led you to self-flagellation that bleeds and you blame others for your self-inflicted injuries.

Good citizens with love and empathy produce good nations. You lack these qualities and you embrace thorns and blame others for your injuries. You have developed a state of deliberate ignorance regarding the goodness of Nigerians towards Igbo people.

We are getting tired of your emotional blackmails that paint us as Igbo haters when we object to your ranting and outright disregard to the feelings of other Nigerians.

It is becoming difficult and tiring to tolerate your griping and selfish existence and destructive disposition to other Nigerians. As a democratic society, we cannot make the Igbo man a special citizen as you are demanding. You must remember the magnanimity of Nigerians towards the Igbo people. If that magnanimity does not show you the majesty of Nigerian, then you will never be sane. No one will confer you a special status.

It is absurd for the South-East people to think that the road to the presidency is through intimidation of Nigerians. You don’t have the population and you don’t have common sense to form workable alliances.

As it is now, it will be easier for Nnamdi Kanu to become the president of Biafra than an Igbo man to be president of Nigeria.

Your present political naivety has been compounded by the naivety of your brothers in the diaspora. These folks actually think that Donald Trump will award them Biafra and they took the wrong steps to misinform the president of the United States about the happenings in Nigeria in the hope that almighty America will invade Nigeria and empower them in Nigeria. What those Igbo people in diaspora have done is worse than the slave catching role their ancestors played during slavery.

Do you expect Nigerians to applaud you for this unpatriotic act? Asking a foreign power to invade your homeland is treason beyond pardon. A simple perusal of international politics would have made them tread with caution in this treacherous arena.

America could not use its power to install Juan Guaido on the people of Venezuela. He has been in Washington more than ten years waiting for Uncle Sam to invade Venezuela and install him as the president of Venezuela. Guaido is still waiting .I am beginning to think he will wait forever.

America has not fired a shot on behalf of Biafra and your brothers are already celebrating victory with their arrogant parade on social media. They tell the World they are ready and able to join the invasion of their homeland because they know the terrain. This is sad.

In their diatribes, they defend the BIafra agitation by the length of time it has been going on. Is it that when you discovered you cannot be Nigerian or when you found out that other Nigerians will not tolerate your imposition and nullifications? Is it necessary to use time to measure the veracity of your agitation? If the time justifies you, what do you say about Chechnya in Russia? These people have been trying to break away from the Soviet Union since the 18th century. Due to intransigence, Stalin deported them to Siberia in 1940’s. They renewed their agitations in the 1990s and Putin gave them the riot.

Now let’s visit Iraq, Syria and Turkey. These three countries have the Kurds as ethnic minority. Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1915, the Kurds have been agitating for the unification of all the Kurds to form Great Kurdistan as a country. Turkey, Iraq and Syria rejected this vehemently. The closets they got to this dream were after the fall of Iraq during the gulf war. America was actively in support of this new country. The leader of the Kurdistan group, PKK, Abdulla Ocalan adopted terroristic methods for his agitation. He was declared wanted. He escaped to Nairobi. Like Kanu, he was arrested and extradited to Turkey where he was tried and sent to life imprisonment. If Kanu knew this history, he would have stayed back in London where he was safe and faraway. He would have suspected a trap. Like typical Igbo Almajiri, he has no use for that kind of knowledge. He is selfish, arrogant and myopic. He was very ignorant to the ways of the world. What he lacks in knowledge, he makes up for braggadocio. He enjoyed the ovation of people kissing his feet.

The power you crave will not wipe away your deliberate ignorance. You need to improve your character. The South-East people need to get rid of the spirit of domination before any Nigerian will trust an Igbo with power. The history of the Igbo people is not benevolent in this regard.

No minority in the East has anything positive to say about the Igbo people. What happened to Ambazonia? History is not benevolent in this regard. A large chunk of Nigeria left Nigeria because they could not withstand the oppression of the Igbo people. This does not mean all Igbo people are bad. It means those who ascended to leadership could not run a multi ethnic region with fairness.

Of all the three major tribes, the Igbo people are the most insular. They will challenge this and say they are everywhere. Everywhere, they keep to themselves and lack acculturation. As a result of confirmation bias, they are the last to know what is going on in their communities.

The Hausa-Fulani have been trading in the Sahel for more than two centuries before the arrival of the colonialists. This is why the Hausa language is the lingua franca of the Sahel. The Yoruba people and Binis and a lot of tribes in Southern Nigeria have a robust history of trade with other people in West Africa. Their languages extend beyond the borders of Nigeria. Unlike the other tribes, the Igbo people have been very insular. There is no record of anyone speaking Igbo outside of Igbo land. This is a historical fact. They did not have an empire and a standing army may have made them susceptible to invasions from outsiders during the slave trade .The. Insularity made them not to trust outsiders. This is why they are hyper vigilant and distrust outsiders. The other major fact is the Igbo people are the only group of people in the Nigerian union that never had an empire or monarchy. This is why their rugged individualism and chest thumping offend the sensibility of those who came to Nigeria through empires.

When the colonizers came, it was easier for the Igbo people to adopt western education because the individual is more fluid to adaptation than a group that lost their nation and civilization. This is where we have to know that western education and civilization are not synonymous. It is these nuances that led to the animosity between the Igbo people and the Fulani in the first Republic. Since then, none of these groups have found it necessary to reappraise their positions because they are clinging to their primordial instincts of the past.

This is the reason why it will be easier for Nnamdi Kanu to be the president of Nigeria than an Igbo man being elected President of Nigeria. This is because the Igbo Almajiris have managed to alienate every non Igbo by their incessant insults. This display of vulgarity has become the signature of a lot of Igbo people.

Anger is not a solution. A lot of Biafra agitators are rude and vulgar and they lack decorum to engage in any civilized discussion.

DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS