by Nnamdi Wigwe

The party that we now call Igbo party has to justify that claim by winning at least four of the five core Igbo states in the next election, both Presidential, gubernatorial and legislative houses’ polls.

Recent political developments in the country, particularly the recent emergence of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the deepening rife in the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, have spurred lot of marginal issues, among which is the self-defeating proclivity of some vocal Igbo intellectuals and public affairs analysts to attach ethnic labels to political parties.

Usually without any cogent or empirical reason, a party like PDP is freely donated to the Hausa-Fulani group or at times, to the entire Northern Nigeria. The newly formed APC, in the brilliant assessment of our Igbo political pundits is a Yoruba-Hausa party because the larger partners in the merger, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN and CPC, Congress for Progressive Change, derive their major support, respectively, from the West and one or two States in the North and APGA is proudly showcased as an Igbo party, obviously because of the involvement of the late great Igbo hero, General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.

Now, the question is whether, indeed, APGA is an Igbo party because an Igbo man, Chekwas Okorie, promoted it and got Emeka Ojukwu to be one of its prominent members?

If yes, why is PDP not appropriated by Nd’Igbo? After all, can the history of PDP ever be written without mention of the yeoman’s role played by Dr. Alex Ekwueme, another great Igbo son and the first Vice-President of Nigeria?

Or do our Igbo armchair political analysts assign nationality to political parties based on their electoral gains from across the country?

If so, why then should APGA be referred to as an Igbo party when it could win only two states in the Igbo nation comprising five and two half-states, namely Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, as well as Rivers and Delta, with substantial Igbo native populations to make political impact if they can get their acts together.

Indeed, Lagos and Kano states have Igbo populations that can seriously send a  frightful number of legislators into their respective Houses of Assembly.

How effective is APGA in those states that have Igbo residents that rank second to the indigenes?

In core Igbo land, otherwise known as the South-East geo-political zone, what impact does APGA have to be appropriated as an Igbo party?

Except for sheer sentiments, it is actually unwise to box oneself into a corner and at the same time, aspire to the leadership of the whole country.

If the two giant parties today, PDP and APC are voluntarily given away by Nd’Igbo to the North and the West, and apparently with the South-South also surrendered to them to share, why then should the Igbo man or woman ever hope to be a Nigerian President from his enclave of not just the South-East, but in fact, only Anambra State?

Imo State is gone since its APGA Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, has joined APC, along with a sizeable faction of former APGA members.

Anambra is going to the polls on Zik’s birthday, November 16, to elect a new Governor to replace Peter Obi, who is the “last man standing” among APGA greats.

If the party returns a Governor to power, one can then safely describe APGA more as an Anambra party than an Igbo party.

The party that we now call Igbo party has to justify that claim by winning at least four of the five core Igbo states in the next election, both Presidential, gubernatorial and legislative houses’ polls.

And to those who say APGA is an Igbo party, does it ever occur to them that the party would not have been recognized by INEC as a sectional party?

It should also be made clear that the late General Emeka Ojukwu is an undisputed Igbo hero for all times. Indeed, he is an African and world hero who just happened to have been born  of Igbo parentage.

But to be an accepted hero is not exactly the same thing as being a leader. Emeka must be counted among Igbo leaders because of his leadership position in the life of the people of Igbo land.

But he was not the Igbo leader in the universal mould of Z. C. Obi, the long time President of the Igbo State Union of yore, or even Dr. Michael Iheonukara Okpara, the last Premier of old Eastern Nigeria.

Z. C. Obi was not in politics but he called the shots on matters concerning Igbo land and summoned the political leaders when necessary. M. I. Okpara was in politics and commanded the respect, love and admiration of Igbo people who naturally gave him electoral support as well.Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu certainly had the genuine admiration and respect from Igbo people for his self sacrifice and unalloyed loyalty to the cause of his people. A living hero. A legend. But leader of Nd’Igbo? No. After the Nigeria-Biafra 30-month war in which he led Nd’Igbo and Biafra; and after his return from exile, Ojukwu merely became an object of admiration or even adulation.Some people sought to make him an oracle.  But in politics, a majority of Igbo people gave him to support. In sum, if Nd’Igbo say  Ojukwu was their political leaders , then they are the lousiest supporters of a leader

 

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