A 1999 speech given by the current Emir of Kano, Mohammed Sanusi in which he warned that the continued marginalisation of the Igbos in Nigeria could lead to a 2nd civil war has received some attention online in light of recent developments in country.
The speech titled, Issues in Restructuring Corporate Nigeria, was presented by the banker, who is now a Northern monarch in 1999 when he was still an assistant general manager in the United Bank of Africa, UBA.
He argued that a “new generation” of Igbo who did not know Chukwuma Nzeogwu, the alleged mastermind of the 1966 coup and Emeka Ojukwu, the leader of the first Biafra Republic, could decide to fight a new war to correct the unbearable marginalisation of the tribe in Nigeria. He pointed to the example of Germany who was defeated in the First World War and started a 2nd World War mostly due to the treatement the country received after the first war.
Sanusi, as one of the speakers at the National Conference on the 1999 Constitution held in Kaduna, touched on many of the issues that bedevilled the country at the time (sadly, they are still unresolved till today), including ethnic strife, the fallout of the 1966 coup, the suppression of Igbos, the Niger Delta question, and others.
When this paper was presented in September 1999, Nigeria had just recently returned to civilian rule after 15 years under brutal military regimes headed by Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, and, at the tail end, Abdulsalami Abubakar who handed power to a retired military general, Olusegun Obasanjo.
Below is the section of his speech which deals with the issue of marginalisation of the Igbos, a matter which has become an issue of national vexation under the parochial and clannish leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Igbo Factor and the Reasonable Limits of Retribution
The Igbo people of Nigeria have made a mark in the history of this nation. They led the first successful military coup which eliminated the Military and Political leaders of other regions while letting off Igbo leaders. Nwafor Orizu, then Senate President, in consultation with President Azikiwe, subverted the constitution and handed over power to Aguiyi-Ironsi.
Subsequent developments, including attempts at humiliating other peoples, led to the counter-coup and later the civil war. The Igbos themselves must acknowledge that they have a large part of the blame for shattering the unity of this country.
Having said that, this nation must realise that Igbos have more than paid for their foolishness. They have been defeated in war, rendered paupers by monetary policy fiat, their properties declared abandoned and confiscated, kept out of strategic public sector appointments and deprived of public services. The rest of the country forced them to remain in Nigeria and has continued to deny them equity.
The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have conspired to keep the Igbo out of the scheme of things. In the recent transition when the Igbo solidly supported the PDP [People’s Democratic Party] in the hope of an Ekwueme presidency, the North and South-West treated this as a Biafra agenda. Every rule set for the primaries, every gentleman’s agreement was set aside to ensure that Obasanjo, not Ekwueme emerged as the candidate. Things went as far as getting the federal government to hurriedly gazette a pardon. Now, with this government, the marginalistion of the Igbo is more complete than ever before. The Igbos have taken all these quietly because, they reason, they brought it upon themselves. But the nation is sitting on a time-bomb.
After the First World War, the victors treated Germany with the same contempt Nigeria is treating Igbos. Two decades later, there was a Second World War, far costlier than the first. Germany was again defeated, but this time, they won a more honourable peace. Our present political leaders have no sense of History. There is a new Igbo man, who was not born in 1966 and neither knows nor cares about Nzeogwu and Ojukwu. There are Igbo men on the street who were never Biafrans. They were born Nigerians, are Nigerians, but suffer because of actions of earlier generations. They will soon decide that it is better to fight their own war, and may be find an honourable peace, than to remain in this contemptible state in perpetuity.
The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have exacted their pound of flesh from the Igbos. For one Sardauna, one Tafawa Balewa, one Akintola and one Okotie-Eboh, hundreds of thousands have died and suffered.
If this issue is not addressed immediately, no conference will solve Nigeria’s problems.
Being excepts of a paper presented at the “National Conference on the 1999 Constitution” jointly organised by the Network for justice and the Vision Trust Foundation, at the Arewa House, Kaduna from 11th –12th September, 1999. You may read the entire paper HERE.
