Chimamanda’s Questioning Of Igbos Capacity To Actualize Presidency Ambition Is Troubling

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie without debate is a respected voice in world literature. She is highly regarded as several awards winning author, but when this woman of great intellect dabbled into Igbo political affairs she misfired and misfired big time. That she could so easily buy into the lies that the Igbos are never united and that they cannot unite to produce or demand Igbo President or President of Igbo extraction, is shocking. 

When I heard what she said I refused to believe it until I saw it with my ‘korokoro eyes’ in Vanguard Newspaper Online. Hear her, "Igbo people cannot unite if, for example, we say we want an Igbo president. And then we're talking about Biafra. There is a lot of political work we need to do in the southeast. "We need to do a lot of rethinking on how we strategise politically before we can talk about Biafra." 

That one of our best falls into the trap and narrative that the Igbos cannot unite to work for a President of Igbo extraction is troubling. That the Igbo cannot unite to produce a president for Nigeria is a fallacy that has been debunked severally but it persists because lies repeated becomes the truth. 

First, let me prove that neither the Yoruba nor the Hausa-Fulani were ever united in their quest for President of Nigeria, yet these ethnic nationalities have produced presidents for Nigeria. Let me start with the Yoruba. In 1998 after the death of the head of state General Sani Abacha and General Abdulsalami Abubakar became head of state and was determined to return the country to civilian rule, the powers that be decided that the presidency would be ceded to the Yoruba to assuage their anger over the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election in which a Yoruba man, Chief MKO Abiola was poised to win. 

At the run-up to the 1999 general elections, the vast majority of the Yoruba were members of Alliance for Democracy (AD) while very few of their leaders were in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or the APP. As earlier said, the majority of the Yoruba leaders were in AD and the Yoruba socio-cultural group Afenifere was the guiding hand of the party. The AD was left with two choices in picking its presidential candidate. The choice was between former governor of Oyo State, Chief Bola Ige and former minister of Finance and

former secretary to the government of the federation, Chief Olu Falae. AD choose Falae as its presidential candidate. The Yoruba was united behind Falae the presidential candidate of the AD, but did the candidate of the ‘united Yoruba’ win the 1999 presidential election? Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who was chosen as the presidential candidate of the PDP and a Yoruba like Falae was viewed with disdain in Yoruba land, but the reject of the Yoruba eventually emerged the Yoruba President of Nigeria in 1999 and in 2003. 

There is no doubt in my mind that if Nigeria’s power brokers or those who determine who gets what in Nigeria decide that the 2023 presidency should go to the South East as they did for the South West in 1999 that we will get a president of Igbo extraction. All it takes is for all the political parties to choose their presidential candidates from the South East or persons of Igbo extraction. 

What people call lack of unity is the tendency for many Igbos to join the race when a particular position is zoned to the South East. That is not lack of unity. That is democracy in action. Igbos come from a culture built on democracy, unlike the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba leaders who were products of societies where Emirs and Obas control the levers of power and economy. Igbos famed republicanism notwithstanding, they have also shown capacity to support a leader they trust with one mind. They did it for Chief Emeka Ojukwu between 1967 and 1970 and for Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe in the First and Second Republics. 

Former President of Nigeria, Late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was never rejected by the Igbo in all the elective positions he sought when he was alive. The Igbo town unions were with Zik with one mind. Because of Zik, most Igbos supported NCNC. In the Second Republic when Zik was in NPP the whole of Igbo land was with him. 

Since 1999 the Igbo has been united in voting overwhelmingly for the PDP and PDP presidential candidates. Are you telling me that if PDP chose an Igbo to be its presidential candidate in 2023, the Igbo will suddenly reject the PDP or such a candidate? Didn’t the Igbo support former Governor Peter Obi as the vice-presidential candidate of the PDP in 2019? Did Obi lose any Igbo state? So what is all these noises about Igbo lacking unity to produce president? 

The Igbos are competitive people. When you zone a position to them, you can bet that thousands would show up, but that is also good for political parties, they would make lots of money selling forms and in the end only one candidate per party. It also shows that Igbo people are confident people who believe that they have the capacity to lead and that no family or individual has the monopoly of providing leadership and is all based on the principle of “Igbo ama eze!” The competitive nature of the Igbo could be misconstrued as a lack of unity. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

In 2019 many political parties choose their presidential candidates from the North including the PDP and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), yet no one accused the North of disunity because Atiku Abubakar of PDP and others of northern extraction challenged President Muhammadu Buhari of APC for the right to occupy the Presidential Villa. 

If we check further back, in 1979 the presidential candidates of northern extraction that participated in that election include Shehu Shagari of NPN, Waziri Ibrahim of GNPP and Aminu Kano of PRP, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe of NPP and Chief Obafemi Awolowo of UPN were the only Southerners in the race. The North had three presidential candidates in the election, yet no one accused the north of being disunited. Of course, Shehu Shagari won the election despite two of his ‘brothers’ competing against him. 

If in 2023 many Igbos pick presidential tickets of their parties they would be unfairly accused of lack of unity. That the Igbos cannot unite to fight for President of Nigeria is the cheap blackmail against the race by its detractors, which is understandable because these detractors are also after what Ndigbo is after, but where some Igbos like Chimamanda, began to accept that fallacy, it becomes very worrisome.

 As the 2023 general elections draw close the Igbo should expect more of such illogic against them, like the one someone posted the other day, saying that the Igbo must choose between Biafra and Presidency because they can’t have both. And I told him unequivocally that if North that has Islamic Caliphate seeking Boko Haram that has killed over 6000 Nigerians and created 3million IDPs could produce the president in 2015 and 2019 respectively and Yoruba with OPC could produce Yoruba president in 1999 and 2003 respectively, I don’t see why Igbos cannot produce the president in 2023 even with IPOB agitating for secession, referendum or whatever caught its fancy!

All that matters right now is for all the registered political parties to zone their presidential tickets in 2023 to the South East and the unity of the zone would become obvious to the doubting Thomases!