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Ekwueme: their hero, our villain
By Obinna Ezugwu
Ekwueme
Weeks after his demise on November 19, 2017, the remains of Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, a former vice president who happens to be the highest-ranking Igbo office holder since the end of civil war in 1970, this week arrived Nigeria for final burial rights. He will be given state burial on Friday by the government of President MuhammaduBuhari, ironically the man who, for fear of him emerging president of the country in 1987, orchestrated a military coup that toppled the Shehu Shagari government in which the late politician served as vice president in 1983.
In retrospect, it would seem obvious that although the 1983 coup plotters had cited corruption as the reason for taking down the Shagari administration, the more compelling reason for their action was to preempt the possibility of Shagari handing over the reins of power to Ekwueme in 1987. This partly explains why he was put in prison and not even his being certified a saint by a panel set up by the Buhari military government could convince his jailers to let him out.
It is indeed apropos that it is a government led by the same Buhari, which without a doubt, is the most anti-Igbo in Nigerian history that is organizing a state Burial for Ekwueme.
Nonetheless, given that 2019 election is around the corner and Buhari will find a sufficient campaign point in the burial, it is easily explainable why the government is undertaking such venture despite its strong anti-Igbo antecedents.
Be that as it may however, one cannot doubt Ekwueme’s credentials for a state burial. He is a Nigerian hero, an honest elder statesman and a “true”patriot who throughout his lifetime stood for the country, albeit a country that consistently betrayed him for reason of his ethnicity. Nearly as much as he betrayed his own ethnic group in the interest of the country… it is such an irony.
While you can call Ekwueme a Nigerian hero, and you will find numerous points to back it up, same cannot be said of him in his native Igbo land. Ekwueme was no hero of the Igbo by any stretch, he was no Igbo leader. Of course, one is aware that not many will accept this argument, in fact it has the potential to trigger emotional responses, but when one thinks deeply and ask: “What is the essence of leadership? What are the responsibilities of leaders to their people?”One may be able to see things a little differently. Again, this is not aimed at speaking ill of the dead for truly speaking, Ekwueme lived and died a good man. But when it came to defending his people, he was often not there.
Leadership should answer to the needs of the people; the led,Ekwueme never saw himself as an Igbo man in a country where various political leaders are first champions of their own ethnic groups before they are national champions. There was Ahmed Bello who was first a Northerner, there was Chief Obafemi Awolowo who was first and foremost a Yoruba and stood firmly for Yoruba interest. Now we have a President Buhari who has not only made the point of his preference for the North by words of mouth, but is practically running a government by the North and for Northerners.
This is not an attempt at promoting ethnocentrism; absolutely not, but to point out that every leader has a primary constituency to which his first responsibility belongs, but Ekwueme sold his core constituency for nebulous nationalism that doesn’t mean anything to anybody. With a voice as weighty as his, he is not on record to have spoken for issues that concern the Igbo in a country where they suffer such monumental marginalization and discrimination.
There were many times the Igbo needed his voice; there were money occasions his words could have given reassurances, but he was as silent as the grave. I recall, to give a recent example, that Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, the rabble rousing young man who founded the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), paid him a highly publicized visit when he left prison, yet when Nigerian soldiers invaded his house killing lots of people and ransacking entire neighbourhoods… an operation whose full consequences have not yet been determined, Dr Ekwueme kept absolute silent. It is typical of him.
Again, when Buhari appropriated all the security appointments and didn’t give one to the South East and people like Chukwumeka Ezeife cried foul, Ekwueme didn’t say anything. He is a man who never says anything in the interest of the Igbo.
It is important to know where a man stands on issues. In today’s Nigeria, even a 5-year-old could tell where President Buhari stands on issues that relate to his Fulani ethnic group, especially given his response, or lack of it, to the herdsmen crisis.
The above is an extreme case of ethnic bias that is not expected of any leader, much less a head of state, but it is only to make a point. Truly, where did Ekwueme stand on the plight of the Igbo in the country? He took the stance of a nationalist. Nationalism is not ideally a bad thing, but in country where leaders are first heroes of their own people, it is ridiculous to think you can be the only hero of the entire country first before that of your constituency, especially when such constituency is one marked for butt kicking.
Whereas I could not have begrudged Ekwueme the right to be who he was, neither willI begrudge Nigeria the right to celebrate him as her hero,to me, he is not a hero. He is a man who betrayed his own people in order to answer a nationalist. That is why, even as he is being laid to rest, millions of Igbo are going about their normal businesses. Although the political elite in Igbo land are falling over themselves to pay respect to him, which is expected, he does no evoke emotions; it does not evoke electricity on the average Joe in the streets of Igbo land.
This was unlike when the late EmekaOjukwu, the eternal hero of his people; the general of his people’s army died and was being buried. His burial evoked emotions, he was truly mourned. Same could be said of the erudite Professor Chinua Achebe, a true son of Igbo land who used his pen to tell the world the Igbo story, and even the Uche Chukwumerije, the people’s senator.
Ekwueme’s plight as he matches on his lonely journey to eternityshould be an eye opener to other Igbo leaders, especially people like Orji UzoKalu who has become an embarrassment to Ndigbo. He has become the chief celebrator of his people’s killers if only that could fetch him a pot of porridge or so that he can continue to delude himself that he would be allowed to rule Nigeria. There is also James Ifeanyichukwu Nwobodo who as one of the few politicians of his generation still alive, ought to have transformed into an elder statesman guided by conscience in the mould of Balarabe Musa, but has instead mindlessly continued with partisan politics. There are indeed many of them in that mould, who have turned out to be huge disappointments to the younger and disillusioned Igbo generation who look up to their leaders but are continually betrayed by leaders who sell out so cheaply. To them, I say, a day of reckoning is nigh.
