HAVING THE SOUTHEAST GOVERNORS UNDER ONE ROOF IS RECIPE TO PEACE IN IGBOLAND.
The July 2nd Enugu meeting of the five Southeast governors and subsequent declarations by them is one political nut that has proved so hard to crack over the years. Past Southeast Governor’s conventions had one or two or even at times three governors excusing or recusing themselves over flimsy or whimsical reasons and only sending representatives.
Albeit the last southern Governor’s meeting in Abeokuta, Ogun state was not fortunate enough to grace the distinguished presence of Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State. His missing out in that Abeokuta meeting where Igbo agenda was expected to rub shoulders amidst multi ethnic congregation was heavily criticized by many including this writer as falling short of leadership, egotistical, selfish and unstatesmanly.
But having this Enugu meeting with the full compliment of all the governors this time around was without doubt sending a strong message that a new era in Igbo political capitalization is here with us.
This meeting of all the governors of the Southeast is important to some of us who can no longer sleep with our eyes closed because of existential threats posed by the One Nigeria seeming moribund project. That Nigeria is no longer working for its people is not a conjecture any more but very real.
The North of Nigeria are not assured anymore of the certainty of their future in Nigeria’s geographical boundaries as their hitherto bragging rights of size, homogeneity, political wizardry and domination has melted like wax.
The Yorubas even though decorated with power are patently shivering with uncertainty occasioned by their inability to govern our heterogeneous diversity of the vast geographical expression called Nigeria.
The Yorubas and their emilokon government are shooting themselves on the legs daily while concomitantly plunging the government they head into animated political voodooism.
They are surreptitiously looking for a rescue now from the third tripodial of the Nigeria project to prevent clutching the hubris of self annihilation.
But for the Igbo ethnic group to play an effective tripodial role of engineering a balance of equity, equilibrium and fairness with the two supervening major groups of Arewa North and the Oduduwa scion, it must first put its house in order.
Therefore, the Enugu The Enugu meeting will have the capacity to engender a critical leadership in Alaigbo and bring sanity among the cynics and the skeptical that the the governors will lead a new legitimate order that will restore confidence and peace in the Southeast.
It’s gladdening to read that part of the Enugu declarations was to demand from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from continued detention of the Nigeria state.
The governors making a joint demand for his release has been the single missing link and perhaps the major reason why a political settlement of the issue has lingered all this while without achievement.
Now finally, with the governors joining hands to speak with one voice, the bull has finally been held by its horns. All righteousness will be fulfilled when eventually the governors march to Aso Rock to make a joint demand for the pardon and unconditionally release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
It will also be pertinent to add the snippet that it took similar congregation of the governors like this in 2018 for IPOB to be declared a terrorist organization. This Governor’s assembly must therefore rise in unison to deescalate tension in the Southeast by doing the needful.
It needs no more emphasis that without peace in the Southeast, the nation’s economic capitalization will be on the trajectory towards decapitation. The time to begin a reconstruction of peaceful coexistence to our multi-ethnicity to ensure prosperity is right now. The ball is once more in the court of our governors to bring that much elusive peace to all of us.
Dr. Engr Odo Ijere.
