Anyim and Igbo treachery, by Chikwendu Onu

The wild rumour may be frighteningly true. Ibos cannot run any complex system entrusted on them successfully without being shortchanged or stabbed by fellow Ibos. The rules of proof are simple: throw conscience and morality to the wind, work on the adage that a snake grows taller only when it swallows another. After all it is the end that justifies the means whether it is Godly or not. That is the unfortunate philosophy of an Ibo man, both in business and in politics.
Repeatedly in time past and even in the present, running any position either politically or otherwise successfully by an Ibo man without getting some blackmails and mischievous studs from fellow Ibo man has been so beyond the race that it appears congenital. Litanies of proof decorate the entire life of the people. Records are quickly pointed at that Ibos are the very first tribe in Nigeria to produce three Senate presidents in one political dispensation. It started with Evan(s) Enwerem to Chuba Ukadigbo and eventually settled with Anyim Pius Anyim from 1999 to 2013. Perhaps if not for Anyim’s sagacity, the Igbo would have produced four presidents of the Senate in four years. The number thinned down to two between 2003 and 2007 when Adophus Wabara and Ken Nnamani shared the position of Senate president zoned to the South East. That’s an unenviable record no other tribe boasts of in Nigeria. Surprisingly, the Ibos are culturally, socially and even politically homogenous. But David Mark from the North Central is serving his eight years tenure as president of the Senate unperturbed, not even from any other persons in the zone comprising Benue, Plateau, Kwara, Kogi, Niger and Nassarawa States, despite their geographical and socio-cultural heterogeneity.
Recent developments strongly suggest that there are powerful and determined conspiracies to re-enact the mischievous and treacherous tendencies the Igbo tribe is known for in the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation. For the very first time in the life of this country, an Igbo man is occupying the position of the SGF in Nigeria. That alone is enough for concerted efforts on the part of the people to ensure its success. But instead, sponsored publications in the media recently dominated front pages of newspapers that Peter Obi, Ben Obi or Ken Nnamani will soon take over the job of the SGF from the incumbent, Anyim. For want of acceptable reasons, they insinuated that Anyim slept off at one the functions attended by the President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. That allegation only exists in the imagination of the sponsors as it only amounts to giving a dog a bad name in other to hang it.
Those who know the Ibos and their antics very well will agree that it is all a calculated decision to deploy their vast economic and powerful resources to coerce the authority to remove Anyim and bring them in. Not that they are better focused, more distinguished or knowledgeable than Anyim. Unknown to most of them, Anyim is stronger, healthier and boasts of youthful energy than those who want to ease him off the SGF position. He stood a tougher pressure as president of the Senate how much less the SGF.
The same group has repeatedly sold the dummy that Anyim is interested in contesting the governorship of his state, Ebonyi, in 2015, all in attempt to bias the authority to remove him and create a room for them. I have interacted with Anyim, I have sounded him out a number of occasions, he had rejected offers in the past, including ministerial positions that are below his distinguished attainment. I can say that though I may not categorically state what Anyim would want to vie for in future but what I can stake my neck for is that he will never contest for the governorship of any state, including his own state, Ebonyi.
The aim of this write up is not to denigrate any person or group that is infra dig. But the point is that we have to recover all truths lost to patriotism if only as a solution towards making progress. It is this patriotic lies by the Ibos that make them think foolishly that they are superior to others. Our problem is greed, self-centredness and treachery. If they succeed in removing Anyim, God forbid, they can never prove to be more patriotic to Nigeria and Igbo than Anyim. I challenge all angling for Anyim’s position to play his own record side by side with that of Anyim before challenging his position.
. Onu is a freelance journalist writing from Abakaliki, Ebonyi State.