Any close observer of goings-on in the South East cannot but be alarmed at the hellish situation and the rest of us are looking away. Our gaze and exertions are concentrated on politics when gloom overcasts the land. Listening to politicians and outspoken members of the elite clubs, you have the wrong impression that all is well. Yet reports and videos say otherwise. Not even the pro-active NGOs have drawn attention to the nation’s hara-kiri. When any part of the body is ill it is the whole of it that is ill and will know pains. As it is with the body so is it with a nation: When any component part of it is unsettled and in grievous harm’s way or is already entrapped in it, it is the entire country that suffers. It is existential conundrum to which we have not paid thoughtful attention. The posture of Buhari was that it is strong-arm tactics that would teach the agitators in the South East the lessons of their lives. He was unable to distinguish between agitators for freedom and agitators to enslave and dispossess—the bandits and kidnappers. Those pressing for freedom are the “Biafrans.” For most of the eight years that Buhari was the Sheriff we witnessed violent, murderous campaigns waged by the agitators. And he thought he should pay them back in kind with firmness that may include military operations, which I consider problem of poor human management.

In my intervention in the matter at a time, I recommended that Buhari should consider an exploratory meeting with three or so representatives of the agitators led by Nnamdi Kanu. He should get Dr. Christopher Kolade assisted by his right-hand man Professor Pat Utomi he esteems highly and trusts to go to the East and fetch Nnamdi Kanu who would be accompanied by Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, for whom Nnamdi Kanu had tremendous respect and could hardly look in the face and perhaps joined by Senator Ababribe who was already in Abuja in the Senate at the time or even Prof. Charles Soludo. Kolade was going to fetch Nnamdi Kanu armed with his disarming sense of humour that can melt a heart of stone; Utomi was to provide the intellectual powerhouse.

When all are seated in the appropriate conference room, Buhari would emerge from his office accompanied by Boss Mustapha (SGF), Chief of Staff Abba Kyari, and Femi Adesina, with his two fists already hitting the air. In a display of mock pugilism, as his guests rise to pay customary homage, he blurts out, inviting Nnamdi Kanu forward for a duel: “Who amongst you here is Nnamdi Kanu? You want to fight; I hear you want to fight; come out, let us fight.” He cuts the image of Mohammed Alli at that moment. The guests; everyone, surprised would say,

“Your Excellency, Sir, don’t do that. No, don’t do that, Sir!” It was all going to be a joke to relax everyone, and everyone would laugh heartily and say to one another: “So, this man is a human being after all! It is from a far that we see him as stiff, rigid and unsmiling; so he is this approachable.” After banters, Buhari would say to Nnamdi: “Young man, what’s your problem? I want to listen to you.” Dr. Kolade would then take the floor and give reasons he had gone to fetch Nnamdi Kanu. After discussions that would last no more than 45minutes in such a relaxed and cordial atmosphere, Buhari would then say: “All right, you know what? Young man Kanu, go and give me a paper on your vision of Nigeria. Do we then say we meet again in three weeks time or is it a month? The choice is yours. When you are ready, Dr. Kolade will keep me posted.” He brings the meeting to a close; there is laughter; there is shaking of hands. He asks Boss Mustapha to collect Nnamdi Kanu’s number. With that encounter, Buhari would have made a lasting impression on Kanu and his colleagues. Tension would have gone down. We would have been on the way to resolving the conundrum and preventing the escalation in violence. It would be seen, indeed proven that to jaw jaw is infinitely better than to war, war, as they say. My suggestion certainly fell on deaf airs and the situation was mishandled. Uncertainties have persisted since then.

I have just seen two most troubling videos. In one, IPOB enforcers of “Stay-at-home” order went from community to community and to a school where they flogged pupils because their parents did not keep them at home which was a violation of the order. In another community, they threw away goods, scattered farm produce such as maize and many other wares on display in a village market. They were going from one end of the market to kick and upturn containers of poor market women, spilling the contents on the ground. Another video showed Aba market in a desolate state. Aba is the industrial hub in the South-East. Most places were thrown into Thomas Hobbes’ famous world of uncertainty which he described as life outside normal society—solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. IPOB pressing for excision of five states of Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, and Abia from Nigeria gave themselves the right to impose severe punishment on anyone who ignored the order of staying at home; no one should be seen outside his abode, an adaptation of Mahatma Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience. While that of Gandhi was Nonviolent Resistance to get the British out of India, the IPOB’s is violent campaign. India eventually got its independence on August 15, 1947.

It became frightening when the Biafran agitation deteriorated into locking down towns and villages on May 30 of every year in commemoration of the declaration of the independence of the Republic of Biafra by Odumegwu Ojukwu. IPOB followed the compulsory marking of the anniversary with Monday restrictions. What is in force today is “Stay-at-home” order for the first week of every month. The IPOB high command believes this is not enough. It has issued a circular with effect that from August 5 the restrictions will be extended to two weeks.

Today, life in the South East is more nightmarish for indigenes and other residents of the five states of Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo and Abia states than those who live outside the Zone can imagine. The governors of the five states met in Abuja during the week and resolved to table their grave concerns before President Tinubu. These states are now probably no better than prison enclaves in which two governments contest for power. One government is official, deriving its authority from Nigeria and from the Nigerian citizens. The other government is illegal under the Nigerian law, but it is, nevertheless, obeyed and as effective, and may be considered even more effective than the official government in place, run armed with constitutional instrument, the grundnorm. This unofficial government has been nicknamed UNGUN Known Men, deriving the nickname from the corruption of Unknown Gunmen which the police are wont to blame for mayhem anywhere in Nigeria there is an incident by trigger-happy and fleeing hoodlums.

From the relatively peaceful states of the South-West and South- South, and from the states of the North-West, North-East and North-Central, grappling with kidnapping, banditry and terrorism, it is as though the South Eastern states zone is a huge movie screen where the scenes are constantly changing from melodramatic to everyday tragedy. The nation has lived with the “Sit at home on Monday” order of the guerilla fighters for the Republic of Biafra for a while. The residents live in fear of them and obey them. Federal soldiers and police brought in to overpower them have been unable to record much success. They are handcuffed by history. That history is the Nigerian Civil war (1967-1970) in which the Igbos suffered horrendous human and material devastation. Running over the South East again to forcibly quell yet another Biafran secessionist movement 56 years after the first one, the wound of which has not completely healed, would almost amount to genocide on the part of Nigeria. Every Igbo man and woman would naturally rise in defence of their land and the result would be more catastrophic than the carnage of the Biafran war of 1967-1970. We may not rule out many donning the toga of Professor Wole Soyinka and wearing the boot of Dr. Tai Solarin joining them. While Soyinka was kept away in solitary cell, Tai Solarin was going in and out of jail house. He was visiting Nzegwu’s mother at Okpanam in today’s Delta to check on her wellbeing.

Now, the guerilla fighters have gone one more step forward to claim authority in the South Eastern states. As said earlier, they have extended their Sit-at-home directive to one week and from next month to two weeks. Trade, business, industry and social lives have been damaged under the Monday hammer. Many sick prevented from accessing hospitals and clinics for health remedies and healing have died at home.

In consequence of fear for their lives, many Igbos are migrating to comfort zone states. Cross River, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Delta and South-West states, especially Lagos and Ibadan, are their goals. This is creating immigrant pressure and population swells on the budgets of these states, with resultant tension. Igboland has a huge population crisis caused by many factors one of which is the landmass. The landmass is small and has not, even if it can, ably supported the ever growing population. Another factor is ancestral land holding culture which is not keeping pace with modern land demand and land use dynamics. Thus, there is the natural trigger instinct in the average South-Easterner, man and woman, to immigrate to other parts of Nigeria and overseas where unrestrained, can spread his or her unfettered wings and find life’s fulfillment.

The unknown gunmen question does not appear to have anything to do with business, commerce and industry. It is a pressure for inclusion in federal architecture. What is worrying about the new development in the South East, however, is that the five governors seem helpless and appear to have no authority over freedom fighters in their respective states. One governor came out to say he would revoke the licences of companies which obeyed the freedom fighters. It can be assumed the companies included banks, petrol filling stations, and retail markets and more. Imagine the emergent Nnewi industrial centre and Aba, the well known hub of industry and commerce, shutting down! Soon after the governor said this, the freedom fighters went to a public school which opened, got the poor children and teachers to lie on the ground and flogged them before sending them home. In a retail market, they opened gunfire for several minutes. The traders fled without their cash takings or wares. The message is clear: Will the traders like to remain in the state where they cannot eke out a living? Which parent will send a child to school when the unknown gunmen have decreed they should not come to school? Who will be so foolhardy to disobey them? The decision to comply with the order will be based on the natural philosophy that the end of obedience is protection and protection is the assurance of obedience. Who does not obey armed robbers tearing into the house he or she built from his or her sweat when there is no state presence to protect him or her from the invaders? In this scenario, the South East may lapse deeper into newer levels of Biafra agitation which may find sympathy in other regions! This points in one direction only and that is Fire on the Mountain—on the Nigerian roof if we are not careful! What is President Bola Tinubu to do in the circumstance?

What is the way forward? First of all, we must recognise the purpose of life on earth and the unwavering principles governing life. They are the perfect Laws of Creation. In the enlightenment of these times, we learn how important these Laws are in our lives— for peace and harmony, and joyful collaborative swinging. The greatest of what undergirds the principles is love. They encapsulate the Love of the Most High. Is it not an age-long saying that it is love that makes the world go round? In The Light of Truth beaming its rays on the eternal principles, the Laws of Creation, says: “The spirit of earthman must now become alive and strong in the Will of God, to serve which he is allowed to dwell in this Creation. The time has come! No longer are any enslaved spirits tolerated by God! And man’s self-will shall be broken unless he is prepared to adjust himself to the primordial Laws of God which He placed into Creation. To these also belongs the Law of Movement, which demands unhampered progress in development. The extension of knowledge remains connected with this! The knowledge of Creation, spiritual knowledge, is the real purport of life!”

Can we be so bereft of love and humanity that we are unperturbed looking away in a situation a section of our society is under siege of terror? If we want progress, before we have a national crisis on our hands, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and the President may wish to do a little review of this IPOB problem and give it a simple but effective solution.
Full discourse of the subject next week.

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