WIKE, IPOB & NNAMDI KANU: HE’S A FOOL WHOSE SHEEP RUNS AWAY TWICE

By Chris Obiako

In school I was taught that there’s a difference between insanity and personality disorder.

It’s better to be insane, I was told, because insanity can be cured. But the same cannot be said of personality disorder. Personality disorder once established in the mind, clings like an intractable fungus. It becomes part of the thought processes, and trying to remove it would be akin to cutting down a tree to eliminate the fungus.

Personality disorder, regrettably, dies with the host, entangled for life in the brain’s functioning.

Igbos are distinct. Igbos are discrete. Igbos are gold fish, a gold fish has no hiding place. Igbos are one of the most revered ethnic groups in Africa. They are synonymous with success. They are regarded as the tribe with the Midas touch.

Likened to the Jews – who against all odds advanced fastest in the shortest period after the devastation brought about by the Holocaust – Igbos progressed despite an unprecedented resentment and trepidation borne out of envy and pettiness by other ethnic groups in Nigeria.

Igbos were bruised and battered in an excruciating and heart-wrenching civil war that rendered their homelands desolate, their farmlands barren, their families scattered, their hopes shattered. Yet, they rose from the rubbles of the devastatingly crippling circumstances – with just 20 pounds (in their once booming bank accounts) – spread their tentacles across Nigeria, and hit heights unimaginable.

As a result of the lessons derived from the war, the Igbos became as wise as the serpent, and as cunning as the tortoise.

To contemplate, or insinuate, therefore, that an Igbo person is suffering from personality disorder is completely bonkers.

I’m an Igbo man, proudly so. I was born and bred in the village, somewhere in the South East of Nigeria. It won’t out of place, invariably, to posit that I have the endearing and captivating qualities of an Igbo man. When I see white, I know it’s white. What another ‘specie’ will stand without seeing, I’ll sit down and have a clear view of.

I was privileged to listen to Nnamdi Kanu’s messages at the height of the #EndSars face-off. My Yoruba friends sent different versions of Kanu’s animalistic and barbaric submissions to me. After going through them, I was perplexed, defeated and deflated. To imply that the messages smacked of idiocy is an understatement.

I heard Kanu loud and clear (during a phone-in programme on Radio Biafra) urging his followers to go and burn Bola Tinubu’s property, go after police men and soldiers and kill them etc. Two or three of his members called in from Oyigbo (or Obigbo), in Rivers State, and Kanu told them to enter Oyigbo, go after soldiers and policemen, kill them, destroy things – in other words, render the place ungovernable. I have him on tape, in case anybody has any doubt.

It was the same vociferous and vicious pronouncement the IPOB leader is known for over the years. It was unmistakable. It was as ardent and violent as always.

To the Yorubas, it meant nothing. Fed up with Tinubu’s manipulation, intimidation and exploitation over the decades, an average Yoruba person has come to grips with the reality that to love a king is not bad, but a king who loves you is better.

That explained why millions of Igbos living and doing their businesses all over Yoruba land were spared the trauma of running from pillar to post to safeguard their lives and property.

But that cannot be said of Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike. As a ‘Trojan’ who has fought battles (physically, emotionally and mentally) with assorted political, religious and fundamental opponents (ask Rotimi Amaechi and co.), Wike strikes while the iron is hot.

Unquestionably, Wike is a ‘monster’. Wike is a war-monger. Wike is a fighter. Wike is a lion. Wike is a time-bomb waiting to explode.

When the Rivers State governor smells mayhem, calamity and disaster, he knows what to do to nip them in the bud. Sleeping with two eyes closed is not in Wike’s DNA. He does not drop his guard – at any time – in all seasons. He was the wrong guy, undoubtedly, for IPOB members to pick on.

With five soldiers and three policemen ambushed (Kanu’s exact words) and slaughtered in Oyigbo, the Rivers State governor was faced with two options: turn away from IPOB’s threatening complexity, or conquer their mystery by battling with it.

He opted for the latter.

The problem with Kanu and his legion of brain-washed addle-heads is that they seldom sit in their closet to do proper analysis, research, checks and balances before they hit the streets. My father used to tell me that before I engage any opponent in a fight, I must first look at their potentials. If I discover that such an opponent is poles ahead of me in most ramifications, engaging in such a fight will amount to an effort in futility.

And my father was right.

Before IPOB went on their meaningless and clueless destruction, devastation and killing in Oyigbo, I expected the IPOB leader (who is purported to be a prophet) to have consulted his hallowed ‘mirror’ through which he sees and predicts events and incidents. In the absence of his ‘oracle’ what stopped him from seeking advice from people? Why did he not ask questions? Why did he not make consultations?

That is my angst with Kanu. He never learns any lesson. He is unapproachable. He’s unreachable. He’s unteachable. A leader who deludes himself that he knows it all will certainly derail before he knows it. That Kanu has found himself under such desolate and disastrous circumstances, over and over again, is hardly a surprise.

And his myopic followers are worse. A man sits in the comfort of his cozy house in the UK, with his beautiful wife and children, and commands you to go into a scuffle with a war aficionado like Wike, and you stupidly obliged. Then, when the consequences of your suicidal blunder spreads like wild fire, you start raising false alarms.

It may not sound pleasant to the ears of IPOB apologists. But truth must be told.

In today’s Nigeria, if there’s any man Kanu should be fraid of, it’s not Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s sleeping-on-duty President. It’s not the influential and rapacious Tinubu. It’s not the country’s inept Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu. It’s not even unskilled Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai.

That man is Nyesom Nwike, the sitting Rivers State governor.

Wike did not say you should not agitate for Biafra.

Wike never said you should not send inciting and infuriating messages that has set millions of your brainless IPOB members on collision course with Nigeria’s law enforcement agents.

Wike never said you should not make reckless and clueless statements and give go-maim-kill-and-destroy commands to millions of your short-sighted followers which has sent thousands of promising and bouyant Igbo youth to their early graves.

Wike never said you should not gyrate the globe and solicit for funds from Igbo people in diaspora like Raphael Uwazurike did.

All Wike is saying is that if you want a war for the actualisation of Biafra, stay clear of Rivers State. What Wike is saying is that Rivers State is a hot spot for trouble shooters, hoodlums, rascals, miscreants and rubble-rousers.

Most importantly, what Wike is saying (like he told Amaechi and co.) is, if you want trouble, I give it to you double.

I’m not anti-Biafra. I’ve emphasised this at hundreds of fora (TV, radio, conferences, articles, books etc.). Biafra is a bonafide and legitimate course which nobody, ethnic group, or force can wish away.

But having read more than ten books on the ill-fated Nigeria-Biafra civil war, I have developed a template over what I hear or apply, especially as it pertains to the Biafra ‘leaders’. I don’t go about trying to convince anybody to key into my mindset, but I’ve made it clear to my children and those close to me that, “He is a fool whose sheep runs away twice.”

For any Igbo man to convince me about his sterling qualities, or his undying love for my victimised and traumatised (Igbo) race, he MUST show some proof of honesty and transparency. He MUST apply decorum in his approach to the agitation – distinct and different from Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu’s.

I don’t want to mention Raphael Uwazurike’s antecedents, which led to his retiring to Owerri, where he has bought over most of the property belonging to a former frontline contractor.

The poignant questions remain, after decades of Uwazurike’s campaign against Nigeria’s government over discrimination, intimidation etc.; after his noise about marginalization against Ndi Igbo; after his globe-trotting adventure including trips to the U.S., UK, Canada etc.; after thousands of his senseless Movement For The Actualisation of Biafra (MASSOB) followers had lost their lives while agitating for the Biafra mandate, what happened?

Where are all the donations (running into millions of dollars) raised by Ndi Igbo in the Diaspora? Where is the insurance cover for thousands of Igbos whose family members have been thrown into despair as a result of their untimely deaths occasioned by their involvement with MASSOB? What did MASSOB achieve after decades of meetings, rallies, conferences, campaigns, noise-making? What exactly?

Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, was a scholarly maestro. He was a brave soldier, a warrior and an outstanding individual. When he returned to Igbo land in the 70s, I was a student at Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha. I trekked from Onitsha to Enugu, then, Nnewi, just to be part of the millions who trooped out to welcome him.

To every Igbo man, then, Ojukwu was the harbinger of their existence, their messiah, their talisman. To them, he was the definition of a class act.

But that was before I read more than ten books on the reckless, aimless and brainless war he master-minded, against the advice of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and hundreds of Igbo statesmen and elders.

That war devastated the Igbo race. That war rendered every Igbo man poor, until we started a rebuilding process that is still ongoing fifty years after the war.

For now, Igbos are still standing on one foot in the political, administrative and economic terrains of the Nigerian society. They are still struggling to convince everybody in Nigeria that they’re not the demons the Hausas/Fulanis/ Yorubas painted them to be as a result of the January 1966 coup and the war that ensued afterward.

I’m not saying Biafra is not feasible, but we have to be realistic about the fact that it may not happen in our time. It may not happen in Kanu’s time.

Ojukwu was more cultured than Kanu. Ojukwu was more educated. Ojukwu was more exposed. Ojukwu was more influential. The Biafra leader was more articulate. Yet, not all the king’s horses, nor all the king’s men could enable Ojukwu get the almighty Biafra mandate.

I don’t know if Kanu knows the type of task he has on his hands over the Biafra cause. The task is herculean. For him to convince the Igbo elite about his credentials, he must apply common sense. For now, I don’t think he has any.

For Kanu to make any meaningful impact, he MUST change his tactics.

He MUST work with the elders in Igbo land.

He MUST learn from Ojukwu’s mistakes.

He MUST convince some of us that he is not another gold-digger like Uwazurike.

He MUST stop the shedding of the blood of innocent Igbo youth.

Most importantly, he MUST return to Nigeria, and lead the agitation, and we follow him behind.

The #EndSars protests is not an IPOB or Igbo struggle. Nobody has ever said that. But when looters and touts use that avenue as a benchmark to be unruly and spread bedlam and mayhem, the necessary measure must be applied to put them in check. That was exactly what Nyesom Wike did.