OPINION: This is how selfish Igbo people are
Posted by Factnews | 7 years ago | 3,489 times
-Dannie Ubani
We can be historical without necessarily repeating history. You can instigate and propagate your hate campaign against the Igbos without necessarily bandying falsehood in the open. In other climes where sanity prevails facts are said to be sacred but not here especially, in this era when sound reasoning has fled to Sambisa Forest and men have lost their sense of history.
Why do I say this? I was at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport within the week waiting for my Owerri-scheduled flight. Typical of everything Nigeria, the flight was delayed for about an hour. Around me were some other passengers who were engrossed in a discussion in which the word - IGBOS - featured prominently. Their accent, long kaftan and befitting caps, suggested their ethnicity. With the death sentence, though couched in quit notice, still hanging on our neck, and realizing that I was in Abuja which is part of North, I could not but get my ears attuned to their discussion. Accuse me of eavesdropping if you like but as the Igbo would say - an old women can never be at ease when dry bone is mentioned in a proverb.
True to my fear, their topic of discussion was Ndi Igbo. Our many grievous sins. Our ingratitude. How Biafra has been engrained in our psyche. The bile in me was rising but I took all these calmly pretending as if I was not following their discussion. They continued until they accused us of being too tribalistic and not having faith in the Nigerian project. No! I have had more than enough. Uninvitedly and even impudently, I intruded into their talk. I was determined to curb their loud ignorance by teaching them, and that I did.
"I am a Nigerian of Igbo extraction. I am proud of who I am and my history" - I told them. I went ahead to educate them about the unassailable sacrifices Igbos have made and are still making for the unity of this country. I made them to know that if there is any tribe that is much committed to the unity of this country it is the Igbo. At this point they made feeble attempts to counter me not because they had facts but trust me I came with sucker-punch:
"Do you know of one Chima Ubani?"
"No" - they said without any hesitation.
"Of course, I don't expect that you would" - I said.
"Do you know a certain Prof Ango Abdullahi?" I asked them.
"Yes"- they chorused.
"Ok. Good. He was the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria when four students of Hausa origin of the same university were gunned down during students' protest on May 23rd 1986. Prof Ango Abdullahi while addressing the press said that 'ONLY' four students were killed. The word -ONLY- angered the nigerian populace especially the students, and this triggered another serious riot across the nation. One of the schools where the protest was very serious was University of Nigeria, Nsukka. This drew the ire of the Babangida junta. At the end, what did Babangida do? None of the northern students who started the riot was arrested. No Yoruba student was arrested. Trucks of fierce and gun-trotting soldiers were deployed to Nsukka, and Chima Ubani and eight of his colleagues were arrested and charged to a military tribunal with the capacity of passing a capital punishment on them. I took the intervention of God through Falana to extricate them from the hangman. When they returned to school, they were rusticated".
By now they were stupefied. Ord. Ezemuo is not a man that would allow such a golden moment to slip of. I fired the more but this time throttling on gear number 5.
"Now think about this" - I pressed further. "The police killed four Hausa students on the invitation of a Hausa Vice Chancellor in the North. An Igbo man in far away East staked his life and risked his future to fight the injustice. That is how tribalistic and selfish Igbos are".
Now came the announcement - this is the boarding announcement for Air Peace Flight...to Owerri. All passengers on this service are to proceed for boarding. And Ord Ezemuo left his adult students there and proceeded for boarding.
-Dannie Ubani
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