Our Reporter, New York
Veteran journalist, Chuks Iloegbunam, has said that no Igbo politician has any leverage in this dispensation to influence a political solution for the Nnamdi Kanu case and that the Igbo are barely tolerated within the government.
The former Chief of Staff to Governor Peter Obi made the comments during an exclusive interview with Rudolf Okonkwo on 90MinutesAfrica on Sunday.
“In this dispensation that we are in, any Igbo person telling you that he’s influential in Abuja, tell him to find the address of a good psychiatrist,” Iloegbunam said.
“If you don’t have something and go about claiming that you have it, you are living a life of pretense and deceiving yourself.”
Speaking further, the author of the biography of the late General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi titled, “Ironsi: The Army, Power, and Politics,” accused the South-East governors of not being vocal about Igbo interests in Nigeria because of fear of losing reelection as a result of federal interference.
“A lot of these governors you are seeing are looking at the next gubernatorial election. If they upset the apple cart, will they be reelected? Don’t you know how elections go in this country?”
“After standing under the sun and rain to cast your vote, one man will just sit down somewhere and write and announce results, and they will tell you to go to court. If you believe that scenario is a possibility, you will be doing everything to save yourself from being hit over the head when election time comes.”
Mr. Iloegbunam expressed worry over the refusal of many Igbo elites and leaders to speak up for their people because they desperately want to shield themselves from what he described as the “hatred against the Igbo” by other regions of the country.
The publisher noted it is now in the scheme of things for political elites to deny being Igbo just so “you distance yourself from the hated ethnic group so that that hatred will not impact much on you.”
The journalist cited examples of the discrimination and violence meted out to Igbo people in Lagos during the last presidential election when they were asked to go back to their region if they wouldn’t vote for a particular political party. According to him, the hatred against the Igbo people has made many of them choose to go silent on important issues in order to shield themselves.
“A lot of people know that the Igbo are a hated people, and if they don’t want that hatred to rub off on them, they go into silence mode when something comes up that they should speak about,” he said.
