Ever since the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) announced its intention to declare a week-long sit-at-home resistance in the entire Southeastern region, in the event that President Muhammadu Buhari remains adamant to the unconditional release of Mazi Onyendu Nnamdi Kanu before November 4, 2021, there has arisen a litany of hue and cry from Igbo and Nigerian Politicians alike, and also from their parasitic dependants. While many of them have condemned and endeavoured to construe this course of action as a very unhealthy one and a premeditated attempt to undermine the Anambra state governorship election billed to take place on November 6, 2021, others have also continued to argue that the development will not augur well for both Ndi Anambra and Ndi Igbo in general should it be allowed to prevail. Unarguably, though, while everyone is entitled to his or her own perspective to this vexed issue, irrespective of the spectrum involved, it is the humble view of the present writer that there is more for the people of Anambra state and Igboland in general to gain than to lose from observing this all-important sit-at-home resistance and its concomitant election boycott.
In the first place, there is practically no iota of sense in having the voting population of Anambra throng the various polling units spread across the state in an apparent attempt to cast their votes for a crop of politicians and elite alike who do not necessarily care about the masses in the real sense of the word, while Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who has so far genuinely demonstrated unwavering commitment and uncommon leadership towards the overall well-being of Ndigbo, continues to languish in incarceration for no known offence(s). In fact, it will be totally absurd, callous, insensitive and, above all, inhuman for the people of Anambra State to be going to the poll to ostensibly elect those who will in the long run continue to join forces with their Fulani slave masters at the federal level to perpetuate the oppression of Ndi Anambra and Ndigbo at large like never before. As it were, let it be taken henceforth that Ndigbo had hitherto and unknowingly been wallowing in the desert of ignorance and as such had traveled through this close path in the mistaken belief that they had been plying the tarred road to freedom from the shackles of internal colonialism. And for a people truly desirous of freedom from all forms of oppression, this is not the time to play ostrich, nor the time to play to the gallery. Rather, this is time to say what we mean, and mean what we say.
As it was in the then black South Africa, Ndi Anambra and Ndigbo as a whole should simply forget about voting and anything associated with election of the present crop of Igbo politicians into positions of authority for we are all a people under apartheid regime for now. Like the black South-Africans of the Apartheid era, Ndigbo cannot afford to abandon Onyendu Nnamdi Kanu at the risk of voting to perpetuate the same enslavement against which they have made sit-at-home resistance a weekly affair. Also, as the apartheid South-Africans would often rally round and clamour for the release of their great leader Nelson Mandela, so shall Ndigbo be doing to their own Mazi Onyendu Nnamdi Kanu – a great son and a leader in the true sense of the words.
As for the trite argument that Ndi Anambra will be doing themselves a great disservice by observing sit-at-home resistance on the same day of the governorship election and in the process boycotting the exercise, the fact of this line of thought is neither here nor there. For one, as long as the distorted Nigerian electoral system subsists, votes do not and will never count, and therefore the case of Anambra State is by no means an exception. And so, what the present crop of Igbo and Anambra political class would appear to be craving for is the mere presence of the electorate at the various polling units which will only avail them the much needed subterfuge to rely upon and be used to validate their already planned electoral frauds and to consolidate in the process their claims and counter-claims to victory. Little wonder that one of the key aspirants in the contest remarked in a recent interview with the Igbo service of British Broadcasting Corporation that whether the people of Anambra come out to vote or not a winner must surely be announced. As it stands, and one is inclined to ask, given this preconceived notion of Igbo politicians and elite alike, as clearly impressed upon them by their Fulani slave masters, why then should Ndi Anambra risk their lives going out to vote? Also, Why then flogging a dead horse? It would seem that by urging Ndi Anambra to go out to vote, these desperate politicians merely want to use their presence at the various polling units to legitimize their continued enslavement of the masses.
Furthermore, the idea that if Anambra people observe a sit-at-home resistance and as such fail to turn out to vote in the November 6, 2021 governorship election, that the APC-led federal government will cash in on the situation to foist its gubernatorial candidate, Mr. Andy Uba, on the state, is simply defeatist. As stupid as this contention is, those propagating it should have by now designed their own viable strategy to counteract such contingency – rather than using this bullshit to be blackmailing disinterested Anambra voters. Besides, it is a common knowledge that a Political Party and its candidate can successfully rig to win election only where they are popular and relatively well accepted. And given the Igbo people’s palpable aversion to Buhari-led government (due to its wicked marginalization and dehumanization of the people of the region) as well as the notorious antecedents of the Mr. Andy Uba in Anambra politics, it becomes patently impossible for the APC to find compatibility with the people of Anambra state. Hence, the deep-seated fact that Anambra state is far from being/becoming one of the Fulani colonies in Igbo land.
Regarding the assertion that a sit-at-home resistance that will occasion election boycott might invariably precipitate a declaration of a state of emergency in Anambra state, there is no gainsaying that this is entirely hogwash of no comparison. An imposition of emergency rule that justifies tenure elongation for the incumbent democratically elected government of Mr. Willie Obiano or any other elected officer of the state, does not in the real sense of it make any fundamental difference. For clarity, however, the norms as to guide such an alternative circumstance are all there in the operative 1999 constitution to apply in due course. Therefore, the threat or the use of threat of imposition of a state of emergency as a ploy to blackmail the people of Anambra state or coax them into undertaking the risk of going to vote for a set of people who obviously do not mean well for them does not in any way sound persuasively convincing and reasonable .
In any case, the bitter truth is that a credible gubernatorial election in Anambra State will appear to be attainable only in the event of the unconditional release of Mazi Onyendu Nnamdi Kanu. Anything otherwise is not only cosmetic but also sheer waste of time and resources – a fact the good people of Anambra state will demonstrate on November 6, 2021. A stitch in time, therefore, saves nine.
Onyiorah Paschal Writes From Awka, Anambra State
