Igbophobia, Criminality and the Nigerian Army
By Terhemba Osuji
It is obvious to even the blind that the agitation for Biafra is in the nonviolence phase, yet buried in all the usual hogwash about providing security, is the direct and coded message to imagined rebel secessionist armed forces aka IPOB/Massob agitators that they will use the rules of engagement to disperse all peaceful demonstrations in the Nigerian army's press release about the new operation, a clear case of paranoia which must be labeled as Igbo phobia.
From even the most casual observations it is obvious that nothing mobilizes Nigerians or its security forces more than taming Igbo in all spheres of existence and dousing any calls for Biafra no matter how insignificant or pedestrian. It is frightfully obvious that the agitation at its present stage does not have universal Igbo support nor does it have the force of arms to make itself ungovernable yet they Nigerian army resorts to actions tantamount to smashing a fly with a sledgehammer.
Many of the security personnel are blind to the marginalization and systemic neglect fueling the agitation but are intuitively trained to start issuing threats of suppression inherited from an era were pacification and extermination of the Igbo was a norm.
The security forces are highly and morbidly sensitive to even whispers of the word and default to issuing press releases, from the army press corps to unofficial individual threats by army officers of Hausa Fulani extraction at barracks in Onitsha and Enugu, about their determination to squash any discontent with gleeful reminders of how the once brutally and systematically starved the region into submission.
However, despite the sadistic glee of this new targeted message that it will not tolerate nor does it want even peaceful demonstrations during this yuletide is the obvious need to provide security for the crime ridden South east particularly during these ember months.
The Igbo to their utter detriment have over the years fostered a culture where they end justifies the means in their mad desire and rush to acquire wealth to flaunt at weddings, burials and building majestic structures to oppress, intimidate and impress their tribe’s men.
Nothing incentivizes an Igbo man more than the need to acquire wealth to acquire base creature comforts, symbols of success and not to be tagged as an efulefu, onye eberibe, (lost, worthless, insignificant) in the committee of men.
This insidious cancer has forced maniacal and criminally driven young Igbo men and women to engage in every manner of criminality to acquire wealth including ritual killings, frauds, 419, drug trafficking to the orient and the all-encompassing societal menace of kidnapping for ransom, without honor; a once booming cottage industry.
The east was virtually on lockdown due to the incidents of kidnapping that targeted all asundry seemingly moving on to different groups of professionals like doctors and lawyers before some governors resorted to extreme extra ordinary measure to control the menace and bring it under some sort of control; it presently appears to have exported itself to Kaduna due to these measures.
The prevalence of this endemic criminality in the east over the years has fed the stereotypical myths held by the security forces about Igbo people and their agitations as self-serving and fed this culture of harassing conduct by the army.
A critical failure of the Igbo nation is its natural proclivity for individualism and refusal to subject itself, support or listen to a leadership. This failure on the political and familial level has allowed self-sabotage and an inability to self-police themselves back to law and order thereby invariably allowing for the Nigerian army and security forces to take matters into their hands for the protection of the South east.
It is my fervent hope that criminally minded and troublesome Igbo people and the blood thirsty Nigerian army restrain themselves to prevent any blood shed during this yuletide period.
Merry Christmas.
#generalmbota
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