When
Kalu offered to end the menace of Boko Haram
By Odimegwu Onwumere
When a former Governor
of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu offered on November 12, 2012, to negotiate
the end of insurgency in the northern part of the country on Federal Government’s
(FG) behalf, many Nigerians took him seriously, not the government.
Kalu’s offer came
when it was obvious that the chief-nominee of Boko Haram for the dialogue, Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd), shamed to accept the offer. However, Kalu gave reasons
why he offered to be the agent of peace.
Through his Special
Assistant on Media, Emeka Obasi, Kalu did not blame Buhari, he rather said:
“General Buhari took a laudable step by opting out. For one who contested the
2011 presidential election, meeting with Boko Haram may be misconstrued because
many believe that the group’s activities heightened after the emergence of
President Goodluck Jonathan.”
With the killings on
March 18, 2013 in Kano through bomb blasts that took over one hundred lives and
damaged many property, numerous people, especially those from the southern part
of the country resident in north, have condemned the FG’s lackadaisical
approach to Kalu’s earlier benevolent bid.
Upon that President
Goodluck Jonathan had condemned the bomb blasts and described it as barbaric, these
Nigerians who are now living in fears in the dreadful northern region, said
that the president was just using mere rhetoric, instead of practical approach
such as Kalu’s.
The conviction of
many people is that the FG was only boasting that it would not be deterred from
what it claimed was its “strong-willed determination to overcome those who do
not mean well for the nation”, when it has become obvious that it has been
stampeded, but has only turned to using the media as its proffered measure of
fighting the hyper-terrorists, who were bent on incessant bombings and killings
of people and destruction of property.
Following that, it
could be deduced that Nigerians were not strongly convinced that President
Jonathan can win the war against terrorism in the country, no matter his
reassurances to the citizens and foreigners in the country that the Nigerian
Government will not relent in its efforts to bring terrorism to a halt in the
country.
In an e-mail to
this writer, a university don in one of the universities in the northern part
of the country who comes from the Igbo extraction wrote under anonymity and bemoaned
his fears that he doubts if the FG can halt the terrorists; but added that if
that would be, it might not be in the soon. He cried that they, none-natives in
the northern part of the country, can only walk the streets of the north, after
embarking on spiritual exercise. He wept that those of us residing outside the
north might not be entirely feeling the shock they in the north feel every
second.
Hear him: “You guys
that live in the homeland cannot appreciate completely what those of us who live
among them pass through on a daily basis. What baffles me more is that the
authorities have already made up their minds that the only solution is to
saturate the airwaves with their messages of condemnation.”
He admonished that
the FG should take more steps above censuring anytime there was killings in the
north to proffering practical solutions to the danger. He stressed that Ndigbo
(Kalu’s people), are killed in droves in the north, not like human beings, but
like rats and other pests.
Hear him again: “Igbos
are being decimated on a daily basis, yet, people who should speak and act
pretend as if chickens are being slaughtered. Somebody should be bold enough to
tell Nigerians that we have permeated one another so much that there are many
other tribes and religious groups in my village. How would they feel if we
begin to slaughter their people the way they slaughter ours in their midst?”
Further he said
that traditional rulers from the Igbo region have not done enough to send
message to their counterparts in the north in the language they could possibly
understand. He affirmed that it was only Orji Uzor Kalu, who have done this;
and that was when he was governor. (1999-2007).
“Please, my
brother, you should not misunderstand me. I am not a politician. I am not
holding brief for any person but I must tell you that if there is any
politician we miss now, it is only Orji Uzor Kalu”, he said, and added: “This
is the point we shall begin to make as from now. What are our traditional
rulers doing? How many of them have spoken out against what we are suffering in
this country? Does it imply that these people who were slaughtered in Kano last
week did not come from villages and towns with traditional rulers? What stops
them from protesting to their counterparts in Northern Nigeria?”
He went down memory
lane and told how they in the north now miss Kalu, even when he was not a
governor in the north. The university don smoldered: “You may like to ask. We
once had a big problem in Kaduna, some years back, when Kalu was the governor
of Abia State. He did not waste time in protesting to the Sultan of Sokoto.
Check the records. Since that time, nobody had targeted the Igbos in Kaduna
because he was very practical. But today, I can tell you unequivocally that
things have fallen apart. Our leaders are relaxing on their comfort zones,
because their own children are not directly affected.”
The lecturer pleaded
that he was not wrongly transferring his aggression, but he was of the
philosophy that somebody like Kalu whose voice should be heard must speak out,
because Ndigbo residing in the north have turned all the cheeks they have,
which the northerners have taken advantage of.
“I just feel that
somebody whose voice should be heard must speak out to tell the world that
nobody has the monopoly of violence. We must speak my brother. We have turned
all the cheeks we have. Maybe, our leaders expect us to voluntarily turn in our
necks this time around. Ndigbo should have their agenda in this country. Every
group in this land now has a clear identity. We seem to be the only group that
is still groping. We must stand up and go back to the drawing board. When we do
that, I believe we must stop being the dumping ground of all the evil in the
land.”
Apart from that Kalu
had sought to bring peace in the north on behalf of the government, he had also
warned that there should be an end to the monumental killings of Ndigbo. He disclosed
this to media men on Tuesday, January 10, 2012. He had expressed sadness in
particular, over the ceaseless killings of Ndigbo, and southerners in the northern
Nigeria.
In strong terms, Kalu
said that it was offensive that Ndigbo had come to be besieged whenever there
was a discrepancy or crisis of any sort in the north. He was disappointed, and
added: “Everyday, Igbo people in the North are now being slaughtered in huge
numbers and the Federal Government appears clueless, helpless and incapable of
coming to the defence of these citizens.”
It was obvious that
there were statements from certain northern elders during the advent of the
2011 general elections of how Nigeria would be made ungovernable if the country
refused to produce a northern presidency that year. To these elders who spoke
like kids, they argued that since President Musa Yar’Adua (north) did not
complete his purportedly eight year term in office before his sudden demise
that somebody from the north must complete his apparent unfulfilled years in
office. But to Kalu, he argued that if the citizens believed that the country
was one, how come the flagrant statements.
Kalu said: “Unfortunately,
northern political leaders have made statements and interventions at levels
that further question the essence and founding vision of one Nigeria
notwithstanding the obnoxious dimension of carrying out such killings in holy
places of worship.” He conversely quoted literary icons such as (Chinua Achebe
(now late), Wole Soyinka and J. P. Clark) in their shared response to the disgustful
national calamity thus: “All who possess any iota of influence or authority,
who aspire to real leadership must act now to douse the first flickers of
‘responses in kind’, even before they are manifested and become contagious.”
Known as a peacemaker,
Kalu did not only talk about the catastrophes, he also submitted advise to Ndigbo
and other southerners resident in the north not to rest on their oars to seek gauge
to protect their lives and property in the north. He warned that they should
not sit down and watch themselves being hacked down by marauders among the northerners.
Hear him again: “Christians
(northern and southern) and all southerners must also refuse to be made
scapegoats and must get together to resist these unwarranted attacks. If the
attackers get help from outside the country to attack, Christians and
southerners should also do the same to defend themselves, if help will not come
from within. If we are singled out for attack again, we shall no longer turn
the other cheek, but shall demand an eye for an eye.”
Notwithstanding,
many Nigerians had scrutinized disappointingly that the elements that originated
the civil war of 1967-70 were being experimented. It was a known fact that many
Igbo people were killed and mutilated in a program in the north, which was
chiefly the cause of the 1967-70 (un)civil war. These Nigerians are afraid that
the country does not experience another war, but added that the war mongers could
have been disciplined only if the Federal Government had heeded to Kalu’s offer
to negotiate the end of insurgency in the northern part of the country on its
behalf.
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