Buhari’s comments on South-East, insult on collective intelligence of Ndigbo (Opinion)

By Chidiebere Nwobodo

“I appointed Service chiefs based on merit, Buhari tells Ndigbo”—News report.

“Then, what are you coming to do in South-East? Do you need to campaign again in the East? You have simply told us that we are inconsequential and can go to hell. You don’t give a damn about how we feel! You can as well bid farewell to Igbo votes; after all is 5%—a local government in the north can give you that number of votes (as you mischievously stated in your highly prejudiced interview). You forgot that 2019 election will be between you and another formidable Fulani muslim northerner not minority Christian Southerner like Jonathan. Coming to South-East to display open disdain and insensitivity to the people in the guise of campaign, shows how insufferably hypocritical and delusional you have become.”

The above thoughts raced through the neural pathways of my mind immediately I read the news report, that Buhari told Ndigbo that he appointed service chiefs based on merit. What an insult on the collective intelligence of Igbo nation. What an in-your-face denigration. No Igbo security personnel merited to head any security agency? So Fulanis are more educated than Igbos? Even the statutory appointment of ministers was still considered as favour by the Nepotism-in-Chief? And yet the demented buffoons in the South-East APC clapped for him after dehumanizing Igbo nation in their presence.

That Buhari is an ethno-religious-bigoted president, is no longer a surprise. That his irredeemable hatred for Igbos runs in his veins, is not even the big story. The shocker here, is that he had the audacity and impunity to justify exclusion of Igbo nation in the strategic service chiefs appointments. And this he did while standing on Igbo soil to seek our votes for re-election. What an aberration! The only project he completed in the Anambra State in last three and half years of his government, is the graveyard of Zik of Africa! Yet he had the mental fortitude to validate his ill-conceived actions against Ndigbo. This is the height of tyranny and recklessness. No Nigerian president of southern extraction will dare try this nonsense in the north without getting stoned out of the campaign venue. But what did Buhari get from our people in the APC? Accolades and encomiums, for portraying Igbo nation as collection of incompetent misfits, not qualified to hold strategic positions in his government.

I have told people that cared to listen that, the biggest campaigner of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar Presidential ambition, is not Senator Bukola Saraki—the director-general of the campaign, but his main rival; Muhammadu Buhari! The president’s blunders and crass insensitivity cum ethnocentrism, are the greatest campaign materials for #AtikuObi ticket. As the election draws nearer, Buhari continues to prove beyond reasonable doubt why he cannot be trusted with power again. A man who sees a major tribe in Nigeria as conquered slaves and the zone as war-vanquished, is not fit to hold any public office—let alone the highest one in the land—office of the president! He even referred to Anambra as East-Central state; pre-war mindset at work. The fear in some quarters, is that Buhari’s second term may push Nigeria into another devastating civil war. He is too provincial, petty, vindictive and dogmatic to be a leader of local multi-ethnic community; talk more of a Nigerian president.

Since after Nigeria-Biafran war, no president has shown this level of marginalization, oppression and insensitivity to Igbo nation like the incumbent. I am not a tribal bigot or ethnic jingoist, but there is a time when silence is not golden. There is a time when silence becomes a betrayal, apology to Martin Luther King, Jr. I cannot play ostrich or political correctness when Nigerian president is stripping Igbo nation of its revered dignity. If the political slaves in South-East APC cannot question their owners, why won’t I? Are we under spell? That Buhari came to South-East, desecrated our moral fibre as a people, dehumanized us by justifying our exclusion from what is rightfully ours, without even a single press statement to protest the Insults, is the dearth of holy outrage in our Igbo land.

Buhari has made being Igbo a burden and liability under this administration. His lopsided appointments, and subsequent rationalization of it, says it all. *Only a walking moronic specimen of mammal, with two balls of testicles between his thighs, will not know when his dignity is being stripped off. Any true son of his father should not be told when his home is under invasion. Voting out Buhari has become a clarion call for every right thinking Igbo—if not for anything, to restore our lost dignity cum self-worth under this nepotistic president. That you oppress a child in the field; for no just course, and still follow him to his parents house to slap him in front of his parents, is the echelon of rascality. It becomes a moral tragedy when his parents clap for you. This is what played out during Buhari’s visit in the East. Buhari was celebrated by the APC leaders for insulting the collective intelligence and bruising the ego of Igbo nation.