There is no disputing the fact that the Bola Tinubu presidency, so far, has been a tale of woes. The entire country is squirming with discomfort. There is hunger. There is hardship. It has become increasingly difficult for the man in the street to eke out a living. Nigerians, as a matter of fact, look dazed. They are caught in a lurch. You will be right if you describe them as doomed voyagers.
When this hopeless state began, many thought that it was going to be short-lived. They reasoned that Tinubu, the one-time governor of Lagos State who set the pace for the rapid infrastructural development of the state, was not a dunce. They excused his momentary failures. They said he would bounce into action, sooner than later. They expressed hope that all was not lost. Many Nigerians were persuaded to join the train of optimism. They gave Tinubu the benefit of the doubt.
Since then, weeks have run into months. And months have graduated into more than one calendar year. Yet, hope remains forlorn. The people and their country are sinking deeper into the abyss. The tunnel of want and privation is long and dark. The hope of a silver lining at the end of it is waning. Hopelessness has continued to wag its tail with abundant swagger. Yet, Nigerians are still hopeful. They are believing that the machine god will come to play. It will rescue them, suddenly and dramatically, from the clutches of want and stagnation currently crippling the land. But what if this god of providence fails to deliver? Will that be the end of the road for Nigeria and its peoples? Such sad reality is better imagined than experienced.
The eeriness in the land is even worsened by the fact that Tinubu assumed office in questionable circumstances. The greater majority of Nigerians believed and still believe that he was imposed on the people by a tiny northern cabal and a compromised judiciary. But having taken over the mantle of leadership in spite of all odds, Nigerians expected that he should hit the ground running. They thought that he would be desirous of leaving legacies that will live after him. So far, President Tinubu cannot be credited with anything salutary. If anything, he has continued to lose grounds in the area of populism.
Having come this far with the Tinubu administration without any roadmap on how to better the lot of Nigerians, the time has come to set an agenda for him in the hope that he will be rescued from insularity and made to see some sense in what is being proposed.
Our focus today, for purposes of a well coordinated agenda-setting, will be on the South East zone of the country. The idea is to look at the best possible ways the president can connect with the people of the zone for the overall development of the country. We will be concerned with two issues here.
The first is the Nnamdi Kalu conundrum. It is a well known fact that one of the testy issues that President Tinubu inherited from Muhammadu Buhari was the vexed issue of Nnamdi Kanu’s extraordinary rendition from Kenya and his prolonged detention by the Nigerian authorities. Since the separatist agitator was detained, South East Nigeria has known no peace. Insecurity has taken over the entire region because security agencies have been working overtime to neutralize the army of young men and women who have risen in unison against the detention of the man whose messages of self-determination resonate with them. The expectation was that Tinubu, on assumption of office, would wade into the matter with a view to restoring peace in the beleaguered part of the country. To ensure that Tinubu realised the imperative of Kanu’s release from detention, representations have been made to the president by powerful lobby groups both from within and outside the South East. But the President, so far, does not seem to have taken sufficient interest in the matter. However, it is still being expected that the President will, in no distant time, see the sense in the quest for the release of Nnamdi Kanu.
As we await a possible presidential intervention in this matter, we are inevitably drawn to our second agenda for the South East. There are elements in Igbo circles who believe that beyond Nnamdi Kanu, the President can still placate the Igbo nation in some other ways. Here, we will make a direct and unambiguous reference to the recent agitations for creation of an additional state for the South East zone of the country.
The Igbo, as we all know, have suffered a lot of deprivations in the hands of successive Nigerian governments as a punishment for their botched secessionist bid. One of the areas in which this denial has manifested is in the number of states that the South East has, compared to what we have in the other zones. As the zone with the least number of states, it is almost taken for granted that giving the South East an additional state to bring it at par with other zones will be another way of assuaging their anger and frustration.
To actualise this objective, progressive-minded leaders from Anioma extraction, led by Senator Ned Nwoko, have since weighed in on the matter. They want Anioma State to be that additional state that will bring the South East at par with other geopolitical zones. The Anioma group has marshalled out all the fine points in support of their position. They agree that carving out an additional state out of the South East is good. But they reason that it will not increase the population of the zone. It will also not add to its landmass. The additional state will also not increase its resources and revenue base. They argue further that what the South East needs to go for is an arrangement that will expand its land mass, increase its population and bring about enhanced resources and revenue to the zone. They submit that the South East will get all of this if Anioma State is created as the sixth state of the South East.
What makes this line of argument more compelling is that geopolitical zones are stronger and lobby better when they have credentials to flaunt. Some of these are population size, land mass, natural and human resources, and strong revenue base, among others. Addition of Anioma State to the existing five-state structure of the South East will give the zone a better bargaining power in the Nigerian equation. Many are persuaded by this argument.
For those behind this push, creating an Anioma State could be a trump card for Tinubu. He could use it to penetrate Igboland and, consequently, endear himself to the people. Overall, the expectation is that President Tinubu will spare a thought on these two issues that agitate the minds of the Igbo. The onus is on him to either make history in this regard or continue on his present path of confrontation with the people.
