Written By: Chinweozo Amuta

It is not in doubt that Ndigbo have the most industrious and wealthiest persons in Africa. They are also very populous and estimated at over seventy million people spread across the globe because of their enterprising, adventurous and cosmopolitan nature.

Unfortunately, Igbo people are presently not getting their dues in the Political-Economy of Nigeria, a country where one of their own, late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, played the most crucial role among his contemporaries to secure her independence. The disadvantageous position in which Ndigbo have today found themselves in the country is linked to certain past events.

Save for the Second Republic during which they temporarily bounced back to relevance through Azikiwe’s political pragmatism, the Igbo nation has sadly remained a recluse in the limbo since the ouster of the Second Republic by the military in 1983, and the advent of this Fourth Republic from 1999 till date.

This unpalatable situation for Ndigbo is simply due to the fact that their political elite have for a long time unwisely abandoned Dr. Azikiwe’s legacy and have instead embraced political opportunism and mercantilism. Unlike their rivals, the present crop of politicians and businessmen of Igbo extraction lack unity of purpose.

Therefore, they have unwittingly exposed their ethnic group to servitude, marginalization and oppression by the elite of other tribes. This should not be so if the political elite of the Southeast get their acts together and embrace once again the political philosophy of Zik of Africa.

Again, the ruling class in Nigeria, which is inclined to the command structure of the military and feudalism, abhors the practice of true federal system of government in the country.

Therefore, the most credible alternative in the present scenario is Ndigbo to converge on the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. This is because it is a political party predominantly founded and dominated by the Igbo intelligentsia. APGA is a legitimate institution recognised by the Nigerian constitution. Ndigbo can use it to achieve their political goals in the country.

The party was given relevance by late Dim Chukwuemeka-Odumegwu Ojukwu, who was the presidential candidate of APGA in the 2003 and 2007 general elections. But for the absurdities of Nigerian politics, APGA truly swept the poll in the Southeast in the 2003 general elections. That was barely one year after it was formed and registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC in 2002.

The power that be then allegedly rigged the 2003 polls. Among the five Southeast states, APGA was lucky to reclaim its stolen mandate only in Anambra state after three years of grueling legal battle.

Since taking over the mantle of leadership of the state in 2006, APGA governments have consistently performed superlatively in terms of good governance and delivery of democracy dividends. This is in spite of the fact that the party is not in control of the federal government. As a matter of fact, Anambra has faired better than most states governed by other parties

APGA is a pleasant reminder of the good governance provided by governments sponsored by the defunct National Council of Nigerian Citizens, NCNC and Nigerian Peoples Party, NPP, in the First and Second Republics respectively. In both Republics, the people of the Southeast were not marginalized as is the case today.

Taking a queue from the political philosophy and style of the late Azikiwe, the present crop of the Igbo elite can renegotiated their ethnic group into reckoning in the country’s political and economic space without being pusillanimous or selling their birthright.

Let Ndigbo stop wasting time to collectively use APGA to achieve what their forebears used the NCNC and NPP to accomplish in the First and Second Republics of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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