A Stranglehold on the South East, by Kene Obiezu

Slowly but fatally, like a boa constrictor, the Indigenous People of Biafra is strangling the southeast region of Nigeria, while the Nigerian government looks on, reluctant to intervene in a region suffused with historical banana peels.
It started with the stay-at-home order imposed in 2021. The order which continues to shutter schools, shops and other public places every Monday started off like some joke, but has now stretched for three years, crippling economic activities in the region and casting a thick pall of fear.

Seeing that state governments in the Southeast and the Federal Government have failed to exert its authority to check its activities, the IPOB appears to be staking more claims to authority in the region even if legitimacy continues to elude a group bent on breaking the people it supposedly wants to liberate.

The group has recently threatened federal courts in the Southeast over the continued detention of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu. These threats has led to some courts suspending their activities in the region because the judges know very well that their safety is not guaranteed.

The implications of this for justice delivery is huge for a sector already struggling to cope with demands.

Since the IPOB started forcing people to sit at home every Monday, there have been multiple, unprovoked attacks on security personnel and everyday Nigerians in the region.

The question for the IPOB is: what does it think it is doing? Against whom is it issuing threats and warnings? The same people it wants to liberate from Nigeria? The peace-loving, enthusiastic and entrepreneurial people of the South East are not the problem and should be spared the worst effects of the actions of a group long infiltrated by common criminals.

If the group has a bone to pick with Nigeria, then certainly, it should direct its ire to the Abuja which is the seat of government rather than persecute innocent people who are only trying to make ends meet.

The Nigerian government, now is no time to show weakness or indecision. A threat to any part of the country is a threat to all the country. What is happening in the South East should not be dismissed as just desserts for the people of the region who have done more than most to keep Nigeria together through sixty-four chaotic years of independence.

It is costly enough that the region continues to incur incalculable losses due to the grounding of economic activities and the prevalent atmosphere of insecurity.

The fact that the region has not joined the suddenly hungry hordes in other regions of the country to protest against the government, despite its desperately disappointing performance in office so far, is a measure of the region’s discretion and restraint even in the most difficult of times.

While there is the temptation to let the region which once tried to secede from Nigeria stew in its juice, the better approach would be for the federal government to arrest the insecurity threatening to spill out of control in the region by finding practical but prudent solutions.

As long as Nigeria’s chaotic federalism persists, what affects one region definitely affects others.

Finding a satisfying solution to the soluble problems in the South East would be for of the whole country, which needs everyone and every region to pull in the same direction if it is to fulfill its prodigious potentials.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com