The height of profiling Igbo people
The profiling of Igbo people has reached or touched the roof. The people, most of whom are located at every nook and cranny of the country, have been labelled, abused, insulted and profiled as being bigots.
When it comes to marginalisation, the people have suffered a lot even though they constitute one of the three basic ethnic groups in the country after Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba. Interethnic love and cohabitation isn’t a given in the country of millions.
Igbo people have had their own shared of the hatred in the country, which is divided along region and religion, party and interest. They have come under serious (probably calculated) attacks and name-calling. The 2023 general elections have even opened the issue more widely.
They have never embraced hate at least considering the previous elections in the country and how accommodating they have been. The Igbo people had rejected their own sons in the past to vote for candidates from other stocks of the tribes in the country.
Odumegwu Ojukwu, Pat Utomi were some candidates from Igbo extraction who couldn’t win the southeast geopolitical zone of the country. Nobody talked them down then. Nobody considered them as being bitter or aggressive or still nursing the rather impossible Biafra Republic.
They chose Olusegun Obasanjo and gave him an overwhelming support, which his own Yoruba people couldn’t give to him. Were Igbo people tolerable at that time? They were not profiled as being too ambitious.
At least when the race was squarely between Atiku Abubakar and incumbent president Buhari, there were some Igbo men on the ballot paper. Yet the Igbo people voted massively for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar from northern Nigeria.
Tribe and religion play a key role, regrettably though, in Nigerian politics. And it’s not only the Igbo people who play it. The 2023 general elections have divided the nation more.
They decided to vote for their son, Peter Obi. These people have an ambition. They took want to have a taste of power. It shouldn’t be a game of ping-pong between the Hausa-Fulani extraction in north and Yoruba people in the southwest region.
The Biafra Republic is not attainable. That’s the reality the Igbo people must have accepted. Then, they need to find another route to power since secession is an impossibility. That is looking for a presidential candidate with their interests. Hence, they voted for him.
After the results have been announced, the hate skyrockets. There have been accusations that the Igbo people want to hijack Lagos State from the Yoruba people, who have been ruling the state at least since 1999. But there are no evidence to back this claim up.
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