WHERE IS JUSTICE?
By Mazi Omife l. Omife
Mbuze Mbaukwu
Where is Justice?
Where is Justice?
Where is Justice?
For 1000 times I ask, where is Justice in Nigeria?
As I listened to Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu’s lamentations during his incisive speech at last Monday’s APC convention, tears rolled down my cheeks.
Tears of mixed emotions.
Tears of joy and anger.
In the mode of John the Baptist, the lone voice crying in the wilderness, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu spoke to the inner conscience of his party leaders and party members, by confronting them with the million dollar question: Where is Justice for the Igbos?
Dr. Onu’s unexpected question: “Where is Justice” sent a shock wave of eerie silence across the convention ground, with most of the delegates face down.
Even Buhari and APC national chairman were evidently taken aback.
Nobody at that convention could have failed to be touched by Dr. Onu’s lamentations on the injustice of Nigerians against Igbo people. Even President Buhari, if he has any regard for the unity of this country, must have been pricked by Dr. Onu’s calm but powerful indictment of his party men and women.
That has been Dr Onuh’s life-style from eternity – calm, clear-headed, focused, unassuming but never a push-about. Throughout his nearly eight years in Buhari’s government, people hardly know he is a minister because his name does not ring a bell like Malami, Lai Mohammed or Pantami.
That is the more reason Buhari must have been upset by Dr. Onu’s point-black accusation against the APC, knowing him as a quiet man who rarely speaks out in strong terms. Even myself was amazed.
I first met Dr. Onu in 1992 during the Enugu State NUJ Press Week under Emma Ikwueze as the first Enugu State NUJ Chairman which was coordinated by me as NUJ press week consultant, during which Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu was conferred with the Best Governor of the Year award at a gorgeous ceremony at Nike Lake Resort.
Till date, Ogbonnaya Onu has maintained the credentials that won him that award – industry, integrity, honesty and not blowing his trumpet of his achievements in public and private lives.
Unfortunately, Dr. Onu’s lamentation came too late. Even if there is anything President Buhari could have done, it was late.
There was only one source of hope left.
Igbo APC delegates.
Millions of Igbos at home and the Diaspora who watched Dr. Onu’s heroic declaration on behalf of Ndigbo hinged their last hope on the Igbo delegates.
What the Igbo delegates eventually did with their votes is now history. Just like their PDP counterparts.
Questions arising:
1. Before Dr. Onu’s outcry, didn’t these Igbo APC delegates know that Igbos have suffered great injustice from both the military and civilian governments?
2. Were Governor ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State and Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State not aware of this injustice against Igbos before abandoning Igbo presidential aspirants to support Governor Wike of Rivers State?
3. Did Senator Orji Uzor Kalu not know these facts before withdrawing from the presidential race for Senator Ahmad Lawan?
4. Was ex-governor Emeka Ihedioha not aware of this injustice before deciding to support Governor Tambuwal of Sokoto State?
5. I don’t want to talk of Governor Hope Uzodinmma yet, who left his security volatile State and rushed to Abuja to escort Ahmad Lawan to APC office to purchase a form.
6. Nor do I want to say anything yet about Orji Uzor Kalu who called a press conference in Abuja, where he called on all the Igbo presidential aspirants to step down for Lawan.
It was same Orji Uzor Kalu who told the world that he would prefer to be a sweeper at Aso Rock as an Igbo man, since his house was near Aso Rock. Pity.
7. What of the goatish Joe Igbokwe who was going round at the convention shaking hands with Igbo delegates for voting for Tinubu his master not know that Yoruba has taken its turn as president through Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for eight years and Vice president through Professor Yemi Osinbajo for another eight years and it is now the turn of Ndigbo to produce the president in 2023?
8. What of the senseless Chief Ikeobasi Mokelu who came to the convention to disgrace himself by spending all the time allotted to him to speak, praising Buhari without saying a word on the injustice against Igbos by this government when his mother, late Chief ( Mrs)Janet Mokelu was in the forefront of Igbo political cause in the NCNC?
9. What of the idiotic Mrs Uju Ohanenye, the only woman presidential aspirant who turned a mere political jester and Tinubu stooge?
10. Didn’t they see how the Yoruba leaders mobilized their people to fight for the restoration of June 12 election result and by so doing were compensated with presidency in 1999?
11. Didn’t they see how northerners rallied round Buhari to collect power from fmr. President Goodluck Jonathan back to the north in 2015 and even insisting on retaining power after eight years of Buhari in 2023?
Now that it is the turn of Igbos when Igbo governors should have led the fight for Igbo presidency for Igbos to rally behind them, they are now the people fighting Igbos.
Are these people mad? I mean have they gone mad? Are they strangers in Nigeria? Are they ignorant of Nigerian history?.
Igbos can now see that with the exception of Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State and Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State and Ebonyi APC delegates who voted for their governor Umahi, the rest of Igbo governors , APC delegates and their PDP counterparts are the biggest betrayers. Even the Yorubas and Hausa Fulanis will see them as the biggest fools.
Honestly, these prodigal sons and daughters of Igbo land and their children and children’s children will forever live with the stigma of betrayers of Igbo presidential project.
The millions they collected for selling their own people will end in this world. But the evil they have done will live forever after them.
They have won today.
I congratulate them.
MAZI OMIFE I.OMIFE
MBUZE MBAUKWU