Opinion
Nzogbu! Nzogbu! Enyimba Enyi! Gone mute!!
By Jarlath Uche Opara
So popular a song, sang by all, across tribes, culture and faith. Though an Igbo lyrics, but the energy it exhudes and the swag it provokes know no boundaries.
The Yorubas enjoy it likewise the Hausas and other ethnic tribes.
It sounds like a war songs, a song that is not for the lily livered. It is a song that intrinsically shows the mental condition of the chanters, one that does not in anyway signal weakness, dullness and redundancy.
Many had expected the song to rend the air especially down South East during this protest.
Does it mean South Easterners are not hungry? Well fed? In love with the stiffening and stifling administration of President Tinubu? I guess they are simply playing safe, and being wise, which is profitable to direct.
The region has been profiled wrongly and beaten when they were innocent of any crime. They have been maliciously given a bad name and hanged for being law abiding and industrious. They have received a lot of witch-hunt, painting them on canvass, using ethnic brushes and paints to draw then as demons.
What is it that the region has not seen? Far back, their protest started. Who joined them? Who sympathised with them? Who spoke out in defence of all the obvious injustices that were hitting them left, right and centre? When every meter in the region was occupied, extorting them, harrasing them and raping their Virgins, who stood up for them? When all the major Federal Roads in all the South East region were death- traps and their Northern sister States enjoyed synthetic roads, marbled with gold. Who spoke out for them?
Who protested against obvious subjugation and suppression of the zone’s deliberate denial of the Presidency, as if they weren’t Nigerians? They have had their fair share of the political violence of Nigeria system. They have been told loud and clear, in body language, in appointments etc that they are second fiddle.
Threatened severally to be submerged and drowned in lagoons for being progressive and enterprising. Who protested against such in solidarity?
They are hungry no doubt, but they are not hungrier than those that have held them down to what seems to be a perpetual and silly injustice. The cock has come home to roost.
The region is gradually getting sense, as wise as the serpent, watching the whole saga and at the same time being cautious, else they get accused of a crime they never committed.
Their Nzogbu! Nzogbu! Enyimba Enyi chant has gone into silent mode. It can’t be heard blaring in the air now. To those who were anxiously waiting to hear the chant for them to pull triggers, the region is smarter. Imagine what would have happened if what happened in Kano, kaduna, etc happened in any of the South East States, like flies, corpses would have littered around with gory sightes.
They have denied them that joy. Eat, drink, dance and make merry while they protest against what the zone had experienced in the hands of the Government before now.
To my dear President Tinubu. This is not the time to ride on a high horse of the presidential might. This is not the time to talk tough, issuing orders. This is the time to be fatherly, time to show that love of a father who is willing to connect with the palpable pains and discomfort of the masses.
This is the time to meet the masses with the Kantian ethical principle of “categorical imperative”(treat others as you’d like to be treated), it will make you to ask how things would work if everyone else did exactly the way you and your aids are behaving. This isn’t the time to be machiavellian in approach to things, masking your true intentions, act against
mercy, against humanity, against frankness and being a cunning tyrant.
This is time to invoke the law 12 of the 48 laws of power ( disarm others by being nice) If you can, I will advise you invoke this law. Be nice to these angry protesters and see the kind of magical effect it would produce.
Your address has stired the hornets nest. Did you see what happened in kaduna yesterday? What is happening in Port-Harcort today? Gradually and by day the protesters are burgeoning in great numbers. Step down now from that golden horse of presidential aura and might and meet the protester at their level. You did that why campaigning for this job, you can still do it.
The world is watching and pens sharpened to either eulogize or demonize you. I guess the ball lies on your court. Listen to “Mr President: by African China, the reasons for the protest were clearly stated in that lyrics .
I wish you luck! As the protesters are gaining traction and dynamically burgeoning in numerical strength .
Jarlath Uche Opara Jarlathuche@gmail.com