The dream seems dashed. I was born in the 50`s. I grew up in the 60`s Port Harcourt. Life then was full of expectations, bubbly, lively and sweet. The green-white-green was the ultimate. We knew no boundaries. Port Harcourt of old was regimented, cute and rosy. Its tomorrow was paradise, homely and heavenly. There was something lovely for everyone. If there was Lagos or Enugu, fairy tale was more real. The Garden City was earth, heaven and paradise.
Our life in the Garden City of the 60`s started and ended there. It was a sizeable city of then, probably modeled after old LagosIsland, Bamgbose and Igbosere. We looked forward to Independence Day, whose celebration was the climax. Our little masquerades, undisturbed by the fancy paradesand bigger masquerades were part of such celebrations. We roamed the Garden City of old fearlessly, for that was the reality. Just when it seemed that trajectory was at its helm, the five bastard majors struck.
Just recently, one of its unrepentant participants, an aging demented Octogerian, thinking he has enjoyed life after the senseless massacre of over two million Igbos opened up rather shamelessly to counter what all had acquitted Igbo’s of to own up to the 1966 five majors bruhala as an Igbo coup. These same Military men were to remind us of that senseless war in which our parents lost all they labored for; that war that set the Igbo back by years;that war that set the Igbos on the part of marginalization.
From liberty, the Igbos after those three years of indiscriminate annihilation was to, out of dint of hard work, to resurface as a force. From liberty, the Igboswas to be aggregated into slavery and neo-colonialism. The Igbos lost all they had, and were to be handed only twenty pounds post war in 1970, stripped of purchasing power and baptized into poverty by indigenization degree, with loss of competiveness.
The Igbos were to struggle from a huge point of disadvantage and to find themselves dispassed into slavery to other Nigerian cities they had surpassed pre-war in the 60`s. Our people in search of survival and the Golden Fleece, were to scatter far and wild, from our shores to even Alaska, to the Europes, Asia, even to Vietnam and Cambodia. Any seeming spot of succour was to be clinged unto.
That comedarie pre-war was to be slaughtered on the altar of wickedness and slander. The Igbos who were masters had the table turned on them. Our representatives and governors subsequently subjected to economic sequestration to our detriment, cajoled, manipulated and intimidated into capitulation, we watched helplessly as they were rendered impotent and even useless. We were to watch our meager share of crumbs from the Federal Government to be continually mismanaged by subsequent Governments.
We are still deep in the mess, we are born free to excel. We abhor bondage and slavery. We still have another chance. The decision to emancipate ourselves is just weeks away. The decision we make from now hence will determine our tomorrow. Every Igbo man should look back to the good old days, reminisce and inquire where the rain started beating us. Do we dry the wetness, preservere or wisen up?
What haven`t we learnt? Haven`t we learnt enough to be discernible? Discretion should be supreme and our watchword. Our people are more scattered around the world than the Jews in search of food. Is this trajectory cursed? Can we redeem our tomorrow? Can we salvage our future? Haven’t we had enoughmisrule and mismanagement? Are we perpetually cursed? Should our exiled populace endure a permanent abandonment? Could we for a minute come off this tower of babel and check our babbling.
I have reminisced on my childhood for I forever feel the pain of a truncated brighter future. The war did not only rob me and several others of a dream, but set us all on a path of agonizing bondage; post war would have changed these events if nature wasn’t full of competition. To have ended up at a marginalized end of a contraption could have called for more caution. Our successive leaders have to realize we have work to do.
Elections are weeks away. We might have allowed time slip away. However, as long aswe live, corrections to our mistakes must be paramount. Our leaders in the scramble for positions tend to underrate what hatred borne out of struggle and scramble can sow. We need a reconciliation committee within Imo State in particular, and South-East in general to regig a re-starting point. We cannot all continue as a tower of babel, blabbing ad infinitum.
We must come together, reminisce and re-strategize from Kindred, Village and Ward level to the State. The Churches would also be involved. The set of representatives we elect soon would also play a big role, hence the need to be careful and prayerful in what we do and the dice we play in weeks.
Let’sshrug off this yoke of slavery infesting our land. We have a choice starring in our face with a choice in weeks. Let’s for once decide that in the next one month or so, we can redirect this tolajectory and reject perpetual bondage and perennial slavery. I am born a free man and I abhor bondage.
Dr. Agbarakwe Richards is a Consultant Obstetrician/Gynaecologist.