By Benjamin Okorie Ajah, PhD
My personal experiences, both within and outside the country, compel me to write this post. Before delving into the meat of my post, I would love to state that I have close and wonderful friends across different ethnic `groups in Nigeria, starting from the Yoruba to the Hausa, from the Tiv to the Jukum, the Fulani to the Ijaw, etc. Instructively, countless people from other ethnic groups have played immeasurable roles in defending the Igbo.
I never knew how deep the revisionists have gone in demarketing and projecting the Igbo as the only problem of Nigeria. In fact, it appears to be a grievous crime to be an Igbo. I had little experience of the extent the revisionists have gone in projecting the Igbo as the only problem of the country when one of my schoolmates in law school was telling me how he hates the Igbo, thinking that I’m an Ijaw man. When I asked him whether he had lived among the Igbo or transacted with them, he said no. I then told him that it is funny to hate people he never transacted nor lived with and reminded him that I’m Igbo and not Ijaw, as he had believed. He became uncomfortable and gradually petered out of our relationship.
Unfortunately, I encountered deeper collateral damage the revisionists want to cause the Igbo on the course of traversing other universities outside Nigeria. It was in Kampala International University in Uganda that someone who claimed to be educated was besmirching the Igbo in my presence without minding that I’m Igbo. He specifically accused the Igbo of being the only tribe in Nigeria who are not only tribalistic and domineering but also the only tribe doing drug and human trafficking and internet fraud. He cited the case of how Peter Obi won the majority of his votes from states with a significant Igbo presence. When I reminded him that the Igbo voted massively for Obasanjo in 1999 and 2003. They repeated the same by voting massively for Yar’Adua in 2007 and Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 and 2015, respectively. I then asked him, how come it became tribalistic for the Igbo to vote for a candidate who they believe was the best? I reminded him that even the principle of zoning and justice demands that the president should come from the southeast. He became uncomfortable.
When I attended a conference at the University of Leeds, UK, an Afrikaner asked me why the Igbo are practising cannibalism in Nigeria. I probed him to find out how he got his information; it happened that a Nigerian history professor told him negative things about the Igbo. I took time to re-educate and enlighten him about the situation of the country and how the political class are using divisional tendencies to strengthen their hold onto power.
In the University of Pretoria and the University of South Africa—all in South Africa—some South African scholars were made to think that it is only the Igbo who are committing crimes within and outside Nigeria. They had been told that the Igbo are the ones committing crimes in their country. I had to re-educate them and bring to their attention that criminality has no ethnic colouration. I equally cited known cases of Nigerians arrested in South Africa for drug and other crimes that are not Igbo.
When I visited the National University of Lesotho, I discovered that Basotho people were told similar negative stories about the Igbo like they did in South Africa, I had to equally reeducate them and cited known cases of Nigerians who committed crimes in their country that are not Igbo.
The same trend reared its ugly head when I visited Côte d’Ivoire.
Having said that, the revisionists are bringing the same energy they are using outside Nigeria to the fore to put the national political desire of the Igbo to the guillotine, of which I know they won’t succeed. Just recently, they brought about the history of the civil war on January 15, 2026, stating that only the Igbo military officers assassinated northern and southwestern political leaders and intentionally ignoring to state that the coupists comprised people from the Igbo, the Yoruba, and the North. Even a Hausa man was among the coupists. They intentionally refused to state the pogrom and genocide committed against the Igbo and other ethnic groups that share similar identities with the Igbo as a result of such misclassification.
Now, the government revisionists want other Nigerians to believe that the Igbo are the only ethnic group demarketing Nigeria and that some random IPOB apologists are behind the classification of the Igbo by the US as a country of particular concern. They are doing that but intentionally ignore stating that an Igbo woman, Oge Onubogu, was in the US Congress re-educating the US congressmen about the need not to clothe security issues in Nigeria with religious colouration. They intentionally forget to state that the actions and inactions of the political class are what have compounded our security situation.
The same revisionists are working hard to tribalise Peter Obi’s candidature, aided by some Igbo politicians who want to get political favour or appointment from the federal government. I’m pretty sure that if Soludo or Umahi, who has been working hard to belong and please the centre, decides to contest for president of Nigeria today, his candidature will be tribalised because it is the approach crafted to keep the Igbo away from becoming the president of Nigeria. They have started claiming that the Igbo cannot be contesting for president while agitating for independence from Nigeria but intentionally refused to mention that other sections of Nigeria are equally agitating for independence. The Oduduwa Republic is being agitated for in the southwest. The middle belt are equally agitating, etc.
What can the Igbo do?
It’s time to stop being aloof with what is happening in our political system. Yes, the federal government has not been fair to us and is engineering the revisionists, but we need to sustain a high tempo in countering them with facts devoid of insults and abuses. We equally need to pay attention to our own local political leaders. We need leaders who can offer qualitative leadership and technical know-how to reposition the east to be at the nerve of attracting urgently needed investors. For the political class and their foot soldiers, they can play their politics without demarketing their people in attempt to belong. The patterns of politics played by Mr Osita Chidoka and Mr Peter Mbah, Governor of Enugu State, are examples of how to play national politics without endangering the people you are meant to be representing.