Individual needs as well as Group needs combine always in determining how issues in an environment are perceived. The national political perception of the Igbo is generally based on group survival or politics shaped by the needs of the ethnic nation.
In any political discussion around any political issue in Igbo land, the same responses are always recorded from whoever is responding. It cuts across gender and Age, and position in the society. See Table 5.2 and Figure 5.2 below depicting the response of the interviewed respondents in Enugu.
If you have to choose between being a Nigerian, and being an Igbo, which of the following Statements best expresses your feeling? Questionnaire question.
Questionnaire Interview in Enugu and the number of Respondents: 64.
Table 5.2. Showing respondents answers in Enugu to question on their identities (Source, adapted from Afro-barometer 2003, with modification).
I feel Only Nigerian 0
I feel Equally Nigerian and Igbo 4 I feel More Nigerian than Igbo 0 I feel more Igbo than Nigerian 36
I feel only Igbo 24
Let us suppose you had to choose between being a nigerian and being an igbo, which of the statements best expresses
your feelings?
Figure 5.2. Showed opinion expressed by contributors through Questionnaire questions in Enugu about their identities in Nigeria (Source Okoro 2011, adapted from Afro-barometer 2003).
From the above Graph, it would be deduced that the general feeling as expressed in this study by people of Igbo extraction is hinged on the common belief that, they share common identity. That about 94 percent of the respondents to this research study agreed that they are Igbo first before being identified as Nigerians provide a strong insight to the many serious problems confronting the state of Nigeria. Many regard their presence in the geographical structure of Nigeria as a human construct, and not a situation that cannot be corrected. However, just 6 percent of the individuals interviewed accepted the idea that they are both Igbo and Nigerians.
Invariably it proves right those ideas and assertions that there is a strong ethnic mindset on the ethnic composition of Nigeria. Accordingly, Diamond (1997) pointed out ethnicity as one of the teething problems confronting democracy in the country. In the same vein Ezeani asserted also that,
“the ethnic feeling of the Igbo and indeed other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria is due to the singular fact that, every individual in Nigeria feels deeply and internally connected to his native Village as well as his Language identity”5.
__________________________________
5. Emmanuel O Ezeani is a professor of Political Science and a senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The Igbo as a people and as a Nation of one people define their traditional, as well as their political philosophy as democratic and representative. This is irrespective of the village, town or organisation. In significant numbers, political decisions are usually through collective agreement. Everyone is giving a medium to contribute his or her idea, with regard to issues of general effect. Then, in every election on national political offices, individual preferences and political sympathies are substituted with group political philosophy. Within the Igbo Society, political discussions are usually deliberated within social organisations. These associations as mentioned in the previous discussion could be in the form of market men and women, or traders Associations. It is so obvious to notice the political mood of the people around you, whenever a national political discourse is raised. Looking at the aggregate number of people of electoral age, who voiced their opinion during this research work, it would be understood that the responses provided details of the inner political mind of the greater majority of the people in the region.
But still, the political lock-jam is most obvious, when an election concerns the chance or opportunity to occupy the Presidential office in Nigeria. This is the major reason;
politics are played differently at both regional, federal states and local councils.
The people of the Igbo stock do not mind, who wins a local election or state election.
This is so because the people know everything about the contesting individuals. This is unlike an election that pitched an Igbo with an individual who hails from another ethnic region of either Yoruba or of the Hausa-Fulani stock.
The people are more at ease with political development and electioneering under-currents at the home-fronts, than say, elections and political development outside the home fronts. The ability and capacity to absolve whatever political differences between two contending individuals from the home fronts are usually easily amended than when it concerns individuals from outside the homeland. Like Ezeoba bemoaned that,
“an average individual Nigerian of Igbo extraction regards himself as endangered species in the Nigerian political scene”6.
And according to Senator Okposo, what the various ethnic nationalities want differs.
In his words,
“what the Igbo want is not what the people of Hausa-Fulani extraction want, and what the people of Yoruba extraction want is not what the people of Hausa-Fulani and people of Igbo extraction want”7
For instance, at the federal level, the Igbo want somebody of Igbo extraction to be the President of the country. Many speakers of Igbo origin believe that unless an Igbo becomes President, then the issue of the civil War remains unresolved.
Another discovered area of concern was the fact that despite the differences noticed in the political preferences of the people, there is a high level of ethnic influenced political actions exhibited by the various ethnic groups against people of other nations in the country. Even though most of the respondents do not have any reliable information about the antecedents of a contesting candidate or the individual previous services to the country, there is every chance that there will be disapproval of the person, in as much as the person in question hails from another ethnic nation and probably shares a different cultural trait.
But then, the ironical aspect of the whole setting proves that such hate is not based on just a single individual. The hatred is usually heaped on the entire ethnic nation.
An individual is not hated because he or she is a bad person, but an individual is hated because of the ethnic community he identifies with. The Table 5.3 and Figure 5.3 below illustrate the responses of the contributors to this question during the field study of this thesis.
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6. Mathias Ezeoba is a professor of Political Science and a lecturer at the University of Zurich Switzerland.
7. Senator Okposo was a former federal Senator representing Delta South. He was speaking during an interview with Daily Sun Newspaper (www.sunnewsonline.com).
You voted a candidate during the April 2011 Presidential election because of the followings. Questionnaire questions.
Table 5.3. Showing the respondents reason(s) for voting in 2011 Presidential election (Source, adapted from Afro-barometer with modification).
You voted a candidate during the April 2011 presidental election because of:
100 2030 4050 6070
Ethnic Identity Religion Qualification of the Candidate
Party Programme Regional Affilation w ith the candidate Category of answ ers
No of Respondents
Figure: 5.3. Depict the responses of contributors in Enugu on the 2011 election in Nigeria (Source, Okoro 2011).
Considering the outcome of the above figure 5.3, it will be deduced that the number of Igbo people who contributed to this research study in Enugu believe that the ethnic identity of a contesting politician was paramount to his choice during the 2011
No of Respondents: 64
Ethnic Identity
61
Religion
18
Qualification of the candidate
20
Party Programme
22
Regional Affiliation with candidate 46
presidential election. Then closely followed was the regional affiliation of the individual contestant. While the party programme of the candidates play no significant role in deciding their votes. Of no importance to the respondents is the issue of religion. The Igbo do not lay much emphasis on the religion or faith that an individual professes, rather what majority considered to be non negotiable is the ethnic identity of a person.
On the local communities and at the federal states, the disapproval of a contesting candidate has no connection to ethnic bias, but purely on the basis of the individuals’
ability and capability to provide the community with the basic needs of life. Within the regional or ethnic setting, it is usually the antecedents of an aspiring candidate that endears him to the electorate. But outside the ethnic homeland, it is not the same political requirement that prevails. At the federal level or outside the homelands, so many things usually come into political reckoning. Talk about the natural hate that existed between the various ethnic nations. Talk about the religious identity of each ethnic nation as well as the religious affiliation of the contesting candidates. Talk about the political philosophy of the ethnic group, with regard to political power and the control of machinery of governance in the country. At the federal level, individual antecedents are not scrutinised in some parts of the country, and is never of any paramount importance to the people of the area, rather it is the party that the people are made to vote. Then, whoever occupies the office is not the business of the people. But at the home front, an individual family and background are known even to the local farmer in the village. The previous generation of the aspiring candidate family is known to everybody in the community. Within the ethnic homeland political contest for an elective position is usually that of battle between two or more known quantities.
The approval or disapproval of a candidate has much to do with the family background, as well as the antecedent of the individual in question. The more reliable, trustworthy, and openness the family of an individual is, the more chances that the individual would be accepted within the political arena. If an individual belongs to a notorious family, then that is already the beginning of an end to the individuals’
political adventure. It is a make belief within the Igbo ethnic community that an individual cannot be in every way different from the past generations of his family.
The grievances or animosity towards an individual politician in the homeland may range from his position or the position of the parents during a certain Land dispute in the Village, his preference and support during a struggle for the stool of the Village local Chief, his assistance or lack of assistance to the youths in his community.
Above all the generosity of such an individual to the people within his community is usually counted as a plus.
All these characteristics make political adventure within the Igbo land an interesting one. Then what the individual stands to promise his electoral constituency remains a story for another day. It is so, because of the fact that most of the politicians do not have any detailed programme they intend to execute if voted into Office during the election. The acceptability or disapproval of a contesting candidate in a political contest usually emanates from the above mentioned features.
Most of the Igbo who participated in the interviews, believed that they know everything an electorate should know about his representative in a political set up.
But this same group of respondents equally claimed that; they do not have the same level of Information about a candidate, who hails from another ethnic homeland.
However, because of the deep trust reposed on the aspiring candidate by the people within his electoral constituency, such individual ends up carrying with him the interest of his local community, and that of his ethnic homeland to the national level.
No Igbo federal Lawmaker goes to the national Assembly to protect the national interest above ethnic interest. This argument was more elaborated by a newly elected federal Lawmaker from Enugu state. He was elected on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the April 2011 general election to represent one of the federal constituencies in the state. He said during an interview that,
“the interest of those people who sent me to the federal Parliament is what shapes my voting direction during debates at the National Assembly”8.
He further said that,
“it does not matter to me, if my position of argument tallies with that of people from other ethnic homelands or if it conflict with the interest of any particular section of the country”9.