Living In Denial: Why Igbos must take a strong position on ESN/IPOB’s terrorist attacks and stop being sympathetic
On September 11, 2001, the United States of America witnessed one of its deadliest terrorist attacks in history. Two of four hijacked planes on that day flew into the World Trade Centre, a 110 twin-storey building that symbolised America’s economic power. The attack led to the death of nearly 3000 people.
As first responders arrive to rescue trapped people and as millions of Americans mourn the loss of their loved ones, thousands of Palestinians joyously march the streets with postcards of Osama bin Laden, the leader and co-founder of the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, who masterminded the attack.
Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted man on earth, was a hero to thousands of Palestinians. In retrospect, I ask the question: ‘Would all who celebrated the 9/11 attack, given the opportunity, have flown and intentionally crashed that plane to kill thousands?’
The answer, I believe, is no! What the celebrators and the masterminds of the attack shared in common was their disdain for what could be called America’s lifestyle, their ‘imperialist’ grip on some of the Arab countries which were not fostering Islamic belief, and their allies with Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The shared belief made America the common enemy, strong enough that many of the people who celebrated,may ordinarily not be able to harm a fly, but become unemphatic to the cries of the Americans and perhaps sympathetic to the lives of the 19 suicide pilots.
Re-reading ‘The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden’, which detailed the 9/11 attack, have made me feel that many Igbos are becoming complicit in the increasing terrorist attacks in Southeast Nigeria. This complicity is now being traded on the altar of condoning or perhaps not condemning the actions of the Eastern Security Network (ESN) or the proscribed Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB). As it is with all terrorist organisations, whether the motive is religion or freedom, the quest to secede from Nigeria, an ambition shared by 80 per cent of Igbos, has made many Igbos blind to the reality that their region is now a war zone.
From social media comments where successful arrests of members of ESN are branded as innocent people by social media accounts owned by Igbos to the verbal denial that these attacks are carried out by Southeasterners. I have, several times, encountered people who not only live in this denial but believe that for the actualisation of the Biafran State, the bizarre killing, poverty-inducing orders like the sit-at-home, is a necessary evil.
I heard it in the tone of a driver on my route to Port Harcourt from Aba in mid-2022. The driver, for nearly half the 2-hour journey, narrated how his 18-seater bus was nearly burnt by members of ESN for defying the Monday sit-at-home order.
“They ordered all my passengers to come down and brought out petrol and lighter to burn my vehicle. If not that I recognised their leader’s voice and knelt down to beg him, I would have lost my car.”
If his story was to be believed, why didn’t he call on the security officers as he claimed to have not only recognised the voice of the leader, but went in the evening to thank him? Instead, he chooses to park his car on Mondays because, to him, it is the sacrifice he needs to offer for the actualisation of Biafra. While he might not necessarily take up arms to fight, he is as much unlikely to report those who carry out these audacious acts.
Interestingly, some scholars have classified terrorism into Ethnic and Ideological Terrorism. While there has not been much study on the growing terrorist cells in Southeast to properly classify them, the cause to advance the ‘liberation’ of Biafra from Nigeria, the feeling of political and economic marginalisation of their ethnic group, gives the air that it is an Ethnic based terrorism.
According to Professor Byman Daniel, a counter-terrorism expert, “Ethnic terrorism differs considerably from violence carried out for ideological, religious, or financial motives,” in that “ethnic terrorists often seek to influence their own constituencies more than the country as a whole.”
He added: “Ethnic terrorists frequently seek to foster communal identity.”
It becomes harder, I suspect, for one who believes that his tribe is being marginalised to wholeheartedly condemn the actions of his kinsmen, who have taken the arms way, even if he or she is a pacifist.
The Southeast is increasingly becoming a haven for terrorism, and it is quite alarming knowing that one-third of all terrorist groups in the world operate to advance the cause of an ethnic group.
Maike Knoechelmann, a Professor in the Criminology department at Simon Fraser University, who argued that Boko Haram has remained undefeated for 14 years because the “Nigerian government misclassified Boko Haram as solely an ideological terror organisation disregarding its ethnic background and ties,” pointed out that one of the difficulties in dealing with Ethnic Terrorism is that “any military action against the ethnic terrorist group
will create a backlash and will heighten animosity among the local population towards the government.”
“Moreover, this will then increase support for the radical terrorist group and in addition, it will cause recruitment to the group,” she added.
To elaborate the subtle sympathy, if not admiration, to ESN in Southeast, let me recount a personal observation. I was living in Owerri, Imo State, during the heat of the Unknown Gunmen (UGM) attacks in 2021. Their primary targets were Police Barracks and other government-owned buildings. People live in fear but do not necessarily dread the UGM. I could not count how many times I heard the saying “they are not after us,” as a consolation to the hideous crimes being propagated by the armed group. While people feared being hit by stray bullets, which often happen during confrontations between UGM and security officers, they were almost indifferent to the fatalities the security personnel suffered.
This tribal bias is not peculiar to one ethnic group alone. Emotional-ethnic leaning toward terrorist groups could be the reason why Islamic Scholar, Sheikh Abubakar Ahmad Gumi called on Nigerians not to vote for people that will fight bandits because they, the bandits, “are our people.” But in all, the ethnic group that chooses to play hanky panky with the associated Ethnic Terrorist group suffers the most.
I wonder what will be of the Southeast five years from now if the situation is not reversed. The action of ESN/IPOB and the inaction of Southeastern have already resulted in the loss of nearly ₦4 trillion within two years and the death of 256 people in just five months of 2021. To fund their arms ways, ESN resorts to kidnapping and armed robbery. Who are the victims of these kidnappings, and who pay the high ransoms? While the government needs diverse effective ways to fight terrorism in Nigeria, Igbo political elite and traditional rulers should be on a campaign to re-orientate the mindset of their citizens, particularly the youths. It is also important for politicians to condemn the actions of these terrorist groups without mincing words or trying to be politically correct.
