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Dr Chike Obidigbo was a governorship candidate during the 2013 election in Anambra State. He was also a governorship aspirant in 2017 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC. He has now retired from active politics.

In this interview with DAILY POST, the frontline industrialist did not mince words on issues about the Igbo nation, Biafra, weekly sit-at-home in the South East, Simon Ekpa, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Tinubu administration, the alleged marginalization of Igbo, 2027 presidential election, among other pressing national issues. Excerpts!

Why do you think sit-at-home has become part of the lives of people of the South East and nothing or so little is being done by those in authority to stop it?

Thank you very much. One, I would like to please request that I use this medium to express my heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the entire Yoruba nation for the loss of a great man, Ayo Adebanjo. It’s an irreplaceable loss. But we thank God that he lived to a ripe old age.

So now, coming to the question. It has been very long. It has cost the South East a lot in revenue, in earnings, in opportunities. But the painful thing about it is that people have not bothered to address the root cause of the sit-at-home. Let me tell you very frankly.

The people of the South East want to do it, in fact, nobody is forcing them into that sit-at-home. I do it. All my businesses are closed down during the Monday sit-at-home. And there’s not much anybody can do about it, except the root cause is attended to. And that root cause is the holding down of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. I personally made a plea to the President to consider the implications of keeping that young man there. It’s not in anybody’s interest, it’s not in Igbo’s interest, it’s not even in Nigeria’s interest but nobody will hear.

What is his offense? That he’s agitating for his people. He’s saying that his people are marginalized. Are we not marginalized? He’s saying that the war has not ended. Has the war actually ended? If you ask me, I would say the war has not ended. We are still fighting a war. This time around, without boundary, before it had boundary and then they hold this young man because he’s telling the truth. He says we are being marginalized. Remove this marginalization from the Igbo race and nobody wants to listen to that. All they want to do is to hold him down and then keep him there; for doing what?

Other people are saying exactly the same thing he said. They are walking freely around. So it is part of that marginalization we are talking about. It is part of that discrimination that is targeted against the Igbo race. I said the sit-at-home is hurting everybody, it is hurting the people of the South East, it is hurting the entire nation. It is hurting the governments of the South East because people are willingly observing the sit-at-home. I observe the sit-at-home. My business does not open on the sit-at-home date because we are agitating, I mean we are complaining, let me just use the word complain. We are complaining about the injustice that is meted on the South East by the Nigerian state.

We fought a war. We were told that the war had ended. But in your mind as a person, has the war actually ended? The war has not ended. We are still taking the brunt of the war. We are being marginalized. We are not given what directly belongs to us as a people. Our children are suffering. And then somebody stood up and said, all these things are not good, they are not healthy for the nation. They are not healthy for the oneness of Nigeria.

Therefore, if Nigeria as a nation state cannot rectify these ills that are affecting the entire population of the South East, therefore, if they cannot do it, let us separate from Nigeria and they are holding him there. So many people from Yoruba land have already made the same allegation against the government and they say, let us go. The government is not holding anybody.

In the North, they are talking about it. The government is not holding anybody. Why this particular one because he is Igbo. And then all the brothers and sisters in Igbo said, so long as you keep this man incarcerated in this unjust manner, let us observe one day sit-at-home in our various businesses, in our various schools, so that the government will feel the pain too. Even though they pretend not to feel the pain, they are still feeling the pain. So the sit-at-home is not going to stop in a hurry because nothing is being done about it.

Are you saying the sit-at-home must continue until the government yields and releases Nnamdi Kanu?
Yes, the government is adamant. I have personally written to the President and I said, please release this young man and release him unconditionally. I made it as a request. Release him for the good of the people of South East as a whole, release him because so long as he is still there, there is not going to be that kind of peace we deserve in the South East.

Unfortunately, our political leaders are not helping matters a lot because somehow I think they are afraid of Nnamdi Kanu, I think they are afraid that if he comes out, he can dominate the atmosphere. And in that case, he can make them irrelevant. But that is very unfair because what it means is that they are particularly interested only in their selfish desires and not what concerns and benefits the entire people of the South East.

Can you quickly connect this to the activities and the arrest of Simon Ekpa in Finland? Do you think his arrest was a move in the right direction?

No, no. The arrest of Simon Ekpa is not a move in the right direction at all, because it compounds the problem. Now it is internationalizing the whole struggle because the world now is hearing more about him than before. Those people who are agitating for the separation from Nigeria, they are not doing anything wrong at all because we all see the need for it. I personally see the need for it. I believe that Nigeria, my mind may be coming from a different angle. I believe that Nigeria is too large for a simple black man to manage successfully. That’s my own angle. We can manage more small-small things, but we don’t have the experience and exposure and knowledge to manage big things. And Nigeria is too large, too diverse for one single head to manage successfully.

You see, when Nigeria was divided into regions, the Eastern Region was doing very well, Western Region was doing very well, even the North was doing very well, too. Everybody was doing well, because it’s a smaller estate, easier to manage.

But when we bring everything together, into that massive entity called Nigeria, it becomes very difficult for one person to manage because there are pulls from left, right, and centre to make it difficult and impossible for him to manage successfully.

Why do you think the international community is silent about the way Nnamdi Kanu is being treated, even about the manner of his arrest in Kenya?

You see, we [Igbo] are highly handicapped people, we are handicapped. Look at the war between Nigeria and Biafra. That was one of the heaviest cases of genocide known to mankind; one of them, one of them, probably apart from the Holocaust.

But did the world know anything about it? No. Did the world say anything about it? No. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t say anything because we are unfortunate, that is why they call us the Dark Continent. Information from here does not flow out properly as it’s supposed to flow. And most of the time, the powers that be are sitting on the information flow out of this part of the world.

So a lot of things happening here are not even known to the outside world. During the war, Britain intentionally blocked information flow from the Biafran Region to the world. It was at the last minute that the world started hearing about Biafra. And that was when they hurriedly ended the war by putting in every weapon they could think of, everything was thrown in to make sure the war ended by fire, by force before the world would get angry with what Britain was doing to us in Biafra.

Now, in the case of Nnamdi Kanu, number one, Nnamdi Kanu was kidnapped, let us use the correct word, he was kidnapped. And we all know, and the government knows, that kidnap is a criminal offence. So the government committed a crime against its citizen.

The government does not have any right to commit a crime against her citizens but they did it. Even the Supreme Court acknowledged that he was kidnapped. But what did they do? They didn’t do anything. At the same time, the same Nnamdi Kanu was freed by an Appeal Court and was freed unconditionally. What happened? They did not release him. He is still there. Then this woman, the judge trying him now, has recused herself which is to say, she has abdicated the responsibility to continue the trial. How come again she is the same person that called them back again to continue the trial? It is never done anywhere in the world. Even though I am happy with what she did eventually, I like what the woman did by giving an indefinite date, she made it indefinite. It is a very wise thing that she did there because to me, what she has done can be interpreted that she wanted the prosecutors to get back to their clients and advise them appropriately because they are doing the wrong thing.

Whatever time it takes them to do that, it is time that she is ready to wait until it is done and then they come back and tell her it has been done. We are deceiving ourselves a lot in this country, Nnamdi Kanu told them.

A lot of things they are doing to Nnamdi Kanu are illegal and the government should not be practicing illegality. The government should not be doing things that are against her citizens. When a government is supposed to be protecting our citizens, the government is practicing illegality and punishing their citizens.

Unfortunately, we are such very docile people that when things like this happen, everybody keeps quiet believing that it doesn’t concern me. It is Igbo, it is Yoruba, it is Hausa, it is this or that. No. If we are to be a country, then we must practice the art of being a country and working together as a country, but we are not doing that today and I don’t think we will ever do that.

Talking about coming together, what is your take on the recently concluded Ohanaeze Ndigbo election that produced an Ikwerre man as its new President? Do you think he’ll make a good President for the Igbo nation?

Yes, I believe it. You see, before the war, the Igbos occupied a lot of Port Harcourt, the Ikwere’s were part of the Igbo and they never, for one day, denied their Igboness, for one day, they never did. Every Ikwerre man knew that he was an Igbo person.

Even in the Opobo area, they believe that they are Igbo people, even where this present governor comes from, they believe they are Igbo people and they are Igbo people, they speak Igbo, all of them.

Wike said he is not Igbo. Then let him go to whatever he wants to belong to. If Mbata accepts that he is Igbo and he is from Ikwerre and Ohanaeze presidency is being rotated across board. That is to say, it is a turn of Rivers to produce.
They are not a minority in Rivers and those of them that believe they are Igbo, believe they are Igbo because they are realistic about their Igboness.

Those who say they are not Igbo are afraid of something, they are cowards. They are people who believe that if they say they are Igbo, then they might be denied certain benefits that they get. That is not enough reason to deny your own people. It is not enough reason.

Are you a member of Ohanaeze Ndigbo?
No, I am not a member of Ohanaeze Ndigbo but you know, by right, every Igbo person is a member of Ohanaeze, every person.

I communicate with them. I have people representing my interest in Ohanaeze and then, I am not a direct member because it is open and as an Igbo person, I am a member, by extension, I am a member.

So Mbata, I believe, has always operated within the Igbo circle. He has always seen himself as an Igbo person. So there is no reason why he should not represent the core Igbo interest in Ohanaeze, I know he will. You see, the problem Ohanaeze has had over several years is that most of the people that are there, they went in there to look, you know as a step towards actualizing their own self-interest not the wider interest of Igbo nation. So when this man got on board, he addressed that in my mind. I was happy, he addressed it, that it is time for Igbo to come together and work for Igbo interests and not for personal interest of people. So it is very okay as far as I am concerned.

Have you been impressed by President Bola Tinubu’s nearly 2 years in office looking at his economic policies, appointments into key offices?

Well, I must say that I have had one or two occasions to meet with the president, that was before he became the president. He has good intentions for the people, let me just put it that way.

But being a president is a different kettle of fish because once you are there, a lot of things will change, a lot of things will go wrong, some will go right. But since he became the President of Nigeria, a lot of things have been going wrong, very, very wrong and he knows it. That is why once in a while, he comes out to apologize and make promises, which are difficult to keep.

You see, the government has responsibilities, true governance has responsibilities. Number one is to guarantee the security of life and property of the citizens. And this is one of the indices we use to judge the success of any administration.

Has the Tinubu’s administration been able to guarantee security of life and property of the citizens of this country? If you ask him that question, you know the answer.

Then number two is that a good government will provide sustenance for the people. That is to say, there will be jobs, there will be means to put food on the tables of the people. But you know the quantum of hunger in this country today. You know how many people are dying in their own village today. On a regular basis, people are dying, dying out of hunger. Dying out of inability to take care of their health issues. So you now think again about shelter. But here, it’s not only the Tinubu problem, the governors have a greater share of the problem than Tinubu as far as I’m concerned because they’re closer to the people. They should know what the people need. And they should be able to provide this.

They collect a lot of money from taxes. They collect money from the government. How do they invest those monies other than to pack them to look for other elective positions; so I blame the governors more for the problem of the economy now than I blame Tinubu. It is the governors too that will tell Tinubu where and where things should go.

Take the South East for example. What is the origin of the problem of the South East? Where is the problem coming from? The problem is coming from the inability of the government to shoulder her responsibilities, which they’re not at all. I’ve talked about life and property security. I’ve talked about jobs. Look at Anambra for example. Look at, in fact, the whole of the South East. When we were growing up as young children, there was nothing like unemployment in the Eastern Region. There was nothing like that, the word came newly, there was nothing like unemployment.

And the government was very serious about providing opportunities for young people to get gainfully employed.

Take the regime of Dave Umahi for example, in Ebonyi State, between that Dave Umahi’s period till today, between Gburugburu’s period in Enugu State till today. Between Obiano’s periods till Soludo’s own till today, even right from Orji Uzo Kalu in Abia State till today, look at the Imo State.

How many jobs have they created over all these years for the youths of this South East zone? How many jobs have been created? If you ask me, I would say zero.

And when there are no jobs, children can start creating jobs for themselves. Children can start doing things that they are not supposed to do in order to make a living, in order to earn a living, in order to eat basic food.

Look at what happened in Anambra State recently and it is still happening. All the assets that were amassed in Anambra state, overnight, flew into Delta state, to Lagos, to Edo, to Bayelsa, to Kogi while Anambra remains barren like an abandoned ranch. Yet, the wealth made in this state, accumulated in this state over several decades, right under our nose, it’s flying away. When all these things fly away, what’s happening to the state?

Where will the jobs come from? How will our youth be taken care of? How can you stop them from most of these criminal activities they engage in because you use jobs to fight crime, while there are no jobs, there’s crime and plenty of it.

So when we are blaming Tinubu, we should also blame our governors because they are in a position to do better, even more than Tinubu. Tinubu is President of Nigeria.

But at the same time, I would like Tinubu also to look into the economy because he has not looked into the economy at all. Look into the economy and look into those things that will help the growth of the economy. And look into the organized private sector because this is where they make a lot of mistakes. Our leadership makes a lot of mistakes. You must provide jobs for the youths. And in civilized areas, they know that they cannot do it on their own. Then they solicit and engage the services of the organized private sector to help them.

But here, every business you have with the government is tax, tax. How much tax have you paid? You won’t have light, you won’t have any infrastructure, you don’t have it but just tax.

So those of us that are already in the business, we’re going down. Every day, we’re going down, every day. There was a time not too long ago, we had more than 600 workers, that’s me, more than 600 workers. Today, we’re not up to 200. What’s going on? This is the kind of question the government should be asking. What’s happening? What’s going on? Because the government should encourage you to take more and more people.

In Nigeria, the government does not bother with the organized private sector at all. The government hardly invites people of the organized private sector to discuss, to share their views, and to make suggestions on how the economy should be growing because they are the people who know how to grow the economy. It’s not people in government, it’s not civil servants, never.

Can you just give your take on the appointments made by Tinubu so far, do you think every region has been carried along?

Well, they always keep setting the example. When Buhari was in power, almost every responsible officer of his government was a Fulani man from the North, almost all of them. It’s only those ones that the law says you must. That’s to say, you must appoint ministers in various states. Those are the only ones they do. Then the other ones that are at their discretion, he appointed only his Fulani brothers.

The same thing, maybe Tinubu learnt from him. Tinubu learnt from him because his appointments are seriously skewed almost 100% in favour of the Yorubas. But in Tinubu’s case, he’s making a very big mistake because if I were Tinubu, I would have used that opportunity to galvanize the support of the South because Nigeria is not a country, nobody can ever convince me that Nigeria is a country. And because it’s not a country, it can never be viable unless certain things are put in place.

Tinubu ought to have used this opportunity to galvanize the Southern Belt, okay not to fight the other ones. But again, if we are together in the South, then it becomes very easy to checkmate a lot of excesses in this country.
So his appointments have not favoured Ndigbo, at all. It’s very annoying to me.

Are you saying that Ndigbo are underrepresented in Tinubu’s government too?

Well, we [Igbo] have always been marginalized, there’s no doubt about that. Buhari did absolutely nothing for the Igbo man, nothing. We are ‘dot in a circle’ and because we are ‘dot in a circle,’ we don’t deserve anything at all. Tinubu’s own, he has not done better than Buhari. He is expected to do better, but he has not done better and I still expect that Tinubu will do better than Buhari in terms of appointment.

Now looking at the existence of opposition in Nigeria. Do you think that opposition political parties are strong enough and are playing the role effectively?

It is very difficult for us to practice opposition in Nigeria because there is too much hunger, and pain, and insufficiency, too much of them. So with this type of thing, you can’t talk of opposition. Whoever gets to the top, people will rush towards him, even opposition will break down because everybody wants to get a piece of the pie from the centre, because there’s too much hunger, and not just hunger, we lack integrity in this part of the world, we lack integrity, we lack vision.

Then, unfortunately for us here in this part of the world, we lack, you know, we have short memories. We don’t think far and in addition to this short memory, they have even said that we don’t need to learn history again. Just tell me the kind of human being we’re going to produce in the next couple of years. So opposition politics is not part of our understanding.

To us, if somebody is out of government, somebody who is used to eating from government, and then is out of government for a short while, what will he be feeding on? He will be hungry. His car will break down. He can’t maintain his car again. He can’t pay his house rent if he has not built a house. Therefore, he must find a way to get back to any government that is in power.

We don’t have opposition that is strong, and with some degree of integrity, that can stand. And then, in our politics, we lack ideology in our politics, we don’t have what we believe in. No political party has what it believes in. So as long as that remains, we will never have a serious and stronger opposition in our politics.

Now 2027 is fast approaching. We just have two years or so to go; Peter Obi tried his best the last time. In 2027, do you think the Igbo man stands any chance?

Well, let me take you back a little to history. During the war, there’s something that a lot of people did not know. Ojukwu didn’t want that war. He didn’t want it. And he did everything possible to stop it, to prevent that war. I was small, but I was close enough to the government to know what was happening.

Ojukwu had two reasons. One, he said that they’re not militarily prepared for the war, they don’t have anything. And then number two, that Igbo man is very itinerant; that Igbo man would like to operate in a large environment which Nigeria state offers. But people will now tell you that Ojukwu wanted it; Ojukwu never wanted the war. That was why he went to Aburi to discuss. And when they came back from Aburi, it was Gowon that reneged and then which led to other discussions.

Now, everything you are doing about the presidency of Nigeria, you must factor in British interests. Britain, that’s number one. Number one is British interest. And the cause of that war was British interest, to protect British interest. That was the cause of the Biafra war. So, as far as I’m concerned, it is not being the President of Nigeria that is the problem of the Igbo man, it’s not. Peter Obi is my very good friend, everybody knows that. When he was going to Chatham House to go and debate, I called him, I told him something. I said to him that bear in mind that this country called Nigeria, has been Britain’s garden for more than 600 years. And they are not ready to relinquish the stronghold they have in this country, they are not ready. Until as a nation, we all rise and do so. Just the kind of thing they did in Niger Republic. So, it’s not about being president.

Tinubu being President of Nigeria, I have nothing against it. He is going back to the second term, I have nothing against it. Whoever becomes President of Nigeria, I have nothing against it. But what I’m against is that they are not doing the right thing. And that right thing is thinking and providing for the common man. They’re not doing it. If you go to any of the civilized countries of the world, nobody will ask you where you’re coming from before you become prime minister or become president. What they’re looking for is the capability, capacity of the person that is coming on board that can do it.

In Nigeria, Tinubu as a person, like I said, Tinubu has hosted me before he became President of Nigeria. I was at his No 10 Bourdillon with some of my friends. He truly entertained us and we had a lot of very detailed discussions with him there.

Tinubu’s age, to me, is not the best for Nigeria for now because of the diversity of this country. But if he can still use his age and get the right people in the right positions, people that will drive the economy of this country, no problem.

If Peter Obi wins and becomes the president, I’m okay with that. But my prayer is that whoever becomes the president, let him be somebody who has the interest of the masses at heart because in this country, we have suffered.

I don’t know any country in the world that has the quantum of mineral resources this country has. But we don’t have the brain to tap what God has freely given unto us. And then until we start taking ourselves seriously, look at our children when they go abroad, they are doing very well. When they come back to Nigeria here, they are turned into thieves, they start stealing like everybody else.

Until we start reasoning like human beings, because today, we’re not reasoning, in fact we are not reasoning at all. When we start reasoning like human beings, then it becomes easy for whoever is there at the top to do well, irrespective of where the person is coming from.

Summary of what you asked. The Igbo man is not particularly interested in who becomes the President of Nigeria. Let me tell you this. This much I know. He’s not particularly interested in that. What Igbo man wants is a level playing ground where he can do his business without any obstruction, without any intimidation, the kind of intimidation that you are seeing happening to them across Nigeria. Their shops are burnt. Their shops are destroyed. Their businesses are destroyed. Look at the port business, the Igbo man is an importer, the greatest importers in this country today are Igbo people.

Because they are importers, part of the agreement as I heard that favours the Yoruba is that as soon as the war ends, they will close all the ports that border Igbo so that everybody will be compelled to do business through Lagos, to continue to beef up the economy of the West. I think that was part of their own bargain for the war.

So what we want is a level playing ground. Let whoever is there, let him be there but let us have our businesses and let us have our life. Let us get security for our life and for our property, wherever we are. That’s my thinking. But if by the grace of God, an Igbo man becomes the President, it’s okay. But even if he becomes the President, I would still expect him to provide a level playing ground for every other person in the country, not only for the Igbos. And I wouldn’t want him to skew all his appointments to Igbo nation. Spread it the way we are.

But that is if Nigeria is to continue to remain as a country because the pull is getting too strong. The Biafra is pulling. The Yoruba nation is pulling, the Arewa is now pulling, everybody is pulling, and everybody seems to want to disintegrate. If the leadership will look into it, and if it is determined that it is truly destined for that, after all, when this amalgamation was done in 1904, they gave a 100-year programme. They said, after 100 years, review it, that 100 years ended in 2014, it has not been reviewed, it’s not fair. It should be reviewed so that those who want to remain in their union should remain. Those who want to go should go. It’s as simple as that; it’s a matter of choice. It’s not by force.

You don’t force a union, it’s no longer a union, if you force it, it’s no longer a union. Union means where people have agreed to work together and live together and operate together. That’s union. So please, I pray Peter Obi should do better than most of them because Peter Obi is coming from a very serious commercial background. People with that kind of background will always know what to do and know how to handle the economy.