he above titled piece by Dr. Nnaemeka Luke Aneke of December 13, 2002 touched on the issue of who actually originated the politics of ethnicity in Nigeria. The issue is contentious today because of perceived "negative" effects of ethnic nationalism in the contemporary Nigerian politics. Though, this writer is unable to accept such perceptions because they are not altruistic and are fraudulently oblivious of the rudiments of reality of Nigerian situation. So, this writer holds the position that the starting point for Nigeria is the recognition of the different needs, desires and aspirations of different ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.

Nevertheless, it is important to, once again, address the issue of who originated ethnic politics in Nigeria. This is because it would not only generate further debate, it would concomitantly be good for the education of all that are interested in dispassionate analysis of our past as a possible compass to navigate on the tumultuous sea of the present to the future (if there is any for Nigeria).

Dr. Aneke wrote inter alia:

Chief Awolowo, notwithstanding my personal respect and admiration for him, is the undisputed father of micro-ethnic politics in Nigeria. We may deny it, explain it or rationalize it but the facts speak for themselves.

To rationalise this position, Dr. Aneke contended that because of Awo's "stealing of Zik's victory in broad daylight in the western house" Zik was forced to go to Enugu and engineered the removal of Chief Eyo Ita as the leader of the government business. Since then, according to Dr. Aneke's analysis, the Fulani mayors of Enugu have lost their ascendancy and ethnic politics has since being part and parcel of the Nigerian political reality.

First of all, throughout the article in question, Dr. Aneke failed to describe for his readers any factual situation as related to the 1954 incident at the Western House of Assembly that suggested that Awo "is the undisputed father of micro-ethnic politics in Nigeria." He failed to go beyond the usual obfuscated mantra of the Igbo politicians of Nnamidi Azikwe genre that Awo "is a tribalist because of the carpet crossing of some members in the Western House of Assembly". This kind of approach makes it possible for them to perpetuate their lies about that event and be able to continue to appeal to the primordial loyalty of average innocent Igbo for political gains. It is paradoxical that the Igbo people who gave so much loyalty and support to Nnamdi Azikwe and his clique could not finger anything of importance bequeathed to them as a result of Zik's leadership. Therefore, to sustain the loyalty of the needy Igbo people to a failed leadership by Zik, there has to be a permanent enemy, real or imagined, and Awo was a perfect scapegoat. A.M.A Akinloye who led the cross carpeting was not good enough for obvious reasons. He Akinloye could easily go to town to reveal the deal Zik refused to accept. To force Zik apologists to contend with the factual situations of that 1954 event is to expose their shrouded lies and rob them of an effective tool of political control over the over exploited Igbo people. To tear down this cocoon of Zik's failed leadership is to encourage the Igbo people to seek alternative political leadership. Nevertheless, that we must do, because "you can fool some people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time."

I do not know if "stealing" is the correct word to describe the situation. Even then, Dr. Aneke failed to inform his readers how the "stealing" was executed other than refusing to give any fact related to the situation. This is part of the strategy of outright lies by Zik followers to demonise Chief Awolowo because Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe failed the challenge of leadership when it was most needed. Not only in the situation in question, but in several others as pointed out by Dr. Aneke himself and elucidated by the quote from Professor Chinua Achebe's book.

One of the basic lies of pro-Zik elements about the incident at the Western House of Assembly was that Awo "stole " Zik's "victory." Dr. Aneke repeated the same lie in the article in question when he wrote inter alia:

"Furthermore, whereas many well-meaning Igbos, including Chinua Achebe, Alex Ekwueme and others have repeatedly and severally condemned and lamented Zik's treatment of Eyo Ita in Enugu, and indicted that occasion for the strained relations between Igbos and their Eastern minorities, Yorubas, on the contrary, have largely justified and praised Awo for his stealing of Zik's VICTORYin broad daylight in the western house, and indeed, continued to cherish that occasion." (capitals mine)

For the sake of intellectual honesty, Dr. Aneke should have informed his readers why a supposedly victorious party, NCNC, was unable to form a government and still had to seek alliance with or support from a smaller party led by Chief Adisa Akinloye and company? He should have informed his readers which of the prominent Yoruba members of the NCNC in the West or among the elected members of the House refused the leadership of Dr. Azikwe on the account of proddings by Chief Awolowo. Dr. Aneke should have informed the readers how Chief Awolowo "stole " the " victory" of an NCNC party that historical records show that NCNC did not win. The truth of the matter is that neither the NCNC nor the AG won the election. They both missed the majority by a number of seats and would need the seven or six seats controlled by the Ibadan Peoples Party to form government.

	Zik was truly the grandfather of tribalism in Nigeria. Otherwise, instead of going back to the East to manipulate the emotions and the primordial sentiments of the Igbos, why did he not stay in the West and fight Awo for his every penny?

Dr. Aneke also wrote as follows:

Why should Zik yield the NCNC western Nigerian premiership candidacy to a Yoruba man in a political era when a Fulani man, Umoru Altime, was elected Mayor of Enugu and Professor Eyo Ita, a non-Igbo Efik was in charge of government affairs in Enugu, the heartland of the Igbos?

The fact of the situation is that Zik never yielded "Western Nigerian Premiership candidacy to a Yoruba man". He was actually a candidate. The Akinloye leadership that approached him did not belong to Action Group that Awo led. If for whatever reasons, Zik could not reach a deal with the Akinloye leadership of Ibadan Peoples Party, why was and still is Awo the whipping boy of dazed Azikwe and his followers? Why did Awo become a villain for being able to negotiate with Akinloye leadership and Zik could not? Dr Azikwe's erudition is not in question. But his political astuteness and sagacity definitely bears an imposing question mark. The IPP leadership approached him (Zik) first before they went to Awo. How and why did Zik fail to exploit the disaffection of the IPP against Chief Awolowo who had previously to 1954 dissolved the Ibadan Municipal Government controlled by the IPP? By his failure to claim the rulership of Western region, Zik demonstrated what later became the hallmark of his political career - spinelessness, fueled by principle-less politics - always shying away from necessary consultation, cooperation and confrontation as the need arose.

But instead of Dr. Azikwe to accept responsibility for his own failure and learn from the experience, he was goaded by a blind ambition that has nothing to do with the progress of his Igbo people and became diabolical. Professor Achebe's quote touched on this well-known fact as follows:

"Using his privately-owned newspapers and political muscle Azikwe maligned and forced Eyo Ita and his team out of office and proceeded to pack his own cabinet with primary school teachers, ex-police corporals, sanitary inspectors and similar highly motivated disciples who were unlikely to dispute anything he said. So the rule of mediocrity from which we suffer today received an early imprimatur in Eastern Nigeria, of all places".

The other side of this fact, which Dr. Aneke refused to mention in his article, is that Dr. Azikwe and his followers did not only "malign" Eyo Ita, they sold half truths to a largely unaware innocent Igbo public and malign Chief Awolowo as having "stole" the "Premiership" of Western region from their son, Nnamdi Azikwe, thereby tribalising the issue.

This issue was a good commodity and sold very well among the Igbos. An average Igboman who has read about the exploits of an Azikwe against the colonial masters could not reconcile his political defeat by an Awolowo in Ibadan. Azikwe's loss of the Western Premiership and his demonstrated lack of courage to face down Chief Awolowo as an opposition leader in the Western House pointed not only to his lack of political perspicacity but also underscored the trademark of Azikwe's politics which never had anything to do with the welfare of Nigerians in general or the Igbos in particular.

Zik was truly the grandfather of tribalism in Nigeria. Otherwise, instead of going back to the East to manipulate the emotions and the primordial sentiments of the Igbos, why did he not stay in the West and fight Awo for his every penny? He ought to have stayed in the West and fight it out. Moreso, at this time, Awo was not even a household name in Yorubaland. For example, my people in Ijeshaland were die hard NCNC followers for several years until they, like other NCNC faithfuls in Yorubaland were abandoned by the "Grest Zik'! If Zik was not to pave way for ethnic politics in Nigeria he should not have forced Eyo Ita out and malign Chief Awolowo for being able to give and take.

Few years later, there was an opportunity to show the lessons learnt and allow the welfare of the people be the driving force of political calculations. Once again, ZIK failed and concretised his image in history as not only a tribalist at heart, but also a nationalist of convenience. Awo wanted Zik to be the Prime Minister of Nigeria! He offered to serve under Zik as the Federal Finance Minister at Independence, in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. Is this how a tribalist behaves? That Awolowo did this was not out of character, giving up his ambition for the good of the country by asking Zik to assume leadership of the federal government. But rather Zik chose to become a powerless ceremonial head of state! In the late 1940s he (Awo) had enraged Prince (later Odemo of Ishara) Samuel Akinsanya (who came from the same local government as Awo) by supporting an Igboman against him as the Secretary of the Nigerian Youth Movement. What a tribalist indeed!

The truth of the matter is that Zik's defeat on the floors of the Western House of Assembly has nothing to do with his being an Igboman but has everything to do with his failure as a leader, a statesman, and a politician. It also has everything to do with his morbid desire to be in charge everywhere he finds himself, even though, he lacked the necessary leadership requirements. Even then, despite his consuming ambition, Zik was so politically guileless that he could not identify his interest and what could have greatly benefited his Igbo people and other Nigerians when the opportunity was placed on his lap by Chief Awolowo to lead Nigeria at Independence.

How come Awo was maligned and blamed for the ineffective leadership and the resulting losses on the part of Zik? The answer is simple - It was the only way to power for an eloquent, articulate, erudite political activist insufficiently schooled in the nuances of give and take politics. Zik and his clique were of the view that the shortest cut to power was to establish a basis to malign a gentleman in Eyo Ita. To accomplish this, they have to paper over Nnamdi Azkwe's limitations as a political leader and use Awolowo as the template to tribalise the self-inflicted misfortunes of Zik in the Western House of Assembly. Demonising Awolowo as a tribalist was a good tool and it has been used over and over successfully, to the extent that gifted world class intellectuals like Chinua Achebe have come to believe and pontificate on the repeated lies of Azikwe clique. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propaganda chief, who theorised that a lie repeated often enough could become a truth, must be turning in his grave with envy!

To make his case seem solid, Dr. Aneke contended as follows:

Another startling phenomenon is the extent that Yoruba intellectuals/academicians go to show that Awolowo was indeed "sinless" when it comes to his major political decisions and especially in relation to Awolowo's infamous carpet crossing of 1954.

Firstly, it was not Awo and the AG who carpet cross. It was the elected members of the Ibadan Peoples Party led by A.M.A.Akinloye. And as rightly pointed out by Dr. Aneke, Awo was "sinless" in this regard and there was nothing to criticise. To the extent that the Yoruba intellectuals/academicians understood the truth of the matter, that Chief Awolowo did nothing wrong in out smarting Dr. Azikwe in 1954, they have nothing to criticise. Except that they may want to engage in half bred intellectuality and dishonesty like some Igbo intellectuals and academicians are ready to do. But on several other issues, such as his position on federalism, his refusal to allow Gowon to create more states out of Western region, which has put the Yorubas at a permanent disadvantage up till today; his talking about stock fish on campaign trail in the East during the second republic politics, he has been criticised and even pilloried. But largely, Awolowo's mistakes, unlike that of Zik, have been seen for what they are - sincere mistakes not borne out of selfish political reasons.

Moreso, there are a lot of others who have made careers out of opposing and criticising Chief Awolowo all their lives. Can Dr. Aneke honestly deny the fact that the position of Olusegun Obasanjo today as the anointed president of Nigeria has nothing to do with his anti Awolowo pedigree? Could he deny the fact that Chief M.K.O.Abiola rose to prominence because he took Awo to the cleaners in 1978/79? Then there are the Akinloyes of this world, the Akinjides of this world, the Onaolapo Soleyes of this world, Justice Ademolas of this world, the Odeleye Fadahunsi's of this world and others too numerous to mention. They not only openly criticised Awo, they challenged him politically and repeatedly. Chief Awolowo remained followed and esteemed because the Yorubas felt he was sincere about catering to their needs in comparison to others.

For Dr. Aneke to expect that sincere Igbo intellectuals would accept the failure that Zik was, without criticising him beats imagination. Compare the records of Azikwe in the office to that of Awolowo. In the West, Awo successfully implemented free education, minimum wage for labour, free medical care for children of age zero to eighteen, created farm settlements, paved roads and electrified all the nooks and crannies of the West, establishment of Radio station closely followed by the first television station in Africa, the first modern secretariat in Africa, the first Housing Estate in Africa, the first industrial estate in Africa and many more that space would not permit.

Despite all these achievements, he was still human. He was allowed his own mistakes. But regarding the particular incident in 1954, it was not Awo's alleged tribalism but monumental leadership failure and tunnel nationalist vision on the part of Zik that cost him (Zik) the premiership of the West. Awo committed no sin for wanting political power the way Zik wanted it. It was a fair battle fought on an even ground according to the established rules. In fact the NCNC had few more seats than AG but not enough to declare victory and form government.

Dr. Aneke then subtly made a case for the Igbo rulership of Lagos (which would still be followed up in a readers' reaction} and wrote as follows:

And when Mr. Oyeyemi writes "Why couldn't the Ohaneze or the so-called Arewa prove that they are interested in a "detribalized" Nigeria, so that the Yorubas could follow suit? Let the Ohaneze champion the election of a Yorubaman to the Enugu State House before asking us to do the same thing in our backyard", I would suppose that he, not unexpectedly, did not know that Ndigbo had passed his litmus test even before Nigeria had her independence, using a Fulani and an Efik, and with political positions much more significant than a state assemblyman position. Right now, the world will be watching if, and when, the Yorubas will follow suit. The Arewa will speak for themselves.

One has no choice but to once again point out the selective honesty of Dr. Aneke. Dr. Aneke was proud to mention the fulani mayor of Enugu and Eyo Ita an Efik. If the Yorubas did not show the same example how come Nnamdi Azikwe found himself an elected member of the Yoruba dominated Western House of Assembly? Did Dr. Aneke's selective memory failed to recall that Azikwe was not the only non-Yoruba elected into the Western House? May be Dr. Aneke's history teacher forgot to teach him that before the self- government trial of the fifties non- Yorubas have been elected into the Lagos House of Assembly before Azikwe introduced tribalism into the Nigerian politics as an excuse for his own failed political leadership?

Though, as Dr. Aneke said, mayoralty and premiership may be "much more significant than state assemblyman." This was before independence and under different milieu. After independence, the song changed and the drummers reacted accordingly. Since 1960, things have been falling apart. The center has never held. The culture of political congeniality that prevailed in Nigeria up till October 1, 1960 was destroyed by the Nnamdi Azikwe-Ahmadu Bello conspiracy to decimate Awolowo physically and politically. Awo was not only humiliated at the Independence ceremony as the leader of the Yorubas by the NCNC/NPC coalition, he was thence hounded and repeatedly harassed, detained and jailed, insulted, abused, ridiculed and humiliated until providence intervened to give him the last laugh.