Reminding a challenged individuals of their drawback typically provokes them to resistance. Put otherwise, there’s a method you act, like making a careless remark, and also you get up a sleeping individuals. A helpful instance is the phenomenology of Steve Biko, 1946-1977.
Born into the household of Mr. and Mrs. Mzimgayi Biko in Jap Cape (Xhosaland), in Apartheid South Africa, his father died when Steve was 4. This yoked his younger mom with the onerous activity of elevating 4 youngsters alone.
Steve and his elder brother referred to as Kaya had been a supply of fear for his or her mom because the Safety Police had been at all times attempting to find them, particularly Kaya whose Lovedale Institute authorities identified as outstanding member of the resistance POQO secret society. However Steve attended a Roman Catholic secondary faculty at Mariamhill earlier than gaining admission to learn drugs on the (white) College of Natal, Non-European part, Durban.
What provoked Steve greater than anything was not the “white supremacists” who cooked up Apartheid. His anger was kindled by the so-called “white liberals” who arrogated to themselves the duty of telling black individuals how to reply to the supremacists’ violence to not develop into racists themselves. He declared that one white man couldn’t step on his toe whereas one other white man would inform him how to reply to the provocation of the offending white man. If any white man stepped on his toe, he swore to react in any method he deemed match.
His argument was that white supremacists and liberals alike had been all racists as there have been few good white males. That by permitting two white males to oppress and liberate him in flip, the black man had willfully allowed himself to be diminished from being one thing to nothingness.
Steve condemned these blacks who sang out their lamentation to seemingly sympathetic white liberals as an alternative of doing one thing to finish Apartheid. He reminded such blacks that the black man had the historic activity of emancipating himself from the stranglehold of white racism. On this battle for self-emancipation the black man stood alone and will anticipate no real assist from any white. It is because of this that he declared, “Black man, you might be by yourself!” This slogan turned the motto for the Black Consciousness Motion, BCM, he based.
Apparently, from the late Nineteen Sixties when Steve succeeded in isolating black college students from white liberals within the bandwagon Nationwide Union of South African College students, NUSAS, by forming the black-only South African College students’ Organisation, SASO, that the anti-Apartheid battle registered enormous milestones. Blacks started to talk for themselves as an alternative of counting on white liberals as their ventriloquists. A brand new breed of fiercely rebellious black youths emerged brazenly shouting, “Black man, you might be by yourself!”
Stockholm syndromeLike traumatised blacks in Apartheid South Africa, the Ijaw ethnic nationality, Nigerian fourth largest tribe, fell right into a lure with their eyes large open in 2015 once they allowed one Ikwerre supremacist referred to as Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi to oppress them whereas one other Ikwerre liberal referred to as Nyesom Ezebunwo Wike to defend them.
Amaechi used Rivers State funds and assets to instigate or spearhead the elimination of the Ijaw-born President Goodluck Jonathan from workplace on the nationwide stage. On the state stage, Wike pranced about convincing some gullible Ijaws that he saved Mrs Persistence Goodluck Jonathan from Amaechi.
The years rolled by and Ijaws misplaced grip having develop into fully depending on Amaechi and Wike to extract juicy appointments and state privileges each on the nationwide and state ranges. No Ijaw might be employed or fired besides by the mercies of those good people who secretly laughed off their heads on the Ijaw man’s tom foolery.
Nonetheless, some 24 million Ijaws by no means seen when Wike shed his previous toga of Ijaw liberator to emerge tormentor. None detected it since he was good sufficient to entrance the Ijaw-born Governor Siminalayi Fubara as his successor in workplace. As for Amaechi, that one seamlessly yielded the stage to Wike earlier than dropping out of sight.
However even Fubara was not adequate to rule Rivers State and Wike needed him out in lower than 5 months in workplace. Then we wakened one morning solely to behold a cringing breed of Ijaws calling themselves Rivers Ijaws Individuals’s Congress, RIPCO.
Whereas kowtowing to Wike, components on this amorphous affiliation poured their venom on Fubara as an ingrate throughout a civic reception they organised in Okrika to beg Wike to not abandon Ijaws.
Smiting his personal chest in humble regret, Boma Iyaye, a outstanding RIPCO chief who holds down an NDDC appointment by advantage of Wike’s goodwill, pleaded along with his benefactor to not decide Ijaws harshly due to one man. His public lamentation ran this fashion, “On behalf of our individuals, we’re apologising to you for what our son is doing to you. We’re sorry. We’re sorry o as a result of it’s not in our nature to pay evil for good. You might have completed properly for us, and we are going to proceed to say thanks. Your Excellency, don’t, due to this unhealthy habits of our son, run away from us. Proceed to have us in thoughts. Now we have by no means set our toes on the primary seat of Rivers State. You made it attainable for us to develop into the governor of Rivers State.”
The Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological response, is outlined as “a coping mechanism to a captive or abusive state of affairs. Individuals develop constructive emotions towards their captors or abusers over time.” That greatest explains why Iyaye, a fantastic son of the Izon nation, labored himself to tears begging his oppressor to simply accept him, however not Ijaws, again. Moderately than confront Wike as Steve and the BCM would have completed in Apartheid South Africa, Iyaye and different RIPCO sufferers will vilify you for criticising these making Rivers ungovernable for Governor Fubara.
However it was the RIPCO present of disgrace that lastly awoke Ijaws from their 2015 slumber and at the moment are asking some arduous questions. Ijaws wish to know if certainly Wike aimed to take away Fubara from workplace simply as Jonathan was flagrantly faraway from workplace by the unholy trinity of Amaechi, Mohammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu. Ijaw nationalists are telling Ijaws that defending Fubara is a life and dying dedication. That within the envisaged vicious battle to avoid wasting Fubara, Ijaws ought to anticipate no assist from any do-gooder. The Ijaw man has the capability to exist independently and defend his core pursuits.
Rivers disaster is ethnic crisisIn the wee hours of Saturday, October 12, 2024, Ezonebi Oyakemeagbegha, the Nationwide Publicity Secretary of the genuine Ijaw Nationwide Congress, INC, issued a press release warning towards ethnic battle within the Fubara-Wike disaster, “At this essential time, we imagine that additional escalation of this disaster is pointless. The continuing state of affairs is actually a political dispute between Wike and Fubara, not an ethnic battle. We urge everybody to be cautious with their phrases and never body this as a tribal problem.”
The INC is the soul of Ijaw nationalism and should be taken significantly. However we want to know Wike’s intentions destabilising the Sim Fubara-led authorities. Did any Ijaw burn down the state when the immodest Wike was governor? Oyakemeagbegha and the INC should know that the second Wike assembled his hangers-on in Okrika to insult the Ijaw nation, the Fubara-Wike disaster robotically turned an Ijaw-Ikwerre disaster.
Of the 4 Native Authorities secretariats, specifically, Emohua, Ikwerre, Eleme and Etche, razed by arsonists on Monday October 7, 2024, two are in Ikwerre land whereas none is within the riverine populated by Ijaws. Wike should be confronted head on.
But when for any motive Wike succeeds in eradicating Fubara from workplace, it’s unlikely that different ethnic teams will rule the state within the foreseeable future as Rivers might merely stop to exist. Even President Tinubu who tolerates Wike might lose his workplace.
The aftermath of the Wild Wild West within the First Republic involves thoughts. If Wike begins fireplace in Rivers, the conflagration will most actually unfold to the remaining 5 South South states along with the South East. Sufficient of the Wike nuisance. Ijaws are saying sufficient is sufficient!!!Akamande, Chief of Considered Izon Ebe, could be reached through: [email protected]
