Whose Interest Is Anambra Election, The Downtrodden Or The Politicians?

 Whose Interest Is Anambra Election, The Downtrodden Or The Politicians?

The Anambra State election scheduled for Saturday 6th November 2021, is just a few days away. However, there are a lot of mixed feelings regarding the exercise. Because the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has announced that if Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not unconditionally released on or before Thursday 4th, they will be forced to sit at home, many Igbo politicians are asking and pleading with the IPOB leadership to call off the Sit-At-Home protest after seeing and hearing how effective and serious people take and respect the order. IPOB on the other hand, has stated that they will continue to sit-at-home unless politicians force the Nigerian government to unconditionally free Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from detention.

However, if critically examined, we will see that the Sit-At-Home is not only about the unconditional release of the IPOB leader and other Biafrans detained in Nigerian prisons across the country, but also about what benefits us as a people, what have we so far derived from all the elections previously conducted since the war ended in 1970? How has Igboland progressed socially, economically and educationally in all, despite our painful participation? . And worst of it all, how has the so-called "representatives of ours", interacted with the people supposedly being represented? Is the election for the advantage of the poor Igbo street traders, village dwellers and the unemployed or for the profit of the politicians themselves who like to reside in Abuja after the elections? How have previous elections benefited the generality of Anambra citizens? Are politicians going to change their ways of using the people before elections and then dumping them to die out of devastation, on the streets afterwards? Can one confidently point to some concrete educational, social, or economic gains of these conducted elections in which we fully participated? What have these politicians always said when our people have problems? Can it be truly stated that they actually represent the interest of their own people whom they claim to represent or do they always take sides with hate and oppresive policies that are churned out to impoverish and wipe the people off?

The Nkpor bloody massacre of 2015 and the Ezu river massacre, are still fresh in our minds. The Ozubulu bloody massacre is still fresh in our minds and all of these massacres occurred in Anambra State. Up to this day, no report of inquiry has been issued. None of the so-called politicians of Igbo extraction, has courageously done anything to inquire about what realistically happened to our able-bodied men and women who were gruesomely killed by the Nigerian armed forces at Nkpor in 2015, even after Amnesty International had reported that over 150 people were killed during the horrendous massacre. What else do we have to remember about after sleeping and waking up only to discover the corpses of able-bodied Igbo youngsters floating on Ezu river during Dr. Peter Obi's term as the Governor of Anambra State? We still remember the Ozubulu massacre, where people who went to church to thank their God were massacred and the same individuals who lay claim to be our representatives, still have done absolutely nothing about it up to this day. 

With all of these therefore, can we say that we will have representatives who will actually get concerned about our welfare, or those that are only concerned about their own pockets and the welfare of their own families and associates? If such is the case, we should consider ourselves pitiable, continuing to do one thing over time while observing in hopelessness. The question that every Igbo Biafran and Anambra citizen should be asking is: How have I profited from the past elections? Why risk our lives for individuals who do not even care about our existence? We have to use our tongues to count our teeth and then weigh in on the benefits of these elections before voting in the upcoming one, so that we do not become slaves to politicians who dream of nothing else apart from fame and personal aggradizement. A word is enough for the wise!

Written by Chidiebere N. Obulose

Edited by Domendu Udochukwu

For Family Writers Press International