In the three weeks before January 11, 2025 when I returned, I was away from Lagos back in Mbaise, my ancestral home, to bury my mother-in-law, Ezinne Eunice Egowure Okahia. During that period, a lot happened, the most consequential being the election of Senator John Azuta-Mbata as the President-General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, despite the vile machinations of some wet blankets. We will come back to that shortly.

Contrary to the fears of many that the Southeast would typify the Hobbesian state of nature where “man’s life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” Alaigbo was bubbly. Getting there was the problem. Those who chose to travel by air, paying exorbitant airfares that seemed to have been reservedly exclusively for Ndigbo, still endured flight delays and sometimes outright cancellations.

But it was even worse for those who travelled by road as I did. The journey on the approximately 543 km stretch from Lagos to Owerri was nightmarish, much of the highway, especially the Benin City Bypass in Edo State, having become a death trap. If nothing is done to rehabilitate the Bypass before the rains return, it will be impossible to drive on it. Am I optimistic that something will be done? Not at all as long as the Federal Government remains distracted with its ?15.6 trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.

Then the humiliation by policemen and soldiers. Most of the checkpoints on the roads are nothing other than extortion centres.  The soldiers in particular act with impunity, whimsically blocking major roads and orchestrating needless traffic gridlock just for the fun. There is the particular case of the military checkpoint at Eziama-Obiato on the ever-busy Onitsha-Owerri Road where soldiers act with reckless abandon without regard for consequences. They block the road at night until about 6.30am. It does not matter to them that there could be emergencies. In the daytime, motorists are not allowed to drive past the barricade with passengers on board. They disembark and trek to meet the driver. It is all an attempt to humiliate the people. Definitely, there are more civilized ways of securing lives and properties.

But the Second Niger Bridge was a beauty to behold, a testament to the positive impact quality infrastructure could have on the lives and economy of a people. Much of the homeland was peaceful, a pleasant reminder of what was before the storm started. There was record homecoming particularly those living in the Diaspora and a palpable resurgence of the well-known Igbo values of hospitality, family, community, life, and respect for elders. The fabled Igbo communalism spirit (onye aghala nwanne ya) was in full display. The few that had shared with the many that didn’t have, no matter how little.

In all, except for the unfortunate and condemnable incidents of violence in Anambra and Imo, particularly the tragic killing of no fewer than 18 people in several communities in Orsu LGA, Imo State, on January 5; the murder of Father Tobias Okonkwo, a Catholic priest, at lhiala on December 26; abduction of Vincentia Maria Nwankwo and Grace Mariette Okoli, reverend sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ, in Orumba North LGA, Anambra State, on January 7, there seemed to have been a consciousness among the people that the indiscriminate violence and sundry acts of criminality were counter-productive and inimical to the economy of the region.

It behoves the entire Igbo elite – political, economic and socio-cultural – not only to denounce these atrocious acts of violence but also ensure that going forward, the Southeast does not relapse to the Hobbesian state of nature. While there may be some forces from outside involved in these heinous crimes, the truth is that majority of the culprits are Igbo youths, a reality that calls for introspection.

And that takes me back to the historic election of Senator Azuta-Mbata, who represented Rivers East in the Senate between 1999 and 2007, a bonafide Igbo of Ikwerre extraction as the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide on January 10. Ndigbo will continue confounding those who claim to know them and their disunity heterodoxy. Azuta-Mbata’s election, once again, punctures that hackneyed stereotyping of a people they deliberately chose to misrepresent because his election is a measure of the unity of purpose and clarity of vision of the Igbo elite.

When the plot of those who thought money could buy them the Ohanaeze presidency failed as it should, they resorted to puerile blackmail and name-calling, sponsoring protests on the harebrained ground that Ikwerres are not Igbo. But how can a man whose name is Chibuike, Nwaike, Uchendu, Chukwuemeka, etc. claim he is not Igbo? Going by the etymology meaning of language, which is the study of the origin of words, the Ikwerre dialect is even more relatable to what some people refer to as Central Igbo, also known as Standard Igbo or Izugbe, which is the most widely understood dialect of the Igbo language, than the Nsukka, Ohafia or Izza dialects, for instance.

In a video, one Eze Godspower Onuekwa, who claims to be the President-General of Ogbakor Ikwerre Cultural Organisation, threatened fire and brimstone. “It is now rumoured that Ohanaeze Ndigbo intends to make an Ikwerre man the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo… Any person, no matter how highly placed, who may decide to accept this offer eventually becomes an enemy to the Ikwerre people,” he declared.

Who says? Onuekwa cannot claim to be a more accomplished Ikwerre than Azuta-Mbata. So, on what basis will he declare him or anyone else who proclaims his Igbo heritage a quisling and pronounce a fatwa? In any case, if Onuekwa and his co-travellers think it is their right to claim a phantom Bini Heritage, why deny others who think otherwise the same right?  When that childish gambit failed, they came up with the claim that zoning the Ohanaeze presidency to Rivers State is a territorial expansionist ploy by Ndigbo.

How? Ohanaeze is an umbrella organisation of all Igbos worldwide. While it is true that majority of them live in the five Southeast states, a significant number also live in other states outside the Southeast. So, does an Igbo man from Rivers being in the leadership of Ohanaeze translate to “annexation” of the State by Southeast? Will Rivers become the sixth Southeast State?

If there is nothing wrong with a Yoruba from Kogi or Kwara identifying with Afenifere or his kith and kin in the Southwest, why will that of Ndigbo be different? Are there no Ijaw people that are bonafide residents of Lagos and Ondo? Does the fact of state of origin make them less Ijaw? Are Ijaws from Delta, Edo, Rivers not bonafide members of the Ijaw National Congress (INC)?

The irony is that all the losers who are making noise because they lost out were waiting in the wings to see if the Southeast Igbos would breach the Ohanaeze Constitution on rotational presidency by denying Rivers its turn to produce the President-General. They would have used it as one more evidence in their war of attrition against Ndigbo, their bête noire. They failed.

Now, the job of Senator Azuta-Mbata is clearly cut out. Article 2:3 of the Ohanaeze constitution, says the organization is to to serve as a focal point of reference, of direction and of collective leadership in matters affecting the interest, solidarity and general welfare of the Igbo; to promote, develop and advance Igbo language and culture, to promote honour, dignity and self-respect among Ndigbo and encourage their achievement orientation in various aspects of life, to assist and encourage the formation of Igbo self-help, mutual assistance and improvement organizations wherever Ndigbo may reside and to promote peaceful coexistence with other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.

With what I witnessed in the Southeast during and the election of a bridge-builder as Ohanaeze president, 2025 may well be the beginning of Igbo renaissance after the years the locusts ate.