In recent times, there have been spates of attacks on security agents in Southeast and South-South Nigeria. Although the identities of those behind these attacks and their possible motives are yet to be ascertained, what is known is that Igbo Youths are getting increasingly radicalized. This has led many well-meaning Nigerians to ask, who is radicalizing these youths? The straightforward answer to this question, normally attracts, especially from our elite and security agents is, Nnamdi Kanu.
However, recent experiences in the Southeast especially, the extortions, harassments, exploitations and humiliation of Ndi Igbo by the security agents have led me to the conclusion that the Nigerian Army and the police are more responsible for the radicalization of Igbo youths than anything anybody, including Kanu has done. Here is an instance of what happened yesterday.
In the early hours of yesterday, Monday, 5th July 2021, I left Onitsha for Enugu, to catch-up with an important assignment. In the same commercial bus I was travelling were many young men also on their way to Enugu. Anyone who has travelled through the major roads in the Southeast recently knows that eastern roads are flooded with soldiers and police men, especially from the northern part of the country. However, the large number of northern soldiers and the police on eastern roads is not the problem; at least there is insecurity in the east and these security agents are there to forestall further breakdown of law and order.
The problem is the attitudes of these northerners. It is not just that many of them maliciously set out to punish road users by deliberately delaying vehicles at the numerous checkpoints causing commuters to spend 5-10 times the normal duration of their journeys; they have also made extorting money from Igbo commercial bus drivers a lucrative way of self-enrichment. Are the military hierarchies who sent these soldiers on duty unaware of these harassments and extortions or are they just allowed because the owners of Nigeria are hell-bent on punishing, humiliating and making life unbearable for Ndi Igbo? The attitudes of the soldier towards the passengers, especially Igbo youths is a story for another day.
Because, majority of the passengers in the bus I was traveling in were Igbo youths, the bus was stopped in almost all the military checkpoints. At each stop, these youths were usually forced to alight by the soldiers and thoroughly searched and manhandled in very demeaning and humiliating manners. In one of the checkpoints, a soldier with a very heavy northern ascent could not control his scorn for the young men. Not contented with pulling down their trousers and going through their inner boxers, he went on to tell them how they (the North) dealt with Ojukwu during the Civil War and how they were going to deal with Nnamdi Kanu and anyone supporting him.
One young man standing by me was so incensed by these humiliating remarks that he attempted to respond and tell the soldier to go to hell but I held him back. I was determined not to allow things get out of hand. When we finally got through the roadblock, the same boy I had held back from responding to the soldier went into a booth of outrage. He questioned why someone would constantly be humiliated in his own land by what he described as occupation forces. He became so furious and threatened that if he has atomic bomb any day he would not hesitate to use it on Nigeria to avenge the humiliation of Ndi Igbo.
I was deeply worried and kept reflecting on this incidence long after I had gotten to where I was going? What would make a young man want to use nuclear bomb on his country and why is there so much anger among Igbo youths? I suspect this is not far from the humiliating experiences these our youth are going through in the hand of northern Nigerian security agents in Igbo land. Do these young men who go through these harassments on daily basis need Nnamdi Kanu to radicalize them? When next time you want to see who is radicalizing Igbo youths, you know where to look.
