I want to look at the City Boys campaign program at Owerri, organised by Seyi Tinubu, Cubana Chief Priest, Obi Cubana, and a host of other young professionals and businessmen.
I’ve taken time to study a lot of videos online on the incident while I was at Abakaliki. Many of the captions were very misleading, like “village boys chase out Obi Cubana and City Boys.” That is not what I saw.
I watched the videos. The supporters of City Boys wore carton-coloured T-shirts with two faces in front. I first saw women dancing, and later there was a surge of a crowd towards where the materials they wanted to gift — or use to induce them — were located.
I saw people carrying items. Some were carrying three sewing machine heads. Some carried two bags of rice. But I also noticed something: the people wearing those coloured T-shirts, who were standing on the podium, did not go to scramble. The video recorders also did not scramble. If they had, they would not have been able to record.
It was not an invasion. It was desperation. It was a manifestation of human behaviour when self-interest clashes with decency and orderliness.
The people in the stadium sensed that what was brought would not be enough to go round, so they decided to help themselves by creating chaos — to grab and run. I have always said that angels do not inhabit any particular region of Nigeria.
This happened in the heartland of Igboland. When I went for youth service in 1985, apart from a few beggars near Rufus Obi Chemist close to the health office where I was Medical Officer of Health, there were no beggars in the East.
Any beggars you saw were mostly around places like Oji River, and many were amputees from the civil war.
The Igbo man does not beg. He is enterprising, independent, and has a strong sense of self-worth. A lot of developmental projects in the East were done through age-grade systems and communal efforts.
I saw communities where the entire town would come together to harvest palm fruits collectively for the benefit of the society. But today, poverty has been weaponised. Desperation has been created in the minds of the people. An entitlement mentality has been cultivated. Giveaway mentality has spread everywhere, and people like Obi Cubana, Cubana Chief Priest, and their cohorts have capitalised on it.
I am deeply disappointed in young people like Seyi Tinubu, Obi Cubana, and Cubana Chief Priest. They are going to be worse than my generation.
The same principles my generation used — bringing peanuts to get people’s loyalty and votes, then exploiting them for years — is exactly what they displayed there.
I was also disappointed in the sycophancy and desperation of the people who were singing and chanting. There was gross inefficiency in crowd control and planning.
I am disappointed that these are the people who want to take over leadership in the future. You are as incompetent, or even worse, than those you criticise. The people rushed, grabbed the items, and ran. Some of them will sell those items. Many will not even use them.
What is the use of a washing machine, deep freezer, or sewing machine without electricity? Of what benefit is rice and vegetable oil to a mother who cannot access good healthcare, whose children cannot go to school?
It is the same cycle of stupidity and colonisation of the people, and it backfired.
It is a shame. The chaos in Owerri was not caused by village boys or supporters of Peter Obi.
