We are currently faced with the opposites of our past leaders. We are faced with so called leaders who have desecrated the Igbo nations and polluted our revered culture of unity. We are faced with men who have brought dishonor to our land.

These men have certainly taking the Igbos backward that it might take centuries for the younger generation of Igbos to re-build our destroyed land and re-orientate our misled, dehumanized and exploited people!

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Akanu Ibiam, Mbonu Ojike, K.O Mbadiwe, Ikemba Ojukwu and the host of past Igbo leaders brought fame and dignity to the Igbo nation. They showed to the whole world the inherent potentials in Igbo land. They showed to the world that the Igbos can be the best in any area of endeavor.

These savvy men of candor and political sagacity opened Igbos to the world. They wrote their names in gold. In their days, the Igbos were revered and honored. In their days, they spoke with one voice, in their days; they protected the interest of the Igbo nation and championed the course of the Igbos. They fought, lived and died thinking about the Igbo people.

But what can one say of the likes of Joe Irukwus, Nzeribes, Ararumes and their likes who championed the imprisonment of the Igbos through their role at the dead third term bid of Obasanjo? These are all shameless bunch of parasitic Igbo sons who need to be ostracized from our land!

In their shamelessness, few weeks after fighting so hard for a third term for Obasanjo, these men attended the Igbo Summit in Owerri where the issue of an Igbo presidency was to be discussed and were rightly booed by the people. They deserve more than that. They should have been lynched!

We no longer need men of such characters in our Igbo nation of today. We can no longer continue to harbor such people because they have never done the Igbo people any good. They have continued to witch-hunt and stab us from behind while pretending to be for us!
These men constitute the cog in the wheel of progress of the Igbo people. Their names have never been associated with anything progressive for the Igbos. They have lived their lives amassing wealth through activities that negate the progress of the Igbos.
The biggest shame goes to Joe Irukwu who parades himself as the President of Ohaneze N’di Igbo. An organization that should have been used to fight for the rights of the Igbo people is now used to fight the Igbos and ridicule their sufferings.

Afenifere may not like Obasanjo but he remains their own and they will be the last to do anything against him or anything against the Yoruba people. Ibrahim Babangida may not be liked by the whole world but the Hausas will be willing to die fighting for him just as they will always protect the interest of their people.

But when it comes to the Ohaneze N’di Igbo, we have group of retired old men who are hungry for government contract and government patronage at the expense of the interest of the people they claim to be representing.

They make the Igbos look like articles of no commercial value. They fan the embers of disunity in our land using the money they have been paid by their masters. They watch our people live in squalor and penury and turn blind eyes. They watch the humiliation of the Igbos in the most inhuman manner and they laugh and walk away. What a shame!
These men who should be banished from our land now continue to parade and impose themselves as our leaders while we remain hostages. They continue to torment and haunt us with their nefarious activities that can best be described as an aberration to the values of the Igbos!

Their activities, to say the least have devalued the methodologies of Zik, defaced the philosophies of K.O Mbadiwe, debauched the ideologies of Ibiam and mocked the struggles of Ojukwu. These men must and should as a matter of urgency be told in clear statements that enough is just enough! They are just a bunch of shame!

If the likes of Zik and others had boot-licked and worked against the interest of the Igbos like the present so called Igbo leaders, Igbo nation would not have been in existence for exploitation by these hawks and political vultures parading and masquerading themselves as leaders

In today’s world, our so called Igbo leaders are quick to eulogize the activities Igbo sons and daughters who brought honors, fame and pride to the Igbo nations. They are proud to use their names to open doors and seek favors, they are even proud to lay claim to be believers of their struggles, ideas and ideals.

But in reality, these men, most of whom find themselves as members of various Igbo interest groups are all too far from what they claim. They are chaffs, impostors and saboteurs with eagle eyes looking and lurking behind for the next opportunity to exploit the Igbo people.

Most shocking and embarrassing is the fact that sons and daughters of great Igbo leaders who have used their fathers names and goodwill to get into leadership position have either ended up serving personal interest or joined in the exploitation and killing of the Igbo people.

While it will take a whole generation for the Onitsha Bridge to be given maintenance and a face-lift, it will take years and years of politicking for the River Niger to be dredged to promote more business and tourism in the Igbo man’s land. It will take many more deaths, anguish and many years of hunger strike for the Nigeria government to pay attention to the worsening erosion and other environmental degradation affecting the Igbo man’s land while our so called leaders watch.

But it will take just a blink of the eyes for an Igbo man to jump and donate handsomely to the project of other ethnic groups. It will take just a phone call for an Igbo man to accept to chair the launching of a Presidential Library for a President, and chair launchings were billions are raised for other ethnic groups.

It is time for new breed Igbos to join forces and say NO to the activities of these so called Igbo leaders. It is time for us to repair of houses and make things aright. It is time for us to demand for what are our rights. It is time for us to purge ourselves and remove the bad ones amongst us.

We can no longer continue to sit back and watch some men run and ruin our tomorrow otherwise generations of Igbos might be wiped away. We can no longer continue to beg for the development of our areas. We can no longer beg for what we deserve as part of a body that makes up a country. We have been onlookers for too long. Now we have to look and act for the legacies of Zik, Ibiam, Mbadiwe, Ojukwu, et al to live on!

Igbo Kewnu! Kwenu!! Kwezue nu!!!
Jackson Ogbonna Ude is President Student Union Government, Lehman College, City University of New York, CUNY

Jackson O. Ude
jakxeen@yahoo.com