The recent meeting of the southwest and Southsouth regions of the country convened at the instance of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Ogun state government house is another revisionist effort to isolate the Igbo southeast region geographically situated at the very heart of southern Nigeria. It is perhaps a lameduck approach to implement the decade-long policies of Igbo encyclement or what late Buhari had mocked as a dot in the circle.

For those who still pretend not to know, Igboland is located at the epicenter of the geographical expression of what the Whiteman originally described as the Niger Delta. There has been this lifelong struggle by Biafra war revisionists to dismember the Igbo territories from the Niger delta as if the flow of oil and gas can be determined by military or constitutional decree.

Tinubu, as Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the Nigeria nation of six regions, instead of carrying all geopolitical regions along as prescribed by the constitution prefers to adopt only two of the regions as the preferred focus of his administration’s policies. A classic divide and rule script. Even at that, the so-called southsouth he managed to bring in is treated wit a long spoon.

This is where his hatred of the igbos has driven him to destool what looked to him as the Igbo distraction from the map of the southern states. His cavalier caress of mindset of the balcanization of the Eastern region that first started in 1967 and culminated in a devastating civil war in which more than 3 million human beings were slaughtered is in context. It is hard to understand what more scores Tinubu wants to achieve by his revisionist tendency towards the ugly events of the Nigeria Biafra civil war. Tinubu’s leadership constipation that seeks to draw only lessons from late Buhari’s caliphate ideology seems a total departure from the “one Nigeria” agelong script.

We are now witnessing what looks like a subtle extention of Yoruba territories along the nation’s continental shelf in a bid to totally isolate and create virtual blockage of the southern borders of Alaigbo in apparent bid to create a circular geographical entity to support their “dot in a circle” wishy washy.

This Alhaji Tinubu’s imagination, as grandiose as it appears, can only be achieved through war. It wouldn’t happen under the “one Nigeria” tenets, and not while we Igbos are still awake. Who knows whether President Tinubu is planning to settle the Igbo question through another secret war plan to fircefully redraw the Eastern Nigeria regional map to completely circumscribe the Igbo nation in a circle. If you ask me, Bola Tinubu is not only a very poor student of history but also a poor strategist. His atavistic policies expose his weaknesses as an inconsequential leader who learned nothing from our checquered history.

While Ahmed Tinubu romances his nihilistic thoughts about a redefined southern Nigeria without Igbos, what are our own Igbo leaders doing to declassify or deflect this pending evil? Will they continue to watch him as Nnamdi Azikiwe watched Awolowo annihilate 3 million Igbos through naval and food blockade while the whole world watched?.

How did our governors receive the news of a sectional southern Nigeria meeting of southwest and Southsouth governors in Ogun state?. Have they called their own meeting of “ndi ajuru aju” If only to make a statement to assess the significance of a new southern Nigeria geographical expression that totally exclude the Igbo region. How much of South South’s politics are we willing to play? or are we going to leave the Yoruba region run roughshod over our property without a fight?

In consideration of our engagements with our southwest neighbors, Is it only to rig elections for Tinubu that our governors will get their swag and relevance? Our leaders are only good at playing their dirty games of power grab and agrandizement, isn’t it about time we start to forge subregional proactive politics for the sake of our collective survival? What will a man like Hope Uzodimma be nursing in his mind considering how he labored and slaved for Tinubu? amid a mindset of unqualified cooperation among the southern states to counterbalance political equations with the North?

What about Peter Mba, the newfound love of Tinubu? What of Soludo? who promised to deliver 90% votes for him in Anambra. I do not want to talk about that Ezzaa slave called Dave Umahi. Tinubu deciding over their heads to convene meetings of southwest and Southsouth instead of the entire southern Nigeria is a bad omen and also looks to me like dancing naked. There’s no strategy here other than a descent to chaos and bedlam. The master strategist is now a confused man.

After destroying his relationship with the northern Arewa group, the only option left for him was to seek a proper handshake between the southwest and eastern region comprising of southeast and Southsouth. His resort to Southsouth handshake is classic political misdirection on the part of Tinubu and his handlers. It is selfish and neo tribal political reconstruction in all ramifications. Such political arrangement or misalignment is dead on arrival. The Yoruba whom he’s misleading should take it to the bank.

Tinubu and his handlers should be reminded that what they pride themselves as Southsouth is a political aberration. The territories described as Southsouth are just part of the Eastern region. When they’re serious, they should convene a proper southern Nigeria meeting to holistically discuss southern unity and restructuring. Yoruba territorial extension does not go beyond the Edo continental shelf. When shaking comes to shoving, we, the igbos, will point out where our territory starts and ends and where our continental shelf begins and where it ends.

The Igbo territories was not a creation of Nigeria but our ancestral natural heritage dating over 10,000 years period and locked by the illusive “one Nigeria.” If it will take another civil war to reclaim the excised territories of former Eastern region, the present generation of Igbos will fight again.

Some parts of the so-called southeast today are geographically contiguous to the Atlantic Ocean. So, on what basis will anyone by whatever name called be planning to partition Arochukwu, (17 nautical miles), Azumini, (26 nautical miles), Orashi, (45 nautical miles), etcetera from the continental shelves link to the Atlantic. Such partitioning can only be achieved through another Belin wall or Trump like inspired US southern border partitioning.

It is important at this stage to let Tinubu know that his government has started a countdown to its imminent ending. Having ruined his relationship with the Arewa North and now unable to end his self declared war against the Igbos, no regional geopolitics or territorial supervention will save him and his government from exiting in 2027. Igbos are not a “dot in circle” and that much he will soon understand as another election cycle fast approaches.

If Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu is truly a statesman and strategizing, he should by now be submitting a regional restructuring bill to the National Assembly for speedy consideration and passage. What he’s doing now is to live in self deceit and denial and try to stoke a conflict between the Igbos and Arewa as his forebears did in 1967. It is shameful that in three and half years of his being in government plus 8 years of Buhari, all he has achieved is to divide and rule sections of the country. So why did our founding fathers secure our independence instead of just allowing the white man to continue ruling us.

The southeasterner needs no further proof that our future lies in self-determination. This Tinubu treachery is an eye opener. This is yet morning. We can not be blackmailed into endorsing his monumental failures for whatever reasons. Let us restrategize by building alliance along the Christian bloc of this country in coalition with Arewa. It is compulsive, doable, possible, and it’s workable. It’s time for Igbos to move our politics forward without these chameleons parading as leaders in Aso villa.
Dr. Engr. Odo Ijere.