The silence of Igbo elites during the rise of IPOB’s terror and the sit-at-home madness is one of the most telling indictments of our sociopolitical decay.
After years of shouting “Who say men no dey? Men dey!” the same “men” cowered in fear, hiding behind high walls and gated estates, while the streets of their own homeland went silent every Monday.
They were celebrated but never respected. Hailed only in titles, no “motion” where it mattered.
For decades, the Igbo elite class built their pride on personal wealth, not public leadership.
Their influence was measured by the size of their mansions, the number of imported cars in their compounds, and the thickness of the envelopes they sprayed at funerals, not by courage, governance, or the ability to organize and protect their people.
They were men of means, not men of mandate.
Wealth gave them status, but not legitimacy.
They ruled social circles, not societies.
So when chaos came, when the so-called “freedom fighters” turned their communities in the South-East into ghost towns, the so-called men of timber and caliber found themselves terrified, paralyzed, and politically irrelevant.
They could not speak, could not act, could not organize around policy, because they had built no structures of influence beyond money.
No political base, no youth allegiance, no unified bloc of interests.
They were wealthy individuals, not a class with purpose.
Then there is the other reason, many Igbo elites today never invested in the South-East beyond their huge mansions and a few small /medium scale, quick turnover businesses.
Their main factories, headquarters, and core operations were in Lagos, Abuja, other parts of Nigeria or overseas. So they could insulate most of thr personal cost.
The South-East was a cultural homeland, a place for Christmas visits and photo ops, not a seat of power.
So when the sit-at-home began to ch0*ke the region, instead of rising to confront the menace politically, they simply adjusted economically.
The Igbo businessmen in Aba, Nnewi, and Onitsha also sat at home.
Many crossed the Onitsha Bridge to Asaba, moved warehouses to Delta and Edo etc, anywhere business could go on without disruption.
Instead of leveraging their economic might into political influence to shape policy, they simply sat at home or planned their businesses around the sit-at-home.
That is not a sign of brilliance or foresight.
This went on for over four years.
They didn’t fight for their businesses; they adjusted.
That’s why the region became vulnerable, because those who could have defended it were financially insulated and emotionally detached.
They watched from afar as homegrown terr0rists enforced sit-at-home with brutal force, markets fled, and young men lost direction.
The result?
A generation of youths with no ide0logical compass, a region with no organized elite, and a culture that mistakes money for merit.
The Igbo elite were not victims of fear alone; they were victims of their own shallowness, men who built empires but not institutions, who chased personal glory but never collective security.
And so, when the time came to defend their land, they discovered that money cannot buy courage,and status cannot substitute for leadership.
Ndi “ana enwe obodo enwe” sat at home in fear while umu okoko and never-do-wells, took over their obodo.
By Chioma Amaryllis Ahaghotu
