When the baboons and monkeys heard that the man who used to chase them away from the maize field had died, they hysterically celebrated. The following year, there was no maize, that is when they painfully realized the dead man was the farmer. Sadly, like the ignoramus monkeys and baboons, many Nigerians today, are waiting till the country is no more before they will realize that Nigeria is not their problem.
Never has Nigeria seen the level of anti-Nigerianism and pro-secessionist consciousnesses/movements like the legions that have sprang out in this Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd)’s regime.
Today, we have the Biafra Republic agitators in the Southeast, Oduduwa Republic agitators in the Southwest, Niger Delta Republic agitators in the Southsouth, Middle Belt Republic agitators in Central Nigeria, Arewa Republic agitators in the far North. And still, there are tribal agitations for miniature republics like; Ibom Republic by the Ibibio/Akwa-Ibom, Kwararafa Republic by the Jukuns, Takuruku Republic by the Tivs, Ijaw Nation by the Ijaws, Bini or Edo Republic by descendants of the old Benin Empire, and so on.
But is Nigeria really the problem of Nigerians? This was what Chinua Achebe said, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”
Nothing could be truer than this. You may beg to be different but, remember that the same leaders and people that made up this same Nigeria you call a contraption, are the same leaders and people who will form and lead the new balkanized territories if actualized. Angels will not come down to fill up Arewa, Biafra or Oduduwa Republic if actualized. Neither will goats stop eating grass just because they were separated from the herd. There is an African adage that says, “Even if you take a monkey to London or America, it will still remain a monkey.”
We need more than the break up of Nigeria to solve the problems of Nigerians. The problem of Nigeria is not caused by the plurality of the country like some disgruntled elements will want you to believe. Even the preconceptions that a particular region or section will progress and develop faster once it break away from Nigeria are only fueled by the jejune imaginations of a child.
Nigeria’s problem is a leadership problem. The leaders (including the secessionists’ leaders) are all the same irrespective of tribe, region or religion.
The irresponsibility of “the leader” and the carelessness of “the led” need to be first of all addressed. Changing the name of the problem is not solving the problem. We have seen a classical example in 2015 where we voted recycled old wines under the guise of new political nomenclature and now we are worse off than we were.
The greatest weapon our leaders (who are united in their malfeasance, callousness and corruption) have against us (the masses) is our disunity. In real-time you will realize that the term “ethnic minority” has nothing to do with the population of the group rather it implies it social position in society. The leaders who are the few ruling “majority’s minority” propel the disunity theory (stereotype), ostensibly to distract the triggered ‘warring’ minority and majority from holding them accountable –
This is the modus operandi of Nigerian politicians and power mongers.
Recently, the Nigerian mediasphere has been in a frenzy following reports that the fugitive self-acclaimed leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPO), Nnamdi Kanu who jumped bail was re-arrested and brought back to face trial on “terrorism, treasonable felony, unlawful possession of firearms and management of an unlawful society”. Also in the news cycle, was the arrest of popular self-saddled Yoruba freedom fighter and Oduduwa Republic agitator-in-chief, Sunday Adeyemo, better known as Sunday Igboho, in Benin Republic, weeks after he fled the country following a midnight raid on his residence by operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS).
While there are some level of justifications for the uproars that ensued the twofold events just as there are some justifications for the angst of the secessionists, ordinary Nigerians should think deep and be wise. Some agitators of secession and war have the resources to fly out family members before a major unrest breaks out. Some of them and their families are not even based in Nigeria. If you decide to join them to “destroy” the country, you and loved ones will be consumed.
Sometime ago, I wrote an article titled, “Why We Should All Be Biafrans”, where I tried to explain to the secessionists that they are spanking the wrong horse with the wrong whip on the wrong track.
I had wrote, “Terrorism has become the order of the day. In today’s Buhar’s Nigeria, you have the Boko Haram/ISWAP in the North East, Bandits in the North West, Hoodlums in the South West, Unknown Gunmen/IPOB’s ESN in the South East, Kidnappers in the Niger Delta, and Killer Herdsmen in the Middle Belt, and every part of the country. Millions of Nigerians are under coordinated attacks in Southern Kaduna, Benue, Sokoto, Zamfara, Imo states. And just like the then military government did not make any meaningful effort to contain the 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom in Northern Nigeria (which later calculated into the civil war), the present government have been almost silent on the new wave of killings across the country. The government has failed us too! We too should be ‘Biafrans’ – not territorial citizens of the Biafra that Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu fought for; that Nnamdi Kanu is leading agitation for re-actualization. But believers and agitators of the cause and principles that gave birth to Biafra; the principles of the Nigeria as suggested in the Aburi Accord – a restructured Nigeria that allows for resources control by the states, that guarantees land control by indigenous land owners, that allows the creation of state policing agencies…”
Despite the clarity of the article, I was wrongly misunderstood by some people (those who are monomaniacally obsessed with Biafra Republic agitation and those who are suffocating on innermost malice for anything ‘Biafra’ ) to be espousing the idea of Biafra secession.
It’s unfortunate that citizens are incrementally emphatic in their declaration of secession from the Nigerian state because of Maj. Gen. Buhari (rtd)’s visible antipathy toward some section of the country. Quiet ironic of a leader who assumed power with the sanctimonious declaration; “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.”
“There is only one thing, which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression,” to quote the immortal words of the great English philosopher, John Locke. The fons et origo of any democratic government is its penchant for the rule law and protection of lives and properties. But when the primary concomitances of government like respect for human rights and rule of law, provision of basic human security needs and social amenities are breached, anger, division, despair, and sanguinary upheavals are palpable:
“The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere” – apologies to the late Irish poet W. B. Yeats.
Worst still, Maj. Gen. Buhari (rtd)’s poorly worded presidential statements are causing more harms than the intended good (if there is any). It is sui generis for a government to declare war on its citizens. It is tantamount to national suicide. It is regrettable that the presidency has declared criticism a persona non grata in this administration as evident in the deliberate strangulation of the media by banning of social media platforms and imposition of draconian media laws. The presidency fails to understand that ideas cannot be defeated militarily but only by justice – If the country was working, no one will have a justifiable reason to contemplate mutiny or secession. Criminalizing and persecuting agitators, activists, and revolutionists will only hit up the already tensed polity and give their causes more exposure which is detrimental to our national unity and continuous existence of our country.
To put the country back on the path of national cohesion, Gen. Buhari (rtd) should heed to the call for restructuring and true federalism; rotation of power, equity and fairness now that the badly scorched snake is yet to be decapitated. Some of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference organized by the Goodluck Jonathan administration should be implemented.
The presidency should also consider setting up a Government of National Unity as suggested by Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka.
According to him, “The distrust is too deep and it’s only a confab, through a Government of National Unity, as an interim measure, that can actually suggest or offer a sliver of hope for the continuity of this nation.”
The current situation of Nigeria is best summed in this poem by myself titled, “THE BLIND LEADER AND THE SLEEPING FOLLOWERS”:
The common mantra is, “In the land of the blind, one-eyed man is a king.”
But, there’s a place where men with foresights
Are led by kleptomaniacal congenital blinds.
They keep voting for the blind like the trees
That kept voting for the axe
Despite the shrinking of the forest,
For the axe was clever and convinced the trees That because its handle was made of wood
It was one of them.
The megalomaniacal power suitor has the stature.
He has the voice.
But little do the power givers know that
He doesn’t have foresight.
They gave him the helm and went into deep
Opiate on ‘ash and sackcloth’,
Ostensibly drunk from the euphoria of the Perennial gifts of the power buyer.
– He led them far and far and far astray.
They woke up in the middle of nowhere
And said, ‘Where are we?
Oh leader! Take us back from where we came.’
But he was blind and do not Know from where They came.
And they too were asleep and do not know how They got there.
Oh! What a nation
Redemption stair from afar
Hoping they look her!
Sunny Green Itodo
Is an eassyist, satirist, poet and media consultant.
Follow on social media @greenbox247.
