A successful sit-at-home order in the South-East to mark the 50th anniversary of the secessionist Biafra Republic grabbed banner headlines last week, as it once more elevated public discourse on the nature of Nigeria’s federalism. Commercial and social activities were effectively frozen on Tuesday. Asaba, in Delta State, and a few areas in Port Harcourt and Yenegoa, capitals of Rivers and Bayelsa states respectively, with heavy Igbo presence, were not spared the spasm. Curiously, reports indicate that Igbo in the Diaspora joined their brethren at home, thus internationalising the agitation.
Its resonance and orderliness, no doubt, represent a new chord in the activities of the Independent People of Biafra, which masterminded it. Its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, was released on bail in his ongoing trial for his role in the struggle. Many peaceful protests for self-determination in the South-East and for his freedom from Federal Government incarceration since last year morphed into sadistic massacre of countless IPOB youths by trigger-happy soldiers and policemen.
There is a useful lesson to learn from the latest development: an urgent need for Nigeria to evolve an institutional framework to cope with its cultural and ethnic divisiveness. The Biafra script was first sketched on May 30, 1967 when Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the then military governor of the defunct Eastern Nigeria, declared it an independent country. The upshots of the January 15, 1966 military coup and the counter-coup six months later foisted on the country a 30-month Civil War.
However, more than the ethno-centric hue of the agenda, the bigger picture it presents should not be lost sight of: that Nigeria as a political project is a farce. From the beginning, the foundation was deceptive. As an amalgam of over 400 tribes, clobbered together in 1914 by an imperial power, no effort has been made to find the basis for harmonious co-existence. Prior to the 1914 amalgamation too, there was no country called Nigeria just as there was no Yugoslavia until 1918. Instead, a hotchpotch of diverse kingdoms, emirates, chiefdoms and states as well as over 250 languages, many of which had never had mutual contact, were grouped together, irrespective of their widely divergent cultures, faiths and socio-political systems. This is why Nigeria is steadily being convulsed by centrifugal tendencies. It cradled the civil war just seven years after the British colonialists left in 1960. The Oodua Peoples Congress agitation for self-determination, militancy in the Niger Delta and the Boko Haram crisis are other malignant tumours.
We acknowledge that self-determination for peoples is central to international law and charters of many international organisations, including that of the United Nations, but the issue of who can exercise it, or even what constitutes a legitimate agitation, is fraught. The Scottish referendum on September 18th, 2014 and the Catalan plebiscitary election on September 27th, 2015 exemplify the exercise of the right to self-determination of peoples – a fundamental collective right.The people of Hong Kong continue to hold lawful rallies to press home their demand for self-determination.
Nigeria can no longer cope with these toxic stressors in its political life. Consequently, the easily denied imperative for restructuring of the country by political leaders should be seen and embraced as the only survival strategy. Those who argue that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable are either hypocritical or ignorant of history. Discerning minds such as Emeka Anyaoku, a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Muhammadu Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano, among others, have been drumming into the ears of political leaders that the present 36-state structure has become a huge burden the country lacks the capacity to shoulder. Specifically, Anyaoku, a regional government irredentist, says a return to the First Republic governance model is the only way the country could tackle, more effectively, the challenges facing it. Absolutely! Indeed, the system in the past guaranteed service-delivery, efficiency, promoted fiscal federalism, competition among the regions and devolution of power.
In our earlier editorials, we had argued very strongly for a return to true federalism. There can be no end to this cycle unless Nigeria is run as a proper federation.Federalism is designed primarily to protect the minorities, take care of diversity, distribute power vertically and give priority to the aspirations of the people at the grass roots since the federating units are closer to the people than the government at the centre. Therefore, Abuja should stop the intimidation or persecution of self-determination agitators. Such demand is still legitimate here, given that Nigeria is yet to cease as a signatory to the charter of the United Nations, which in Article 1 enshrines the right of self-determination to all peoples, by virtue of which they are free to determine their political status, pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Outbursts against Nigeria’s present discredited structure are getting louder by the day, and coming from unexpected quarters. The fury from Sanusi, Ango Abdullahi, a former vice-chancellor, and Balarabe Musa’s consistent radical views – all from the North – and the Southern consensual stance that the country is on the cliff, require action on how this emerging broad consensus could be leveraged to actualise a true federation.
Nigeria has an obligation to serve all Nigerians. Achieving freedom for a people, however, is a matter of conviction and perseverance. Abdullahi was, therefore, spot-on when he said recently, “If Lord Lugard made a mistake in 1914, let’s correct it now.” This has been our long-standing message. It is impossible to perpetually subdue the stirrings of ethnic nationalism. That is the lesson the Slobodan Milosevic experience of the defunct Yugoslavia or the September 2014 narrow victory of the United Kingdom in the Scottish independence referendum and its present resurgence should teach President Muhammadu Buhari. Sudan and Ethiopia are the African examples.
