Recent bloody clashes between the Nigerian military and one of the separatist groups in the South-East of the country have once again highlighted the contradictions in the Nigerian state and the need to urgently address the vexatious national question. It is becoming increasingly evident that the issue of how the myriads of diverse ethno-religious groups in the country can coexist peacefully will not just go away until it is confronted and resolved on mutually agreed terms.
At the same time, the use of the military to suppress dissension in a fit of pique will only complicate matters by either driving agitators underground or simply muffling their voices momentarily; but it will not kill their spirit. This is exactly what is unfolding in the South-East where soldiers are using force to try to suppress the demand for an independent state of Biafra by members of the Indigenous People of Biafra. Once thought to be a defeated cause, the Biafran ghost has gradually resurrected and is rudely invading the consciousness of the world once again, fuelled this time by agitators, many of whom had not even been born when the Nigerian Civil War to reclaim the breakaway state of Biafra was fought 50 years ago.
Nnamdi Kanu and his band of IPOB agitators have emerged as the new voice to an age-old quest for self-determination by the Igbo people of the South-East of Nigeria. What is, however, debatable is whether they are ventilating the sentiments of the majority of their people, which is doubtful following their recent proscription by the governors of the five eastern states they are purportedly representing. But even if they are, it is obvious that they are not going about it the rational way.
Since his formation of IPOB, Kanu has metamorphosed from an agitator for self-determination to a hate speech monger. On social media, Kanu parrots horrendous and inciting lies against other ethnic nationalities, especially the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba. In one of the videos espousing his hate speech, he is seen haranguing, “Anybody attending a Pentecostal church with a Yoruba pastor is an idiot, a complete fool…They are worse than Boko Haram.” Members of such churches, he added, were not fit to be human beings. Such rhetoric can only exacerbate sectarian animosities the consequences of which may be very disastrous.
This is most disgusting and completely misguided. What has such an incendiary speech got to do with a legitimate demand for self-determination? Rather than use peaceful means to advance his cause, he has resorted to threats of violence. “We need guns and we need bullets,” he was quoted as saying to a gathering of Igbo in the Diaspora. He is even credited with the formation of what he called the Biafra Security Service and the Biafran National Guard. This is not only provocative but downright unacceptable. It is even worse for someone who was released from detention on stringent bail conditions, including an order not to be found in the midst of more than 10 persons or to grant press interviews. He has brazenly flouted them all. It is unfortunate that for ethnic and political reasons, those who should have seen through Kanu’s morbid propaganda lend their sympathy to, if not outright endorsement of, his baleful ideas. He holds his audience under a hypnotic spell by the sheer force of his conviction.
There is a lot wrong with Nigeria and the IPOB threat is so real. This is what happens when leaders who should make peaceful change possible, like the legendary Roman emperor, Nero, are fiddling while Nigeria burns. For how long will Nigerian leaders pretend that the awkward and fatally flawed political structure can foster unity, promote peaceful coexistence among the diverse ethnic nationalities and deliver economic growth? The Nigerian state as presently constituted is full of injustice and surely cannot develop until, as renowned playwright, Wole Soyinka, put it, it is reconfigured. But this cannot be achieved by preaching hate against other groups, most of whom are also victims of the same bondage and entrenched injustice.
Similarly, it is very unbecoming of a government to unleash soldiers on a group of demonstrators, a situation that should rightly be handled by the police. The police are the ones statutorily vested with the powers to deal with internal security, and the soldiers can only be invited when it is obvious that the police have been overwhelmed. If, in the run-up to the Nigerian Civil War, activities in the Eastern Region were described as “Police Action” until soldiers on both sides started pulling the trigger, why the haste in deploying the military in today’s South-East?
Besides, there is also the element of double standards in the way the government has been handling issues of perceived insecurity in the country. The same government that has set the military against IPOB has frequently demurred in dealing with the Fulani herdsmen, whose pastimes of rapes and killings across the country have gone without any strong response from government. This is a breed that was declared the fourth deadliest terror group in the world by Global Terrorism Index in 2014, next only to Boko Haram, ISIS and Al Shabaab. That year, the herdsmen were credited with the slaughter of 1,229 Nigerians. With such contradictions, Buhari should get the message clearly before it is too late that there is no nation on Earth today called Nigeria.
Besides, the situation in the South-East now is a direct consequence of the government’s oversensitivity to aggrieved groups articulating their positions on national issues, especially those concerning the political, economic and social imbalance in the country. The demand for self-determination is an inalienable right enshrined in the United Nations Charter, to which Nigeria is a signatory. In many instances, such demands had not always ended in secession, as has been the case in Quebec in Canada, Scotland in the United Kingdom and Catalonia in Spain, to mention just a few. But any group of people who feel “a long train of abuses”, as the American Declaration of Independence notes, reserve the right to pursue self-determination goal.
As history has shown, there is no country in the world whose geographical boundaries are eternal. As a result, South Sudan and Eritrea broke away from Sudan and Ethiopia respectively; while the world has also witnessed the splintering into components of what were once called Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.
But Nigeria needs not go the way of these countries if we agree and implement a new political structure capable of redressing “long train of abuses” that forms the veritable platform for Kanu’s IPOB and other militant groups to mushroom and fester. The Nigerian state is getting weaker and weaker by the day. It has got to a new low where just any issue or anyone can threaten its corporate existence. The Muhammadu Buhari administration should act fast. We have consistently been making a compelling case for restructuring. And no ethnic nationality or geopolitical group has the right to determine the nature of that new structure or delay it.
There is no better time to work on restructuring than now.
