Nigeria: Will it break?

By Sam Onimisi
This is the continuation of the debate on the future of Nigeria by those concerned by the lack of peace and progress of the most populous country in the African continent. Members of the board of governors of the Nigeria Ethnic Nationalities Movement (NENAM) decided to join issues with Mr. President and the Movement for a New Nigeria (MNN) on the possibility or otherwise of disintegration of the country. Five members of the board has last week, aired their opinion sitting various occurrences and incidences militating against the country’s unity. In this edition, other members have their say, and hereunder are excerpts.
Convener: A few months back, I wrote on the reasons and causes of the fall of fourteen nation-states in about four continents in contemporary history and concluded by asking if Nigeria should not make amends in order to escape similar fate. Then the UN building bombing by the Boko Haram terrorist group happened and President Goodluck Jonathan seized the occasion to reassure the people that Nigeria will not break up. In the last week debate, many reasons were adduced on why the President’s optimism was misplaced. However, two members are yet to have their say.
Sarah Lami Raji: The unity of Nigeria is questionable not only for the reasons adduced by earlier speakers but for other reasons that has to do with core family values. The fact is that if the nuclear family is not at peace, the community and the nation cannot have peace. Here in Nigeria, we treat women as if they do not matter in the affairs of state. The men folk are allowed to mess up the polity and the resultant crisis consumes the women and their children the most vulnerable members of society in crisis. Take for instance the June 12, 1993 crisis. For God’s sake, someone was cleared by security agencies to run for an election. On his way to victory, the same government whose security arms declared the contestant fit to run has his election halted and annulled. The injury done to Chief M.K.O. Abiola as an individual was enough to make him and his family disavows the country. The crisis generated by that silly action nearly tore the country apart. The psyche of the Yoruba people was badly battered and their reaction was loud enough to raise serious ripples in the polity. And then the man died in controversial circumstances which suggested a state murder. Up till now, no enquiry was officially held to determine who and what was responsible for the assassination. The case of Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’adua often used to counterbalance Abiola’s murder was completely different. General Yar’adua was injected to death in 1996 to terminate his perceived threat to Abacha’s regime. He was killed by a fellow Northern Muslim General and so, the grief was mitigated by that ethno-religious factor. But who killed Abiola, even after the usurper of his mandate had died? There are three deaths whose blood is on the neck of the leadership of Nigeria: Shehu Musa Yar’adua, Chief M.K.O Abiola and Sani Abacha. Their wives were made widows prematurely and their children orphans; the effects of their traumatic death on their children, their families and friends cannot be quantified. The damage done to political faith and espirit-de-corps in the army are incalculable. These harms helped to destroy mutual trust between and among the various ethnic groups in Nigeria which also divided us along religious and regional lines. How do you boast of indivisibility when the blood of criminality is crying to heavens for revenge or redress? Now, we are adding more blood to our already bloodied hands via the Boko Haram lunacy. What the MEND is doing to our economy, the Haramites are inflicting on our lives and no government has the moral authority to do justice. Is the break of the country not imminent? If not, what is the government doing to stem the tide? Is unity a talking or doing matter?
Isaac Umar: It grieves me each time I hear some people say that the carnage being perpetrated across the country through bomb throwing is not a religious war. What else is it if not a Jihad? Some of us from the North who are non-Muslims have become endangered species simply because we choose a different religion from our parents. We are grouped along Middle betters for extermination and yet, when we are found to be of Hausa or Fulani stock, we are treated with suspicion and distrust. So, we suffer double rejection by both sides, yet we find accommodation more with the Middle belters who merely suspect us than our ethnic kith and kin who will kill us on religious ground. The objective of the Boko Haram like their predecessors are two: they want Sharia law applied to all states in Nigeria and they want only Muslims to rule the country. Many of us were frustrated from the Northern States civil service on account of religion. The Jihad which flushed us out was a subtle one and so Jihad has many methods and phases. For this reason, we are more interested in the unity of a secular Nigeria than her break-up. A Kano or Sokoto republic will certainly be an Islamic enclave that will render some of us as non-citizens or stateless people. However, what type of a republic do we have at the moment which covers up crimes against society? Can a polity or country remain united amidst pretense and lies? Some four years ago during the regime of President Umar Musa Yar’Adua, the SSS arrested and arraigned suspected members of Al-Queida and the Taliban. About ten of them were arrested across Yobe, Borno and Kano States. At about the same time, the Kano State Ministry of Justice charged five persons to court for terrorism. They were accused of having travelled to Algeria to train at a terrorist camp. It was also the same time that security agencies of the United States and the Western world averred that there were active cells of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Nigeria. What happened thereafter was anybody’s guess. The Sultan of Sokoto and head of the Muslim community went to the United States at the Institute of Peace in Washington to declare that “there is no Al-Qaeda cell or the Taliban in Nigeria.” His spokesman at that event was Danladi Boko, a member of the Sultan’s entourage. If three years later, the same associates of Al-Qaeda and Taliban are throwing bombs in Nigeria, who should be invited for questioning? So, when a colleague said that there are jihadists who pretend to be peacemakers, we know whom he was referring to. Our laws are respecters of persons and law enforcers recognize sacred cows. What is a rule elsewhere is an exception in Nigeria as no big man ever plays by the rules, and yet the law never catches up with them. The question of choice in religious faith is as fundamental as the question of ethnic feelings and affiliation. It is for the individual to choose for which of the two he or she could die. The Boko Haram has choosen to kill and die for their religion and if others elect to defend themselves by the same means where the unity or indissolubility of Nigeria lies?
Convener: The task of keeping Nigeria one is a task for all and not just for those in government. However, the difference is: those in government are especially mandated to use the common wealth to ensure our welfare and unity, so they have special responsibility for which they are paid. Those outside can only support genuine efforts of government in that direction; the problem is that there is nothing visible or ongoing to which can be pointed as a programme to allay our fears or assure us that our welfare and safety are of concern to those in government. Occasional declaration of opinion such as ‘Nigeria will not break’ in the wake of a real threat to the contrary is not expected to be taken seriously which is what triggered off this debate. No informed citizen believes that the so-called inter-religious council is a forum for religious peace when some of its leaders are perceived to be the patron-saint of bombers. It is only the security agencies that are licensed to check individuals suspected to be of criminal bent. I have no ability to sniff from a royal turban what may turn out to be an improvised explosive device, that job belongs to the security agencies who, unfortunately are wont to treat such suspects as untouchable deities. Whoever has journeyed abroad to declare or deny that there is no Al-Qaeda or Taliban cell in Nigeria owe us an explanation as to the difference between Boko Haram and either of the two Islamist terrorist groups. In all, we ought to begin to see that the geo-political structure and centralist system of government in place has proved inappropriate for our welfare or security. They only nurture and nourish individual potentates who plays chess with the lives and destiny of us all. A peaceful and positive action is better than a negative and violent reaction.

Will Nigeria Break Up?

Will Nigeria Break Up?
Sam Onimisi
(Following the bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja by the Boko Haram terrorist bandits, President Goodluck Jonathan reassured the nation that his government is on top of the situation and asserted that Nigeria will not break up by the threats of any terror group. The Movement for a New Nigeria (MNN) led by Barrister Tony Nnadi thought otherwise and canvassed their views via a TVC channels programme on Saturday 17 September, 2011. The board of Governors of the Nigeria Ethnic Nationalities Movement (NENAM) got interested in the debate and here is their own contributions which are anchored by yours sincerely as the Convener).
Convener: What do you think informed the confidence of President Goodluck Jonathan to assert that Nigeria will remain one nation in spite of the ongoing tenor attacks and threats against the country’s unity?
Mas Damisa: Having studied him over the last four years, I have come to believe that President Jonathan is a mainstream politician from the school of Chief Dappa Biriye. As privileged members of a ruling clique, they lack the ability to think or ponder over the multi-dimensioned challenges of the country, especially as they affect the interest and future of minority groups. It is the likes of late Isaac Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa who feels for the down trodden and who had the courage to form the vanguard of the struggle to free the peoples of Nigeria, especially of the Niger – Delta from the shackles of neo-colonialism in Nigeria. Those who believe in the status quo cannot effect any radical changes and lacks the necessary vision to steer the ship of state on uncharted but more dynamic course. They are too smug to think of a radical route to emancipation.
Okechukwu Oha: I have no doubt in my mind that Nigeria cannot continue on her sleepy drive on a narrow and dangerous path way and not come to grief in time to come. Having had various threats of disintegration in the past, it is amazing that our leaders are still satisfied with lip service to the question of the unity of Nigeria. The first serious threat was the 1966 ‘Araba’ riot when the North embarked upon mass murder of the Igbo. ‘Araba’ means ‘let it be divided’. This was the reason and cause of the three-year Civil War during which over one million of lives were lost. The rest of Nigeria joined hands to defeat Biafra and thought that they did the country some good unknown to them that they only prolonged our collective suffering. The Boko Haramites of today were the same people who went on riot in 1953 just because Chief Enahoro had the courage to move a motion for Nigeria’s independence. They said they were not ready for freedom and so, we must all remain in bondage with them. Now, they are saying they never liked to be educated and so, are killing those who love education. Even when the Igbo decided again through the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), the whole Nigerian security system were sent against the civil rights activists whom they hounded into detention. The message is that the Nigerian State respects only those who show violent strength and I suppose MASSOB should by now get the message.
Yemi Lawson: No nation here on earth is indissoluble and so, no one should be deceiving himself that our unity is iron cast. The Yoruba nation fell as a result of the Yoruba civil war, the aftermath of which was disunity, and this paved way for Jihadists and empire-builders to penetrate into Yoruba land. Today, they rule over us in Ilorin and we are not happy about that. I suppose the first threat to Nigeria’s corporate unity was the Western Nigeria crisis of 1962 to 1965. It was caused by the federal government of Tafawa Balewa by meddling in the affairs of Western Region, breaching the Independence Constitution. They supported, encouraged and financed the rebellion in the Action Group of Nigeria against the hierarchy of the Party. This led to the January 1966 coup which also led to the Araba riot. However, it will be incorrect to blame the Hausa/Fulani alone for the Western Nigeria crisis. It was the joint project of Sardauna and Azikiwe which their parties adopted; but it boomeranged and exploded on their faces. The fact that the Northern and Eastern accord of 1959 and 1979 ended in fiasco is a proof that they were only united by their common hatred and envy of the Yoruba. The situation remain more or less the same today; So when the President was upbeat about Nigeria’s unity, I wondered what informed his confidence.
Ochekwu Anyebe: It is doubtful if the totality of the lives lost in the Araba riots of 1966 and the civil war of 1967 to 1970 is up to the ones lost to the hundreds of religiously induced and ethnically sponsored riots in Central Nigeria between 1999 up till today. The so-called empire builders are the same people who are sponsoring the ethnocide against Middle belters. They believe in a monolithic religion and also believe that they are the only pure practitioners of their faith. All others are pretenders and other religions deserve only death, thus their tireless Jihads. You need to know how they kill and burn people and houses in Southern Bauchi at rainy and harvest seasons just to exterminate Christians and Animists. The Kaduna situation was the same, the climax of which was the Sharia war of year 2000 and the Miss World riot of 2001. Gombe is noted for selective murder of uncompromising native Christians. And you know since when they focused their murderous attention on Plateau State which is still bleeding as at now. They have made Nasarawa State into a semi-caliphate and staging post for attacks against Plateau and Benue States with their Chadian and Nigerien mercenary imports. The Tiv are currently groaning from Fulani raids and in all, the federal government looks the other way, probably afraid of the empire builders. So, how can you talk of unity when most of the people are tired of the union of duress?
Ahmed el-Salam: When people talk of the North, I always ask; which North? The notion that every Muslim in the defunct Northern region is a Northerner is false. The fact is that apart from a few renegades, when some people beat their chests proclaiming to be Northerners, we know they are not; they are just positioning themselves for patronage or to be hired. And so, the religious murderers do not represent what other Nigerians know as the North. The Boko Haram has no northern agenda and is not fighting for the North, even though they operate from the North. The fact is that only Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri can lay claim to genuine Northerners. They are also the pioneers or reformers of Islam in Nigeria; in fact the Kanuri’s Borno Empire predates the Fulani-led Hausa Caliphate in the Islamic faith. Until the advent of Boko Haram, Maiduguri was a peaceful cosmopolitan city and home to Kanuris. We are still surprised how the town became home to terrorists as Kanuris are not known for compulsion in religious matters. If proper investigation is conducted, I will be surprised if the sponsors of Boko Haram are found to be Kanuris. We know those who instigate religious problems but who would be the first to call for cease-fire as if they are peace makers. Kanuris don’t have such pretence in their blood. Honestly, I feel that Maiduguri was chosen for Boko Haram just like Jos was chosen as headquarters of Abubakar Gurmi’s extremists group to divert security attention away from the real spinners of religious insecurity threatening Nigeria’s unity.
Convener: Well, most of you have spoken except two and I wonder if the question has been adequately answered. The debate is: will Nigeria break up? The issues canvassed by respondents are quite weighty and capable of doing irreparable harm to the unity of Nigeria if remedial action is not taken. From all angles of opinion, there is no one single cause of disunity as those in the Nigerian union has their own opinion as to whom, what and why the country appears to be disintegrating fast. However, from most accounts, religious differences and forceful co-habitation or subjugation of some ethnic groups by or under certain other groups are the main differences. In other words, many ethnic nationalities want and desire internal autonomy – call it self determination – which they are not getting by the present geo-political structure and unitary system of government. This is what appears lost on past and current governments whose functionaries are the biggest beneficiaries of the perceived imbalances – which makes them unable to see why those outside government wants power devolution or more freedom. The debate continues.