The Causes & Fall of Nations

By Sam Onimisi
With all things being equal, Southern Sudan will become an independent nation in the next few weeks, seceding from Sudan after decades of brutal oppression, genocide and civil war. At last, the armed struggle of the black people of the South coupled with the global moral support of the international community has forced Arabic Sudan to let go, the Southern people they held down for ages. The causes of the civil war leading to secession are racial and religious discrimination against the black Christian South by the fair – skin Arabic Muslim North. Ethiopia, about 16 years ago was one country but split into two when Eritrea gained independence after a bloody armed struggle. The causes were ethnic and religious differences between the orthodox Christian Ethiopia and the Islamic ethnic Eritrea.
In Morocco, there has been a conflict between Rabat and El-Aaiun where the Saharawi (Western Sahara) people have been fighting to be independent of Morocco for similar reasons of ethnic discrimination and the quest for self determination. For well over 15 years now, Somalia has divided into clan smithereens and without a central government as a result of ethnic and clan differences even while sharing the same religion of Islam. Take note that already, there is the virtually independent Somaliland whose capital is Jibuti, as different from Somalia’s Mogadishu. Were both not the same country before they split? I did not begin my charity from home because Biafra could not secede from Nigeria even after 3 years of genocidal civil war against the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria. However, if you think the ghost of secession was laid to rest by the result of the civil war, you need to answer this question: who is Chief Ralph Uwazurike of the Movement for the Survival of Sovereign People of Biafra (MASSOB)? If anyone is naïve enough to think that the examples cited so far are from underdeveloped Africa, there are even more poignant examples of how ethnic, religious, cultural and regional differences divided countries in Asia, India and Europe in contemporary history.
Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the World until five years ago when East Timor seceded and made Dili its capital, away from Jakarta on grounds of ethnic, regional and other differences. Cyprus was inhabited by the Greek and Turkish ethnic nationalities and divided by religious differences with Greek Orthodox Christians and the Sunni sect of Islam. Even the power-sharing arrangement in which the Christians produced the president and the Muslims the vice president (similar to what we practice in Nigeria) could not hold the country together. Korea was a very big country until their civil war in the 1950s which resulted in the division of the country into South and North Korea with Seoul and Pyongyang as their respective capitals. In Europe, Italy was one country with Rome as capital, but religious and secular politics separated them with the creation of the Vatican solely for the Pope and the Catholics.
Greece was one nation but now two countries as Macedonia is free with Skopje as its capital. Was the Netherland not one country? Call them Dutch or Holland, but to day Belguim had Brussels as its capital, away from Netherland’s Amsterdam. When Marshal Josip Broz Tito held Yugoslavia together with his iron grip, little did he know that after his demise, that country will split into Bosnia – Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo? A bitter civil war fought along ethnic, religious and regional divide saw to the disintegration of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Who can forget that there was Czechoslovakia with its capital at the Prague? Was it not out of it that the Czech Republic and Slovakia emerged with Bratislava as the latter’s capital?
If you think a religious monolithic country is safe from secession, you could not make a more fatal mistake. Remember Denmark? It was torn apart by denominational difference between the Catholic and the Presbyterians with some ethnic flavour and today, there are three countries from one, i.e. Denmark, Sweden and Norway making Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo their capitals.
Before 1947, India was a vast continent administered as one country by the British imperial powers. But India was a country of great contrasts and diverties. One cannot even vouch for which diversity posed the greatest challenge between ethnic, religious, regional, linguistic and cultural differences. While it remained India, the Muslims loathed the notion of being ruled by the Hindus after independence. They wanted a clean, pure and holy virgin land which they later christened Pakistan to which they fled at independence in 1947. On the night of August 15, 1947 when India was to be formally declared as independent, the Muslims embarked on Hijra to Islamabad and declared themselves as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It sounded and looked like an El-dorado, a sweet dream come true? Well, within 14 years, the ethnic differences between the Urdu and the Bengali came to a head and a point of no return was reached when the later declared the independent state of Bangladesh. Do not ask me what happened to their common Islamic heritage which took them to Pakistan in the first place. It only prove that ethnic nationalism will always smash religious bond as a stronger force in a polity devoid of justice, equity and fair play. Can you imagine that Pakistan – after being freed of Indian Hinduism and Bangladesh’s ethnic irritants is still torn in pieces by sectarian and ideological viruses? Where is the pure land, holy and wonderful paradise on earth, dreamt of by Indian Muslims in 1947? Both Indian and Pakistan held a piece of the divided Kashmir territory and the people are fighting for independence, finding no attraction in India or Pakistan. Strong ethnic nationalism in display and at work? May be or perhaps not, depending on your understanding or persuasion! From new Delhi to Islamabad and to Dhaka between 1947 and 1970!! Don’t you feel we need to think?
When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic was at its zenith, it was militarily perceived to be more powerful than the United States of America. The USSR was a continent but administered as one country under a strict communist ideology and orientation as one unitary country. The ideological regimentation was so stuffy that no development could take place as the government puts every citizen under strict surveillance, suspecting infiltration by the democratic West, especially the United States of America, their greatest rival. Run under a highly centralized administration, and led by Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev etc, the sheer weight of ethnic diversities, religious differences and deficiencies in political administration suffocated the Soviet Union and brought her down some twenty years ago. Today, the USSR is no more, but fifteen autonomous countries with full sovereignty emerged from its ruins. The good news is that they parted ways peacefully without having to fire a shot. However, Abkhazia, Chechenia and South Ossetia are threatening to secede from Russia and Georgia and the defunct Soviet Union may become 18 independent countries, if not more before too long.
I have examined the history of the split of 14 nation-states across the world to prove that few countries are immuned from the scourge of ethnic nationalism and religious extremism. It is also to prove that heterogeneous societies are better run under true federalism rather than the unitary system obtained in Nigeria today. The two most intractable challenges facing our country are the same challenges that forced those countries to split. Some split peacefully, others did so after a devastating warfare, and some are rearing to go. With the Islamic Tala Kato, Boko Haram, Taliban and Al – Queda and the Christian MEND throwing their bombs anywhere they choose, can we honestly ascert that the bug of secession cannot, will not or shall not afflict Nigeria? Should we not revisit the work of the Pro-National Conference Organization (PRONACO) and take a look at the Peoples National Conference proposed Constitution which took care of our diversities? Can we continue to do the same thing in the same way and expect a different result?
The co-incidence of the upsurge in the rebellion of the Boko Haramites and the revolt of the supporters of Congress for Progressive Change could have resulted into a congregation for violent change, but for the grace of God. For if there had not been a wide margin between the votes of President Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari in the presidential election, the replay of the Ivorian experience could have been rationallu justified. Inspite of the fact that they have now produced the President of Nigeria, the people of Niger – Delta or more precisely, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) is still threatening to bomb the daylight out of this country. Does this not suggest that the problem with Nigeria is not about power rotation, not revenue allocation and or a religious balancing act?
What appears to be so clear and does not need crystal gazing is the quest on the part of the various ethnic people for self determination – a universal desire which does not necessarily lead to disintegration. Nigerians need and wants an internal re-arrangement which recognize, grants and guarantees freedom of association, of religious faith as consistent with their own cultures and authority over their own local or regional affairs. This is different and beyond ‘power to the people’ but freedom to the people!