Dons Eze
FEDERATING, CONFEDERATING OR RESTRUCTURING THE NIGERIAN SPACE
The idea of a confederated republic is from a reflection on the perennial crises bedeviling the Nigerian federation since the amalgamation of the numerous nations within the geographical space we now have. The word “confederation” like its newer baby morph “restructuring” is now viewed with horror, a signal of a veritable Nigerian Armageddon ! It is an apocalypse arching back into the meeting at Aburi Ghana, in 1967 where the demon which birthed Nigeria’s fratricidal civil war was ushered into the nation’s psyche. Quite an unfortunate perception, scorching all perimeters of the Nigerian space whenever mentioned.
Our boring song from a broken proverbial record is that Nigeria remains a doomed construction or configuration from its inception because the alien makers of that forced agglomeration concentrated on the market driven dreams of their vision instead of in its viability. Neither the brilliant statesmanship generated by altruistic patriots like Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe nor the wise political pragmatism of men like Aminu Kano and Joseph Tarka, and the fierce nationalism of Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello and others regarded as founding fathers, were able to stabilize the ever rocking and rocky marriage of that strange union.
The components of the federation of Nigeria have remained centrifugal in their tendencies instead of centripetal. The center was attractive to those who did not rest to exploit what that center was able to create for everybody. There might not be much wrong today if those forces sympathized with the desires of others and accepted healthy competition for control of that center. But an incorrigible and unholy passion to dominate and appropriate remain the drivers of those who believe without any disguise that they own the entity called Nigeria.
So far, the tragic experience of a brutal thirty-six month civil war has taught no one any enduring lesson/s. We refer to that disaster with lingering fear and hatred and all sorts of mixed fillings or emotions.The various strife and cries from aggrieved sections of the country have also taught no one much. Everybody, deaf or dumb, clearly see the writings on the wall of time and history. This thing called Nigeria is not working. It is not working because it is a forced marriage. Even when marriages are made from love of partners for partnership, if, and when the desired bonding failed, the parties try or head to arbitration, separation, or final divorce. In the case of the Nigerian marriage, the partners appear to be insisting on indivisibility and internecine destruction and death. Those you think are too old and therefore wise enough to know better claim that Nigeria was made by God! God put the country together! Dear comrade. God does not put countries together. Countries are constructed by human beings except in the ineducable brains of morons or cretins.
A few Nigerians yearn for a Communist or Marxist State or some utopian arrangement. Maybe such systems might work but it is bound to be from nations which transit by evolution or willful design into acceptable alternative systems. The problem is that any winning design/s must begin on a national platform where people collectively project such new directions. Communist entities such as the defunct Soviets and the Peoples Republic of China began by what Political Philosophy calls the delimitation of ethnicities. The voices of all ethnicities must be listened to carefully or heard.
One day, a calmer world of public intellectuals will discover in a free thinking atmosphere that a winning political philosophy will be the product of a mean between technological determinism and Marxian utopian idealism. Note that globally, despite careful forethought, no ideological formation has emerged or will emerge without a periodic ruffle as the world found out in 2008 during the global jittery economic meltdown. Component ethnic groups must first define their entities and inclinations and affiliation preferences, and then the conglomeration decides on the implication of individual and then an agreed national posture.
The tenants of the Nigerian nation, for now, have no interest in national foundations or bolsters. All there is is an incessant scramble of various ethnicities to forge myopic alliances to enable graft and scam to enable a robbery of the commonweal.
And so,the Nigerian project is being repeatedly built and re-built periodically with broken walls over sand and rubble. All foundations in Art and Structures, every party ignores, must begin with respectable materials for infrastructures that will not creak in action or motion. Are the nation’s laws cohesive and in consonance with the expectations and desires of all partners in the project ? Achebe’s vision captures the demon in any proposed structure’s frame. And there exists a crack between his diagnosis and prognosis. Yes the trouble with Nigeria is leadership . Unquestionably so ! The problem is that the carts and cargo are bulky and handicapping the driver’s task. When perspicacity proffers suggestion of any lack , there is an error in the heart of the proffer, with offer/s foundering repeatedly on all kinds of diversity from the primordial forces of assorted diversity from Religion and ethnicity to all manner of entrenched interests…The leaders are there in plenitude but the consensus has never established the nature of the tracks or the contents of the carts and cargoes to be drawn. Consider the train on wheels pulling carts and cargo.
The fact in the Nigerian situation in relation to such possibility is that there is not yet a nation unless viewed as a nation without a spirit. At a Harvard university conference in 2009, Nobel luminary, Wole Soyinka referred to Nigeria as not yet a nation but work in progress. So very truthful and insightful ! A couple becomes a couple from agreed marriage in which acceptable terms are mutually understood and accepted by both parties. Even when presented with the irrational horror of “till death do us part” as in Christian marriages, couples still decide to reject that horror despite the sacred nature of the binding oath. Now, extend the metaphor of marriage and ask your self honestly and truthfully; what was the understanding of the parties involved in the Nigerian marriage? The honest and truthful answer is nil! There was none. Please do not rush off to show us the constitution. The constitution is like the rules of engagement before parties begin a game. Well, the point here is that before the rules of engagement, the parties first decide on formation. Soccer, for instance, is eleven against eleven with clearly designated wings/positions with referee and lines men and so forth. What has happened with the so-called Nigerian nation and its formations fits into the cynical American joke of building a plane, impossibly so, while the plane is in flight. What is the Nigerian constitution and what ethnic opinions or inputs rode into its formation or construction ?The present constitution is a dictatorial construction with zero input from the diverse ethnic constituents of the Nigerian polity.
You have certainly heard of numerous groups from Southern Nigeria proclaiming this or that with references to sovereignty. MOSSOB, MASSOB, IPOB, MEND, OPC, and so forth. These groups have been greeted with all kinds of pejorative descriptive epithets. Inasmuch as those movements are looked upon as inept, irrational and so forth, they are only that way because of the same reasons why people consider the Nigerian marriage as a doomed irrational marriage. Those movements function without historical hindsight. You may sympathize with their concerns and sentiments but their methods are as murky as their goals.
They have honesty of sentiment which works well in art, but certainly not in the real world. American Nobel laureate, Toni Morrison wrote somewhere that there is nothing as dangerous as ideology without form. And that is what makes what those groups are doing dangerous, suicidal, and formless if you will. Before Prophet Mohammed convinced all those various miniscular religious groups who had shrines at the meteoric mass which later became the holy Kaaba, he first explained clearly that since everybody was talking about the same God in various ways, it made sense to unite in the name of that one God. These various Nigerian groups remain unaware of the profundity of that sacred wisdom because their visions are not clear. Unless they unite under one powerful cause and umbrella, they will all fail. Singly, each one will be crushed and destroyed by the inexorable forces of mutational static evil just like the first Biafra.
The internecine progressive leasing of innocent souls to Death will continue to the delight of Western Capital or to be more uncout , the White man. Western/Global Capital does not want you united neither would they have you disunited. They want you in a permanent mode of political confusion and easily exploitable malleable backwardness.
These groups forget the lessons of history and the great Nigerian dis-ease, ethnic finger-pointing! They forget what dogs and lurks behind their political moves and testaments… “It is just Igbo people and their trouble”… “It is Yoruba people again and their deceit” … “It is Ijaw people, Efik people, Ogoni people, Kukuruku people …people… people… people”… The bells of ethnicity and their comic jangling jingoes and distractions deny them the justification or legitimacy which they may indeed rightly have or deserve. So what does one do to be different and taken more seriously?
That is where the Confederated States of Biafra or Nigeria becomes the answer. And by the way, Nigeria could re-configure into something like that which grants every group or viable coalition of groups comfortable breathing space. Re-structuring is a happier and more innocuous euphemism for all that, maybe a necessary first step.(But greed and arrogance and horrible chauvinism will not allow Nigerians to think deeply and more carefully!)
The path into a Biafra or Nigeria confederation without fearing or suspecting any kind of domination, be it political, socio-cultural or psychologically or fiscally comfortable. The naming of ethnic units and the incorporating of other ethnicities without consent is one of the cardinal errors in the designs of IPOB and so forth. Any new polity should learn from the experience of the floundering polity which has created the stranglehold squeezing every entity to death. Secure consent first with uniform goals. Forget naming because naming creates anxiety with suspicions of domination. The Igbo , the Efik, the Ijaw, the Idoma or Bakassi or any entity which agree on a union should be part of the construction of a name to represent all constituents. Whether the group claims a descent from heaven or the deep water should not be the business of anybody. Whether neighbors worship stick or stone should be nobody’s business as long as the laws of the nation are respected by all citizens. All units must, of course, be allowed to control their natural resources while paying properly calculated taxes to the central union. If Nigeria cannot learn from gigantic and smooth-moving democracies like the United States of America, they can learn from smaller equally peaceful democracies like Morocco.
Unlike the Nigerian marriage, every unit would present their own protective terms for partnership and union. That was how the ancient Greek union and their city states were formed. The mutual love became bonded with the Olympic Games which later morphed into the global heritage the whole world now enjoys. That was how the United States of America was formed or is still forming. You must be aware that the state of Texas insisted on retaining the singular right to secede if and when they want, hence its political nickname of “the lone star State”. Texas was part of Mexico, and then a Republic, and finally part of the United States of America. That was how Alaska joined, the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Puerto Rico( still dicing !) and so forth. If this political hypothesis lives, do not be surprised if Western Cameroons opts out from the East to join the Biafran configuration or confederation.
Each new member when absorbed by the great American federation, was granted and guaranteed protection. America in fiscal terms actually functions like a confederation, hence the federal Government cannot greedily and shamelessly go to Alaska , Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and some of the other resources rich states to prospect for any kind of wealth and impose percentages or taxes without consensual study of the facts of exploration, ownership, or mutual agreement. Each American state is happy to compete and do their own thing proudly and confidently. Greed and laziness and shamelessness will not permit Nigerian groups to take that route !!!
The splinter movements crying over marginalization in Southern Nigeria need not cry further if the above ideas are tested or tried out successfully. The meeting ground of protection from brainless oligarchies will unite all the confederation.
The name Biafra or any other name or names will be carefully discussed by the component groups, adopted or discarded or modified as the pragmatic emotional and political rules dictate. While we learn to mind our business singularly, and figure out how to grow at our own respective spaces respectfully, we shall also gradually learn how to defend or protect each other, and indeed cultivate the true patriotic fervor upon which love of nation or genuine nationalism is founded…
No single ethnic group in the history of nations and independence has ever been able to break away successfully without deep forethought and systematic planning. Check this fact out from any worthy encyclopedia which harbors the word SECESSION. Protect the future of our children and children’s children with careful reasoning and political wisdom and good judgment. The dreams and the aspirations of the various groups in Southern Nigeria crying and groaning from age-old oppression are right and just, but that rightness and justice offer no shield against the savagery of the familiar forces of oppression, of greed, and habitual injustice. Their methods are wrong.
Think more and plan better. Emotions may be justifiable but they will not go far in the deadly crises of human growth. Your hopes and dreams may be fair in the eyes of God but in the end as George Bernard Shaw inimitably stated long ago, God is always with the big battalions !!! You agitators out there, do you have the big battalions? The first Biafra was right and justified by the sufferings of the Igbo before God and man. The cause was good but her method with all the goodness was dead wrong simply because God and the big battalions were on the side of the evil enemy !!!
Do not be shy or shamed from being bitten and beaten twice. The scornful laughter from the enemy will be more deafening if a second Biafra or Oduduwa or Arewa fails with history clear in hindsight. More deadly too will be the depth of humiliation. To defeat power, you must approach it cautiously and carefully, methodically and indeed systematically like the proverbial bowl of hot soup! Make haste slowly cried the ancient Romans in the face of all crises. Festene lente !!! It is an ancient cry that could also work for us in Africa’s today and tomorrow, if we proceed with appropriate caution or circumspection.
What happened not too long ago in Western Nigeria, AMOTEKUN, is a gigantic first step ; a historic master stroke carefully and quietly and most thoughtfully delivered on the amorphous face of what you call Nigeria; a worthy precursor of independent or autonomous state or ethnic policing. If the East and indeed other political zones in Nigeria can find the will and wisdom and healing unity and courage to deliver similar historic strokes, the futures of Nigeria’s innocent children will be on the way to its being guaranteed, so too will be the future of all Nigerians. Such autonomous steps and measures are likely to lead toward more fastidiously designed bricks for true nation building. The fabric of individuated confidence gives every member of the eventual final formation confidence, secured in a bonding which accentuates a general sense of belonging.
Nigerians who have brains, North or South, whether you are worshipping stick or stone, must wake up from the stupor from the drug called CRUDE OIL(!!!), and think of better ways of living and relating with each other like civilized human beings in most parts of this modern world. Who have heard from Nigeria’s public spaces and media, the news that Western Technology engines using fossil base oil must be phased out by 2040…? It should be scary national Economy news for a country such as Nigeria, whose creaky economic vehicle trundles on crude oil.
Final point, the idiocy of Nigeria being the creation of God must be exorcised from the national consciousness. While contemplating the danger lurking somewhere from that idiocy and other innocuous blind sides, kindly understand, whether you are guru or dummy that God does not create nations. Cease and freeze the panic mode which makes you tremble in fear of words like Oduduwa, Biafra, or indeed the possibilities of Central Nigeria or North West or North East Nigeria Republic . Concentrate on the creation of formulae which would enable us all to live side by side respectfully and peacefully with each other. Human beings create nations and their constitutional arrangements and so forth via a willing cooperative partnership and ideological construction and foundation and not by coercion and intimidation. No; not by selfish, shameless subterfuge, reckless lies and diabolical machinations.
Professor Nwankwo is a poet and literary critic & former Chair, Department of English and Speech, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, USA
