"Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...." {The Second Coming' by W.B.Yeats, 1919}
The maxim,
‘no news is good news’ has in the course of the past two years, attained the
status of fact in Nigeria. Whenever there is a news item on Nigeria in the
global news media, it is either the extremist Islamist terror outfit, Boko
Haram has staged yet another fatal attack in Nigeria’s north-eastern region
leading to the death of innumerable persons or that a suicide bomber has blown
him/herself up, taking some innocent bystanders to an early death; or that
militants in the ever restive oil-rich Niger Delta region have blown up one oil
pipeline or abducted some expatriate staff of oil producing companies; or the
ever aggressive Fulani Herdsmen/militia have struck at yet another village in
Nigeria’s middle belt region in what is now realized as systematic acts of
ethnic cleansing; or one of several separatist ethnocentric groups, such as the
Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra
(MASSOB)/Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) in the south-east region, the
Republic of the Niger Delta (RONDEL) in the south-south region, the Odua People’s
Congress (OPC) in the western region and the Arewa Youths (AY) in the
north-central region, all threatening to secede from Nigeria or issuing quit
notices to members of other ethnic groups to evacuate from their respective
regions.
When there
appears to be a pause in news of extreme terror and physical violence, a tirade
of fiscal violence which further deepens the poverty of the Nigerian population
overwhelms news coverage. Its either millions of US Dollars stashed away in
some unwholesome place (such as burial grounds, septic tanks or in abandoned
buildings) surfaces with no one coming forward to claim ownership; or the
entire public sector workers in a given state are being owed several months
salaries, while thousands of ‘ghost-workers’ {names which receive salaries but
are really non-existent} get continually unearthed without any efforts to
recover monies paid to ghosts nor prosecute those who received these salaries
on behalf of the ‘ghost-workers’; or entire budgetary allocations of government
agencies get carted away be those charged with the peoples welfare.
Agreed,
Nigeria had never been an El-Dorado. Like most mineral-rich emerging states,
divisions along ethno-religious lines, being governed by kleptocrats and
prevailing endemic corruption served to impede any real prospects of
sustainable national development. Yet the level of depreciation and degradation
in national and human life, expectations and prospects has sharply declined in
the course of the past 2 years, has been most astonishing. From being the
largest and fastest growing economy in Sub Sahara Africa in year 2014, a choice
destination for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), Nigeria has plummeted to being a pariah state for investors.
Indeed in
Nigeria, things have fallen apart. The question however now is: how did we get
here and what can be done to hasten an exit from the quagmire we find ourselves
enmeshed in before the situation generates to full-blown mayhem requiring
international intervention to quell?
Cause of the
Sharp fall: Conscious of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of Nigeria,
past rulers of the country had gone to great lengths to ensure some semblance
of equity and balance in their appointments, allocation of national revenue and
resources and showing respect for the various ethnicities and religious groups
in Nigeria – thus creating a semblance of equilibrium and unity. The emergence
of Muhammadu Buhari altered this delicate balance.
The hasty
descent begun on the 29th May, 2015 with the swearing in into office
as President of Nigeria of a man of known extremist Islamic disposition who had
severally committed himself to ensuring that the Islamic law principles, the
Shari’a, was implemented all across Nigeria and who seems more intent to promote
nepotism and ethnic preferences far and above any pretence at national cohesion
and unity. The insensitivity to the yearnings of the various ethnic groups
which the Buhari regime perceived as ‘opposition groups’, gave rise to
heightened agitation for self-actualization and disintegration from Nigeria.
The component ethnicities of the Nigerian federation who felt disrespected,
unwelcome and insulted by several statements, nature of appointments made and
general mannerism of the new President naturally felt they would be better off
on their own than by being subservient citizens in a country that should
ordinarily be theirs.
The agitations
for self-determination and splitting from the Nigerian federation are gathering
momentum across various regions of Nigeria. A combination of the following
factors: 1). the proliferation of arms in the West African region, 2). seizure
of several container loads of illicitly imported arms at various ports in
Nigeria – raising the prospect that many other containers had surreptitiously
been smuggled in, 3). extremely high unemployment rate amongst Nigerian youths,
and 4). the festering violent agitations by Boko Haram, Fulani Herdsmen and
some elements among the Niger Delta youths exposes the fact that Nigeria in
perched on a very precarious position, akin to being atop a ticking time bomb
which can blow-up at any moment.
A way out of
the mess: There is need, as a matter
of utmost urgency, for the constituent peoples of the Nigerian federation to
dialogue over the avalanche of perceived and or real issues of marginalization,
injustice and inequity which continue to fan the embers of discord amongst the
peoples of Nigeria. Considering the fact that the very coming into existence of
Nigeria as a single entity was by fiat from erstwhile colonial overlords, Great
Britain; that the present structure of the Nigerian state into 36 States and
774 Local Government Areas; and the composition of the State and National
Assemblies are all factors causing disaffection, such a dialogue process must
be sovereign with broad scope and powers to inquire into all and everything
surrounding the Nigerian state including but not restricted to its structure
and continued existence.
In the event
that such dialogue process cannot be organized internally by Nigerians, it
would be advisable for such dialogue process to be supervised/moderated by
external authorities such as the United nations or the African Union to ensure
objective outcomes..
Considering
Nigeria’s projected population size of over 180 million, the prospect of the ongoing
tension in Nigeria degenerating into full-scale conflict and the nightmarish
scenario of its huge population streaming across international borders ad
overwhelming neighbouring West African countries is too horrendous to be
contemplated. It is therefore advised as a matter of utmost urgency, that a
sovereign dialogue process of the various ethnic nationalities in Nigeria be
convened to discuss on a path forward for the Nigerian state, to determine
whether the country will continue to exist as one entity or as separate
entities, and under what conditions such coexistence shall be based.
Picture: Map of
Nigeria featuring the present 36 States structure which must be restructured if the country has to have any chance at a future:
