Nigeria: Always been divided; More divided now, Will soon be divided? - Ik Muo, Ph.D

 

Today is October 1, 2020, 60 years after Nigeria became ‘independent’ and 60 years of being potentially great. One should not be sulking on a day like this, when we should be joyously counting our blessings one-by-one and seeing what God has done. Surely, the good Lord was (and is) favourably disposed towards Nigeria as evidenced in all that he did to and for Nigeria( large and  diverse population, awesome natural endowments, including large expanse of fertile land ).  I am convinced that some countries are accusing Him of barefaced partiality. Unfortunately, because of what we have done and what we have failed to do, the blessings to count are few, and are getting fewer by the day.  We have allowed ourselves to be burdened (did we actually?) with accidental leaders, with each of them adopting the ‘Rehoboamic model’(1kings,12:1-15: imposing more oppressive burdens than their predecessors) . Sadly, we the people, have adopted and continue to adopt  a pusillanimous, docile,   whatever Oga does is right attitude. Thus, while the leaders have done the wrong things with impunity, we the people have failed to do the right things for ourselves and for the forthcoming generations.

Multiple choice Questions (MCQs) appear easy, because at worst, the student would just choose an option and if there were just 3 options, he  has a .33 probability of being correct. It is however difficult because at times all the options appear correct and differ only in degrees of correctness. The above MCQ( the title)  is the type in which all appear to be correct. It was derived from the response by  the ‘presidency’ to those who are warning that Nigeria is on the brink( it has been there several times) and that this time, we may not be so lucky.  Those who cried in the wilderness about  the unflattering situation of Nigeria and the to your tents oh Israel scenario include   Bishop Kukah, Archbishop Onayekan, Prof Soyinka and Chief Obasanjo. Soyinka and Obasanjo, age-mates and brothers, are strange bedfellows who have probably only agreed on two issues in recent years: in 2015 that  Jonathan was the worst President ever and that PMB was the Messiah for Nigeria( with OBJ publicly tearing his PDP card) and now, 2020, that PMB is a failed Messiah,  and that the country should be saved from him.  Obasanjo based his multidimensional warning on insecurity and believed that restructuring is the panacea or else… In his own words ‘Nigeria is fast drifting to a failed and badly divided state; economically our country is becoming a basket case and poverty capital of the world, and socially, we are firming up as an unwholesome and insecure country.  Garba Shehu   accused him of descending  ‘from the lofty heights of Commander-in-Chief, to the lowly level of Divider-in-Chief’ . As a corollary to this, Soyinka declared that ‘The nation is divided as never before under  President Buhari  who went to sleep while communities were consistently ravaged by cattle marauders, all over the landscape, who advised the traumatised victims to learn to live peacefully with their violators.. and whose spokesman  gleefully dismissed the mass burial of victims in Benue State as a “staged show” for international entertainment and that “only the living” can enjoy the dividends of legal rights”… adding that “We are close to extinction as a viable comity of peoples’.

Bishop Kukah had in January 2020 described the government as a Boko-Haram without bombs because it is using different method to achieve the same goal of Islamic dominance; A statement the great Lai described as unfortunate  divisive, incendiary and insensitive. Last weekend( 26/9/20) he further declared that Nigerians are sadder and more frustrated  than ever, accusing PMB of “greatest degree of insensitivity in managing the country’s diversity” especially as  lopsided appointments are against the spirit of a united Nigeria and that  “We have never had it this bad in our history where power is privatised and shared based on religious and ethnic considerations.” He concluded that when you recruit people based on religious and ethnic considerations, it diminishes the system, create tension and make others feel like they don’t belong to the system’ Earlier  that week( 20/9/20), John Cardinal Onaiyekan, the immediate past  Catholic Archbishop of Abuja gave his own brief punchy warning that Nigeria’ can break up even before 2023, if we continue to be irresponsible and reckless.’ It was around the same time that the   Bishop of Anglican Communion, diocese of Kaduna, Timothy Yahaya lamented that life in Nigeria has become nasty, brutish and short, owing to increasing rate of insecurity across the nation.

Rtd Lt Gen Akinrinade    recalled the ‘pervasive belief’ that PMB is an ethnic bigot, an irredeemable religious fundamentalist, with open pro-fulanisation agenda, who  treats the Fulani armed gangs  ‘with deodorant’  and  hoped he was aware of the cries for separation across the land. He the argued that he has woefully failed in the war against BH and failed to reflect ‘the heterogeneous composition of our country when it comes to appointments to sensitive positions in his government’
As this is going on, MASSOB, the former leading Biafranist group declared that ‘Under President Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigeria state has turned to a Fulani empire where every other major and minor ethnic nationalities are not regarded.  IPOB had already ordered for a sit-at-home in ‘Biafra-land’ on October 1.   Subsequently,   Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA), a coalition of several Itsekiri, Edo and Yoruba groups wrote a love letter to the Sultan as the head of the 7m Fulani in Nigeria, complaining and warning that ‘the Fulani are digging their hands down our throats. They are entering our bedrooms and sleeping with our mothers and wives. These actions are against humanity.. which have renewed the energy of millions of  people who want a country of their own;.. and that Having Yoruba or Igbo Republics  is imminent and inevitable. AOKOYA just wanted ‘to live our lives, design our political and cultural architecture, live and die on our own terms’ and promised to accommodate law abiding Fulani in their republic. Around this same time, Gen Buratai usurped Executive and Legislative powers, and threatened to impose  state of emergency in the South East, if his men were attacked again. Ohanaeze wondered why he had not issued such warnings in the  North, which have become theatres of war and where army posts and are attacked incessantly by sundry Non State Actors who  overrun military bases, kill and maim our soldiers and who gave him the powers to say so. This was happening as the contentious Water Resources Bill surreptitiously re-surfaced at NSSS, where it is receiving urgent attention, despite the strident protestation of Southern and North Central regions.  I cannot remember when our October 1 discussions were inundated with such dreadful and doomful declarations. It is also noteworthy that most of those warning PMB now( Soyinka, Obasanjo, Akinrinade),were his cheer leaders in 2015.

However, the most worrisome on this matter was the reaction of the government to the outpouring of frustration by Nigerians. Femi Adesina, ‘who has put fire on everything he ever wrote as a journalist’ since becoming the SA talk-talk to PMB gave it back to all these people, and indeed to all of us, that 
"Nigeria had always been divided right from the inconvenient amalgamation of 1914.  …and there is no time in the history of this country that the country was not divided. As at 2015 when President Buhari came, Nigeria was terribly divided; divided along ethnic, religious and political lines; divided along language; divided hopelessly and terribly. So, if they say Nigeria is divided today, it is because Nigeria has always been divided. And all efforts to unite Nigeria and Nigerians never worked’ . He did not contradict these positions; he did not explain what the government has done to ameliorate the situation; he just said, ‘it has always been so’. Saddening!
But these warnings about the future of Nigeria did not start today. In 2013, Soyinka had warned that ’if we are to remain as a country, we have to treat one another as equals; we have to accept the same set of protocols. Nobody can say that these protocols do not apply to him/her; or that he has immunity and can act with impunity to hurt the rest of the nation (Certain Mindsets must change for Nigeria to stay united. Guardian, 1/6/13, p10-12).  Emeka Anyaoku had raised the alarm that Nigeria was more divided than before during his 85^th Birthday( Guardian, 18/1/18). He blamed it on a defective governance structure that fostered the militancy and separatist tendencies across the country, ‘which promotes intense competition( religious and ethnic) for the control of the center, which exacerbated the divisive factors in Nigeria’ He had advised Nigeria to learn from Canada, India and Malaysia, which had experience in such matters.

 Surprisingly, another warning about the possible breakup of Nigeria came from a strange quarter. Our Vice President Professor, Barrister, Pastor Osinbajo  has joined the fray by warning that  Nigeria will soon break up if the various cracks in the polity were not adequately treated. He was speaking at the 2020 Independence interdenominational service. Not surprisingly, Ohaneze, Afenifere and PANDEF hailed him, saying we should not live in denial, that government is not doing enough to mend the cracks and that restructuring is it. Arewa Consultative Forum  on the other hand ‘warned’ the VP for raising the tension in the polity, even though they agreed that there were some cracks in the Nigerian wall. That is a sign of the division we are talking about.The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Dr Samson Ayokunle, had supported  Osinbajo’s motion by saying that “For us, all to be on the same page, have a sense of belonging and be happy, the doctrine of equality, that is equal access to employment, governance and education, must be available to all. The principle of inclusivity must be adopted. Nobody or region must be excluded from the scheme of things in Nigeria. I am still awaiting the response of Garba Shehu or Femi Adesina to the crack in the wall treatise.

 Meanwhile, we started this writeup with a three-option Multiple Choice Question. In response to  the first option, I agree with Femi Adesina, (for the first time) that Nigeria has always been divided. That was why some people spoke of Araba; that was why  some people described ndi-Igbo as intruders; that was why  some governors adopted Sharia law in a secular state and that was why some people called Nigeria a mere geographical expression while others described it as a mistake….. We shall still discuss the other options in due course. Meanwhile, happy independence!

 -Ik Muo, Ph.D; Department of Business administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye.08033026625