UNITED NIGERIA TO BE OR NOT I was reluctant to join the debate on whether or not Nigeria should continue to remain a united country, in view of the encumbrances that have continued to inhibit our efforts to effect even development and improve the living condition of our people, particularly leadership failure since independence 53 years ago. Nigeria is about to mark its 100th year of existence since the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates (plus the Colony of Lagos) in 1914 by the British Colonial administrator Lord Frederick Lugard. The call for the debate was made by Femi Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister and son of a prominent lawyer and First Republic politician, in a piece titled “A time to pander”. The piece draws attention to the current situation in Nigeria and asks whether it won’t be better for us if clusters of our federating units meet and resolve to go their separate ways. The article coincided with renewed calls by agitators for the convocation of a national conference. However, it appears those in power are afraid of making it a Sovereign National Conference (SNC). Nevertheless, even President Goodluck Jonathan and Senate President David Mark are reported to be now favourably disposed to the idea of a national conference. Femi’s piece exposed what was in his mind, but the ex-minister was just being diplomatic about it. Well, I’m not going to be; I’ll be as frank as possible if he really wants to know what is on my mind as a citizen. It is true that in advanced countries if a section of a country feels it has reasons to secede their right for self-determination is recognized and respected by their fellow citizens. Femi cited the cases of the Catalan region in Spain and the Scots in the United Kingdom as the two ethnic nationalities in Europe that have expressed their wish to break away and form separate sovereign nations and the agitators are not being abused by their compatriots as it is wont to happen in Nigerian Youth Kano State Governmental. In point of fact, respect for the rights of secessionists to express their views in advanced countries should not be construed as those rights being guaranteed and willingly given to them with a pat on the back. Many of such agitations ended in failures or prolonged bloody conflicts resulting in loss of lives, as in so many of the cases he cited. I’m sure the former minister could recall how and why the Soviet Union broke into 15 or more countries. However, like other agitators for the splitting of Nigeria, Femi recom-mends that we should do it peacefully through dialogue or referendum without having to shed blood. I agree with him because that is feasible, and no one will want to advocate for another civil war before we can decide what is good for us. In fact, I strongly believe that Nigeria will sooner or later have to break up, and I think it is better sooner than later. Actually, it will be shame on us to create a problem and leave it behind for our children and grand-children to solve. We should all be ready to suffer the burden of our failures by resolving to face the daunting tasks of building our individual nations ourselves. We can never know what goodness awaits us until we take the inevitable plunge. One of the clear symptoms indicating that Nigeria is a failed state is that most of us, especially the elites, no longer have nationalistic feelings for it; everybody is more concerned about his/her ethnic or sectional enclaves, or about issues of the stomach for ordinary citizens due to the festering economic crunch which is, in itself, symptomatic of leadership failure. Hence, no one cares about the country or important national events such as the 53rd independence anniversary to the extent that very few know on the day of writing this piece that it is less than a week away. In the 1960s, as primary school pupils Independence Day was like Sallah day to us as we received gifts of specially designed cups and national flags in commemoration of the great event. A week before the day everybody was tense in anticipation, but today even the president is away politicking in the US. So Nigeria is certainly ripe for dismemberment and, if failure on all fronts is what would make it happen, the American intelligence analyst who predicted that Nigeria would collapse by 2015 is very correct in his estimate. The North is not afraid of the disintegration of Nigeria because of loss of oil revenues as presumed by some people. What the North is afraid of is becoming a landlocked country
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 20:22:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015