There is the mistaken notion
frequently bandied that Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, the Northern
oligarchy or Nigeria’s Northern region and now, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS)
Lt.Gen. Tukur Yusufu Buratai, are opposed to any clamour for self-determination
by some sections of Nigeria.
These days, it is further
embellished with calls for Constitutional reforms and restructuring of the
Nigerian federation, if breakaway is to be avoided.
The latest article on this
discourse by Nigeria’s former Aviation minister, a questionable character and
jailbird, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has espoused these emotions or pontificated
this erroneous feeling.
To start, let it be known and
indeed should sink in the skull of Fani-Kayode and his few apologists that none
of the leaders, personalities, region
and institutions in Nigeria is afraid, dreads or intends to prevent any section
or group in this country from exercising
its incontestable right to self-determination or secession.
What is being detested by all and
sundry, including the international community and the United Nations (UN) is the easy resort to criminality and blackmail of the Nigerian government, its
leaders and other sections of the country by the so called self-determination agitators, as currently marketed by the
groups the article has specified.
To this extent, it becomes the
responsibility of government and leaders worth their salt, to protect innocent
and law-abiding citizens of Nigeria, from the effects of the criminal
instruments deployed against them by self- seeking separatism goons. It has been
argued many times before that no section of Nigeria lacks the capacity to
survive as an independent state.
The excuse of oil wealth and some
other easily dissolvable reasons as well as barbaric actions, which some analysts
like Fani-Kayode supports cannot and will not appeal to farsighted
minds. The entire globe is currently more concerned about food security.
The world has embraced the
prosperity of nations in agriculture as against oil. Besides, what is even the
worth of oil in the international market now? Peanuts!
The Northern region of Nigeria
which is often vilified and violently circumcised by separatism campaigners is
rich in agriculture. It has fertile lands, mineral resources and hard working
population.
There are also crude oil deposits
in the Lake Chad Basin in commercial quantities, which is currently being
stolen by Nigeria’s neighbours in connivance with France because of insecurity
in the areas necessitated by Boko Haram insurgency.
Also, the Benue Trough in the North
has crude oil deposits. So, it is infantile and absolute trash to posture or
postulate that Northern Nigeria and its leaders dread secession because of the
innate poverty associated with the region and the desire to cling unto the oil
wealth from the South.
Sections of Nigeria, ethnicities or
individuals who feel compelled to secede cannot just wake-up any day and
violently seal up any location in the pretense of agitating for
self-determination.
It becomes barefaced affront on the
powers of the state to protect lives and property of the citizenry. Fani-Kayode and his soul mates are supposedly
and sufficiently civilized or exposed enough to know the decently civilized
approaches and procedures to the current aberration they exhibit in the guise
of separatism.
In his article, Fani-Kayode argued
that Afenifere, the apex Yoruba socio-cultural organization, through its number
two man, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has proclaimed backing for an Oduduwa republic in
the event of the failure of Nigeria to embark on constitutional reforms and
re-structuring of the federation.
It is possibly his personal and
restricted thinking about the issue because Nigerians are yet to see the
consultations of interest groups in Yoruba land who have not only deliberated
over this matter, but endorsed such agenda.
But fairly, Adebanjo’s treatise could
be perceived as the intellectual and
lawful approach to such issues. It
however, does not obliterate the lacunas in the quest for self-determination by
these groups.
The claim of backing by the Dr.
Frederick Fasheun and the Gani Adams-led factions of the Odua Peoples Congress
(OPC) and the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM) are also enmeshed in similar
fate.
It sounds more like a desperate
recruitment drive. But whatever it is, the Yoruba race have representatives at
all levels in the parliament to set the ball rolling. And no government of
Nigeria, to say the least, under President Buhari would either interfare or
reject the aspirations of the generality of the people.
As always maintained, deployment of
legitimate and lawful means to pursue issues of interest from any group will
not attract the ire of anybody. But dubiousness in such quests in Nigeria
overshadows the genuineness of such aspirations. Even the canvasser and
propagandist, Fani-Kayode, who is conscientizing
the people to rise up to demand for secession
has laced it in deceit.
It is wrong for him to drag Middle
Belt or North Central Nigeria into the unfounded quests for separatism just
because the argument must be coloured to appear thick, convincing and
widespread. So, every step is infused by
fraudulence in the “project” self-determination.
Anyway, no one doubts the age-long,
but feeble quest for a Biafran state, which Ojukwu started in 1967, but
abandoned midway and opted for the cowardly action of absconding into exile.
The trumpets of Biafra today being blown by the twin organizations-Nnamdi
Kanu’s Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB)
and Ralph Uwazuirike’s Movement
For The Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) negates sanity and anything near the aspirations of
self-determination by a collective- the Igbo nation.
First, these organizations are not
registered and therefore are unlawful entities and ordinarily, ought not to be
allowed to operate under the banner. Secondly, majority of Ndi’gbo are opposed
to it. It is thoughtless madness to seek legitimacy on the altar of
illegitimacy as the carriage of MASSOB and IPOB have indicated.
But both organizations are peopled
by few self-seekers. For example, these two groups threatened to disrupt the
pro-Buhari rally slated for March 10, 2017 in Awka, Anambra state. The rally
was organized in support of the Buhari Presidency by Igbo politicians in the
APC fold. In the estimation of the pro-Biafranists, it insults the cause of Biafra
to host President Buhari on Igboland.
But while they perfected their crooked
machinations, thousands of Igbo youths opposed to the idea of MASSOB and IPOB
stormed the Dr. Alex Ekwueme
Square,Awka, the Anambra State capital , the same day to identify with the
Buhari administration, with the
hashtag #WeStandForBuhari#.
It is therefore an extended fraud
when Fani-Kayode alludes that Chief John Nnia Nwodo-led Ohanaeze Ndi’gbo, the
highest Igbo socio-cultural organisation , “which represent and speak for the
elders and leaders of the Igbo nation,” also back the dubious Biafran aspirations of MASSOB and IPOB.
Nwodo’s leadership of Ohanaeze
Ndi’gbo is still being contested by another faction in Igboland. That is their
internal problem anyway. But a person standing on a contested throne cannot be
honoured with the veneration and grandeur of speaking for all. Where has he got
the franchise to speak for the entire Igbos?
The Niger Deltans desire for resource control and
self-determination has followed the same path of infamy. The groups clamoring for such niceties for
themselves need not to be elusive; what
Fani-Kayode calls “hard-hitting and
elusive (Niger Delta) Avengers.” Any organization or individual with a genuine
aspiration and intends to pursue it legitimately stand boldly to make his case
to the world.
There is no cause to be elusive.
But when it is contrived and designed as evil, evasiveness takes the place of
honour and when it becomes too lawless, the state has an onerous responsibility
to limit the excesses.
The reference to the people of
Southern Kaduna under aegis of Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU) follows
the same trend of deception. What they
are demanding is protection of their lives and properties by the government of
Nigeria from constant attacks by suspected militias and other criminal gangs.
And the government has responded
with the establishment of a military barracks in the area to facilitate quick
responses to crisis emergencies. Northern minorities may have issues with the
government of Nigeria or Northern leaders, which is not strange altogether
with people in nations. But it is not on
record where they demanded for self-determination, much more with a dubious
tinge like MASSOB or IPOB as insinuated.
The unwritten creed of the North,
which their antagonists like Fani-Kayode have failed to know is their vow to
indivisibility and unity, while they amicably resolve occasional problems.
Sheik Ibraheem El Zakzaky – led Shiite Muslims of the Islamic Movement of
Nigeria (IMN) belong to the same
category of lawless organizations, whose
only lexicon is violence.
This much was revealed by the
Kaduna State Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate the Shiites clash with
Nigerian Army in December 2015. How does
curtailing the unlawful excesses of a violent Islamic sect, with publicized
affinity to ISIS in Iran amounts to the desire for self-determination?
Sometimes, it becomes difficult to
discern the focus of the arguments. The moment you think, Kayode is talking
about the religious persecution of Christians in the North because Buhari, a
Muslim is President of Nigeria; he deviates into the issue of Shiites Muslims
subjected to the same fate under the same Buhari.
Where does he really stand? No matter the extent falsehood is elevated,
it cannot replace truth. What is
happening is expression of government’s intolerance for lawlessness.
So, when the COAS Lt. Gen. Buratai counseled these spineless agitators
on March 6, 2017 to bury the idea and campaigns for separatism, it was in good
faith. It stemmed from the noticeable shortcomings and loopholes such campaigns
have imbibed overtime and the resort to criminality in pursuit of these
indefinable missions.
It is neither arrogance nor
self-serving, as Fani-Kayode puts it. But it is a worthy advice from a
professional soldier and security expert who has sighted the effects of the
dubiousness in the actions and the security implications on the country. And
from his vintage insight, it behooves on him to caution these campaigners of whatever
hue to either do what is right or perish the idea.
And Fani-Kayode did not conceal his
real intentions far before exploding to divulge his real plot – the
destabilization of Nigeria, which would be rocked into another civil war, as he
declared, “no country in the history of
the world has ever survived two civil wars.”
Buratai knew these evil intentions
from the outset and his declaration was a tacit caution that Nigeria would not
be compromised by these vested, demonic interests and forces.
Again, no one would stop genuine,
lawful aspirations of any kind. But when it derails into lawlessness, the state
would not feast over deliberate breach of security.
Fani-Kayode postulates as if the defunct
republics he cited around the world, which have separated, some for as much as
six or more times, either automatically found solutions to their mirage of
problems or adopted the offensive approaches these groups in Nigeria find
worthy.
Has the crisis in Sudan ended
because South Sudan emerged? What about
Pakistan? Or has the breakaway of Syria from Egypt resolved crisis in these
countries? The examples are inexhaustible from the list he tendered. So, it
means much more than separatism to resolve issues of conflict between
nationalities co-habitating together.
Perhaps, Fani-Kayode has sensed the
prospects of jail over the various corruption charges he is facing in courts
and thinks, a speedy break-up of Nigeria would stop his trials and extricate
him from the possibility of jail. But
it’s hardly the route to his escape.
Okanga writes from Agila, Benue
State.
Culled from Vanguard
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