By Dr Orefo Onochie
Personal and public repost made to a fervent citizen of Nigeria:
- Why we Cannot Continue to Have Faith in the Entity called Nigeria
- Moral Equivalence of Singapore, South Sudan, Eritrea, Northern Ireland, Taiwan, Afghanistan and USA: where Nigeria is today
- Proposed and suggested List of Legitimate Legal, Administrative and Peaceful Steps and Modalities for ethnic nationalities to adopt who have expressed the determination to Exit and leave Nigeria (Stages & Implementation Timeline)
Thanks Bro. Babatunde:
Hereunder are, my thoughts regarding the State of the Country Nigeria, at this time; we must admit, it has all not been a function of immediate or isolated events. It has all been cumulative, historical and in that sense inevitable and irreversible: Nigeria is cascading down a River of No Return.
The most imminent plateau in the cascade has been insecurity, which coagulated from about 2009, when Goodluck Jonathan served as President. By 2010, it engulfed the entire country, and the Abuja UN Office was bombed, the Nigeria Police Headquarters was bombed, Suleja, etc , moving from the North east to North central and North west, down to the South; insecurity and separatism engulfed the entire South east, and several States and communities in the South west; the Catholic Church in Owo was bombed during Mass, on a Sunday morning, hundreds of communities began witnessing and petitioning the governments and the public on the invasion of heavily armed Fulani herdsmen, and violent islamic jihadists, especially in Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa and Benue States, who demanded grazing grounds, water-holes and immediate conversion to Islam. Reports of deaths, killings, decapitation of limbs, of women and children, enslavement, impregnating and raping of females in farms, razing of villages, entire communities, including deaths in Churches.
All these were and are still symptoms and red flags within the entity that very serious adjustments or remediation were needed: all were ignored, obfuscated and in many instances bastardized with Northerner questions, such as “what do they mean by RESTRUCTURING “?, for more than two decades.
In spite of the promises Buhari made, before and after the 2015 Presidential election, later using el Rufai and John Odigei-Oyegun, APC Governor, and Chairman, respectively, at the time, ironically but tragically like Goodluck Jonathan before him, with Buhari, nothing was done for 8-years.
Were all the public and popular petitions and complaints of structural imbalances in the country and the 1999 Constitution not genuine? It was a promise Buhari and his minions, which even at the time included Bola Ahmed Tinubu, made to deceive non Muslims, indigenous peoples of the country, especially in the South, masking the deep intentions to continue the gradual islamization and arabization of Nigeria. What were accountable for the rise of Islamic insurgencies in the North? The maladies were known and diagonized, even by foreigners from Europe and the US, but applying the appropriate remedies were completely ignored or played down. So Boko Haram emerged, terrorized the entire country, then mutated into ISWAP, Ansaru, Fulani herdsmen, various shades and typologies of Bandits, and moving South, arose Unknown Gunmen, ESN and Amotekun, and other smaller protective groups and unidentified violent groups, as a counter weight against Northernization, the jihadists, islamization and in the current milieu of Tinubu, ardent Yorubanization, including those sponsored by governments ( State and Federal); in the North, South east and parts of South south, these traducers and irredentists have taken up or taken over, huge swaths of territories, collecting taxes, royalties, and demanding political protection and allegiance to them.
Even Abuja FCT has also come under severe strains. Pockets of secured enclaves, heavily policed, protected and reserved for the political, government, diplomatic and business elite in the FCT, and other parts of the country, gives the impression that all is well. Leaders of government, academia and even the military/secret Police (DSS, MI), all know that all these symptoms are real, deadly and require deep structural and constitutional remediation.
Distractions and the pursuit of shadows, especially caving out economic and financial empires, crude oil theft, embezzling and stealing huge treasury funds, in government agencies, departments, ministries and the CBN, Central Bank of Nigeria, in preparation for foreign escape, as things deteriorate further, is the critical fashion in the country now. For long, indeed the US Congress Africa Caucus identified, warned and provided structural factors pointing to and dictating that the country would collapse by 2015: 9-years after, the current approach or epoch is not far from how Afghanistan collapsed when the US the country left in 2020. In the case of Nigeria, even the military and Police have allegedly been accused of colluding with the jihadists, heavily involved in illegal and criminal activities in the oil and gas sectors of Niger Delta: very senior military retired officers were charged and prosecuted for unexplained massive wealth: soldiers are alleged to determine and even reject posting insisting on safe and the lucrative stations. Protecting the commonwealth, assets and sovereignty has become very selective and even questionable. In case of Nigeria, unlike Afghanistan there will be US forces that will default, lack of acceptance, and political legitimacy means that the populace will have no protectors. No one heeded the very early warnings to remediate anomalies or restructure constitutional imbalances that have held the entity at the current jugular. It is indeed, for these scenarios that we have rejected the advise, Brother Babatunde, you proffered, “for continuous faith in the entity called Nigeria, but on the basis of justice, equity and fair play as diversity really should be an asset”.
You know very well that the majority of the political elite in the North and South west are untrustworthy, very secretive, deceitful, dishonest and dishonorable. On November 25, 2023, the UK Government revealed the classification of Nigeria as an Islamic State. Till date, Tinubu’s government has not disclaimed that false British proclamation. Which means that the policy had been pursued and now accepted, despite that Section 4.1. of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution still on operation declares Nigeria a Secular country, without a State religion. Are these the type of persons you are requesting we should trust? We, especially in our Anioma Territories, with our age long traditions, culture and legacies reject such trust, aimed to overwhelm us gradually, change our indigenous ways of life, and even force their religion Islam and Arabic culture on us.
THE ECONOMY STANDS AGAINST THE CONTINUATION OF THE NIGERIAN ENTITY
Get back to the Nigerian economy, and this is where it hits everyone the hardest. The capacity for national production is huge, incontestable but the rate and level of inflation has rendered the prospects of prosperity almost zero. Those who consider themselves well-off, are stealing from public and government treasuries, or pilfering from very indecent platforms: when the revelations are made, the people will want to stone them to death. The Police, Judiciary and prosecutorial instruments are so corrupt, the public does but only see them as the actual oppressors. Tinubu and those he has assigned to govern, do not have or know the solutions to turn the economy around. Tinubu’s government is heading into 8-months, and it has gotten much worse. Opeyemi Bamidele, APC Senator and Majority Leader, has began the complaints that Tinubu is being frustrated by saboteurs. Tinubu himself states that the Re-engineering is for the prosperity of all the people. What are the actual policies, and the Re-engineering instruments both are referencing, the deficit in actual 2023-2024 revenue profile shows and means that less than 40% of the entire budget will be implemented: it is a budget of deceit that cannot be implemented in good measure. The 2024 federal budget, is a fluke, and currently the government is fighting to secure more loans from foreign entities to implement the budget.
Indeed, using Nigerian crude oil and gas exports as loan collateral has been refused in the past 40-days, by lending institutions of the London-Paris Clubs, because Buhari and Melee Kyari used up these credits since 2021. No one can guarantee the trajectory of the country, so guarantees for it is too risky for anyone to undertake. Nigeria has over borrowed with the World Bank and IMF, and the US Government will probably demand more stiff conditions entailing Nigeria relinquishing 65% of its sovereign authority, for further huge loans to be granted by these U.S. controlled easier loan institutions.
For example, Nigeria will openly codify Gay and Same Sex marriage into law, for the US to give the approval for such facilities. Who will accept such unpopular conditions, on both the North and South of the country? More stiff loan conditions, including higher cost of petrol and gas can be stipulated to speed up loan repayments or to permanently blackmail and weaken the government to constantly support its international policies, at the UN or elsewhere.
Back again to the economic policies. What is Tinubu’s policy to reduce inflation across the economy, and why is the government hiding the policy from the public? It is because no such integrated policy is in existence or even in SECRET government files. During the Presidential campaign, Tinubu, later joined by Atiku Abubakar, refused adamantly to participate in the televised debates that would have revealed the economic policies he would pursue. His major economic policies, removal of petrol subsidy, and bridging the forex value between the Naira and US Dollar, have permanently destroyed the productive manufacturing base of the economy. What is the exact benefit in mathematical numerical gain in terms of cost of living benefit, against and from the petrol subsidy removal? The answer is yet to be quantified, and as cowardly, the Tinubu government will shy away from providing any proof of such benefit, or a response to the queries. Another example; the cost of air transportation has doubled since May 29, 2023, on the routes in the South, how will Tinubu restore the old price of air tickets and to reduce the current high excessive cost? There shall be no responses to questions such as these, and the muddling on shall continue, to be diverted by praise-singers lobbying for contracts or senior government jobs, or posturing towards the 2027 elections. No one should trust these persons, in government, because the quality of life of the populace will continue to fall, whilst they and their families and cronies will remain in superfluous high living conditions. Any counsel to continue along these lines must be categorized as intellectually dishonest, in light of all the foregoing facts.
ECONOMIC COST OF FIGHTING INSURGENCIES AND IRREDENTISM/SEPARATISM
Fighting insurgencies, ethnic, religious and ideological issues confronting Nigeria was calculated to be costing a staggering sum of N16 Billion Naira daily. In 2016, it was worrisome to government, and my public recommendation then was for government to negotiate forthrightly, pay off and grant concessions and amnesties, all round, to terminate the violence and the dispoliatipn. This was pursued by Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2009, very successfully to reduce and terminate Militancy in the Niger Delta; did it work? Yes, what is the policy that will end these current amorphous asymmetric wars, all over the country, and for how long? What is the total cost of these wars, how has it impacted budget infrastructure programs? Thus insecurity and the economy are two phalanges in the entity that has shown that Tinubu is not prepared with the tools to solve the problems: basking in being President, and gaining tangentially and financially from the position is his main motivation. The other is the advancement of Islam, to encapsulate the entity, which will NEVER happen.
Finally, separatism is a factor of disintegration as you have observed. The Wilkinson Commission in 1957, opined by 1961, that the fear of ethnic domination is real amongst the nationalities. It recommended creating more regions, states, and since these have failed, the only other alternative is to dissolve the entity constitutionally and legally, without war or violence, and form new smaller countries. Those who believe that the interests they harbor, to make money, perpetuate themselves in political power or overwhelm other nationalities with theirs, or dominate by their religion will fail. Corruption and cronyism will ensure that, and in the end they will run away. Tribalism and ethnic considerations are impediments that dictate the dissolution that is imminent now. Reinforcing the attributes by favoring mostly your own people worsens the entire situation. The appointments made by Tinubu so far , in the entire Federal substrata , show 87% are his cronies, 86% are Yorubas and all others 14%. Competition amongst the ethnic nationalities to dominate each other exacerbates the disintegration process. The preponderance of states and local governments in the North, does the same thing. The 1999 Constitution cannot work because the obvious advantages are protected by the North, and the impudence, arrogance it produces also is the cause of the separatism. The elections of 2023 has worsened the situation because it is apparent that only Northerners and Southwesterners will led the country for possibly 50-years, from 1999. For close to 80-years from 1960. Federal Character works to protect the North, while Zoning and Rotation is brazenly broken to DOMINATE the Igbos, while pittance is given to the smaller ethnic nationalities in the South, as instrument of divide and dominate. Favoring Muslims and Islam, against Christians, or Fulanis in the North, as well the South, is the final factor that those who pretend that the country will remain under their grip and benefit, will find that it is impossible. It is called the dialectical, and when the bridge is approached, it becomes unstoppable and inevitable. Military force, violence and threats of such do not conquer it: when you get there, you must cross it.
It is more difficult to deal with all these attributes at once. The combination of all of them , especially the type of killings of innocent people in massive numbers: the Airforce bombed villages in Southern Kaduna, in less than two weeks, several towns in Plateau State have been razed, hundreds killed, and driven away. For how long will all these last? Tinubu ordered the soldiers to “fish out” those who killed those villages in Plateau State: those bombed by the Airforce friendly fire, have they been identified? Compensated? My Asaba 1967 innocents, murdered by invading Soldiers have never been acknowledged, considered or compensated, including my Grand Mother who carried a shrapnel in her left shoulder until she passed in 1979. Thus, it is not a single or standard line issue. The efforts to RESTRUCTURE Nigeria has failed for more than 35-years now. The economy and the institutions of the country have failed, the operational 1999 Constitution Constitution failed in the 2023 General elections when Igbos, citizens of the country, were stopped and prevented to vote in the elections of March 25, 2023, in Lagos State and till date no one or any sections of the country protested or protected the oppressed Igbos. To RESTRUCTURE Nigeria, the elites of the Northerners will never willingly accept or permit that, because they have the numbers to stop such demands, if they are made through the national or state Assemblies. There is no avenues of self, ethnic nationalities’ or group expression of determination to be independent, or to exit from Nigeria. It is a constitutional trap that Nnamdi Azikiwe sub-consciously set for the people, when the initial Constitutional documents were created. Obafemi Awolowo rejected the trap, but was finally convinced by Azikiwe that there was benefit in diversity, just as you have stated. Azikiwe believed in the words of the anthem “a land where no one will be oppressed”. If Azikiwe were around today, to see how Igbos are maltreated, disrespected and disenfranchised, he definitely would reject the current slavery by the Northern Hausa-Fulani, and Southwest Yorubas, have insulted Igbos, overwhelmed them through electoral votes and delegates buying, indeed the gradual surreptitious turning of Nigeria into an Islamic State. Awolowo surely rejected any subtle or open DOMINATION of the Yorubas: Azikiwe fought the British and rejected colonialism. Surely he would have rejected the creation of states and local governments in the North than in the South, by military fiat, and the instrumentation of that clause for sharing national funds, jobs, contracts and the total emasculation of the federal bureaucracy using those instruments. The urge and adoption to use violence to dis-entrap the ethnic nationalities is a direct consequence of the non existence of avenues to leave Nigeria: it is the moral equivalent of denying DIVORCE to married persons. Those who refuse peaceful change, force non peaceful methods to achieve the same aim. But it has become clear, from the experiences of the ethnic nationalities, especially those of the Middle Belt of Nigeria, that the brunt of forced conversion to Islam, or the DOMINATION of the Fulani ethnic nationality would be borne by them. In the first war of Biafra-Nigeria 1967-1970, the Middle Belt joined in decimating the Igbos. Now they are seeking the solidarity of the Igbos to gain freedom from the Hausa-Fulani and Islamic zealots. From all the foregoing, it has become clear to all and sundry that any pleas to preserve Nigeria in its current form will not stand or be accepted. The country will be consumed, and is being consumed by ethnic, religious and specifically Islamic violence. The end of the year 2023, since Tinubu was sworn-in has witnessed recurring pogroms, in spite of several claims that “Boko Haram” has been defeated. Same with the issue of Islamization. None of the ethnic groups will accept the religion of the other, the Yoruba-Ifa, or the Igbos whose customs, traditions and heritage is the repository channel of their worship of their God, Chukwu, (Olodumare for Yorubas). Indeed, the force of endemic social violence which the Muslims (in truth only the Shiites are so violent prone), employ to convert others to their religion, has become a global concern (Australia has outlawed public megaphone-use preaching, and refuse entry visas to ascertained Muslim preachers, contending that Australia is a Christian secular country).
We in Anioma never encountered Fulani warriors prior or in the early 19th century, when they conquered parts of the Middle Belt and Yoruba-Afonja-Ilorin areas: in our Anioma territories our Ekumeku Warriors defeated and drove away the White British soldiers, who tried to conquer and take over our territories by force. It through trade and Christianity that they penetrated peacefully and signed treaties of trade, and enforced trade in humans, until George Tubman Goldier sold territories his Royal Niger Company traded with for the sum £896,000.00 Pound Sterling. Then the British Royal government gradually began to politically colonize the Southern parts of modern Nigeria. But the Northern parts ruled by Fulani Emirs were conquered, and signed treaties of war conquest with the British. There were isolated areas that were conquered by the British, and their Kings were exiled, but those instruments are no longer legitimate in modern times. These histories are vital in order to properly contextualize the path that has befallen Nigeria now, and her trajectory in the near future. These dialectics of change and history, can no longer be avoided or denied in the Nigerian entity, otherwise the future will be worse than the current situation. Corruption especially, has destroyed the fabric of the Nigerian society, and only from fresh honest smaller, wholly indigenous ethnically Constituted entities, can collegial, non violent, non abrasive Cooperative political entities be secured. The Western model of politics based on capitalist democracy has not worked in Africa because tribalism is the origin of all politics every where, including Europe, the Americas and Asia. Colonialism provided the wealth and basis of the protracted development of these countries for more 200 years. African societies do not have the luxury of such long time intervals, and wars of conquest, extermination of opposing racial or ethnic groups, are no longer tenable. Rather, creating new Constitutions that engrave and provide citizens free amenities and provisions such as education and medical services, obligatory female electoral rights, privileges, other obligations and amity towards others such as win-win internal politics, especially friendship towards lawful foreigners and visitors, regional cooperation and trade such as is contained in the 1973 ECOWAS Treaty and Protocols. This is the trajectory Nigeria must accept that its ethnic nationalities, so desirous to pursue. Delay or denial will worsen the situation, and deaths, poverty and destruction, rather than prosperity, will be the aftermath. Tinubu’s position will be tenable and relevant only as far as the ethnic nationalities that wish to remain in the entity consent his continued leadership. Contentions of political legitimacy and acceptance are usually not straight forward. The more it is pursued, the less the achievements and prosperity of the entity is assured. Herein is the path of peaceful development of the peoples of the current Nigerian entity.
Below are itemized reasons that make it impossible for Nigeria not to be Dissolved, and why we cannot have any more belief or confidence that any more good will come out of Nigeria:
a. The level of CORRUPTION in the country cannot be cured, eliminated or reduced, ever. Corruption has destroyed Nigeria.
b. The gradual long term plan of the Northern Hausa-Fulanis and Southern Yorubas is to turn every one in Nigeria to Islam and Arabism: overwhelm other ethnic nationalities and communities to reject their own customs, traditions, religions and heritage, to become serfs and slaves in their own indigenous territories, and preservation of Nigeria will accomplish the goal in the next 100-years.
c. The current 1999 Constitution of Nigeria has been designed by former Military leaders to guarantee eternal advantages to the North and Islam, and the provisions cannot be changed or amended by constitutional means. The North will stop such changes and preserve their DOMINATION and superior standing.
d. The use social violence by militias, bandits, herdsmen, supplemented by pretender Nigerian military, Police, Secret Services and federal bureaucrats will ensure Northern DOMINATION and Islamization of Nigeria. Destroy modernism, to preserve Islamism.
e. The Nigerian economy is currently in collapse and in the doldrums. Inflation, skyrocketing prices cannot be controlled by any government in Nigeria, and revenue from crude oil and gas, will be employed to obtain more foreign loans, and to print the Naira annually in thousands of Trillions, steal, and share it by profligacy to themselves, their cronies and minions, and pauperize millions of the populace. There can be no rebirth of the Nigerian economy, the longer the wait, the worse the economic situation will devolve and become.
e. Politics and elections in Nigeria are pretexts for masking and deceiving the people, the promises of prosperity, modernism and better/higher quality of life is a fluke that cannot be achieved in the foreseeable future, for example electricity supply and provision.
f. The cost of education, especially University and IT education, will be used to deter modernism, and so extend Islam in Nigeria. FREE EDUCATION in the South will be stopped to promote Islam and weaken the position of WOMEN. Profligacy and poor prioritization will never permit FREE MEDICAL SERVICES, and modern high quality of life is not a priority.
g. The reward for ineptitude and abysmal governance of the past if not clarified, will mean more woes and failure in the future.
The above itemized reasons and justifications are the major basis for our claims that Constitutional Dissolution is best now for the entity, to free the ethnic nationalities to pursue their own paths in the future.
- MORAL EQUIVALENCE OF SINGAPORE, SOUTH SUDAN, ERITREA, NORTHERN IRELAND, TAIWAN, AFGHANISTAN AND USA: Where Nigeria is Today
Certainly making comparisons of reality and histories of nation-states, much as in human beings, is some times very difficult, nonetheless a lot can and sometimes is learned from the experiences of others. It is therefore right to draw up moral equivalence, not exact lessons, from the experiences of others, as a beacon and pathfinder to resolve our own quagmire, and to make progress.
For example, the French Revolution became the source of inspiration in 1789, that birthed the American Revolution and led to the establishment of the United States of America. Had politicians who were opposed to the King of England to whom they paid taxes without representation, not studied-copied the French Revolution against Louis XVI, the American Revolution would never have taken place. Same with the decolonization of Canada, a years later.
In the case of Singapore and Malaysia, the history of Singapore federating with Malaysia in 1963, and after two years, separating in 1965, due to political, economic policy differences, and violent riots between ethnic Chinese and mostly Muslim Malays, this is a more heuristic example. Singapore opted out of the Malaysian federation and became an independent City State and Republic, separate from Malaysia, and has since 1965, developed faster than Malaysia, and the UK, it’s former colonial master, becoming the 11th listed most developed country and economy in the World, as against the United Kingdom, as the 23rd most developed country and economy in the World; Singapore has very peaceful and stable socio-economic-investment environment, with very low unemployment of only 4th; Singapore is ranked in 2023 as having among the lowest unemployment figures globally. Had Singapore remained in the Malaysian Federation, with the highly conservative political and economic background of its mostly Muslim population, Singapore would not be the fast highly developed country it is today: it allowed Malaysia to develop at its own pace, albeit not a comparable competitor, and all devoid of ethnic and religious oppression, DOMINATION and violence, the types of which has become a norm in Nigeria for more than 60-years, when Obafemi Awolowo demanded the insertion of a DIVORCE Clause in the Richardson and MacPherson Constitutions of Nigeria: the same economic, political and religious differences between Singapore and Malaysia, caused the repeated violent, vitriolic murderous coup d’etats, in Nigeria, the never-to-end rigging of elections and population censuses, thuggeries, corruption, favoritism-cronyism-nepotism, religious-Fulani ethnic violence, Fulani herdsmen false claims of grazing lands and water holes, from indigenous peoples and communities; civic oppression and deprivation of voting rights of legal citizens; wars, pogtoms, ethnic cleansing, murder of innocent citizens by ethnic Fulani bandits, kidnappings, impregnating of innocent women, forced marriages of girls, rapes, enslavement of women and children etc the list of horrors in Nigeria is endless, added ineptitude in leadership and an irremediably collapsed economy.
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH SUDAN AND THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF NORTH SUDAN
Now: the tragic example of South Sudan. A huge half of the country Sudan, comprising Afroid-Blacks, whose religion is African, and Christianity, against the Arabic-ethnic North, whose religion is Islam. After British colonialism, the Muslim North usurped most of Federal Sudanese resources, bureaucracy and government, and subjugated the Afroid Southerners: John Garang, and other Southern politicians demanded RESTRUCTURING and upon incessant blockages and outright rejections, the Southern Sudan went to war, and fought for 28-years against the Arab-Muslim Northern Sudan: it was the crude oil, gas and gold that had vast reserves in the South that made the British to instigate the Arab North to oppose separation and an independent South Sudan. The same scenario took place in Nigeria, prompting Northerners to claim that Nigeria is their birthright, in total denial that there are ethnic nationalities the world-over, especially that the ethnic origin of Arabs is the Middle East, and the Fulanis in the Futa Jalon lands in the end of mid West Africa. Using violent Islam as a basis of DOMINATION, oppression and conversion of other non-ethnic nationalities anywhere they migrate to, ever being minority populated nomadic herders, Fulanis have usurped political, bureaucratic and economic powers and positions in Nigeria. It was same with the Arabs in Sudan, until crude oil and gas was also discovered in huge quantities in Northern Sudan. That 28-years war, ended in 2006, and by 2011, hard exchanges, slow negotiations, enabled South Sudan to gain a Republic status of its own, leaving Northern Sudan as an Islamic Republic on its own.
The continuing tragedy of both Sudans have been endemic violence based on inter ethnic rivalries; tragically in the long suffering South, the mysterious demise of John Garang, the non engravement of constitutional win-win basis of governance and the pretender attitude of bravado of ethnic overlords caused the instability immediately after their Statehood. Yet reasonable leadership and precepts of win-win governance has gradually taken root and will sooner than later bear prosperous fruits.
In the Islamic North Sudan, ethnic violence and pursuit of rival ethnic hegemony has seen the country engulfed currently in 9-months civil war, supported by both the U.S. and Russia, in hot pursuit of sources of oil, gas, gold and the military bases in the Horn of Africa. So well accustomed to ethnic oppression and violence, Arabs in Dafur, west of Islamic Sudan, and the Arabs of the central northern Sudan, will exterminate their innocent citizens, starve themselves and destroy infrastructures in Khartoum and other major cities, and refuse to learn from their own errors and hard-headedness. Even Muslims and Arabs of different dialects are killing themselves in Northern Sudan. Nigeria may not follow that path, and the time to let off, disengage and move forward in peace and prosperity is NOW. The past rejection of RESTRUCTURING for 30-years has a cost, and further asymmetrical wars, including final separation still, but with the suffering of innocent persons, especially women, children and youths is totally avoidable. Nigeria must learn from the experiences of the Sudan. Today, as 2024 begins, is the time!
ERITREA, NORTHERN IRELAND, TAIWAN AND AFGHANISTAN
The problems of Eritrea was more due to it’s strategic positioning rather than outright ethnicity and religion. It was also encapsulated in the hot pursuit of the Red Sea port of Asmara and the town of Massawa, and the entrance into the Suez Canal. Yet Ethiopia, engaged in a war for 30-years, against Eritrea, until the latter gained Republican status in 1993. Border disputes and the access to the Red Sea has consistently inflamed relations between Ethiopia, Djouti and Tygra. US interest in Eritrea is the stability of the strategic Horn of Africa, and human rights enforcement badly denied by the repressive government of Eritrea, a land long occupied for centuries and colonized by Turks,Arabs, Egypt, UK, Italy and lastly Ethiopia: the lessons of Eritrea are the same, that rejecting and blocking RESTRUCTURING, inevitably leads to avoidable war, suffering and destructions, yet final separation of the entities.
The case of Northern Ireland which the UK created in the partition of Ireland in 1920, was the result of the war between the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Irish Republican Arm. Northern Ireland joined the UK, part Catholic and the other Protestant. Troubles started in Belfast and Londonderry as a result of complaints of oppression, segregation, Police maltreatments, denial of rights. Not any different from the complaints in Nigeria, where Muslims are treated better, DOMINATED other regions and not up to governing based on equity, fairness and justice: in Nigeria corruption is added, due to competition to gain wealth and be better placed to compete against other ethnic groups. Terrorism, strafing, kidnapping, killings rocked the UK, until negotiations devolved further rights to the Catholics in the North, to ease the demand to reunite Catholic South Republic of Ireland, with Catholics in the North. The route to peace and end to asymmetrical war, in the North, is still difficult yet continuing. The long war is the lesson for Nigeria to learn from Northern Ireland, the long war can be avoided. Southern Ireland, separated now in the EU, European Union, is more stable, highly investment oriented and in growth rates, better than the North, more preoccupied until the Good Friday Agreement, with bombing and killings, extended into UK’s Capital of London.
Taiwan is important to Nigeria, because of prior corruption and the decay of the elite of Taiwan when it was known as Formosa. Its leader Chiang kai Shek was the head of China, but CORRUPTION, criminality, cronyism and ineptitude, of the type plaguing Nigeria today, made Bandits to fight and drove his Armies, from Peking to the Island of Formosa. The Bandits led by Mao Tse Tung, turned ultimately into the Chinese Communist Party, and set up the Government in Beijing, now competing for global supremacy with the USA. There are currently Bandits everywhere in Nigeria, especially in the North. The more the government of Nigeria fails, the closer the Bandits will get at claiming victory over every part of Nigeria: we in Anioma will gain our own country and Confederation, soonest, and keep all non aboriginals away as foreigners, and preserve our HERITAGE. This is our gain from learning how corruption destroyed Taiwan’s entity from 1933, and only the US has since been her preserver. We will protect our own Peoples and Territories, not foreigners.
Afghanistan and the US are the final examples we must footpath to traject Nigeria to safer waters. Violent Islam has been the bane of Afghanistan for more than 100-years now, precipitating political instability, and inviting interference by the Super Powers. But the strategic situation of the country, being the bridge between Central Asia, and Eastern Asia, as well as being the most source of the growing of puppies from which hard drugs are manufactured increased the importance, for control of the entity. The Mujahudeen, and Taliban have been used by the Soviet Union and the US to protect and preserve their strategic and military interests in the country. The US fought its longest war of 20-years and still withdrew from the country, to ensure the destruction of Osama-bin-Lagan’s Alqueda, that was granted sanctuary, from where the attacks of 9/11 against the US was made: including other attacks by the same Muslim-Arab terrorism group against NATO countries and interests. The US spent twenty years to safeguard the West from Muslim global hordes, and suffered the greatest costs in human, monetary and material terms. For Afghanistan, the country nearly destroyed by the Soviet Union for more than 20-years, and by the US for another 20-years, has been in the troughs of war for way too long a time. Development or modern prosperity or high quality of life is not a paradigm for the leaders, the peoples or government of Afghanistan. The direction must be backward and retrogressive: yet there are Muslim countries such as UAE, Indonesia, Kuwait etc that have made superior progress more than several other developed or developing countries. Those whose social choice is to not modernize, prosper or live in peace, without wars and violence, must be totally separated by laws, our own Constitution, and exist by themselves, based on their own precepts. That is our lesson from Afghanistan and the US.
- PROPOSED AND SUGGESTED LIST OF LEGITIMATE, LEGAL, ADMINISTRATIVE AND PEACEFUL STEPS AND MODALITIES FOR ETHNIC NATIONALITIES TO ADOPT WHO HAVE EXPRESSED THE PEACEFUL DESIRE AND SELF-DETERMINATION TO EXIT AND LEAVE NIGERIA (STAGES AND IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE)
Stage A
( 180-days Implementation period)
Step 1. Articulation of the Ethnic Nationality interests, goals and positions, and the future direction of the Peoples, in the context of the history and current realities of the country.
Step 2. Consult and canvass amongst all other political and hereditary leaders and groups to reach consensus to exit the entity.
Step 3. Draft a Charter and Constitution, and create other instruments for governance of the emerging entity, such as Coat of Arms, Flag, Anthem etc
Step 4. Circulate the Draft Governance Documents and instruments of governance.
Stage B
(90-days for Implementation)
Step 1. Consult other ethnic nationalities who are constituents of the federating State within the entity to be exited and left.
Step 2. Itemize the assets, liabilities, invisible and visible revenues, debts, payments and all outstanding matters, and share each of such items, based on equity and fairness. Retain notes for future use and reference.
Step 3. Consult other ethnic nationalities known publicly and previously, desirous of self-determination and exit of the entity. Arrange very low key approach to the Secretary to the Government to be exited.
Step 4. Prepare a Note proposing and requesting a formal program of exit of the particular ethnic nationalities from the existing entity. Undertake the same processes with the Secretary to the Government of the federating unit from which the new entity will emerge.
Stage C
(90-days for Implementation)
Step 1. Follow up with further Meeting(s) with the Secretary to the Government of the entity to be exited, as well as the Secretary to the Government of the federating unit from which the new entity will emerge.
Step 2. Synchronize the program of sharing assets, liabilities and obligations appertaining to the Dissolution of the relationship between the major entity, the federating unit and the new emerging entity.
Step 3. Commence the process of transitions and the institution of the legal and bureaucratic processes of the new emerging entity. Set a date of designation of pioneer officials, legislative and judicial bodies of the new emerging entity.
Step 4. Set a date to proclaim and declare the birth of the emerged new entity. Determine the National Day of the new Emerged Entity.
Final Stage
The programs outlined above, may require adjustments and alterations, to suit the realities and situations on ground. As in all things, time is of the essence and for Nigeria, and the nearly 324 ethnic nationalities comprised and identified within its current frontiers, since 1914 (109-years of Frederick Luggard’s Amalgamation), the real time is NOW. Each ethnic nationality, or groups thereof, will agree on how to develop on their own paths, terms and at their own pace: none should begrudge one another. The time has long been over due. Any new delay is disadvantageous and even dangerous too. Save the ordinary people from any additional vulnerabilities.
Dr Orefo Nnamdi Onochie,
Convener Onochie Political Action Conference sent this piece.
