In 2005, the US National Intelligence Council forecast that Nigeria would break up in 2015 while in 2011, the US Center for Strategy and Technology forecast that Nigeria would break up by 2030. The late weird Lybian Leader had even declared that Nigeria should be divided into North and South. Nigeria’s ranking in the Failed States table has continued to worsen, from 54 in 2005 to 14 in 2012. A failed state is ‘one that is unable to perform its duties on several fronts, when violence cascades into an all out internal war, when standards of living massively deteriorate, when the infrastructure of the ordinary life decays and when the greed of rulers overwhelm their responsibilities to better their people and their surroundings . Just the other day, some Nigerians asserted that there was a 1914 Accord that declared that Nigeria was on a trial run for the first 100 years and that it was the responsibility of the peoples to now reaffirm or reject the
Lugardian statehood. And given the various socio-economic challenges that confront us daily, many Nigerians argue that it should be ‘to your tents Oh Israel’
Nigeria’s continued existence has always be questioned. The north had repeatedly called for ‘Araba’; the Ijaws wanted to opt out ‘not because they loved power but because their conditions were peculiar and the authorities did not understand their problems (Isaac Adaka Boro, before being sentenced for treason in 1966) while the Orka coup placed the question on its agenda. However, the first practical expression of that question was the Biafran war of independence which ended 44 years ago. Incidentally, those factors that led to that avoidable chapter in our chequered history-iniquity, inequity, parochial leadership and the Igbo question- are not only still with us, they are getting more complicated. By the time Karl Maier declared that ‘This House Has Fallen’ in 2000, we were confronted with the Niger Delta wars, the complex minority crises especially in the Middle Belt, the OPC war against everybody, the Sharia question, the deafening cries of marginalisation and domination across the land and the disenchantment of the populace. By 2008, things had gotten so bad that Tunji Bello had to draw our attention to a 1776 book by Edward Gibbons which traced the collapse of the Roman Empire to the ‘over-centralisation of power, worship of religion instead of God, heavy investment in arms for security of the rulers when the real enemy is the decadence of the people, greed and deliberate destruction of ethics, morals and social values’. As I regretted in 2009, ‘the leadership is still visionless, shortsighted and criminally parochial and selfish; they still continue to manipulate the quartet of ignorance, poverty, illiteracy and ethnicity; there are still individuals and groups who want to corner more than their fair share of the commonwealth and the follower-ship is still ready to tolerate all this. (Ik Muo;Nigeria: Shaken, Stressed Or Failed? 10/8/09)
President Jonathan has continued to assure that Nigeria would not break down. Reacting to one of those Nigeria would breakup forecasts in September 2011, he argued that the psyche of the people did not evidence divisive tendencies as Ndigbo have investments across the country, and that Nigerians from North and West have bought lands at his small Otuke village. He further declared that Nigeria was too old to separate after 100 years of Mariage(Speech at 2012 armed forces remembrance day, 13/1/13), that the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914 was not a mistake but an act of God and that the unity of Nigeria is indivisible and non negotiable( flagging off centenary celebrations, Abuja, 4/2/13) and that those predicting a breakup will be disappointed because Nigeria will continue to become one indivisible entity despite our ‘few’ challenges (Speaking to Moslem faithful on Sallah homage, 8/8/13)
Others have also argued that Nigeria should and will remain united. The late Dora Akunyili, in her last public intervention( at the National Conference) argued that Nigeria should remain as one because our common values overwhelm our differences in addition to our long history of togetherness and inter-marriages. It was the same sentiment expressed by late Solomon Lar, in his 53rd Independence Message (just before his death) when he, urged us to see Nigeria as doable; a nation that has come to stay, an indivisible entity’ Fr. Kukah holds that with too much money to be stolen, the thieves (elites) don’t even want to contemplate a broken country ( Guardian, 1/2/14, p50). This is similar to Sule Lamido’s thesis that Nigeria cannot breakup because members the elite are quite united in quietly sharing the money and have a stake in keeping the country exactly as it is.. weak, confused and easy to exploit(Business Day, 9/9/13, p13)
Those who insist or fear that Nigeria should be divided argue that no unfair or unequal arrangement will survive; that no nation is ‘too big to fail’ as in the cases of ancient Roman and Greek empires or the modern USSR; that what happened in 1914 was not a marriage but a colonial and economic affair while Ozekhome’s kidnappers prefer breaking Nigeria into smaller units to be controlled by different armed gangsters. ( The Somali model). Others argue that Nigeria should break-up because unlike other states, it is not a contractual arrangement where willing adults enter into agreements on how to relate and resolve resulting disputes and that 100 years is nothing compared with 300 years of the UK from in which the Scots want to opt out.
Legbost Pyagbara, (MOSOP President) wondered what is good in being in a marriage when the partners are no longer comfortable and that those who are no longer comfortable should adopt the divorce option because marriage is not by force(Guardian, 29/9/13). This is similar to views expressed by JDPC that ‘this is a forced marriage, where partners are not comfortable, show constant signs of disengagement .. where the 36 and half wives and their children subconsciously think that the man may die anytime soon and are working assiduously to grab and divide the man’s assets even as he has some breathe in him or worse force him to write his will with eyes on the man’s only source of wealth[oil] which they pillage and stow in safe havens abroad(Press Conference: A Better Nigeria is Possible, 16/3/13). Ogaga Ifowodo also argued that a union of manifestly unhappy people without any ideology or national myth capable of binding together 160m people of 400 odd ethno-nationalities with probably as many deep-seated grievances against their ‘given’ but fiercely contested nation is impossible especially as, history makes it abundantly clear that no nation is ‘indivisible’ Guardian, 24/5/13, p51.
Even then, were we one before and are we one now? When the amalgamation was negotiated for but not by us, when Tafawa Balewa referred ‘the southern people’ as intruders and boldly declared that the unity was not for the north, when Awolowo saw it as a mere geographical expression while the Sarduana of Sokoto saw it as a mistake. Even today, nobody thinks about the national interests. Some northern states adopted Sharia as their constitution; Chief (Mrs )Awolowo told Yoruba leaders to make Yoruba interests their priority(Tribune, 30/8/13, p4), the north wants to retain an obviously unjust status-quo, why every group has group agenda at the conference while Kwankwso saw the PIB as rubbish while Uduaghan saw it as marvelous!-continued.
Ik Muo
