Hopelessness reigns supreme in the land —Kindness Jonah, member, Ohanaeze Indigbo

Mazi Kindness Jonah is a member of the Ohaneze Ndigbo and convener, Voice from the East (VEAST), an Igbo advocacy group based in Enugu. He speaks with South East Bureau Chief, JUDE OSSAI, declaring that hopelessness has taken over the land 58 years after independence.

It will be 58 years since Nigeria attained independence. What is your assessment of the country so far?

It is a tripartite postulation. The first angle to it is the historicity of Nigeria’s existence. Since 1960, when Nigeria gained independence, there has not been an independent standpoint for the country to harness its resources, devoid of external infiltration. Paraphrasing Walter Rodney in his treatise, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, it is imperative to know that the leadership of Nigeria has always been subcutaneously hijacked by the Western powers who, as it were, do not wish that another world power emerge from Africa. In that guise, it is a fait accompli that the so-called world powers and the Western nations are responsible for the leadership morass we are in as Nigerians today.

Another phase to the argument is the religious cum military meddlesome. This is traceable to the origination of the Nigeria Civil War from the standpoint of dipping the Qoran into the Atlantic Ocean, courtesy of what the late Sir Ahmadu Bello said in the Nigerian Patriot newspaper in 1960. Trailing this contour, the General Yakubu Gowon-led military intervention was an aberration of democratic ethos, ironically upheld by Islamic warlords who saw it as the much-needed Islamisation process. General Gowon was used without his knowledge in the circumvention of the Christian’s principles.

The final view point is the undermining of the secularism of states where leadership is only participatory as everybody would build on patriotism to believe in one Nigeria. Alas, this is too utopia to be realistic in the unfolding events of the now. Going further, you will see aberrant killings, bloodletting, Islamism called terrorism, sharialisation, sukkuk bond and all other avaricious tendencies both to plunder the coffers of the nation and to establish Islamic hegemony.

Speaking presently, this hunted enemy has been hunting us even in President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration where it is globally acclaimed that Nigeria is one of the poorest nations in the world in the midst of no second fiddle to endowment of natural resources, both liquid and solid. The humongous sums carted away daily while the guilty are guiltlessly freed at the altar political party affiliation is the crux of Nigeria’s untowardness in this administration.

Another salient snag in the wheel of successive administrations is the astronomical rate of unemployment with the concomitant youth restiveness. This is a huge disappointment to the founding fathers like Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa and Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

•  APC committee’s recommendations on restructuring, attempt to swindle Nigerians in 2019 —Okurounmu

Where do you think Nigeria missed it?

This is a monologue ideologue. It is so because the Holy Writ says if the foundation is destroyed what will the righteous do? This captures the whole and entire devastation of Nigeria’s territory since 1960 by succeeding administrations. That destructive foundation is the regionalisation of Nigeria’s constitution and its implementation. Nigeria missed it right from 1960 when Ahmadu Bello in the Nigerian Patriot newspaper (a tabloid) said, ‘This new territory called Nigeria is territory of our great grandfather, Uthman Danfodio and must be administered, using the Christian North as conquered territory and the South as slaves in the process of Islamisation of Nigeria’. Nigeria, from the scratch, has been made to be seen as an Islamic territory that negates all ethos of secularisation of state, even development, decentralisation of administrations and removal of governance from religion.

Can Nigeria get it right?

Yes, Nigeria can get it right though one can say with all honesty that Nigeria, at 58, is still crawling. Many Nigerians are bleeding to survive. No jobs, no food and hopelessness has taken over Nigeria’s landscape, as just only very few are milking Nigeria dry.

How do you think we can get it right?

Nigeria can get it right only by going back to the drawing board by doing the following: making the nation a perfect secular state; ensuring that even or equal state created in each of the six geo-political zone; entrenching resource control; building decentralised security from the state level; and whittling down the powers of the president, state governors and all political appointees as well as granting independence to both the judiciary and legislature.

We need to collectively get our priority right. Our value system needs to be changed to stem this growing primitive acquisition of wealth. Nigeria should be built on system, because it is system that works and not individual. Ironically, Nigeria is build on individuals, rather than on system. In advanced nations such as the USA and Britain, governments are working because they are built on system. That informs why anybody, no matter how highly placed, that infringes on the system spontaneously resigns. But in Nigeria, even in the face of glaring abuses, political office holders they stick to their guns, committing more atrocities to cling to power.

Given all you have said, what are your expectations of a truly independent Nigeria?

My expectations are traceable to secularity of the state being perfectly entrenched in the Nigerian Constitution which checks automatically any religious meddlesomeness or infiltration into the nation’s politics. By this policy, the nauseating activities of traditional rulers are checked mutatis-mutandis in all the states of the federation.

Another cleavage of thought in my expectation is resource control which has been given only lip service since 1967, but which holds the key to Nigeria’s development in diversity. My final expectation is structural balance where each geo-political zone would have equal states consisting of nine states each and Abuja State created for the Gwaris, while central area of Abuja becomes the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Each state would develop at its pace, which automatically checks the current restiveness and quest for disintegration as championed by Biafra apologists like the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), among others.

There is the fear in some quarters that Nigeria may not survive its present hydra-headed problems, especially after the 2019 general election. What is your take on this?

It is a yes-or-no answer. This oxymoron is founded on leadership. If the leadership fails to embrace my previous response on how Nigeria can get it right, breakup of the country become spontaneous. The Nigerian leadership must not only be seen, but also take active and pro-active measures to dispassionately restructure the country as the only leeway or exit- aperture from its disintegration.

Speaking on 2019 elections, there is a bang of two possibilities. One, election may hold which is anchored on the ability of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to swindle opposing forces, meandering through the rough terrain of national acceptability founded on woeful non-performance to the hitherto. The other side of the coin is the point blank analysis that the election would not hold. This is explicable on the grandstanding that there is clear negligence of the voice of the people by the present government in heeding to series of calls for an absolute restructuring of the country. The present intertwining events, nationally posited, showed that Buhari, as a leader, wants to succeed himself while playing to the gallery on the vexed issue of restructuring.