N-I-G-E-R-I-A: The Quest for Self-Determination

Group Politics Editor, KUNLE ODEREMI, examines the rationale behind the varied calls for self-determination that have continued to dominate most political discourse across the country.

In its 107 years history as a country, Nigeria is going through, perhaps another most grueling period. A seemingly protracted political instability, which has been patched all along, has snowballed into near seizures and other frightening threats to the health and wellbeing of the world’s most populous Black Country.

Grave issues surrounding the whimsical 1914 amalgamation of the hitherto Northern and Southern Protectorates constitute its Achilles’ heel. Outcry and denouncement of the lopsidedness, aggravated damage and subjugation of the majority of the main stakeholders by a clique favoured by the colonial masters that railroaded the tie persist. Those landmines subsisted in the subconscious of the stakeholders as they negotiated with the British colonial masters on independence for the fragile amalgamated geographical entity. Thus, conspiracy and treachery engineered and orchestrated by the ruling class at the national level soon thrown the country into a season of upheavals. They came in phases. First, it was from the oil-bearing coastline of the country, where 27-year-old Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro of the Nigerian and an ijaw ethnic stock struck in declaring a sovereign republic on February 23, 1966, with himself as the head of state. He justified the adventure on perceived wave of injustice being meted to his people. He had declared in address to his people: “We are going to demonstrate to the world what and how we feel about oppression.” He added: “Remember your 70-year-old grandmother, who still farms before she eats; remember also your poverty-stricken people; remember too, your petroleum which is being pumped out daily from your veins; and then fight for your freedom.” With such radical message, no fewer than 150 volunteer soldiers reportedly became part of the then the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) to pursue the agenda for self-governance just six years after Nigeria secured independence from the British colonial masters. But the dream was aborted only after 12 days by authorities.

The pace of the walk into the wilderness by the young but potentially great country  was accelerated in twists and turns within a short spell.  A coup and a counter-coup in the same year and the attendant skewed killings birthed the Republic of Biafra with another military officer of the Igbo ethnic extraction, the late Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu as the arrowhead of the so-called sovereign state. Despite the proclamation of a programme of rehabilitation, reconciliation and reconstruction at the consequent three-year civil war, the wounds, unarguably, failed to heal due what is generally regarded as the sustained reign of impunity, injustice and iniquities in the land.

With the anomalies in the convoluted federal arrangement and structure becoming permanent scars, the country is perpetually troubled. The crisis over the attainment of nationhood is evidenced in the partially subdued uprising orchestrated by the Niger Delta militants against the exploitation in the oil-producing states, the criminal killing of such activists as Ken Saro-Wiwa, for remonstrating against the criminal neglect of the Ogoniland in Rivers Sate, the June 12 debacle. The culture of discrimination and other forms of injustice and lack of equity and fairness underlines the increasing wave of inter-ethnic tension, ethno-religious fracas, boundary disputes, just as it has sustained the clamour for resource control, power devolution, restructuring and oiled the renewed calls for self-determination by some individuals among the ethnic nationalities. Such demands cut across the Middle Belt zone, the South-South, South-East and the South-West with their protagonists/promoters claiming to be exercising their rights under the provisions of the United Nations Charter on self-determination. All these challenges have crystallised in the variegated security problems confronting the country, which include banditry, insurgency, armed robbery, abduction, kidnapping, cultism and all manner of cyber crimes.

 

Protesting organisations

From the South-East are the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), while sundry groups in the South-west are seeking self-determination.  It will be recalled that the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by the late Chief MKO Abiola triggered the emergence of a number of militant groups that professed self-determination for Yoruba land.  Quite a number of them predated the birth of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and two of them were the Oodua Youth Movement (OYM) and the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM). Then came the Oodua Republic Front (ORF) and the Federation for Yoruba Culture and Consciousness (FYCC) formed in October 2001 by some members of the OPC. Later, there was the Coalition of Oodua Self-Determination Groups (COSEG). By mid-2002, COSEG included all the Yoruba self-determination groups.

 

Conferences

Under successive administrations after the collapse of the First republic following the 1966 military coup, virtually all the efforts towards righting the perceived wrongs in the existing federal structure have failed.  Thanks to the lack of sincerity of purpose, political will, parochial interest, inordinate ambition, avarice and dearth of knowledge. The paths of most conferences they claimed to have initiated to address those issues bordering on the National Questions are either laced with booby-traps or ensconced in no-grey areas.  Therefore, a couple of occasions, the reports of those conferences are thrown away with the bath water mindlessly after the nation had sunk huge scarce resources into the projects. Those opposed to a paradigm shift from the existing structure with its bundle of afflictions, contradictions and abuse lord things over the rest of the country and the attendant bottled up anger, violent threats and avoidable calamities. There are suggestions for return to the 1960 Independence Constitution; 1963 Republic Constitution; a brand new constitution to be based on the wishes and aspirations of the people as opposed to the current constitution midwife and imposed on the country. Another crucial proposition is the jettisoning of the current presidential system of government to be replaced with a parliamentary arrangement that obtained at independence till the military government in 1966.  There are also calls for the holding of a referendum to enable to Nigerians to determine the future of their country in the face of grim realities confronting the stakeholders and their patrimony.

 

Assurance and fear

Arguments of those who believe in the preservation and sanctity of the corporate existence of the country sound logical and convincing. Their position is that Nigerians had lived for too long to contemplate a spilt of the country. They also contend that the people had paid so much price to avert the dismemberment of the country and would amount to a big loss to the entire community of black world nay the world for it to have it split into different sovereign states. According to them, there is strength in diversity of the country in terms of ethno-religious heterogeneity. The other point is the huge human population of the country, which they said constitute a major market and makes Nigeria a power broker at different levels and fronts. However, the position of the advocates of restructuring is that their action is altruistic and meant to address the National Questions, enthrone true federalism and good governance. To them, the fear being expressed in a few quarters is unnecessary as the present system was skewed and not in the collective interest of all the stakeholders, including those perceived as ‘profiteering’ from it.

 

Hindsight of history

From the hindsight of history, the current type of crusade that can herald positive change, according to analysts,  is never a tea party.  It comes with mutual terms and pains as evidenced in similar quests in other parts of world. Referendums conducted in the United Kingdom over the Scotland and Quebec in Canada ended in the sustenance in the status quo ante. The Scottish voted to determine if they should stay as a part of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, or become an independent sovereign state.  Quebec held a referendum on independence from Canada in 1995, and the “No” vote won by a small margin. It was the province’s second vote on independence; the first was defeated in 1980. Kosovo, which declared autonomy from Serbia on February 17, 2008, has been administered by the United Nations since 1999. The single nation of Serbia and Montenegro, formed after the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991, changed into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, and finally into the two separate states of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006. The UN established Eritrea as an autonomous region within the Ethiopian federation in 1952. On April 27, 1993, the country declared independence after a referendum.

On Jan. 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia was dissolved by parliament into two countries: The Czech Republic and Slovakia, while East Timor, now Timor-Leste, secured independence on May 20, 2002, having voted for independence, when a referendum delivered a clear vote that clearly rejected the proposed “special autonomy, within Indonesia. South Sudan, which declared independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, secured 99 per cent of votes for independence in a referendum. But whether or not Nigeria will follow that path remains to be seen. But the growing agitations for good governance, justice and equity of ethnic nationalities that make up the country indicate that something urgently needs to be done to save Nigeria and make it to become a true federation and a country of nations with equal opportunities.

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