NIGERIAN UNITY:TO BE OR NOT TO BE

ARTICLE THIRTEEN

NIGERIAN UNITY:TO BE OR NOT TO BE.

            When it comes to the problem of Nigeria’s unity, everyone has an opinion. On the whole that is a good thing as it shows that the everyone, from the pepper and ewedu seller in the open market to the chief executive in his air-conditioned office, cares about the fate of our nation. But the problem is that there is a mind-bending paradox inherent in the way Nigerians discuss the unity of our country. On the one hand, Nigerians are unanimous in their view that the problems of Nigeria are not simple. They are complex and numerous: staggering unemployment, endemic  corruption, soaring inflation, alarming insecurity, etc. On the other hand, these people are equally unanimous in proferring simple answers to these complex problems. You hear things like the money-loving igbos are the bane of the country, or the duplicitous Yorubas are the ones standing in the way of Nigerian unity, or the parasitic north is the problem of Nigeria. And you meet people who believe that putting one of their own in power is the only way forward for the country.

As for me, I can only marvel at the clarity most people seem to have achieved on the Nigerian question. I get lost in the labyrinth of ssues surrounding the thorny question before I can ever make it to the answer. When I’m asked for the answer to the problem of Nigeria’s unity, I can only fidget and stammer and confess my helplessness in the face of such a daunting task. I do not have quick one-line answers ready about how it’s all the fault of the Niger-deltans for not developing their land with the generous allocation to them from the federal government, or how all the indices show that the north does contributes exactly nothing to our economy.

To start with, I confess that I’m not sure if Nigeria should even remain one nation at all. No, I’m not an ethnic jingoist, nor do I believe that all the problems that plaque Nigeria will vanish with the country, instead of tainting the fruits that it would bear. It’s hard to imagine how dismantling Nigeria alone can suddenly stave off corruption in Oyo state or tackle unemployment in Lagos state. The tragic precedent everywhere in sub-saharan Africa has been for the new states to carry on in the style of the parent state. But I can still see some merits in the arguments that have been made against one Nigeria.

Foremost in my mind are the millions of lives that have been lost to the Nigerian experiment, as if Nigeria was the macabre project of some NAZI mad scientist. Even before we got our independence from the colonial overlords, Nigerians were already killing Nigerians in the thousands because they coudnt settle on an amicable way to live together. Barely six to seven years after independence the groups that make up Nigeria were caught in a gruesome bloodbath , starting in 1966 when tens of thousand of Igbo Nigerians were brutally murdered in the north by their Hausa Nigerian neighbours  and ending in 1970 when no less than 3 million  Nigerians had died so the country could remain one. Showing a disturbing lack of capacity to learn from history, the pages of Nigeria’s history since then have remained stained and blotted with the blood of the innocent. Even in 2018, the orgy of mindless slaughter has commenced with the dastardly activities of the herdsmen. The question on my mind is: why do we even bother? The senseless killings that litter the history of this nation can only indicate that we have no desire to learn to live together. Every election is always the same with the threat of violence hanging in the air. If decades of living together has not made us more acceptable to each other, then what is stopping us from calling it quits. Those of us who shout one Nigeria or nothing, are we not been misled by politicians who want 4o keep Nigeria one for their own purpose when they have no intention of doing the things that will help us live together. I know it is important to make sacrifices, but the nigerian case appears to be like human sacrifices made before a falsegod who can do nothing to help its followers. Proponents of one Nigeria need to do some soul searching to discover why they want Nigeria to remain one and if it is worth the lives of the millions who have died so Nigeria could learn nothing And the millions who continue to die as    we make the same mistakes.

The second argument that resonates with me regarding the Nigerian question is premised on the principles of individual freedom and independence. I fiercely believe that every group should have the freedom to determine their fate and to which country they’ll belong. The situation in Nigeria now can be likened to a tenant who wants to keep other tenant at the house with himself at gun point. If Nigeria is the choice you have made for yourself, I believe you should give your compatriots the opportunity to make their own choices. Indeed, a large part of our problems in Nigeria stems from the fact that we have been unable to come together to negotiate an equitable basis for our existence,to first decide if we want to be a country and then to determine the terms upon which we want to live. This principle of choice accords with natural law an d anyone who is denied is limitation to this argument is how large the group has to be before their right to autonomy is recognised. For example, what happens if millions of Yorubas in the negotiating table bound to be restless and to attempt to upset the status quo.