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Two Nigerians Apart Naturally By Peter Opara
The following articles caught my attention recently - Farouk Martins’ – “No Single Ethnic Group Can and Will Carry Nigeria”, and Babayola Toungo’s - “Confederation Is It!”
Let me here discuss the articles and may be direct or redirect the authors, as the case may be, relative to the thrust of their articles.
Toungo’s article was remarkable for its exclamation. “Confederation is it!” It seems an epiphany of sorts on the part of Toungo, after a reflection, particularly on what has become of his once proud north under the staid, benevolent Sir Ahmadou Bello.
Toungo became attracted to the idea of confederate Nigeria, if only as a way to regain his once proud north. However, how rooted is Toungo’s attraction to confederacy is the question, as it seems that Hon. M.T. Mbu’s reference to the north, as “arrogant”, according to Toungo, spurred Toungo’s attraction to confederacy – even if partially so. But Toungo and the rest northerners should have noted long before now the opposite of confederation – which I shall touch later in this piece - has been the bane of the north in particular and Nigeria as a whole.
Groups and/or individuals work best in their respective best interest, and on this, the nations trapped in Lugard’s cage cannot be exception.
For those still interested in Nigeria as an entity that ought not be restructured, even liquidated, social or political arrangements to remedy it then ought to be driven by realism, not emotion. Mere reference such as attributed to Hon. Mbu, must not drive any arrangement that has any chance of remedying Nigeria and/or the diverse nation tribes trapped in it. This is to say that not only do I fancy Toungo’s attraction to confederation, I deem it a right-headed attraction to which Toungo must hold fast and for which he must recruit converts in his neck of the wood.
It is in order at this point to mention that “perestroika”, a Soviet dictum popularized by the indefatigable Mikhail Gorbachev, has been muted often and severally in the north – a most unlikely place for such musing. I applaud those sons and daughters of the north who see the need for perestroika – restructure(ing) at least of what their revered leader Sir Bello rightly referred to as “mistake”. Why would not sane people think of fundamental remedy of a “mistake” or really doing away with a “mistake”? Why?
It is my feeling that Nigerian nations enjoyed some measure of confederacy or autonomy in my childhood days. A sense of Nigeria, as a federation prevailed then, one might say. The times of proud north of Nigeria, the times of proud west of Nigeria, the times of proud east of Nigeria, were times when the peoples and their regions exercised however much autonomy or independence in the management of their affairs.
How did that all change?
Toungo, my friend will have to inquire to know, what, other than selfish acts or self-serving acts of beneficiaries of Sir Bello’s benevolence, were responsible for the reversal of northern fortunes and pride, and that of the rest regions of Nigeria for that matter.
To that, I will suggest to Toungo to think public policy. Think embezzled public policy of the year 1966. Think public policy of that year that northern leaders rose against overwhelmingly, only to turn around to embrace, implement and sustain to this day. Think public policy that was partly or solely responsible for the murder of General Aguiyi Ironsi. Think public policy that was sabotaged by its detractors to ignite the fire of Igbo phobia especially in the north.
Toungo, think “Unitary System” as propounded then by the government of General Ironsi. Think “Unitary System” which called for no more than closer relationship of the regions of Nigeria then, a kind of close working together in the manner of regional “harmonization” as in today’s Nigerian parlance. Think “Unitary System” that was branded “Igbo control” plan, Toungo.
“Unitary System” governance is about strong center, such as exists in Nigeria today – indeed since the murder of General Ironsi exactly 40 years ago this year. Neither General Ironsi nor any Igbo for that matter thought beyond regional harmony in Nigeria, for the sake of peace and progress. That is to say, some saw a system of strong center, as means to something other than regional harmony. Evidence exists today to bear out this theory/proposition.
The unspoken irony then and now remains that the north rose against the supposed total Igbo control of Nigeria designs via “Unitary System”, only to turn around to covet the same total control of Nigeria plan – Unitary System.
With General Ironsi murdered by his mainly trusted northern aides, the north ran with “Unitary System” of governance policy that reposed all powers of state and federal at the center such as exists in Nigeria today, staunchly defended by one like Obasanjo, a premier northern pupil.
That in effect, Toungo my friend was the end of quasi-autonomy that the regions hitherto enjoyed – including northern Nigeria. Why the north embraced, sustained and maintained a policy that they initially revolted against, a policy that stunted and eventually vaporized the groundnut pyramids is for you, Toungo, to find out. Toungo, find, as believed by many, if Britain had something to do with nudging and encouraging northern leaders then to covet Unitary System against which they had risen earlier.
Do not forget, Toungo, that confederacy for Nigeria was also the position of Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu when it became clear even to the blind that things were no longer at ease in Nigeria. Even Yakubu Gowon himself the leader of Nigeria then gave moral reference to total break-up of Nigeria thus – “The basis for Nigerian unity does not exist”.
You will have to find out, Toungo, why a few months later, the same Gowon led an armed charge against Odumegwu-Ojukwu and his Igbo people with the motto – “To Keep Nigeria One Is A Task that Must Be Done”. Gowon made a categorical, unequivocal statement that – “The basis for Nigerian unity does not exist”, only to reverse himself a few days later.
If you dug a little deeper, Toungo, and if your elders will be candid with you, you should be able to nail the beginning of the end of the entity Sir Bello referred to as “the Mistake of 1914”. That for your information – pardon me for I don’t know how old you are – is Nigeria, a creation of a British “vagabond” Lugard, for the benefit of his Queen and his country – Britain.
Now our friend Farouk Martins wants and expects all ethnic groups - rather nations - to carry Nigeria. “Nigeria has to be carried by each and every ethnic group in our country for the sake of Africa, for the sake of blacks in the world” – Farouk exhorted. It does not seem to matter to Farouk or he does not countenance the fact that some of the ethnic groups – the nations that comprise Lugard’s cage are no more willing to shoulder the burden of the “Mistake of 1914” for themselves, talk less shouldering same “for the sake of Africa and for the sake of blacks in the world”.
“A tree cannot make a forest”, Farouk implored. “Nigeria {needs} unity on earth, not in heaven”, Farouk wrote in yet another piece, wherein also he asked – “If Nigeria cannot save itself, how can it save the black world?”
Toungo should see how Farouk negates his desire for economic emancipation of his once proud north. The north must help carry Nigeria “for the sake of the black world and for the sake of Africa”. The North will have to forgo the desire to resurrect groundnut pyramids, hides and skin of yesteryears that made its citizens proud, all for the sake of Africa and the black world.
There goes your confederacy, Toungo. You must give up this dreams that could be basis for resuscitation of northern pride and progress of the past for if you do not, Africa will loose, the black world will loose.
Farouk may tell us what Africa, the black world stand to loose should Toungo’s confederacy come about. Some of us should have known, if indeed Nigeria as an entity has imparted any lessons to Africa and the black world even of late, such that certain debilitating ripples shall occur in the black world should Nigeria cripple or collapse or liquidate.
If you follow my drift, confederacy Toungo desires will ensure to leave it up to the north to decide which comes first, to save the north or to save Africa or to save the blacks in the world. In other words, the north will set its priorities, as it deems proper. But to borrow Farouk’s question to Nigeria and Nigerians, I suppose – “If Nigeria cannot save itself”, as is demonstrably evident, “how can it be expected to save the black world?” All and sundry await your answer, Farouk, since you seem to have chosen to ride willing horses – peoples of Nigerian nations – to death – by this Nigeria-save-Africa-save-blacks-of-the- world exhortations.
Now, the yardstick for measuring a critical balance that one may assume Nigeria plays in the black world might be what happens to a country like Ghana, should Nigeria cease to be. On what basis shall a country like Ghana miss Nigeria? On what basis shall Cameroon miss Nigeria? On what basis shall African-Americans or Afro-Caribbean miss Nigeria? These questions are to be addressed and answered, if one is to be convinced that Lugard’s cage – Nigeria is to be carried or shouldered at all cost, as Farouk seems to suggest, for the sake of Africa and the black world.
Then one pauses, ponders and asks - Was it not Ghana, a smaller neighbor to “mighty” Nigeria, that toiled to keep “mighty” Nigeria together – when the “Mistake”, the “geographical expression” the “Contraption” was about to unglue – nearly 40 years ago? I am talking about Aburi deliberation in 1967, chaired by Ghana’s General Ankrah.
Not long after the Ghana deliberations, as Nigeria remained a sickly, teething and crawling baby, Africa, the black world and the world at large watched with baffled admiration as a young nation – Biafra bubbled up where Nigeria once stood.
In fact it was at the Ghana organized and chaired deliberations that Odumegwu-Ojukwu muted the idea that Nigerians must move apart for the sake of peace – in effect Toungo’s confederacy. That was nearly 40 years ago, as Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s kinsmen were mercilessly slaughtered across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
Farouk failed to recall this indelible fact – the slaughter of Igbo - this sad and sordid fact, as he recounted how they cried when “we were told we would need passport to cross to Biafra”. Farouk was a child then, and so was this writer. Then he wondered, according to him – “How could our brothers and sisters suddenly become foreigners to us?” The celebrated Igbo author Chinua Achebe was deemed a foreigner in Lagos at the time in question, and there in Lagos, Chinua Achebe was asked when he was going to leave for the east, his place of origin.
Though I am both ambivalent and nonplussed about this, still I ask: Is it not confounding how the supposed “Igbo brothers and sisters” to the west hardly understand, no, say refuses to understand how the Igbo feel stemming from sundry ungodly treatment meted them especially by Nigerian policy makers of Yoruba extraction?
Read Farouk in a later piece of his referring to “untiring guts” of Ukpabi Asika! And Igbo must applaud? Read a Reno Omokri, an Itsekiri – the same westerner - exhorting Nigeria to find Igbo with whom it can work and forget the rest Igbo. Well, well, well, kid, western kid that is, Igbo are familiar with the type of Igbo that Nigeria always chooses to work with. Ukpabi Asika. And on Asika, Farouk is clearly oblivious of what Igbo think of this man whose guts he praises. If only Farouk cared to know. If Farouk could only ask his kinsman Olusegun Obasanjo what Igbo think of Asika.
Indeed, Obasanjo who chose Asika and for whom Asika was a proxy to abuse and assault Igbo, has all shades of Asika working for him today in his “nest of killers” – Aso Rock.
Once, I encountered a Yoruba fellow, a member of NADECO when they were chanting sanctions against Nigeria. He wondered why I was on the other side. Then I asked him, if he has ever been hungry any time in his life and had nothing to eat. It was a pointed eye-ball-to-eye-ball question. After regarding me for a while, the guy quietly walked off, without saying a word.
The Yoruba or those in the west of Lugard’s cage, the entity Chief Obafemi Awolowo referred to as “a geographical expression” – Nigeria - does not understand, or they refuse to understand. The latter is more like it.
Imagine economically sanctioned Nigeria, where the resulting burden falls on the poor, whereas the Yoruba will find his way to Benin Republic for items sanctioned in Nigeria, where will the Igbo go? This is giving one of the reasons why I was on the other side of NADECO; in addition to the fact that NADECO, as far as I am concerned, consisted of socialists and anarchists.
Now, Igbo do not care, that the Yoruba do not care or understand how they feel. Phoenix they are, Igbo are pulling their weight in decrepit Nigeria, in spite of institutional policies arrayed against them at every level.
This brings me to the man about whom Farouk seem to rib Igbo for according to him, not giving the man his due – Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolwo.
“Yoruba did not declare war against Biafra”, Farouk wrote. Indeed. But Yoruba spearheaded the war against Biafra. The first shot fired into Biafra was by a contingent led by a Yoruba officer in Gakem – Ogoja. Indeed the bulk of Nigerian vandals, that is Nigerian soldiers noted by outside observers as crude and ill disciplined, were all Yoruba.
The vandals were at different times led by two prominent Yoruba. First was Col. Benjamin Adekunle. Adekunle bragged that he commanded his vandals to shoot at anything that moved in Biafra, including cassava leaves. For the first time in a war, Red Cross bearing aeroplanes were shot at and refused landing – by Adekunle and his vandals. The second was Matthew Okikiolahan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo, who picked up where his mean, ugly brother Adenkule left off. This is not to say that Obasanjo was or is a better sight to behold. Obusonjo!
At the end of the war, the same Obasanjo swore to ensure that Igbo does not rise again, so, according to him, they do not “threaten Nigeria”. He went ahead along with northern leaders to fashion and implement policies that dispossessed Igbo of their monies, their land, their property – you name it. Any piece of Igbo land adjoining another state was carved into that state – often non-Igbo state. That was Obasanjo land-grab policy that he implemented in Igbo areas with reckless abandon.
But as the war in which Obasanjo and Adekunle put their vandal relatives to optimum use raged, not a single Igbo deemed the Yoruba an enemy. Farouk my friend, you can take my word for it. Igbo quarrel was with the Hausa/Fulani who had engineered the slaughter of Igbo in the north and across Nigeria. But Yoruba and all of southern Christians contracted the Hausa/Fulani war of Igbo liquidation, and fought, as slaves are wont to for a master they love. Farouk, are you with me?
Even when Victor Banjo, a bosom friend of Head of State of Biafra – Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, headed west, Odumegwu-Ojukwu instructed him that the Yoruba were not Igbo enemy. The western axis to Biafra was only to be liberated from northern forces that had garrisoned the entire Yoruba land. The move was a strategic imperative for Biafra. Yes, many Yoruba elites including the late Bola Ige welcomed Biafra’s move in that direction – to “overrun” Yoruba land. But Banjo pulled a Yoruba.
Biafra engaged Yoruba in such healthy state of churchianity even while the Yoruba sage, Awolowo and his cousin Anthony Enahoro designed and visited hunger and famine upon Biafra. And this writer – a “brother” was their victim – for every single hour that I was hungry in Biafra and had nothing to eat. There is no forgetting that.
To Chief Awolowo and Enahoro, hunger was a weapon of war. Do you Farouk know how many Igbo died on account of the evil policy directed against your “brothers and sisters” in Biafra? Awolowo and Enahoro even shipped food laced with cyanide to Biafra. The world knew about that, and I know a family whose young baby was a victim of Nigeria’s cyanide-laced milk. She died. The baby drank milk and died. Thanks to Chief Awolowo and his cousin, Enahoro and the rest southern Christian slaves of northern Muslims.
How is any Igbo to apologize to the Yoruba for the reason that according to Farouk Awolowo’s “life was threatened in the east”? There he was, Awolowo, seeking votes from a people that had just emerged from the depth of death and despair he designed and implemented.
By the way, Farouk, you have to check how long it was after Awolowo’s meeting in Enugu with Odumegwu-Ojukwu, following his release from Calabar prison, when he indicated that the Yoruba might break from Nigeria or play a neutral role in the east/north debacle, before he instituted his starvation as weapon of war policy? For the promise of Nigerian presidency by Gowon, Awolowo, decided to liquidate all Igbo.
As to Chief Awolowo’s “desire” according to you, to make Nigeria what he made of the west…” can you tell which Igbo clamored for this Awolowo’s “desire”?
Do you need any to tell you that at the time in question, Igbo had Michael Okpara? Do you need any to tell you that Okpara at the time in question made eastern region the fastest growing economy in Africa? So what was this desire of Awolowo for the east that would have replaced Okpara’s feat, and for which you seem to be telling Igbo to cry and worship Awolowo – a man that visited upon them nothing but evil – death and suffering; a man that repaid Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s kindness with Luciferous meaness; a man that cheated all Igbo out of their sweat and toil?
Banal groupthink is pervasive among Yoruba relative to Igbo history and experience of the last 40 years. A Yoruba fellow contacted me once, after reading my article in response yet to another Yoruba. He insisted that Igbo must remain part of Nigeria. Why? I asked him. “Two heads are better than one” he responded. See the parallel, Farouk, a similarity to your “A tree cannot make a forest”; “Nigeria has to be carried by each and every ethnic group”. And so to the Yoruba, none should opt out of this “geographical expression”, this “contraption” – apology to Awolowo, all because for reasons best known to Yoruba, they are staying put in Nigeria. What nonsense. It will not matter to them that after due reflection, a northerner named Toungo exclaimed - “Confederation is it!” And Toungo is not the first Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika ( restructuring) minded northerner to speak up. It will not matter that a young Ibrahim called on his fellow northerners that “it is not written in the Koran that Nigeria must be one”. It will not matter that the Igbo is sick and tired of an entity that does nothing but hold them down and destroy their blessed talent. No! It is what the Yoruba wants. Yoruba has got the best out of Nigeria, sponging off everyone else’s sweat but theirs. That is what matters, and that is why Nigeria must stay and remain one. Let those who do not know what a Total Parasite is behold it.
However, as for all of the ethnic groups that must carry Nigeria, and all of the heads, two or however many that are better for Nigeria, is not Lugard’s Nigeria a country of 140 Million heads? Are not 140 Million heads more than two heads that is supposedly better than one? Are not 140 heads more than enough for Nigeria? Each of the ethnic groups that constitute this contraption by “vagabond” Lugard, constitute the now 140 Million heads that have been carrying Nigeria since before Farouk and Peter were born. Do you not think, Farouk, it is time to lessen the number of heads carrying this load – Nigeria, as many heads may be doing it more harm than good?
In all likelihood, Farouk has not given thought to the fact that Nigeria is too big for its own good? But if he did, would he not consider parting of Nigeria’s parts even slightly by way of confederacy to allow some air into this rot of an entity?
Was it not Awolowo who insisted in the early times thus – West for West; let each region develop at its own pace? It is a fact, not a supposition that Awolowo was only mindful of the ethnic differences in Nigeria and of course the pleasant cocoa economy of the time. Yet, on the same ethnic difference, whereas Nnamdi Azikiwe attempted to underplay that factor, muting that Nigerians must forget their differences, Sir Bello insisted otherwise, that Nigerians must be mindful of their differences. Even as early as 2000, nearly 40 years later, Anthony Enahoro, the one who proudly propagated the Igbo starvation policy, the man who was said to have moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence founded a political party called MNR, in whose constitution is contained a “secession” clause – secession – the same reason Enahoro wanted all Igbo starved to death. Enahoro explained that the secession clause was there to allow any group that wanted to secede, to do just that. He then went on to bountifully opine on Nigeria’s ethnic differences that makes it difficult for Nigerians to work together. Now going back to when Chief Awolowo and Sir Bellow insisted on Nigerians capitalizing on their differences so to say, it then gave rise even if in part to the proud north of Toungo’; to the proud west of those days; to the proud east of those days too. It was regional autonomy as I remember it, a confederacy of sort.
Such thinking allowed autonomy that allowed every region to capitalize on their best – brain and geography to bring about groundnut pyramids in the north, cocoa in the west, and palm oil and palm kernel in the east. Oil, the liquid gold also in the east, had no role in the eastern economy then manned by Dr. Okpara.
This brings me to an unmitigated mendacity by Alhaji Umaru Dikko, which Toungo touted however little in his article. Alhaji Dikko had allowed during the Obasanjo wayo national conference that the north funded oil development in the Niger Delta. Niger Delta was in eastern region at the time in question.
Every northerner of the current and future generation must and should know the simple truth, and the truth is that their parts had and have no part in oil development in eastern region or Niger Delta, not then, and certainly not now.
The simple fact is that Shell D’Arcy came to town in the vicinity of oil and gas laden Owerri and greater Owerri environ, with money and equipment to prospect for oil. That is the simple fact. Anyone disputing this fact will have to furnish papers where it was written that northern region of Nigeria loaned Shell D’Arcy money to prospect and develop oil in eastern region.
Perhaps with this information, Obasanjo will now move to carve Owerri and the greater Owerri environ into a contiguous state – Rivers State or somewhere in Ijaw Land, as he has done in the past. What is to stop Obasanjo from doing this, when he carved Obi Igbo land – the heart of Igbo - into a non-Igbo state? I mean if God were said to be Igbo, Obasanjo would pluck him from heaven and put him in a non-Igbo land. I mean Obasanjo has the hands of Lucifer for Igbo.
Back to Toungo’s “Confederacy is it”; confederacy is the least political arrangement Nigeria can engage now to liberate itself, and thus all of the independent nations trapped in it.
Anything less is for naught and worse, fraught with turbulence and violent conflagration that all can see even as I write.
March 15, 2006
Peter Opara is a communications consultant, and author of Understanding Nigerian Nation Tribes – Why they Boil.
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