Agitation for separation or secession is nothing new especially in developing nations where the constitutions are not as strong as those of developed nations. The driving force for secession is often beliefs of unfair treatment felt by the general population of a group that identifies itself as a subgroup of the larger population of the nation usually concerning political representation, resources allocation, social justice or injustice, and religious intolerance.
The reason why I dedicated a paragraph to discussing secession as a subject is to have the reader plug the Biafra situation into the general scope to either find parallels or peculiarities. I have had a difficult time figuring out what the primary gripe of the agitators for Biafra as a sovereign nation is… or are (as the case might be). To give a bit of background, geographically the people championing the cause for Biafra as a nation hail from the southeastern part of Nigeria of which Ibos constitute the largest ethnic group. Not surprisingly the leaders of this “struggle” over the past several decades have largely been of the Igbo extraction; hence a general concept (or misconception depending on who you ask) that Biafra is an Ibo movement.
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Because I am not exactly qualified to speak to all the problems that all Nigerians that dwell in or are indigenes of the southeastern part of the country face vis a vis the larger body that is Nigeria I will have to speculate a bit and take the liberty of hypothetical scenarios to get this discussion into some shape. I would assume the dissatisfaction Biafra proponents have with Nigeria are largely political and to a lesser extent resources allocation and ethnic strife; one of the key issues of contention being the fact that no Igbo person has ruled Nigeria in over four and half decades. While this fact sticks out like a sore thumb it is hardly the problem of the rest of Nigerians and it certainly is no good reason to seek secession. Most importantly it is not pivotal to the welfare of the Nigerian masses—or Southeastern masses for the matter. It is however a problem for the political class of the Igbo tribe and so should be addressed as such. Politicians whose careers are affected by this statistic should seek to change this phenomenon through legal means such as caucusing and building political alliances. Perhaps the most glaring issue with the Igbo presidency theme is that a Southeasterner was in fact the most recent past president of the country. Unless, of course, free lance geographers of convenience would point out that Mr. Jonathan is a South-Southerner which further confounds the audience into asking, “so where are the boundaries of the Biafra movement?”
Drumming up support by pointing to sporadic ethnic conflict in the North and Southwest falls short of the public sentiment threshold of global sympathy as these are not new or peculiar to any society especially a heterogeneous mix like Nigeria. I would like to believe that I am, at least, of average intelligence and should be able to see glaring injustices routinely, and also discern veiled prejudice occasionally; however I have a hard time picking out where the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria intrinsically sets Ibos up for failure—such evidence could have tipped the scale for me. Maybe the true reason for this quest for secession is esoteric to average intellect to which I’d say we need the cerebrally superior custodians of Southeastern Nigerian mores to explain it in simplistic terms to the rest of us as people are generally more inclined to supporting causes that they understand and agree with.
However if (and this is a big “if”)… if the agitation for Biafra as a sovereign nation is borne out of selfish desires of the key crusaders then it is at best unfortunate and at worst outright dastardly considering the human tragedy that was the first uprising. The present agitation has already claimed scores of lives even though it has gotten very modest traction. I suspect the casualties are largely people of humble origins yet the eventual ruling class of the newly formed republic (assuming we ever get to that point), I suspect also, would be the same fat cats that form the entitled elite of the region. The previous sentence then forces me to ask; what have the leaders—governors, senators, traditional monarchs etcetera, done with what they have been given to improve the lot of their constituency and subjects? I ask this question because I cannot recollect hearing about any of these personalities complaining consistently or substantiating any claims about wanting to better their region of leadership but were hampered by injustice from the federal government. To the contrary, since the inception of this present installation of democracy in Nigeria the Southeastern states have had few governors that the people have been pleased with. In fact Imo and Abia States have had none; unless you start comparing the bad to the worse then you may look on one or the other more favorably than his predecessors or successors as the case may be. I am constantly being reminded of the situation in Eritrea and South Sudan.
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The paragraph above suggests that the agitation for separation might be an expression of displaced aggression where the logical target of the grievance should be the local leaders and political representatives of the region. Another oddity is the fact that there are presently no high profile personalities of “Biafran extraction” speaking up on this matter. Now I understand the potential risk to the person’s career if a thriving politician or technocrat would lend their support to such a cause but if it is worth doing wouldn’t there be at least one or two that would defy the consequence and pledge their allegiance? After all they would make up the ruling class of the hypothetical newly minted nation… right?
Now I get to exactly where I have been trying to go with these jumbled thoughts (please pardon the entropy); there has not been one action by the agitators for Biafra that suggests assiduity or a conscientiously constructed code of belief other than a quest for self determination yoked with a “cross that bridge when we get there” mindset concerning nation building logistics. A good place to start might be to take a plebiscite to figure out just what percentage of the population of the people whom are being “liberated” actually want to be natives of a new nation; as evidenced by Eritrea and South Sudan, these secessions are seldom as jolly in actualization as they are in projection. On a larger scale Nigeria as a country will need to have an honest conversation about the mistrust that exists amongst its ethnic groups; and such a conversation might be best driven by Nigerians born after the Nigerian Civil War. I suggest this age requirement for two reasons: the world is experiencing widespread youth focused leadership, and secondly the disposition of a majority of the Post-Civil War born Nigerians, I suspect, would be more rational and less emotional as concerns tribal relations in Nigeria. If the enlightened crop of Nigeria’s forty five years and younger are unable to caucus and proffer working solutions that are progressive and all-inclusive in nature then Nigeria and the Biafra agitators have bigger problems than they either know, or care to admit.
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