Your Excellency: THE WAY FORWARD FOR NIGERIA.
We write this letter in response to a speech delivered recently on your behalf by Alhaji M. D. Yusufu, at the second anniversary seminar of the Arewa Consultative Forum. It is our hope that you will view the contents with the utmost consideration they require and deserve.
First, Your Excellency, please note, that of all the Nigerians who have had the privilege of serving Nigeria as Heads of State, your tenure is generally regarded most favorably. Most Nigerians would readily agree that your regime was the most humane of all of Nigeria’s military regimes. Second, you are the only living former Head of State not known to be a billionaire, and that endears you to a lot of Nigerians. And finally, most of us note with gratitude your unrelenting prayers for the welfare of Nigeria. For these reasons, whatever you say about Nigeria deserves to be received and considered with the utmost respect.
It is for these reasons that very many Nigerians feel very deeply about the opinion you expressed in the speech under reference to the effect that there are "four groups" trying to destabilize Nigeria, and that these are as follows:
a). "Idealists who cannot wait to see a perfect Nigeria … (who) agitate for the cancellation of the 1999 Constitution on the premise that there was too much concentration of power and resources at the centre.
b). those who want to see the country balkanized into small territories to be headed by tribal leaders . . . made up of demagogues and other anarchists who will sooner take Nigeria back to the chaos of the 18th century.
c). those who desire the country's break-up into "geopolitical territories, whereby big ethnic groups may swallow up small ones without a challenge”.
d). those who demand “a new constitution that will allow them keep 100 per cent of money derived from the sale of oil that is extracted within their territories."
In short, Sir, your opinion of all who challenge the status quo in Nigeria today is wholly negative. As far as you are concerned, all who challenge the status quo or who ask for a serious look at Nigeria as it is, are despicable elements who are simply impatient with the pace of Nigeria’s evolution, or are demagogues and anarchists whom no system of order can satisfy, or ethnic chauvinists who want their own large ethnic groups to dominate smaller ethnic groups or who simply do not want the resources of their own ethnic territories shared with the rest of Nigeria. While there are, without doubt, some persons who may answer to these characterizations, we urge you most respectfully, Sir, to look deeper below the surface. When you do that, you will find that probably most of the persons who are actively asking for change for Nigeria, or who are intensely dissatisfied with Nigeria as it exists today, are motivated by very positive and commendable purposes – persons who, in your own words, seek “perfection”, perfection and meaningful order out of the near chaos that Nigeria now is. Such persons deserve not opprobrium but acceptance and encouragement from all far-sighted Nigerians. Another Nigerian, Peter Ekeh, in a paper titled "Urhobo and the Nigerian Federation: Whither Nigeria?" demonstrated a clear understanding of the realities of today’s Nigeria when he said: "It is an indication of the stress and turbulence of our times that Nigerians are everywhere re-examining the purpose of the Nigerian state and the relationships between their ethnic groups and the Nigerian federation. There has been no other occasion in our history when men and women, otherwise engaged in professions far removed from politics and public affairs, have been so concerned of their ethnic groupings and about the purpose of their country's political arrangements."
The truth, Sir, is that most informed Nigerians, and very many friends of Nigeria in the world, are intensely worried about the way Nigeria has turned out to be. That is why speeches, articles and even books about Nigeria’s future are being churned out increasingly today. And that is why the pages and editorial columns of Nigerian newspapers are continually littered with the evidence of the stress and the turbulence raging in the minds of thinking Nigerians concerning Nigeria. .
The most important question, then, is this: What are the roots of Nigeria’s very profound sicknesses – Nigeria’s intractable political instability, the intense criminality, fraud, and violence in Nigeria’s political processes, the political assassinations, the all-pervasive and resolute corruption in the management of Nigeria’s public resources, the disregard for law, etc. There are some who would opine that the causes of these aberrations are simply human greed, the lack of adequate leaders, or even a weakness in the make-up of the moral and societal consciousness of Nigerians. This is tantamount to saying that, before the British came and favored us with the creation of Nigeria, we were all morally, socially and politically depraved and incapable peoples, intrinsically unable to produce solid and respectable leaders of men or to manage orderly political entities.
But people who hold such opinions must ask themselves certain important questions. The Hausa people, long before the 19th century, created for themselves a number of splendid kingdoms, and their rulers ruled those kingdoms with dignity and poise. If they were depraved and incapable, how did they accomplish such things? In the course of the 19th century, the Fulani and Hausa peoples carried out a revolution that produced a larger, more inclusive, polity, (a Caliphate), whose leaders promoted knowledge, excellence, commerce and pride. If they were depraved and incapable, how could they achieve such great things? In European medieval times, long before any of the countries of Europe had become a country, the Kanuri people on the Lake Chad built a large empire which held sway over expansive territory, commanded enormous commerce and established diplomatic relations with the then centers of civilization on the Mediterranean. If they were depraved and incapable, how could they have accomplished such greatness?
The Nupe on the Middle Niger and the Tiv on the Benue, though not very large peoples today, were very strong peoples, each of whom built a strong kingdom and managed with distinction the trade, and the channels of trade, across its own river. In the forest country of the south, the Yoruba built one of the most advanced civilizations of tropical Africa, established well ordered and gorgeous kingdoms throughout their expansive territory, built walled towns and cities, and evolved the greatest urban civilization in the thick forests of tropical Africa – all of which were already far advanced before the first European explorers came to the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. The Edo and related peoples had also established one of Africa’s most prestigious kingdoms before the fist Europeans came to the coasts of West Africa – a kingdom that, today, would have owned more territory and more population than each of Belgium, Portugal, and many other countries of Europe. Astride the Lower Niger and east of it, the Igbo people evolved supremely well ordered democracies and produced a civilization rich in art, culture and commerce – and are today one of Africa’s most dynamic and most modernizing nations. Similar comments as these are also true of the Ibibio, the Ijaw (builders of the city states of the Niger Delta), Urhobo, and many other small, but deservedly proud, nations in all parts of Nigeria. If these peoples were depraved and incapable, how did they achieve the orderly political systems and impressive civilizations that they achieved?
No, the true explanation for Nigeria’s huge, stubborn, and perpetually worsening diseases is to be found not in any inherent flaws in us as peoples, but in circumstances created by the very existence of Nigeria itself. To understand that, one needs to look at what has happened, and what is happening, in countries similar to Nigeria in the world – countries comprising two or more ethnic nations. The apparently almighty Soviet Union perpetually suffered serious distractions from the desires of its many ethnic nations to manage their own affairs. Ultimately, in 1991, the Soviet Union splintered into many countries – fifteen in all, each of them an autonomous and independent nation state, most of them very small. The Czechs and Slovaks of Czechoslovakia had the common sense to terminate the complex problems of Czechoslovakia by breaking it up peacefully – so that each now lives in its own small independent country. Yugoslavia, created in 1918, was one country riddled with subliminal hostilities, corruption and instability. When two of the ethnic nations of this country announced their decisions to secede, the Serbs, who happened to be Yugoslavia’s largest ethnic nation, took up arms in order to prevent the breaking up of the country, but all they succeeded in doing was to cause horrendous violence and bloodshed, thereby attracting worldwide condemnation. In the end, each of the various ethnic nations of Yugoslavia did win its own small country – a total of seven countries, the smallest of which has a population of only 864,000. The Walloons and the Flemings, the two ethnic nations of Belgium (a country created in 1831), have, in recent times, been constantly at loggerheads. Following a troubled election in 2007, they seem now to be heading for the eventual breaking up of Belgium into two countries. Great Britain entered the 20th century as a country of four ethnic nations – the English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh. The Irish broke off in the 1920’s and created the independent Republic of Ireland. (The small province of Northern Ireland which was not allowed to go with the Republic of Ireland has remained a scene of terrible troubles since then). Both the Scots and Welsh are also agitating for independent countries of their own, and the Scots now seem to be near that goal. Spain comprises two ethnic nations – the Spaniards, and a smaller nation, the Basques. For many decades, the Basques have troubled and shaken Spain in an attempt to break off and have a country of their own. In Russia, one small ethnic nation, the Chechens of Chechnya that was not able to break off in the 1990’s, and in Georgia, the small people of South Ossetia, are both fighting life-and-death struggles in order to have tiny independent countries of their own.
In Asia, soon after India’s independence, the peoples of northern India broke away and created Pakistan; and then the peoples of eastern Pakistan broke off and created Bangladesh. Some small peoples who remained in India (the Kashmiri and Sikh) have for decades being agitating for separation, and causing a lot of pain to India. Singapore broke off from the Malaysian Federation in the 1960’s, and in the small island country of Sri Lanka (a country comprising two small ethnic nations, the Tamil and the Sinhalese), the Tamils have for decades been fighting a life-and-death battle to have a separate tiny country of their own, in the process generating serious instability for Sri Lanka. Indonesia is confronted by many secessionist agitations; and one of such agitating peoples has already succeeded in breaking off and becoming a small independent country.
In the Americas, Canada comprises two immigrant ethnic nations – the English and the French. Demand for separation from Canada by the French of the Province of Quebec has for many decades been a very troublesome feature of the political life of Canada. The United States of America is saved from such secessionist demands because its many immigrant nations are settled scattered and interspersed all over the country, with the result that no immigrant nation has any area that it can call its ethnic homeland.
In short, in all parts of the world, the inter-relationships of ethnic nations in multi-ethnic countries tend to generate and promote conflicts, weakness, corruption, slow growth, etc. On all continents, ethnic nations – even the smallest ethnic nations – are waking up and demanding the freedom to have autonomous and independent countries of their own. And the trend is growing stronger and stronger all the time. The observable reality is that as each ethnic nation becomes more and more literate, more and more educated and informed, it tends to become more conscious of its cultural heritage, more emphatic about the differences between it and other nations, more defensive of its interests, and more desirous of managing its own affairs and controlling its own destiny. There is nothing bad or condemnable about that. It is just the way that members of the human race tend to behave.
At the United Nations Organization, this reality has become fairly well understood. And that is why in September 2007, the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization adopted a resolution titled DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. By “indigenous peoples”, the United Nations means ethnic nations that are members of larger countries. In its preamble, the resolution states as follows:
“- - - the Charter of the United Nations, the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, affirm the fundamental importance of the right of
self-determination of all peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine
their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
independence”
Then Article 3 states:
“Indigenous peoples have the right to self determination. By virtue of that
right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their
economic, social and cultural development.”
As far as the countries of Africa are concerned, clear and unambiguous demands and agitations for separate countries are still rare. And the reasons are obvious. First, the African countries are still quite young – being generally about fifty years in existence. Secondly, most of the ethnic nations of Africa are very small – so small that many can not yet envision themselves as constituting separate independent countries. As a result, every African country is buffeted and battered by political turmoil, sordid corruption, wrong-headed attempts by some nations to dominate others, rigged and violently protested elections, lawlessness, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc. But all these are bound to change, and the confused and indefinable storms will give way to clear visions and demands. The peoples of Africa are becoming more and more literate and educated; and the immaturity and lack of confidence will gradually evaporate. Already, in Nigeria, where some of the provinces rank among the most literate in Africa, the desire for separate independent countries is becoming unmistakable. Naturally, it is difficult for those of us who would want to preserve Nigeria to contemplate, but there is no way we can avoid the situation whereby increasing numbers of the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, Edo and related peoples, Kanuri and related peoples, Nupe, Tiv, Ijaw, Ibibio, as well as combinations of neighboring small peoples, will seek separation of their peoples from Nigeria in order to have countries of their own. Again, there is nothing bad or wicked or condemnable about that and those of us who oppose such outcomes only need to work hard for what we believe to be more meaningful and peaceful change.
Of course, the tortuous political and moral mess of Nigeria tends to serve, for now, as the immediate major provocator of such views and the rising agitations for separation. For many whom education has elevated to membership of the wider community of the world, it can be sometimes unpleasant these days to be identified as a Nigerian. But the deeper, ethnic nationalist, causes are also affirming themselves. Even if Nigeria were much better run, the ethnic nationalist factor will still advance itself. Throughout the 20th century, Great Britain has been one of the richest, most powerful, and proudest countries in our world, and yet the ethnic nations in it have wanted to break away from it. The same is true of Spain, Belgium, Canada, etc. The expansion of agitations for the dissolution of Nigeria seems inevitable, regardless.
Consequently, when people revisit the way Nigeria's ethnic nations were put together to form Nigeria, and the way Nigeria has performed throughout its history, and then react by calling for action, it would be erroneous to characterize such people as demagogues, anarchists, ethnic chauvinists, or what have you. Rather, we should try hard and understand the roots of their attitudes. Happily, no group is advocating violence and defiance of the laws as the path forward – with the lone exception of the Delta situation in which a concatenation of very unfortunate developments has produced an outcome of violence. The task of constructive leadership going forward should be to promote peaceful and respectful discussion and debate, and to keep out violent outbursts and conflicts. That is why it is crucially important that a Nigerian leader of your titanic credentials and qualifications should see developments in Nigeria with utmost clarity. The future – our future collectively and individually – depends on it.
Your Excellency, we urge you to see this whole matter from one further perspective. Trying to heal Nigeria’s diseases with a Nigerian wand has never worked, and it will never work. Military regime after military regime thought that the way to solve Nigeria’s problems was to pursue a centralizing, unificatory and integrationist path. Well, they succeeded in centralizing and integrating, but that made the problems of Nigeria enormously worse. In the place of the locally based leaderships and local loyalty and passion that had moved the Regions forward fairly strongly in the 1950’s, they strapped on all parts of the country a leadership with a pseudo-national orientation, a leadership divorced from the ruled in all localities, a leadership with no empathy for, or loyalty towards, the ruled. Then, using all their political power and influence, and the huge wealth that they had acquired in political offices, they proceeded to institutionalize the new brand of leadership by creating a powerful political party, the PDP, to encapsulate it. And the outcome is that this super-party is able to drop its candidate at election time on any State or Local Government, rig him into position, and demand of him loyalty to the culture of the party and to his own person. In the process, public corruption, already mountainous and all-pervasive, grew greatly in stature and confidence – and the people for whom the State and Local Governments were established can only watch as helpless victims as they are robbed and raped. Nigeria could not fare worse if it was conquered by a horde of bandits.
Needless to say, the solution is not more centralization, or the fostering of more, or other, super-powerful political groupings. The solution is to restore control to the people – to empower the people to nurture again a leadership that is produced by the people and that serves the people. And there is no other way to accomplish this than by empowering each ethnic nation to call out its traditional ethical norms and laws and cultural influence for the guidance of its own affairs. There is no other conceivable way to get it done. There is some news as this is being written, that some super-powerful politicians are working on creating another super-powerful party to seize power from the PDP. Even if the new group manages to achieve the seizure of power, there can be no real change. The supermen of the defeated group will only stream to the party of the new holders of power – and the country will then return to square one. It will only be like replacing the leopard with the hyena as gate-keeper; neither will do anything other than steal the goats. It is because more and more Nigerians are coming to see these truths that the volume of voices is growing for, among other things, the replacement of the 1999 Constitution by another constitution - another constitution creating a federal structure that is more meaningful in the light of the ethnic composition, and the history, of Nigeria.
Your Excellency, is this growing demand what you were reacting to and castigating in your statement when you spoke of "idealists who cannot wait to see a "perfect Nigeria," and who “agitate for the cancellation of the 1999 Constitution on the premise that there was too much concentration of power and resources at the centre"? Is this what you were referring to and demonizing as the voices of "demagogues and other anarchists who will sooner take Nigeria back to the chaos of the 18th century”, who want "to see the country balkanized into small territories to be headed by tribal leaders”, who "desire the country's break-up into "geopolitical territories, whereby big ethnic groups may swallow up small ones without a challenge”, and who are "asking for a new constitution that will allow them keep 100 per cent of money derived from the sale of oil that is extracted within their territories”?
We really must urge you, Your Excellency, to rethink these sentiments. “Chaos of the 18th century”! Is that the way a leading son of Africa like you, Sir, should describe the history of your people? What was the chaos of the 18th century – the Hausa kingdoms? The Sokoto Caliphate that came later to unify the Hausa kingdoms? The Yoruba kingdoms and the Old Oyo Empire? The Kanem-Bornu Empire? The glorious Edo kingdom of Benin? The kingdoms of the Western Igbo or the village democracies of the rest of Igboland? The states of the Ibibio or the city states of the Ijaw? The kingdoms of the Nupe and the Tiv? Are these and other significant cultural and political creations of our history the chaos of the 18th century?
In a way, it is greatly valuable that you voiced these sentiments – valuable because you thereby highlight a very important weakness and flaw in the way many leading citizens of Nigeria view their country and handle its affairs. For such citizens, our past as peoples was generally one of barbarism, chaos, oppression; it was the white man, the British that brought civilization, order, peace, and law to our lives. Therefore, why should we even think of examining what they have created for us, what they have given to us? Why should we ever think of looking closely at the Nigeria that they gave us, and why should we ever want to strive to mold it or our management of it to suit our own cultural ways? We had no culture!
Your Excellency, please ponder these things, and it will strike you what terrible consequences this way of looking at our past has wrought in the corporate life of Nigeria. Do you see in the rulers and leaders of Nigeria and its various peoples today the same near-sacred devotion to the public good, the same dignified joy in service to their subjects that characterized the rulers and chiefs of the Yoruba kingdoms, the Sokoto Caliphate, the Benin kingdom – and all the other states of our history? In recent years, some intellectuals of the Yoruba have been discussing what they call “The Yoruba Vision”. What they have found is that Yoruba kingdoms were ruled according to certain pan-Yoruba ethical norms that limited the power of rulers and chiefs, respected the dignity of the individual in society, promoted the welfare of all in society, and provided a high code of conduct for rulers, chiefs, and other prominent persons (a code of conduct that was fiercely enforced through powerful secret and ritual institutions). According to these scholars, this political culture had the effect of making the Yoruba person a citizen who values his respect and his freedom of choice in society, who expects to be decently respected by those who rule and hold authority in society, who expects probity and accountability in his rulers and chiefs. On the basis of these standards, those who lead and rule the Yoruba in Nigeria today can not really be called Yoruba leaders. How can anybody be called a Yoruba leader who, by his conduct in public life, despises the Yoruba people, who routinely disrespectfully falsifies the very clear voices of the Yoruba people at elections, who employs thugs and violence to force himself into public offices or to distort the counsels of government, and kills people who dare to resist him, and who, when occupying public office, ignores the welfare and the needs of the people and spends his time stealing the money meant for public services?
Of course, the Yoruba are being used in the above paragraph only as an example. Allowing for obvious cultural variations, the experiences of the Yoruba are essentially the same as of every other nation in Nigeria. The noise of anger, desperation, resistance, conflict and turmoil are audible all the time from every part of Nigeria. What those noises mean is widespread rejection of the prevailing conditions of leadership among all the peoples of Nigeria. Quite often, one hears people in the South say that the North is faring better than the rest of Nigeria – implying that rulers and leaders from the North treat Northerners better or differently. But that is completely untrue. Any one who cares to listen will easily and frequently hear the voices of agony from the North, as Northerners complain that, though their leaders have held control of the Federal Government longer than leaders from other parts of Nigeria, the common people of the North have seen very little that is aimed at the improvement of their quality of life. In all regions of Nigeria, it is the political leaders that are doing well for themselves these days; the welfare of the masses of the people is no longer a factor in government at any level. Our people, of every nation, are not used to being ruled the way they are being ruled today; their history and their cultures have conditioned them to expect better from the persons who control the powers of state. Create constitutional arrangements and systems that empower each nation to produce and control its leadership in its own way, and the quality of leadership will improve dramatically. We say without equivocation, bring back the strength of the Edo nation, the Hausa/Fulani nation, the Igbo nation, the Ijaw nation, the Yoruba nation, and all the other nations that call Nigeria home. It is in their hands and their traditions of governance, modified appropriately by them in the light of contemporary realities, that the future of the country called Nigeria lies! Nigeria by itself simply does not command the capacity to effect the type of change that is urgently needed in the quality of leadership in our land.
Finally, Your Excellency, we ask you to note the conclusion enunciated by M. A. O Aluko in his paper "Ethnic Nationalism and the Nigerian Democratic Experience in the Fourth Republic." He wrote; "Informed by this philosophical orientation we suggest the acceptance of the inevitability and indeed the legitimacy of ethnic identities and taking this as a precondition to finding means of preventing violent conflict. This can best be done by the convocation of a national conference in which the ethnic nationalities will state categorically those things that will make them shift their allegiance, loyalty and patriotism from the level of their ethnic nationalities to that of the nation at large. This may be slow and difficult. But the logic of our reasoning remains that ethnic identities are not fixed, but can change over time through a slow process of political manipulation with social and economic transformation." These sentiments are further echoed by Karl Maier in his book on the Nigerian nation, entitled: “This House Has Fallen.” He stated that ‘‘the only long-term solution in Nigeria to the crises that arise in a multi-ethnic state is for the various parties, however many they may be, to sit down and negotiate how they want to govern themselves and how they want to share their resources, and to decide whether they want to ultimately live together. Until they begin that process of internal reconciliation, at best Nigeria will lurch from crisis to crisis. At worst it will fall apart.’’
We also ask you to remember, Your Excellency, that there are other Nigerians who believe that Nigeria, like other multi-nation countries all over the world, may, or even will [or perhaps even should], dissolve into many ethnic nation states. Whichever future lies ahead for Nigeria, we of the present generation of Nigerians need to manage our country’s affairs today in ways that will ensure that whatever change will come will come only peacefully. Continuing to follow the path we have followed since independence, the path of nation building through a highly centralized state structure and the depression of our ethnic nations, holds a high potential for violent change. Let us work for peaceful change – and thereby make violent change unnecessary.
Thank you very much, Your Excellency, for reading our letter, and please accept the assurances of our highest considerations and our prayers for your continued good health.
Your compatriots,
Prof. Angelicus-M. Onasanya – USA
Dr. Steve Ogbonmwan – UK
Mr. Yemi Oyeyemi - USA
Sen. {Prof.} ‘Banji Akintoye –USA
Dr. Mayowa Ogedengbe - USA
Dr. Osahon Ukponmwan –USA
Dr. Emmanuel Abiodun Dada - USA
Abiodun Egunjobi[Socrates] -USA
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