Regarding the Press Statement by Change Nigeria at Airport hotel, Ikeja, Lagos on Tuesday the 8th September 8, 2009: Numbered paragraph 5 above (the part about "... THAT THERE IS SO MUCH DESIRE AND GOODWILL BY THE VARIOUS PEOPLES OF NIGERIA TO LIVE TOGETHER IN A COUNTRY...") is the only Achilles Heel of this otherwise enlightened document. As small as such is, it has the same overall effect as the “innocuous” lie, "...we the people,.." a la the 1999 so-called Nigerian Constitution. The fact is that just as there is no “we the people,” there is no longer such “so much desire and goodwill...to live together in [one] country...” and even if there was, the practicality does not exist. This was best stated by Gowon who (and even before he) killed millions to “keep Nigeria one,” an expensive exercise in futility: “the basis for unity [of Nigeria is] not there.” This is the most sober and most honest statement ever made by a Nigerian; on a daily basis, we all experience that. Let’s heed it.
However, the nations that make up Nigeria—sovereign and independent in “primordial inception,” to borrow the concepts of this document, and keeping such status intact—have as first and immediate neighbors themselves in mutuality, and therefore, share a common interest in living with goodwill, not in the same country, but as inter-national neighbors. That’s what pertains in other parts of the world. And where so desired and mutually consented to, an arrangement like EU (European Union), where truly sovereign and independent nations have consented to a Union that does not hijack or compromise the independence and sovereignty of participating independent and sovereign nations, can be established.
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One should not forget that an underlying cause of subterranean seething anger which frequently erupts in pogroms in Nigeria is the threat felt by some nationals or ethnicities from the presence of members of other nations and groups. Whether such a threat is merely perceived or not, or whether the basis for the threat is real or not, is immaterial; the result is always the same: a lot of racism and hatred ready to be acted upon rather quickly with anguished and bloody results has been the outcome of our experience in Nigeria. Now that we are seriously talking about solving the problem that is Nigeria, any unnecessary holdbacks are a spoiler, especially when done in denial of our common realities. Gowon said it all: let’s acknowledge that, and now, fix it. “The basis for unity [of Nigeria is] not there.” But, we can live side by side in different countries, in peace, or at the very least, in civility. No persons from one country will be seen as a threat when interacting as legal immigrants in another country.
This document is otherwise balanced. It mentions the root-problem and the essential corrective paradigms: that each ethnicity is naturally a sovereign nation which enjoyed independence before the well known British act of colonial malevolence. Not only that, also, that such independence and sovereignty needs to be restored, respected and acted upon today, as the only basis for any truly equitable consenting arrangement of the future for the ethnic nationalities living in the region. Tying this paradigm to the UN Resolution on Self Determination of Ethnic Nations of September 12/13 2007 also demonstrates the informed nature of the document (even though Nigeria abstained from voting on it, while Britain voted in favor—predictably but hypocritically, reasons already well covered in this document). This, at the same time, suggests where we all might get international legal and moral support and help when we actually get out there to do what independent sovereign nationals must do in Nigeria, which is to wrest control of our lives, livelihoods and collective destinies from the behemoth called the State of Nigeria. It may get bloody.
I will admit that I have not read the Draft People’s Constitution; but, as even this document above says, first, the formation and recognition of ethnic sovereignties and independence, then, each, if it chooses to participate, can send delegates to a constitutional conference of a larger Union. The fact that delegates representing Nationalistic organizations, often self-constituted and appointed, put this Draft People’s Constitution together (while under the glare of Obasanjo and Nigeria’s SSS), does not equate to true representation or delegation by sovereign and independent nations, the only correct and acceptable basis for an equitable, mutually consenting, no-duress agreement.
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I would venture to predict two things:
1) this document does not correct item 5 as above, and therefore, falls quite short—that would be a pity; or
2) the masses of Nigeria will not take the document serious because the subset of the elite of Nigeria who put this document together cannot be counted on to go into the streets to sweat, bleed and die for the corrected contents, in the face of the State of Nigeria mobilizing its anti-people’s armed forces to silence activists. Under Obasanjo, there was a two-track system to accomplish this: psychologically and physically intimidate and harass the activist; or bribe them with enticing Vanity-massaging posts or irresistible financially lucrative appointments. The current regime does not have such finesse.
Ultimately, Nigeria has failed. How we as peoples take care of ourselves when the State—the abstract but palpable Monster—is desperately thrashing around in its death throes, is up to us. This is part of the difference between the 15-year “disintegration clock” and a controlled burn, either always operating within the context of Gowon’s epiphany: “The basis for unity [of Nigeria is] not there.” (1966)
Oguchi Nkwocha, MD.
Nwa Biafra
A Biafran Citizen
[email protected]
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