This article points out that Nigeria's leaders know what the underlying problem with Nigeria is. However, the same leaders proceed to act contrary to, or in complete denial of, what they already know, in their approach to solving that problem, and then, believe, preach and celebrate such wrong-headed (non-)solutions. It is a cycle that can be traced back over half-a-century.
This article points out that Nigeria's leaders know what the underlying problem with Nigeria is. However, the same leaders proceed to act contrary to, or in complete denial of, what they already know, in their approach to solving that problem, and then, believe, preach and celebrate such wrong-headed (non-)solutions. It is a cycle that can be traced back over half-a-century.
Zik: “Nigeria…a nation charged with suspicion, fear and hatred.”
It was the eve of January 1 1965. The ceremonial head of Nigeria's fledgling government, President Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik), had just cancelled a speech after the text had been distributed earlier. The speech was a response to the rigged and poorly conducted elections in Nigeria. In the North, Southern-party-based candidates had been intimidated and or denied access, campaign and contest opportunities; elections proceeded there and produced a result. The South boycotted the elections. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister (where the real power resided) and a Northerner, whose political party had won a majority in the faulted parliamentary elections, was insisting that Zik fulfill his Presidential duties by formally inviting Balewa's party to form the government.
In the prepared speech, Zik had characterized Nigeria as a nation charged with suspicion, fear and hatred.
Without any reason to assume that this characterization had changed, and no efforts or no way to correct it, Zik was to enter into crippling, one-sided compromise-agreements with Balewa by January 4 1965 which placed Southern Nigeria at a disadvantage. In the end, Zik and Balewa praised each other; hear Prime Minister Balewa: “The President Azikiwe and I have once again shown that the things that bind Nigerians together are stronger than those which separated them…” (The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra War by Dr. L.N. Aneke p.7). For that matter, Zik was to make more blunders. In the middle of the Biafra-Nigeria war not quite 3 years later, which was a direct result of the suspicion, fear and hatred that Zik inveighed so much against earlier, Zik switched sides. He left Biafra where he was needed, and got back in bed with Nigeria, making the usual compromises. Biafra was defeated in the war. Nigeria earned for herself a pyrrhic victory and has suffered diarrhea, belly ache and paralysis since then, a total cripple. Zik himself was rewarded by Nigeria—with relegation to the dustbin reserved for used-up Igbo, once his propaganda value for Nigeria was spent.
Back to Zik in 1965. Almost a year to the date, January 16 1966, in response to the news of the still-evolving Military Coup with uncertain loyalties and outcome, the same Zik was interviewed in London where he had been for 3 months for medical treatment. Asked if he favored any particular side in Nigeria, Zik, 61 years old and President of Nigeria, said that he was “above politics and politicians.”
We use Zik to bring forth “the sickness” of Nigerians and their leaders. It has never really been that difficult for Nigerians and their leaders to understand the root of Nigeria's teeter-tottering instability, which Zik spelled out accurately: “a nation charged with suspicion, fear and hatred.” Based on Ethnicity. What Nigerians and their leaders refuse to understand is that you cannot wish away this correct characterization with any kind of compromise, even the most ridiculously lopsided concessions. And to cap it off, after each crisis (isn't Nigeria one crisis after unsolved and ever more crippling crisis?) Nigerians and their leaders come out congratulating themselves thus: “…the things that bind Nigerians together are stronger than those which separate[d] them…” This is the most telling and most critical case of psychological denial, where a whole dysfunctional “country” feels “safer” behind a barefaced lie, as if the walls of lies ever afforded protection for anyone.
Thus Nigeria continues its tumultuous existence doing no one any good. Leaders know the problems but prefer to act otherwise. The peoples understand the problems but prefer to pretend otherwise. After each upheaval, the leaders instruct with silliness: “People should go about their normal business”; and the peoples oblige with silliness in zombie-like compliance, going about their “normal business.” What is their normal business? Lying to themselves and believing their own lies, while the unavoidable and undeniable consequences of reality flog them mercilessly and mete out untold suffering, hardship and dying by the minute.
Awo: “Nigeria is a mere geographic expression.”
Obafemi Awolowo worked tirelessly for his own Yoruba people, and is to be praised for that. Yoruba was first; Nigeria, if real at all, was merely secondary. He put Western Nigeria on the world map when Africa was still a “darkest continent”; and as long as the Region functioned with autonomy, it progressed substantially. But, Nigeria extended its leprous grip on Western Nigeria. With one hand, Awo fought it; with the other, Awo clung on to Nigeria, personally aspiring to be the leader of Nigeria one day, in futility. In the meantime, Western region was being mauled by Nigeria as all the accomplishments made possible by autonomy were being destroyed. Later, Western Region had the opportunity to leave Nigeria, but Awo, contrary to his “Yoruba-first nationalism” fought on the side of Nigeria to remain one-Nigeria against the seceded Eastern Nigeria. Today, the Yoruba, though perhaps faring better, are just as internally colonized by Nigeria as the rest of the other groups; but the Awo-minded institutions and aspirations have almost been wiped out. Yet, Yoruba leaders will always append “…within the context of [one-]Nigeria...” to all their political permutational statements today. The psychological denial illness is still very evident.
Gowon: “…no basis for Nigerian unity, which has been so badly rocked, not only once but several times.”
On August 3 1966, Gowon made this statement. Earlier, he was to have formally announced the secession of Northern Nigeria from Nigeria; only persuasion by the Yoruba in the army, and several Western ambassadors especially the British, then, dissuaded him. By September of the same year, delegates from former Nigeria's regions all agreed on Confederation as the solution to Nigeria's crisis. On September 17, 1966, the New York Times reported that “Gowon Opposes Confederation and Derails Conference” [of regional leaders meeting in Lagos called to decide Nigeria's political future]. And by October, Gowon had decided and stated officially that he was determined to keep Nigeria “united” under unitary and centralized government, as if that was not Ironsi's “sin” against the North, which was to earn him a humiliating death at the hands of same Gowon's putschists and supported by Northerners. Then, in 1967, he led Nigeria to war against Biafra. Millions of deaths later, in an obviously crippled and retrogressing Nigeria, Gowon is still advocating for one-Nigeria, though his children, by his admission, do not want anything to do with Nigeria. He wants to ignore the facts that today, Northerners are still driving the Ibo out of Northern Nigeria, and also, that Northern Muslim now attack his own group of the Northern Middle-belt Christians on a daily basis, with deadly results; while the Boko Haram (“Western civilization is anathema”) group is essentially at war with Nigeria in the Northern region wanting their own anti-West culture and space and separate Muslim nationhood, and making that statement with rifles, bullets and bombs.
Odumegwu Ojukwu: “Biafra of the mind”
The figure, Ojukwu, is what Biafra made of the man who was mandated by the Biafran people reeling from the shock of unprecedented violence directed against them by Nigeria, to declare and lead the Sovereign and Independent Republic of Biafra on May 30 1967, for the protection of the people of Biafra. This followed the rejection by Gowon of a Confederation solution desired and agreed upon by representatives of all the regions of Nigeria then. When the ensuing war was lost by Biafra, Ojukwu went into exile. Convinced to return later, he threw himself fully into Nigerianism, trying to prove that Nigeria could work, and he can be a good Nigerian—as only an Igbo can, notwithstanding history. In the end, when asked about it, he could only speak of “Biafra of the mind”, which can be interpreted as the regret of a man who did the correct thing first time around, and was deceived into going against it later, only to realize that the conditions which justified the original action still exist, and recant changed nothing, except make things even worse. Concessions and compromises, especially when one is correct in the first instance, do not and have not changed Nigeria.
Obasanjo: “…Nigeria's situation [is likened to] 'an incoherent movement of an individual who takes one step forward [and sideways] and three steps backward.'”
Peter Smithers: Nigeria was a [colonial British] mistake
The Daily Independent Online of Monday, August 18, 2003 reports under the title, “Lack of vision, waste bane of Nigeria's progress, says Obasanjo” written by Segun Adeleye, Abeokuta, thus:
President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday made an introspection and said lack of vision and waste were factors that have militated against the growth and development of Nigeria since independence.
Obasanjo, who spoke during a thanks-giving service at the Freeman Methodist Cathedral, Ogbe in Abeokuta to round-off the 4th Owu Day celebrations, likened Nigeria's situation to "an incoherent movement of an individual who takes one step forward and three steps backward."
According to the president, "the problem with Nigeria was that since independence when the nation moved a step forward, we moved sideways for another step and then moved backward three steps. As a result, we move further backwards than we move forward."
Obasanjo was later to call for Nigeria's restructuring in 2005 in a statement which was essentially in agreement with ex-colonial officer, Peter Smithers, then Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State and the Secretary of State in the Colonial Office (1952-1959), that:
“But in retrospect, it is clear that this [the colonial power to have forced the different ethnic groups into a single political entity as Nigeria] was a grave mistake which has cost many lives and will probably continue to do so. It should have been better to establish several smaller states in a free trade area."
Smithers' opinion is contained in a position paper titled “Nigerian Lesson,” made available to The Guardian in London. Not just lives, but it cost development and progress also. Obasanjo went ahead to blame the British (properly) for the problem that is Nigeria.
Yet Obasanjo had no real interest in restructuring Nigeria and in practice and talk enforced one-Nigeria instead. He had a chance when NADECO rallied public opinion in favor of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) wherein and whereby such restructuring could be accomplished with the participation of consenting ethnic groups. Obasanjo spent massive amounts of money to derail SNC and, with utmost cunning, substituted and sponsored his own so-called National Political Reform Conference, a ploy, unbeknownst to the public, to rubberstamp his unpopular and ill-fated third term plan. As the President, he left Nigeria worse than it worse when he came in in 1999 although claiming to be a one-Nigeria patriot.
And for their part, the British defend their vested interest in one-Nigeria with unusual tenacity. Why, even with Mr. Smithers' admission as above, one might ask?
Babatope: “…we have learnt lessons from [Biafra] and we want to live together now.”
It's almost half-a-century later—a little over 46 years since Zik's statement, but you wouldn't quite know it reading the immediate statement above. Perennial politician Chief Ebenezer Babatope grants an interview to the Sunday Sun on May 29, 2011. After admitting that:
“You cannot stop the issue of dichotomy in Nigeria. Pa Awolowo, my leader and political mentor, said before you can be a good Nigerian citizen, you must first and foremost be a good person from your town and tribe, and that is true. Whether you like it or not, I am an Ijesha person, a Yoruba man and a Nigerian. Before I can be a good Nigerian citizen, I must first and foremost be a good Ijesha and Yoruba man. The North must always think North, and the South also will always think South.” —Babatope
he goes on to state that having learnt the lesson of Biafra, “we [Nigerians] want to live together now”? Does it not show that neither he nor the “we” he speaks for have learnt anything? Does it not show that he and those “we” are in fact in complete denial?” “We”, live together—who; where? Especially since President Jonathan just finished aptly reminding (warning) “we” and the whole world that extant conditions after the April 2011 elections are similar to those which led to Biafra—the same Biafra that Babatope said he (“we”) had learnt from? Fifty years later, same mistakes, the same denial reactions and attitudes that are sinking Nigeria.
Typical of Nigerians, Babatope quotes “higher” authority: “Eraclitus, a famous Greek philosopher, says that society must be in a permanent state of conflict. So, there is no time we are not going to have conflicts in the nation.”—Babatope. And with that almost superstitious rationalization, he joins the rest of the Nigerians in usual psychological denial.
Balewa had also rationalized that “…the things that bind Nigerians together are stronger than those which separate[d] them…” Unless he understood clearly but cleverly played down the fact (which was definitely within his capability) that what separate us are concrete, immutable—cast in stone, as it were—residing in our respective collective gene pools and our respective collective umbilical cords tethering us to our respective ancestral lands and worldview. But what hold us together besides armed force and intimidation is actually what Zik correctly pointed out (which he may not have understood how it worked): the charged national atmosphere resulting from our suspicion, fear and hatred of one another. Nigeria is a “nation” where the different peoples, along ethnic lines, are so suspicious of one another's intent to leave the arrangement that they hold each other back, even while all are suffering as a result of such status. Nigeria is a nation where the peoples are afraid of one another—along ethnic lines—and the only way to avoid what they fear of one another is to not let any leave—they gotta keep an eye on one another; no one can turn their back to leave. While it is the very first thing they will be in denial about, ethnic chauvinism resulting in frank hostility of racist, ethnic-cleansing and genocidal dimensions, is what actually characterizes Nigeria.
What binds Nigeria together is not a positive energy: it is the negative energy of mutual suspicion, mutual hatred, mutual envy, mutual jealousy, and mutual fear. Yes, why let any group leave, even though that's what each group actually wants to do, when it means that such a group could, as a result of leaving the pernicious arrangement, live and actually thrive—alone, succeed and prosper, and aspire to be one of the great nations of the world? It were best to hold one another down and be useless together, to drown one another in the sea of misery together, to die in pain together. And there is evident sadistic “joy” to be had in that situation, the pyrrhic “victory” of one who pins another to the ground, not realizing that he is not free either. But, for Nigeria and Nigerians, they don't care, except to coat everything in the double-layered sugar-pill of psychological denial along with the pretend-disposition of “we-want-to-live-together-now”.
Meanwhile, nature moves on. The world moves on. Humanity moves on. Without us. Without those who “love” to celebrate their pathology—those who choose wrong and deliberately call it right, and then, jubilate over such. Without those who chant one-Nigeria knowing fully well that they really mean: “death to one another”, and “there is no way to be united.” All the while, the killing and dying continue; and lack of unity is the only reality in Nigeria.
Is it not time to break this malevolent and wicked cycle? Why continue the same century-old mistakes called Nigeria? The groups in Nigeria have shown that they cannot function forced into one unworkable “nation.” There is no particular reason—no compelling reason—why each ethnic group in Nigeria should not exercise its right to Self Determination today; but, there is every reason so to do.
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Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
Nwa Biafra
A Biafran Citizen
[email protected]
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