A
popular Nigerian writer and columnist, has penned a thought-provoking
piece on the recent happenings in the political and social circle. It's
an interesting one!
Bayo Oluwasanmi
In our present political predicament, we have three options: a
federalism with an all-powerful central government, a decentralized
federal government, and a fragmented Nigeria supplanted by separation.
The first option of a powerful and tyrannical federal government is what
we have now. The second option of a true centralized federalism is
being rejected, rebuffed, and resisted. But Nigeria is headed for the
third option – fragmentation and separation.
The imminent possible break up of Nigeria brings on the
bone-shaking shivers doctors call rigors. Many writers have detailed how
Nigeria is bursting at the seams with ethno-religious, political and
economic problems waiting to explode. However, the apostles of one
Nigeria have repeatedly denied or dismissed the notion and tried to
nudge us out of that zone. By definition, a failed state is one that has
simply ceased to function. Going by this definition, Nigeria is a
failed state because nothing works in Nigeria. Nigeria is a divided
nation. Nigeria is a collapsed state and her break up is imminent. The
signs are all over the place: an Oduduwa Republic for the Yorubas is
inevitable.
I believe there is a very strong case for Oduduwa Republic for the
benefits for both the historic rivalry between east and west, north and
south, oil states and non-oil states, Christian and Muslims communities,
democrats and autocrats, soldiers and citizens that have bedeviled
Nigeria since its founding are pulling us apart to the extreme. We're
closer to the breaking point. The elements of traditional prejudice of
the three major ethnic groups – Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba – continue to
ignite enmity, distrust, and hatred. The three groups have remained
incontestably hostile – forever. Today, there is more animosity than
there is collegiality. The three groups are full of expression of
self-hate, suspicion, and intolerant of each other.
Our history proves that ethnic unity is more of a dusty artifact of
an ancient political arrangement than the outcome of genuine political
incorporation or enhanced cohesion among the different ethnic groups.
The fragile state of affairs has been held together by a tsunami of lies
and misrepresentations in whose wake the country is reeling
perpetually. Successive governments were dominated by evil and murderous
perpetrators of crimes. Ethnic fragmentation and persistent hotbeds of
political criminality were encouraged and sponsored by the rulers. As a
result, we were submerged in ethnic hatred and rabid nationalism that
swept throughout the nation like a disease.
The absence of a true democracy to ensure devolution of federal
power is a powerful incentive against unity and cooperation. Nigeria is
convulsed by internal violence. It can no longer deliver positive
political goods to her citizens. The government is fast losing
legitimacy. The government has become illegitimate in the eyes and
hearts of a growing plurality of 180 million Nigerians. Nigeria sinks
deeper and deeper into chaos and calamity. The north-south divide
remains the greatest obstacle to a strengthened democracy and a workable
union. We're battling economic confusion, continued corruption,
prolonged poverty, and sustained mismanagement. The scale of corruption
dwarfs any brazen robbery of public treasury in recent memory. Our world
has been turned into a medieval hellscape. Corruption flourishes on
unusually destructive scale. Our corrupt ruling class mostly invest
their loots overseas, not at home, making the economic failure of the
country much more acute.
Our rulers siphon funds from the state coffers. They dip directly
into the coffers of the shrinking state to pay for lavish residences and
palaces, extensive overseas travel, and privileges and perquisites that
feed their greed. Nigeria has failed to grow economically and its
citizens have failed to flourish. For many years, Nigerians have been
trapped in an irreversible debilitating cycle of poverty and
hopelessness. The paralysis of our democratic structures has illuminated
further the mockery and the failure of our democracy. The twice
forgotten man in Nigeria has always been the poor. The government
response to the abject poverty that has defined the lives of the poor is
zero. Our political leaders are not chosen on the merit of mass
support. Most are selected by god fathers, elevated to position,
supplied with resources and, as expected, subjected to the king maker’s
control.
The Presidency and the National Assembly are inarticulate giants
with uneasy gait, subjected to abuse and confuse in their responses to
national issues. Checks and balances that are part of a healthy
democracy have been deleted in our system. It’s no surprise that our
representative democracy is nothing but a disguise in name. It is no
exaggeration to say that there are no legislatures in Nigeria. If they
exist at all, they are rubber-stamp machines. Our judiciary is a
derivative of the executive rather than being independent. Nigerians
know that they cannot rely on the court system for redress or remedy.
The mass poor of our people nurtures a healthy suspicion toward these
manufactured leaders. It’s an open secret that money is the chief
argument these leaders are offering to induce and buy loyalty. These
manufactured leaders lack personal integrity, commitment, and ability.
Tragically, they’re not fighters for a new life for our people but
figureheads of the old.
They are not impressive or illustrious to their constituents. We’re
all too familiar with their impotence and remoteness from the problems
that have made life unlivable for the people they profess to represent.
Many in their constituencies are among the legions of the lost and have
been crushed by the weight of many years of poverty. These leaders do
not evoke affection, respect, and emulation. Our democracy have slid
towards autocracy, maintaining the outward appearance of democracy
through elections, but without the rights and institutions that are
equally important aspects of a functioning democratic system. Our
constitution is not robust enough to promote long-term stability, reduce
discontent from minorities against the government, and bolster the
fight against corruption.
Our democratic system is based on economic coercion. People are
forced to do what they don’t want to do. The effect of this is lack of
innovation and technological progress. Our bureaucracy has long ago lost
its sense of professional responsibility and exists solely to carry out
the order of the executive, and in many ways oppress Nigerians. We have
deteriorated or destroyed infrastructures. Our education and health
systems and other public facilities are decrepit or neglected. Civil
servants are paid late or not at all. Economic opportunity is only for a
privileged few. Those around the president or around the governors grow
richer while the rest of us starve. Our economic insecurity is
engineered by our rulers in order to maximize their own fortunes and
their own political and economic power. Unemployment is dangerously high
and persistent. Regional inequalities remain the rule. Economic decline
is accompanied by a diminished confidence in the federal system. Our
currency falls out of favor.
It is common knowledge that nations don’t breakup overnight. The
seeds of their destruction are sown deep within their political
institutions. Some nations fall as a result of total collapse of
institutions. Examples abound: In Afghanistan, after the Soviet
withdrawal and hanging of President Mohammed Najibullah from a lamppost.
In Sierra Leone, the long Civil War erased all traces of existence of
government. This form of slow death of institutional failure is
responsible for the sub-living standards in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia,
and Latin America in contrast to what obtains in the western world.
Nigeria is not going to fall or explode as a result of war and violence,
but the refusal or failure to capitalize on the enormous potential for
growth and for pursuing a policy that condemned their citizens to a
lifetime of poverty.
In the case of Nigeria, and any other failed state, the failure is
by design. The institutions are designed to fail by the elites who are
the beneficiaries of such design. As we have seen in Nigeria, such
elites benefit from rigged political institutions. The system is built
on exploitation. And any system propped on exploitation is doomed to
fail leading to immeasurable suffering of its citizens. Nigeria is
operating on a tilted plain field. The big men get greedy. The elites
control the economy. They use their powers to create monopolies and
block the entry of new comers. A good example is Dangote cement and
salt. The privatized industries end up in the hands of the elites. The
privatized power sector is a case in point. These elites with their
fraudulent companies received protection from the state, got government
contracts, and large bank loans without needing to put up collateral.
The greedy big men and their businesses could be described as
“whales.” Their stranglehold on our economy had created huge windfalls
for them and blocked opportunities for the vast mass of Nigerians to
move out of poverty. A successful economy must have effective
government. Law and order and the mechanisms for resolving disputes are
possible and applicable in a truly democratic system with apparatus of
enforcing the laws. Nigeria is yet to create or operate on a set of
nationally respected laws or rules. Without a responsible and responsive
central government, there can be no law and order. Without law and
order, there can be no real economy. And without a real economy, a
country is doomed to fail.
I believe it is too late to save Nigeria. Our union for the past 57
years or so, has produced no progress, no peace, and no prosperity. At
this juncture in our history, it's going to be what Allen Buchanan, the
author of Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce From Fort Sumter
to Lithuania and Quebec calls sauve qui peut secession - “let him save
himself who can.” The federal government cannot save the union. It fuels
the separatist thinking by being deaf and unresponsive to the cries of
the people. The fact that secession is a marginal idea today doesn't
mean it won't ever come to pass.
Nigeria is no one nation and it's negotiable. If nothing else cause
a mass revolt, corruption epidemic and endemic poverty could yank
everything apart. The Old West made up of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Oshun,
Ekiti, Edo, and the old Kwara States, have the economic means to support
itself as an independent country – Oduduwa Republic. Rather than fight
the inevitable, the federal government should toss out the idea of
Nigeria is not negotiable. I believe the best option is for the three
major ethnic groups to go their separate ways. Yorubas are ready and
prepared to go. Nigeria will witness the birth of Oduduwa Republic.
Nigeria is a country divided against itself it cannot stand.
Nigeria is virtually bankrupt. The central government is out of control.
The clamor for separation is the manifestation of a nation grounded as
it were, without no hope of moving forward after 57 years. Our slavish
loyalty to the central government that takes over everything must end.
All constitutional methods should be exhausted before the Yoruba people
invoke the principle of self-determination. Our 57 years of stagnation,
suffering, oppression, exclusion, fear and insecurity would be our
guide. Sentiments may mislead us. The deep disdain for the federal
government really spurs the agitation for separation: it is bloated,
inefficient, ineffective, unresponsive, irresponsible, and lopsided. If
Nigeria was a business, it would have folded decades ago. The sad truth
is that it can never be fixed. It has gotten worse. It would continue to
get worse. There is no ray of hope in the horizon.
The Old West peaked as a region many decades ago – first in
everything progressive. You know them I don't need to list them. The
type of Constitution we operate and the kind of federalism we practice
made it possible for the breeding of a generation of crooks, thieves,
hooligans, touts, jejune, and other abominable personalities as
professional politicians that run the center and the states. The federal
government is nothing but a ball and chain around the legs of
progressives. The Old West should separate and leave the regressive and
backward looking federal government to continue to wallow in pettiness
and self destruction. Our separation from the rest of the country is in
accord with the principle of self-determination. By going our separate
ways, I believe we could dramatically do away with the tension, hatred,
jealousies, acrimonious rancor, hostility, among the three main ethnic
groups. To continue to force the three groups to live together under one
nation is dangerous and undesirable. Let's take the pressure out of the
balloon asap and try not to force-fill it beyond its breaking point.
Our separation is not illegal. We would separate with the approval
of other part or parts of the federation which will like to leave as
well. We'll leave legally and peacefully with airtight conviction not
only to our Yoruba people, but to the rest of the country. The
Constitution does not explicitly prohibit separation. The present
arrangement of the federal system makes no sense because it keeps away
real power and real responsibility from both the state and local levels
which are closer to the individual voter, and may more readily be held
truly responsible. The crazy-guilt patchwork of the federal government
is insane to say the least. We have failed through meaningful moves such
as the National Convention which would have addressed the present
madness as to structure and power. If majority of Nigerians believes in
democracy, that power resides in the citizens, then separation should be
a real option.
Yorubas are just plain disgusted with the lame responses to
problems that Abuja seems undisturbed. We are sick and tired of Abuja's
constant state of do-nothing. Nigerians in general and Yorubas in
particular, are slowly becoming aware that there is a better way to live
and this is not it. Yorubas have suffered a lot from the hands of
monopolists of the central government. I believe there is a very strong
case for Oduduwa Republic. I recall with sadness the assassination,
murder, persecution, and incarceration of majority of Yorubas who were
NADECO members by the brute dictator Sanni Abacha. To cap it all, the
first ever freest and fairest election in Nigeria won by a Yoruba – MKO
Abiola – was annulled by Hausa-Fulani because a Yoruba won the election.
As anyone who has been through divorce knows, the ultimate goal of
being free from the other person is the huge motivator to get it done.
We're already three nations – separate, hostile, and unequal – that
happens to live on the same continent! And we just can't stand one
another.
Our separation will not lead to another civil war. Times are
different now. We should be discussing how to dismantle the country and
let each group go its own way instead of advocating for a restructure
that will be diluted and watered down, that will not make any difference
at the end of the day. As a nation, we have gone down the wrong path
with all that's wrong with bad central government. For the Yoruba
people, we would act to realize the only option that looks viable and
doable to take our destiny on our hands. And that's having our own
country.
Written by: Bayo Oluwasanmi - bjoulwasanmi@gmail.com
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