For the nation to live, the tribe must die
If you agree with the immortal words of the late President, Samora Machel, one of Africa’s greats, try to transpose Nigeria for Mozambique, you will find that Nigeria cannot grow or live until her imposing tribe and tong die. Can the tribe ever die in Nigeria where it is the people’s common religion?
As we open our conversation this week, let’s first insert a caveat: the problem of Ndigbo in Nigeria and indeed Nigeria herself must be solved by no other than Nigerians resolving among themselves to say enough is enough and on their own suppress micronational (tribal) interests to pave way for true nationalism. They can do this not by going to war [which has been tried], but by coalescing all their tribal interests and resolving to forge ahead together. When this is done every other hurdle will be easily surmountable.
Yesterday (January 20), the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, 78, assumed office to begin a four-year historic rule as the oldest ever and the first to have a female [and nonwhite] Vice president. President Biden is also not going to suffer from inexperience, having been in the thick of American politics and bureaucracy in the last five decades. [He became a senator from Delaware at 30.]
Now back to our main focus of today’s conversation. We are going to postulate that the new president is determined to attend to Africa-related issues to prove to the garrulous Donald Trump that the region is not a shithole after all. That means he is going to squarely address the continent’s challenges and Nigeria being the most populous will enjoy the privilege of the first audience with President Biden.
If father and son were to meet a benefactor who asked, “What do you want?” The duo must agree on what to ask for. Otherwise, nonagreement will most likely affect, adversely, the response of the benefactor to the beneficiaries’ needs. Guess the response that will come from Nigeria as a country if such a question is ever posed. To start with Nigeria will not be called as a country but by their ethnic and geopolitical inclinations, which appear stronger than nationhood.
Supposing the newly elected President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof George Obiozor, and the intractable leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, will be granted the first audience by the new American President and he asks, what do Ndigbo of Nigeria want, how may I help you?
Prof Obiozor will be talking about grave injustice to Ndigbo which can only be combatted through a restructuring of the federation with a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023 as a way of ending the age-long marginalization of his people. To Biden, this will be an over-flogged matter. Mazi Kanu will not agree with Obiozor, he would be tagging Nigeria as a zoo nation and calling on America to come and help Ndigbo defeat the Fulani Janjaweed and let Biafra gain independence. By this, they would be sent back to go and reconcile themselves and agree on what they want that will be practicable and come back at a later date.
Then the Yoruba will enter and they will be asked the same question and the Afenifere leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, would say, “We want one Nigeria under a true federation, but if it cannot work, let’s have the Oduduwa Republic…we are long ready with everything to be a nation.” The All Progressives Congress leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Ganiyu Adams, leader of O’Odua People’s Congress, OPC, will be given the floor and they will say our leader Pa Adebanjo has spoken.
The South-South people will be called upon under the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF and Edwin Kiagbodo Clark and his team will be talking of restructuring to enable them to control their God-endowed mineral resources. What else do you want and they will say. No merger with Biafra simpliciter.
The Middle Belt Forum, MBF, will arrive at the meeting venue unsure of a spokesman, visibly angry, harassed, and beaten. Before Biden, they will be looking at each other and asking one another, wondering what to say and whether the Fulani will be angry and declare their chiefdoms Islamic emirates, appoint an Emirs before they return from the meeting. In the middle of the confusion, they will be sent out to go and reconcile and come back later.
Then the Fulani will be ushered in. Whether Tanko Yakassai or Ango Abdullahi, they will enter the meeting radiating extraordinary confidence. If asked about the others, the Hausa, Kanuri, the Nupe or the Igala, they will say no problem because Islam has helped to harness their political interests. “We are together.”
Fulani confidence will be drawn from many variables. More than any other geopolitical group in Nigeria, the Fulani are more at home with Biden. Biden was the Vice President under Barack Obama when the then-Secretary of State John Kerry sneaked into Sokoto, breaking international protocols to hatch the sack of President Goodluck Jonathan for a Fulani man to succeed GEJ.
He will not ask what they want because he already knows; they will start with banters of the coup of 2014 that brought President Muhammadu Buhari to office in 2015. They will recall the Sokoto meeting and its return leg in Washington two weeks later. They will bemoan the aberration called Trump who came and tried to disrupt things, even embarrassing the Nigerian President with his bizarre question about killing Christians in Nigeria? They will come out of the meeting beaming with smiles, having convinced Biden on why the Nigerian presidency should remain in the North in 2023 for stability and why restructuring can still wait despite the nationwide clamour for it. Biden is likely to agree with them that if the power goes to the South, Nigeria will be in turmoil as they will not agree on anything and Nigeria will be the worse for it.
Then after the meeting, The Department of State would issue a statement describing how fruitful the meeting with various Nigerian interests had gone. How peace and stability of Nigeria were critical to US/Africa relations because of the regional influence of Nigeria as the most populous black nation. They will advise everybody to keep peace and work towards deepening democracy in the sub-region.
The U.S. would promise to support Nigeria to defeat terrorism in the country and the region. The pictures of the meeting would be circulated on the Internet and an image of Nigeria as a regional power would be blown out of proportion. Those in the delegation would turn instant heroes at home including the Ndigbo, PANDEF, and Middle Belt teams.
But then has anything changed? The answer is capital NO.
Truth is that any country that depends on a foreign power to solve its problems after 61 years of independence is a failed state. When you show people their superiority over you, they take whatever they do to you as showers of grace from them. Fortunately, only God gives grace without taking something back from the beneficiary. No nation puts its interest secondary to that of another. No wonder the late French president, Charles de Gaulle, said, “No nation has friends, only interests.”
Last week some eggheads had a Zoom teleconference on “Never Again” of civil war after 51 years and didn’t say anything new. Every geopolitical interest merely reechoed their age-long positions that have held this country down.
I know that critics will ask me what do you as a columnist suggest as a way out? The way out looks simple but difficult because of the deep-rooted nature of micro nationalism of tribe and tongue in our body politic. If there is no matching political power bloc from the South to checkmate the North, let us perish the idea of a new Nigeria. So long as the three power blocs in the South, the Afenifere, the Ohanaeze and PANDEF are unable to rein in their differences, so long will Nigeria be at a standstill. Yoruba, Igbo political feud has continued to manure Northern hegemony.
Ethnic nationalities under Chief Nnia Nwodo, the immediate past President-General of Ohanaeze, Ayo Adebanjo of Afenifere, and E. K. Clark of PANDEF, tried in the last few years to forge something along the line of Southern solidarity but the individual ambitions of the southern politicians are thwarting the effort. The other inevitable option is a revolution catalyzed by hunger but that is still farfetched because of elite manipulation of the poor, using religion. If this scenario dampens your hope of a new Nigeria in your lifetime, sorry but that’s the truth.
Help us, God.