There is something to consider in the undying lack of faith of Chief Anthony Enahoro in the oneness of this country. Even in the twilight of his life, the man is still insisting that the geo-political entity called Nigeria should be dissolved.
If Enahoro were a younger element, many would have readily dressed or packaged him in unsavoury terms. Even those who do not, in their heart of hearts, believe in the indissolubility of Nigeria would have come pretending as if they are more patriotic than the rest of us.

But Enahoro is an old man. He is an octogenarian who has seen Nigeria through the rough and tumble of formation and maturation. When he talks therefore, it will be naïve to think that the man is merely flying off the handle.

Enahoro’s disappointment with Nigeria has become almost age-old. History has a copious record of how he, as a young and restless Nigerian in 1956, moved a motion for the country’s independence on the floor of the legislative house. But the motion was killed by legislators of northern extraction who felt that Nigeria was not ripe for self-rule. By the time the country eventually attained independence in 1960, so many things had gone wrong with the country Enahoro envisaged.

The Federation had been programmed into a system that must not work. Sectional and divisive tendencies had been elevated to the status of state policy. Suspicion based on enthnicism and geography had crept in. The truly federal structure which nationalists like Enahoro dreamt and worked for had been stripped of its essential ingredients. From his disposition since then, it is obvious that Enahoro has no faith in the Nigeria that we got.

For Enahoro and some others like him, the way the Nigeria of their dream turned to be actually led to a paralysis of will. But unlike many others who prefer to put up a façade of normalcy even when everything has gone awry, Enahoro has remained steadfast. He remains committed to his beliefs and convictions.

A dispassionate look at the progress, or lack of it, of this country over the years will surely go a long way in helping us to situate the Enahoro fixation about the unworkability of Nigeria. The first decade of Nigeria’s independent status was an era of turmoil. The very first general elections held in 1964 revealed the country’s fragile underbelly.

Divisive tendencies were so rife. Discontent was heavily pronounced. Mutual suspicion was the order of the day. In all of this, equity and fairness took flight, and those who felt cheated in the entire arrangement boycotted the elections. The crisis that followed thereafter snowballed into uncontrollable ethnic rivalry. All of this culminated in the Civil War that has permanently affected the way Nigerians perceive one another.

The war has since ended. But the conditions that made the war possible are still very much with us. What those at the helm of affairs merely do is to pretend as much as they can. But everybody knows that all is not well with this country. Over the years, the pretenders may have had their way. But what they have achieved has not endured and cannot endure.

The country has continued to erupt in spasms. Even conditions we thought were thorny yesterday have become the roses of today. Nigeria’s advancement in brigandage and lawlessness has become a reference point. It is fast approximating to what obtains in the world’s zone of death – the Middle East.

One commonly identifiable feature of Nigeria today is militancy. Everyday, we are brought closer and, in fact, face to face with stories that used to emanate from far away land in the past. Stories of bombings, explosions, kidnappings and other forms of terrorism have become domesticated. They are no longer foreign phenomena. They now belong to us.

When General Sani Abacha was in the saddle as the Head of State of Nigeria, we used to be shocked when we hear that bomb exploded somewhere in the land. It was equally disturbing then to hear that somebody has been murdered. When Nigerians added all of these to the abortion of democracy by General Ibrahim Babangida and Abacha’s insistence on perpetuating the rule of the jackboot, they were resolved, more than even before, to kick the soldiers out of governance. Somehow, they succeeded. But what they got in its place was not better. If anything, it was worse.

But Nigerians could not, at first, understand that they were sinking into a deeper muddle. They were confused, indeed taken in, by the allure of civil rule. They felt that the opportunity they lost in 1983 had finally crept back to them. They were elated. In their excitement, they did not immediately recognize that Olusegun Obasanjo, another General, though retired, was out to unleash terror and fear on the land. But it did not take long before we berthed on the bank of dictatorship. Killings and explosions took a new turn. What Nigerians thought was impossible or strange to civil rule became commonplace. By the time Obasanjo’s eight years in office came to an end, Nigeria had advanced so much in gangsterism.

It was during that era, for instance, that Niger Delta militancy took a turn for the worse. It was so because the system we operated was porous. It promoted and nurtured criminals. Because public offices were dominated by criminally minded elements, they fostered a symbiotic relationship between them and brigands whose source of livelihood consisted only in killing and maiming. The corruption that swept through Nigeria in the era of Obasanjo nurtured and promoted this way of life. But while this was going on, our governments, characteristically, claimed to be fighting the malaise. But we have since discovered the truth – that they were merely paying lip service with their declarations against armed banditry.

But because we cannot pretend forever about the true state of affairs, we are today confronted with the sad reality – that is, that Nigeria is no longer a safe environment. Militants have taken over a section of Nigeria. In this part, human life has become worthless. Everyday, we are told that somebody has been kidnapped. After that, we will then be told that the kidnappers are in touch with the family of the kidnapped; that they have named a certain sum of money as ransom. More often than not, the money which usually runs into millions is paid, and the abducted person is, thereafter, released. Then we move on. We do not bother to ask the critical questions.

We do not wonder why the kidnappers cannot be located. These elements who abduct and still have the temerity to speak out are never traced. Why is it so? Is it possible not to find them if the concerned security agencies take it as a challenge? What are we really doing to this country? Why are things being allowed to deteriorate so much? I marvel at this level of passivity by our governments. Is it a conspiracy of sorts? Are we being fooled by those who harbour all the secretes of this country? What manner of country is this where brigands walk about freely and dictate the safety or lack of it of the rest of us?

Now, if we follow the current trend, we can only say that the worst is yet to come. This is so because those youths who have taken militancy as a way of life are telling their own story of Nigeria. Whereas an Enahoro will feel disenchanted and demand for the dissolution of the entity called Nigeria, these militants have decided to reject Nigeria by taking the laws into their hands. They do not respect or believe in Nigeria.

They feel that Nigeria is no man’s land, in fact, a wasteland. They see Nigeria as a huge fraud; a country which has inflicted maximum pain or agony on a section of it and still does not see anything wrong with the culture of injustice it has institutionalized. The likes of Enahoro merely talked and asked for peaceful dissolution of the country. By the militants have a different approach. They believe that Nigeria has no soul. It is just in fragments.

Those who can can seize the fragment nearest to them and put it to any use. By the time these components are hijacked, the tiny thread that holds the entire entity would have given way; everybody begins to chart his own course. This is what the militants are doing. But is that what the owners of this country want? Who, among the contending tendencies, will carry the day?