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This
country is fading away
By Amaze Obi [amaobi@yahoo.co.uk]
Monday, May 12, 2008
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?
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