By Kingsley Moghalu
In this season of quit notices to ethnic groups, hate speech,
election boycott threats and other high-wire acts of political
brinksmanship, we need to keep our eye on the ball. That means
reminding Acting President Yemi Osinbanjo of the political
responsibility of the Federal Government of Nigeria to keep Nigeria
united by going beyond rhetoric and confronting and addressing,
concretely, the National Question. While he is to be commended for
his efforts at pacifying the protagonists, we must tell truth to
power and let our Acting President know that the time for
platitudes and pious exhortations is over.
It is time to act. It is time to begin the process of rebuilding
Nigeria by boldly confronting what ails our country. That ailment
is the fear of domination and political suppression of some ethnic
nationalities by others. It includes the structural inequities that
underpin this fear and have left some groups palpably marginalized.
And it is about the resentment and distraction to the process of
development that these injustices have bred. It is not enough to
focus conveniently on the reactions of marginalized groups, label
them “unpatriotic”, and declare Nigeria “indissoluble”, and all the
while avoiding the issues that drive the disaffection and calls for
self-determination in various parts of the country. That is not
nation-building. It is, rather, a “straw man”. Even for those of us
who strongly believe in the viability and possibilities of Nigeria,
this approach has passed its sell-by date.
As a young political affairs officer in the United Nations
Secretariat Headquarters in New York nearly 25 years ago (well
before I later switched careers to economic policy), I learnt about
the theory of “ripeness” in resolving conflicts as we battled to
restore peace in Rwanda, Somalia, Angola and the wars that broke up
the Former Yugoslavia. As advanced by Professor William Zartman of
Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies
in those stressful days, that theory says that conflicts are often
most effectively resolved when we can capture the psychological
moment that, owing to a combination of factors, make such conflicts
“ripe” for resolution. We may be at such a moment in Nigeria
regarding the National Question, which includes but goes well
beyond the matter of Biafra. We must seize it and turn our ship of
state around. The moment exists now because, with very few
exceptions, it is dawning on the vast majority of stakeholders that
something will have to give.
I believe, like the Acting President and many other compatriots
whose voices are not as loud as the protesters and their traducers,
that we can and should build a new Nigeria. But we can’t be a
nation in name only – poor, unjust, inequitable, unstable, and
misgoverned. The real question is: what is the quality of our
union? If, as we all seem to agree, that quality is not as good as
it should be, even if it cannot be perfect, what then are we doing
about it? We must first of all stop the hate speech from all sides.
Persuasion is the most effective and preventive way to accomplish
this. But the federal government also must be prepared, in a
balanced and even-handed manner, to bring the purveyors of such
hate speech to accountability. The warning issued recently by the
Department of State Security is therefore timely.
We must put a decisive end to spreading distorted accounts and
interpretations of Nigerian history calculated to demonize any
ethnic group or groups in Nigeria. The federal government should
establish an official, factual and balanced account of Nigeria’s
national history from the Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern
Protectorates in 1914 to the present, relying as much as humanly
possible on original-source historical documents of colonial
Britain and our founding fathers and institutions. The purpose of
this official history should not be to blame any persons or groups
for the multiple errors of judgement that led us to our current
precipice, but rather to focus on accurate historical facts for the
knowledge of Nigerians. This is a necessary foundation for future
nation-building efforts, and is done in many civilized nations of
the world. A team of eminent Nigerian historians should be set up
to accomplish this task, and the resulting history should be part
of the standard curriculum in all secondary schools in Nigeria. We
must as well confront our history and memory with decentralized
exercises in truth and reconciliation. I am not recommending
another grand, well-intentioned but ultimately ineffectual Oputa
Panel, the official report of which has not been seen publicly, let
alone its recommendations implemented. There are several formats
that a confrontation with history and memory might take.
The main reason we are not yet a real nation is because we lack
any discernible worldview. In other words, we don’t have a common
goal and destiny we seek that is far bigger than, and diminishes,
our differences. We need a view of the world and who we are in it
as a nation. A worldview is anchored on where we are coming from,
where we are going in a competitive world relative to other
societies, and a clear road map of how to get there. Identifying
and inculcating a value system is also a core component of a
worldview. In the absence of such a national worldview, small views
thrive. Atomistic identities reign, and ethnic and religious
chauvinism becomes the prism for all politics and governance. Being
Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo or Ijaw or Muslim or Christian is interpreted
in a single narrative. That narrative makes accommodation of, and
equitable co-existence with others on the basis of mutual interest,
difficult. We need a New Nigeria Declaration to be developed by a
committee of distinguished intellectuals and representatives from
all registered political parties in Nigeria. The goal will be to
produce a concise document of not more than two pages that sets out
the philosophical foundation of the Nigerian state, a set of
beliefs that drive governance and serves as a lodestar for every
Nigerian.
There is no avoiding the imperative of a rational constitutional
redesign of Nigeria’s federal system of government for stability
and prosperity. The argument for restructuring is even more
compelling given present governance trends. The imminent end of the
dominance of oil as a global energy source, and Nigeria’s
uncontrolled population growth that will likely create a “youth
bulge” of additional restless, unemployed youth in the future, have
implications for any thinking, patriotic Nigerian: our country will
face a reckoning in the years ahead if we do not reposition it.
This is why it matters that a constitutional restructuring
should not just be done, but done well. I can predict without
equivocation that any effort to restructure Nigeria based on the
current structure of 36 states (most of which already are unviable)
or the creation of additional states will ultimately fail to
achieve the desired outcomes. The is the Achilles Heel of the
otherwise progressive 2014 Constitutional Conference report. The
logic of state creation in Nigeria, in which too many
atomistic-identity groups want their own state, is unsustainable.
It cannot stand up to the superior logic of the economies of scale
that a regional structure will have. The ruling APC party came to
power on the promise, among others, of restructuring and devolution
of power. We haven’t seen it yet. Is this, as the party’s critics
might perhaps put it, “another promise cancelled”?
As Prof. Osinbajo understands, many groups in Nigeria feel
marginalized. But it is also true that the Igbo, given their
population as one of the three major ethnic groups and the
contributions they have made to whatever progress Nigeria has
achieved as a country, have been uniquely hard done by in the
political sphere. Nigeria has responded with very different
standards to agitations by the Yoruba after the June 12, 1993
debacle, and to militancy by the minorities in the oil-rich Niger
Delta.
You may agree (and there are many Igbos who don’t) or disagree
with Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB followers. But nature abhors a
vacuum. He simply stepped into one created by the political failure
of the federal government to move beyond the rhetoric of One
Nigeria to the real construction of such an entity. The young man
also stepped into the gap of the leadership failure of the
distinguished Igbo elite itself which, until recently was unable to
move beyond self-seeking to demand justice for their people inside
a united Nigeria. There is no greater falsehood that pervades our
polity today than the attachment of self-determination sentiments
exclusively to the Igbo, who in truth were late-comers to this
impulse. Other groups had severally moved to secede from Nigeria in
the 1950s and the 1960s, well before Biafra, and that position was
resisted by pan-Nigerian politicians of Igbo origin. Anyone in
doubt should read the excellent essay by Jibrin Ibrahim in the
Premium Times online newspaper of June 23, 2017 titled “Is Osinbajo
Right that Nigeria Is Indissoluble”?
To the extent that many nations are made up of numerous
ethnicities, they all have their own versions of our National
Question. Belgium, with its Walloons and Flemings, Canada’s
French-speaking Quebec region, Spain’s Basque region, UK’s Northern
Ireland and Scotland, and the US with its multiple ones, are
examples. The time has come for us to build a new Nigeria into, in
the words of our national anthem, “one nation bound in freedom,
peace and unity”. But mollifying platitudes and ex-cathedra
declarations alone won’t do it. What will do it are the laws,
policies and political and governance practices that will counter
fissiparous tendencies in the court of public opinion and in the
battle for hearts and minds. This is how democratic countries
address, or ought to address, their National Question. We need to
pull up our sleeves and go to work, boldly and decisively, on
nation-building.
www.kingsleycmoghalu.com
Thisday
By Kingsley Moghalu
In this season of quit notices to ethnic groups, hate speech,
election boycott threats and other high-wire acts of political
brinksmanship, we need to keep our eye on the ball. That means
reminding Acting President Yemi Osinbanjo of the political
responsibility of the Federal Government of Nigeria to keep Nigeria
united by going beyond rhetoric and confronting and addressing,
concretely, the National Question. While he is to be commended for
his efforts at pacifying the protagonists, we must tell truth to
power and let our Acting President know that the time for
platitudes and pious exhortations is over.
It is time to act. It is time to begin the process of rebuilding
Nigeria by boldly confronting what ails our country. That ailment
is the fear of domination and political suppression of some ethnic
nationalities by others. It includes the structural inequities that
underpin this fear and have left some groups palpably marginalized.
And it is about the resentment and distraction to the process of
development that these injustices have bred. It is not enough to
focus conveniently on the reactions of marginalized groups, label
them “unpatriotic”, and declare Nigeria “indissoluble”, and all the
while avoiding the issues that drive the disaffection and calls for
self-determination in various parts of the country. That is not
nation-building. It is, rather, a “straw man”. Even for those of us
who strongly believe in the viability and possibilities of Nigeria,
this approach has passed its sell-by date.
As a young political affairs officer in the United Nations
Secretariat Headquarters in New York nearly 25 years ago (well
before I later switched careers to economic policy), I learnt about
the theory of “ripeness” in resolving conflicts as we battled to
restore peace in Rwanda, Somalia, Angola and the wars that broke up
the Former Yugoslavia. As advanced by Professor William Zartman of
Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies
in those stressful days, that theory says that conflicts are often
most effectively resolved when we can capture the psychological
moment that, owing to a combination of factors, make such conflicts
“ripe” for resolution. We may be at such a moment in Nigeria
regarding the National Question, which includes but goes well
beyond the matter of Biafra. We must seize it and turn our ship of
state around. The moment exists now because, with very few
exceptions, it is dawning on the vast majority of stakeholders that
something will have to give.
I believe, like the Acting President and many other compatriots
whose voices are not as loud as the protesters and their traducers,
that we can and should build a new Nigeria. But we can’t be a
nation in name only – poor, unjust, inequitable, unstable, and
misgoverned. The real question is: what is the quality of our
union? If, as we all seem to agree, that quality is not as good as
it should be, even if it cannot be perfect, what then are we doing
about it? We must first of all stop the hate speech from all sides.
Persuasion is the most effective and preventive way to accomplish
this. But the federal government also must be prepared, in a
balanced and even-handed manner, to bring the purveyors of such
hate speech to accountability. The warning issued recently by the
Department of State Security is therefore timely.
We must put a decisive end to spreading distorted accounts and
interpretations of Nigerian history calculated to demonize any
ethnic group or groups in Nigeria. The federal government should
establish an official, factual and balanced account of Nigeria’s
national history from the Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern
Protectorates in 1914 to the present, relying as much as humanly
possible on original-source historical documents of colonial
Britain and our founding fathers and institutions. The purpose of
this official history should not be to blame any persons or groups
for the multiple errors of judgement that led us to our current
precipice, but rather to focus on accurate historical facts for the
knowledge of Nigerians. This is a necessary foundation for future
nation-building efforts, and is done in many civilized nations of
the world. A team of eminent Nigerian historians should be set up
to accomplish this task, and the resulting history should be part
of the standard curriculum in all secondary schools in Nigeria. We
must as well confront our history and memory with decentralized
exercises in truth and reconciliation. I am not recommending
another grand, well-intentioned but ultimately ineffectual Oputa
Panel, the official report of which has not been seen publicly, let
alone its recommendations implemented. There are several formats
that a confrontation with history and memory might take.
The main reason we are not yet a real nation is because we lack
any discernible worldview. In other words, we don’t have a common
goal and destiny we seek that is far bigger than, and diminishes,
our differences. We need a view of the world and who we are in it
as a nation. A worldview is anchored on where we are coming from,
where we are going in a competitive world relative to other
societies, and a clear road map of how to get there. Identifying
and inculcating a value system is also a core component of a
worldview. In the absence of such a national worldview, small views
thrive. Atomistic identities reign, and ethnic and religious
chauvinism becomes the prism for all politics and governance. Being
Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo or Ijaw or Muslim or Christian is interpreted
in a single narrative. That narrative makes accommodation of, and
equitable co-existence with others on the basis of mutual interest,
difficult. We need a New Nigeria Declaration to be developed by a
committee of distinguished intellectuals and representatives from
all registered political parties in Nigeria. The goal will be to
produce a concise document of not more than two pages that sets out
the philosophical foundation of the Nigerian state, a set of
beliefs that drive governance and serves as a lodestar for every
Nigerian.
There is no avoiding the imperative of a rational constitutional
redesign of Nigeria’s federal system of government for stability
and prosperity. The argument for restructuring is even more
compelling given present governance trends. The imminent end of the
dominance of oil as a global energy source, and Nigeria’s
uncontrolled population growth that will likely create a “youth
bulge” of additional restless, unemployed youth in the future, have
implications for any thinking, patriotic Nigerian: our country will
face a reckoning in the years ahead if we do not reposition it.
This is why it matters that a constitutional restructuring
should not just be done, but done well. I can predict without
equivocation that any effort to restructure Nigeria based on the
current structure of 36 states (most of which already are unviable)
or the creation of additional states will ultimately fail to
achieve the desired outcomes. The is the Achilles Heel of the
otherwise progressive 2014 Constitutional Conference report. The
logic of state creation in Nigeria, in which too many
atomistic-identity groups want their own state, is unsustainable.
It cannot stand up to the superior logic of the economies of scale
that a regional structure will have. The ruling APC party came to
power on the promise, among others, of restructuring and devolution
of power. We haven’t seen it yet. Is this, as the party’s critics
might perhaps put it, “another promise cancelled”?
As Prof. Osinbajo understands, many groups in Nigeria feel
marginalized. But it is also true that the Igbo, given their
population as one of the three major ethnic groups and the
contributions they have made to whatever progress Nigeria has
achieved as a country, have been uniquely hard done by in the
political sphere. Nigeria has responded with very different
standards to agitations by the Yoruba after the June 12, 1993
debacle, and to militancy by the minorities in the oil-rich Niger
Delta.
You may agree (and there are many Igbos who don’t) or disagree
with Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB followers. But nature abhors a
vacuum. He simply stepped into one created by the political failure
of the federal government to move beyond the rhetoric of One
Nigeria to the real construction of such an entity. The young man
also stepped into the gap of the leadership failure of the
distinguished Igbo elite itself which, until recently was unable to
move beyond self-seeking to demand justice for their people inside
a united Nigeria. There is no greater falsehood that pervades our
polity today than the attachment of self-determination sentiments
exclusively to the Igbo, who in truth were late-comers to this
impulse. Other groups had severally moved to secede from Nigeria in
the 1950s and the 1960s, well before Biafra, and that position was
resisted by pan-Nigerian politicians of Igbo origin. Anyone in
doubt should read the excellent essay by Jibrin Ibrahim in the
Premium Times online newspaper of June 23, 2017 titled “Is Osinbajo
Right that Nigeria Is Indissoluble”?
To the extent that many nations are made up of numerous
ethnicities, they all have their own versions of our National
Question. Belgium, with its Walloons and Flemings, Canada’s
French-speaking Quebec region, Spain’s Basque region, UK’s Northern
Ireland and Scotland, and the US with its multiple ones, are
examples. The time has come for us to build a new Nigeria into, in
the words of our national anthem, “one nation bound in freedom,
peace and unity”. But mollifying platitudes and ex-cathedra
declarations alone won’t do it. What will do it are the laws,
policies and political and governance practices that will counter
fissiparous tendencies in the court of public opinion and in the
battle for hearts and minds. This is how democratic countries
address, or ought to address, their National Question. We need to
pull up our sleeves and go to work, boldly and decisively, on
nation-building.
www.kingsleycmoghalu.com
Thisday
Read more https://www.nairalaw.com/osinbajo-and-the-national-question/