A major turn of events in the country’s effervescent political space was recorded about a week ago when the leadership community of the South East geopolitical zone formally denounced secession of the zone from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Rising from a crucial meeting in Enugu, on the state of affairs in the zone, an assemblage of leaders from the zone comprising governors, as well as political, religious and cultural leaders, issued a nine-point communique, in which the denouncement formed a critical feature. Also featuring in the communique, was the strong condemnation of the wanton attacks on security establishments and personnel as well as sensitive public institutions, which had been frequent in the zone for some time.
Read by the Governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi, the communique also supported the creation of state police and the ongoing constitutional amendment exercise. The document called for mutual protection of non-indigenes living in every part of the country by the indigenes in the spirit of a united Nigerian federation. According to the communique, the leaders said, “We condemn in totality the activities of violent and secessionist groups in the South East and elsewhere. We firmly proclaim that we do not support them because they do not speak for the South East’’.
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Against the backdrop of the complement of adverse political tendencies in the country, with perhaps the most potent being the direct affront on the country’s sovereignty by secession-minded factors in the zone, the meeting of the South East leadership community and the resultant communique, remain significant. This is especially so as the secession agenda had laid siege on the country’s corporate existence as one nation. This is why many Nigerians are inclined to see this intervention by the South East leadership actually coming so late in the day, and after such a long silence by the zone, as it could have been more useful if done earlier. However, just as it is better late than never, it is for good measure that this intervention has come.
For some time, the rest of the country watched in suspended animation as the din of secession rhetoric swept across the South East zone, courtesy of a complement of jingoists of separatism, with the proscribed IPOB and its self-exiled, fugitive leader Nnamdi Kanu in the forefront. With the new dispensation of denouncement, the opportunity has opened for the zone to seek rapprochement with the rest of the country – some sections of which had been thrown into suspicion of the intents of the South East.
Meanwhile, in the light of the rapprochement by the South East, the conditions have become favourable for the rest of the country to accept their plea, and protect their interests for the country to go back to winning ways. In the same vein, the South East leaders need to join the rest of the country in seeking and remedying those tendencies that gave rise to secession clamour in the first place. Without equivocation it is the failure of governance that creates the groundswell of misgivings and dissensions among sections of the society, with some of them building up to manifest as outright, divisive tendencies to sustain a secessionist agenda.
It needs to be mentioned that there is an unmistakable disconnect between the leadership community and the teeming youth groups in the South East, which accounts for the condemnation by the former of the latter. It is the falling apart of the leadership and the youth that denies the zone the ease it deserves.
In the final analysis, the zone’s leadership needs to maintain credible interface with the rest of the country, and its youth groups. The leaders need to make IPOB unattractive to the youths by coming up with policies that will engage them meaningfully. It is important to state here that denouncing the secession and its protagonists is not enough, actions must be taken to restore peace in the region. East governors earlier launched EBUBE AGU, to counter the Eastern Security Network, a brainchild of IPOB, till date that security outfit is yet to take off. The leaders must take immediate action on that to show that they are sincere. Furthermore, they must ensure that all criminal elements in the region are fished out and dealt with according to the law.
