Writing in The Guardian of May 24, 1993 Elem Emeka Izeze quoted a Cambridge professor’s horrible picture of his country. According to Izeze, the professor said his “country is like a tanker heavily loaded with fuel heading downhill out of control and the driver completely unconscious. Everyone knows it is going to crash but none will do something about it”. Without doubt the picture the professor painted was a horrible one indeed.
Although the professor’s description of his country cannot be said to be apt in our situation, the fact nevertheless is that all is not well with us. Everyone knows it but many are pretending about it. General Gowon (rtd) said this much in the sixties that we have been too presumptuous and have acted on such presumptions. And this has been our lot all these years. At 60 we are still toddlers – when some other countries have been to the moon and back! The question is: for how long shall we continue to pretend and wobble? In short, for how long shall we continue to remain an egg?
Before the recent protests by youths, with ENDSARS as the plank, some few eminent Nigerians who had the spleen and the courage spoke up, when many others preferred to speak in murmurs or in hush and low voices. As a matter of fact, if many people were surprised at the spontaneity of the youth protests nationwide, some of us were not, given the fact that in a situation where not few people had decided to end their lives suicidally, anything can happen, as it appears there is no limit to where an individual can get to these days even at the expense of his life, to achieve an end!
Which is why we should all stop playing the ostrich and divest ourselves of primordial and greed mentality and rework our nation, and urgently too. A fact we should do well to understand is that there are political parties because there is democracy and there is democracy because there is a country. If we may recall, what we are witnessing today is what our founding fathers foresaw and wanted to avoid by settling for a federation to allow each region develop at its own pace and ipso facto check incessant frictions and the fear of oppression/domination- which are obvious features of a polity with a diversity of cultures and ethnic nationalities.
And if we may also recall, this arrangement was unfortunately altered by the military that foisted on us almost by military fiat what is akin to a military system of a central command which clearly is a time bomb in a polity with a number of diversities like ours.
It is unfortunate that disgruntlements, disaffections and discontents all these wasted years since independence are daily expressed in wanton destruction of lives and property, mindless killings and utter disregard for human lives, including reckless looting of the nation’s treasury by few privileged individuals – in an amazing frenzy as if the country would soon end!
Without doubt, it is the foregoing which have hindered the growth and development of the country all these years – with all its absurdities and contradictions – that are responsible for the clamor for the restructuring of the country in order to rejig the polity and make it work for all, and to of course, forestall all that our founding fathers foresaw and feared at independence that made them settle for a federal system of government for the country.
It is obvious (and of course understandable) that some people want the status quo to remain when they know the present arrangement is an imposition and frustrating to the effect that a good number of federating units feel sad and dissatisfied – a situation that is not too good for the health of the polity. What is also regrettable is our pretentious and hypocritical nature.
How, for example, would anyone hide under non-existent or imaginary “definitional squabbles” to obfuscate, frustrate and truncate the clamor when it is obvious that the major demand, despite varying nomenclatures, is devolution/decentralization of powers with the attendant fiscal/revenue allocation/sharing formula to allow each state/zone develop at its own pace in line with the agreement by our founding fathers which in any case was the basis for settling for a federated entity!
Those playing hide and seek on the issue, and blackmailing those clamoring for it, and even labelling them at times as those with separatist agenda, should be honest to remember the chequered history of the colonization struggle – all the threats of secession, walkouts and appeasements, resulting in the agreement for a federation premised on unity in diversity
The good thing is that there appears now to be a near national consensus on the need to restructure. It is good also that the North, as always, speak in one voice. It is therefore time for the South (especially the South-West and South-East to jettison what appears to be a struggle for supremacy between them) and alongside the South-South, speak with one voice (like the North) and advance the country beyond rhetorics and preachments. Without doubt, restructuring is a reality whose time has come, as no one can stop a sunrise.
Obiallor Cas Obiallor writes from Abuja
