One Nigeria? No sir. Nigeria exists only during a football tournament in which the Eagles of whatever nomenclature are winning. If they’re losing kperen, you suddenly realise what they say – that Nigeria is just a mere wish of a colonial overlord and his fairly imaginative girlfriend.
It’s okay, history teachers regale us with stories of how our frontline leaders went to Lancaster house, competed against each other in tea drinking, brow beat the English to surrender what they stole with cunning that was then becoming a burden. After enslaving Africans for centuries, the Aryan race discovered it could easily exploit Africa without the added responsibility of seeming to cater for its greedy elites. That volte-face has worked in the case of Nigeria for 60 years!
With every passing regime, the viscosity of the glue that holds Nigeria together dissipates. We have practiced pseudo-democracy now for over two decades, but only Ibrahim Mantu and Ike Ekwerenmadu can tell us how much they frittered attempting to turn every village into a state sans success.
When it comes to national identity, there are no Nigerians except those in public office. Public officers are bound to hide their nepotistic proclivities with the rest of us covering ours with a veneer. Scratch a Nigerian and you’ll find an ethnic jingoist. That’s why former ministers, governors and high-ranking officials become active ethnic champions and arrowheads of splinter groups the soonest they lose out on the power game. Achike Udenwa was a federal minister and governor, Femi Fani-Kayode was a federal minister; most members of Arewa Groups championing frivolous policies have held federal office.
Until now, there is the myth of a monolithic north. Gideon Orkar exposed what hardly gets talked about except in Mammy Markets after bottles of liquor have altered natural brain functions. For that and for murder, Orkar was executed but he left the north pondering. Orkar’s speech exposed a north of oligarchs and serfs; of born to rule and born to suffer as well as other proclivities associated with Sardauna’s house. Covid-19 has put a stamp of authenticity to those proclivities.
It’s barely two years when some misguided northern youths ordered Ibos out of the north. Such incendiary speech ought to have been punished, but it passed. In the heat of political campaigns, a regime does not punish a seditious behaviour if it benefits them. Marauding herdsmen didn’t get the needed hard tackles until they switched into kidnapping the elites.
How would we know that the notion of one north is as bogus as our notion of being Nigerians? The military adventurism of carving regions into states was usually met with elation. Regions turned into states; and soon twelve states became 19 that transformed into 21, which in turn morphed into 36 states and a FCT. Once a state is split, all pretentions of harmony give way to the practical expression of years of suppressed acrimony and bitterness.
Asset sharing wars are still being fought between hitherto united states. The mass transfers are done with acrimony, as hitherto close families become mortal enemies. Differences are exploited as chummy neighbours abruptly become strangers. Hitherto sons of the soil become settlers and even homes are sold and children transferred to where they naturally belong.
But wait, this was not the reality of Sardauna’s north. Come Covid-19 and the world is aware that our walls were not made of cement blocks; that they have cracks hosting myriads of reptiles. Take a look at Kano that hastily conducted an almajiri census and discovered how it was a dumping ground for the ‘born troway’ of other states.
Abdullahi Ganduje dispatched them as far as Sokoto (in the view of a cartoonist, with the exemption of Rarara)! It sent others to as close as Kaduna and as far as the Nasarawa it recently banished its King. The notion of one north collapsed sending strangers packing.
What next? Perhaps the evacuation of Sabongari and a purge of No Man’s Land. You never know how cohesive your bond is, until adversity happens. Nothing redraws boundaries like adversity. It has happened in Lagos at least twice under democracy, not only were Ibos sent home, but Hausas and even people from Osun. It would seem that the poor needs a visa to enjoy free movement in their own country.
Asset sharing acrimony exists between Kaduna and Katsina; Oyo and Osun; Imo and Anambra and between Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu.
The first signs of a crack in Sardauna’s wall under civil rule came when Olusegun Obasanjo’s appointment of service chiefs from areas not considered ‘core north’ caused bad blood. It exacerbated the bad blood leading to clashes in Plateau, in Benue, Taraba and Nasarawa and elsewhere.
If Governor Ganduje’s action were not challenged in court, this crack would further weaken the mythical monolithic north, and the collapse of Lugard’s contraption. Until someone challenges this erosion of constitutionality it might signal the end of Nigeria as conceived. Until then, let us borrow from late Prof Pius Adesanmi and pronounce – You’re Not A Nation, Nigeria!
Apologies
In last week’s piece on late Abba Kyari, I copiously referred to an article penned by one Dr. Bolaji Akinyemi. I have since learnt that the Akinyemi in question is no relation of the eminent ex-foreign minister Professor Bolaji Akinyemi. The said Dr. Akinyemi might be of no known address or at best fictitious.
My deepest regrets as I tender an unreserved apology to Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi.
