Buhari is bound to release Nnamdi Kanu if he wishes to preserve Nigeria's tattered unity - US Radio Presenter John Campbell |
Nigeria’s old Biafra problem has reared its head again and with it, the
specter of disintegration. For a thirty-month period between 1967 and
1970, Nigeria was embroiled in a bloody civil war as its eastern region
unsuccessfully tried to secede from the country under the banner of the
Republic of Biafra.
The latest episode in the Biafra crisis revolves around the arrest on
October 19, of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of a secession movement called
the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Kanu is presently facing trial
for sedition and treason. Since his arrest, protesters demanding both
his release and an independent Biafra have repeatedly clashed violently
with security forces with resulting deaths.
On the international front, the European Union’s foreign policy chief
recently weighed in on the matter with a policy statement and the
controversy is on its way to the International Court of Justice at The
Hague. To be sure, though the wider Ibo community do not support
secession, the grievances about ethnic Ibo marginalization touted by the
Pro-Biafra activists resonate highly with them.
In context, Nigeria by character is fundamentally a tribal society with
longstanding distrust among the various ethnic groups in addition to
deep seated primordial loyalties. Rightly or wrongly, most ethnic Ibos
believe that since the end of the civil war in 1970 and prior to the
arrival of Goodluck Jonathan at the helm in 2010, Nigeria’s central
government deliberately pursued a discriminatory policy aimed at
marginalizing the Ibos. It is this tribal factor that largely explains
the overwhelming Ibo support for Jonathan’s re-election despite the
administration’s unfortunate record of high corruption and
underperformance.
By contrast, Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim, is particularly viewed
with suspicion and distrust in much of Iboland. Incidentally,
separatist impulses and/or cries of marginalization in Nigeria are not
limited to the Ibos in the Southeast. For example, after the mysterious
death of Moshood Abiola as a political prisoner in 1998, separatist
sentiments were heard among his Yoruba kinsmen in the Southwest around
that period. Also, there was deep frustration and deadly violence in
northern Nigeria after Jonathan defeated Buhari in 2011 amidst claims
that the presidency should have been rotated to the north as allegedly
promised – a dispute that terribly aggravated the Boko Haram problem and
deeply divided the north and the south. However, the surprising success
of the National Conference of 2014 offers Nigeria a silver lining,
namely, that Nigeria’s diverse constituent groups seemingly want to
continue coexisting with one another if fair terms of coexistence can be
arranged.
Among the most valuable proposals adopted at the National Conference was
the provision for power rotation among the regions in the country.
Given the country’s tribal character with its unfortunate, albeit
understandable, obsession with control of the national government, the
power rotation option for all its rather wooden or inelegant character,
seems particularly utilitarian. Quite simply, Nigerians need to take the
pragmatic step of first forging a country prior to attempting to build
or develop it. The notion of “power rotation” may seem crude to
democratic purists, yet, each society being different, it does have
genuine utility in the current Nigerian context, comparable to the
archaic device of the electoral college in American presidential
contests, which made the new constitution acceptable to the smaller
states.
In this regard, Nigeria’s National Conference of 2014 and the American
Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia can be viewed as
parallel events aimed at renegotiating and improving the terms of
national coexistence. In the end, nothing short of proactive measures by
Nigeria is needed.
And there is genuine opportunity in this crisis for the Nigerian
government to profoundly strengthen the country. Since the continued
detention of Kanu in disobedience of court orders is simply incompatible
with the rule of law in a democratic society, the government is bound
to release him.
However, the government can take the wind out of the sails of Kanu and
other ethnic separatists around the country by publicly committing
itself to a reasonable timeline in which to implement the National
Conference recommendations. This path offers the Nigerian government a
genuine opportunity for a positive outcome in the current crisis.
- John Campbell (twitter @johnjcampbell)
No comments:
Post a Comment