A fresh obsession has now stalked Nigeria’s political landscape, at a time the nation’s peaceful cohesion appears ebbing. The situation is as dire as its consequence, except it is promptly addressed and arrested by stakeholders in the Nigerian project.
Recently, a conglomerate of groups under the aegis of Northern Nigerian Youths met in Kaduna where they issued what has now been famed as ‘Quit Notice’, to Nigerians of the Igbo extraction living in the North, to relocate to their ancestral homeland of South-Eastern Nigeria.
Leading the pack of these angry youths was Mallam Shettima Yerima, President of Arewa Youth Forum, a tyro group for the bigger Arewa Consultative Forum. Indeed, the combined group of the northern youths, principally composed by the Hausa ethnic stock, gave an October 1 deadline on its eviction notice to the beleaguered Igbo, residing in the North.
But in its defence, following the outrage caused by the quit notice saga, the northern youths’ body said it was impelled into its course of action by the recent belligerent nature of some Igbo ethnic leaders, exemplified in the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, all beating war drums, calling for an Igbo secession to form the Biafran country.
At this critical stage in the trajectory of the Nigerian nation, when the economy is in recession and begs for a concerted effort to achieve a rebound, beating the war drum or issuing quit notice to one ethnic group or the other is a disservice
Thus, the northern youths claimed they submitted to the logic that, since the Igbo had been intimidating the North with their intention to quit the Nigerian nation without let, it was only reasonable to allow them actualise their dream. According to Yerima, in a media interview, the North does not need either the Igbo enterprise or the SouthSouth oil to survive, in the event of Nigeria’s break-up.
The ensuing brickbats principally between the Hausa and the Igbo have since degenerated into different forms of hate words. It has, in tow, exhumed old socio-economic and political wounds of the Nigerian Biafran Civil War, which successive administrations in the country had striven to heal, through the touted integration, rehabilitation and construction agenda of the military government of General Yakubu Gowon.
Not a few persons have expressed concern, however, that it would seem that war mongers, exactly 50 years after Nigeria drifted into the Biafran civil war that claimed casualties in millions, on the side of the Igbo, are again taking the country back to the trenches of war.
Chronicles and documentaries are both agreed that the civil war in Nigeria should not recur any longer for the fact that, it can only bring mass deaths, destruction, general pains and anguish, which would mean sheer setback to the gains recorded courtesy of oneness as a nation.
While it is within the prerogative of all the ethnic nationalities that compose the Nigerian nation to protest over marginalisation or oppression in whatever appearance, it is also plausible that such hot disagreements should be resolved in due time, through dialogue and other peaceful means of achieving crisis-resolution.
Taking up arms or seeking secession through the butt of the gun or the boom of the bomb simply foredooms any prospect for advancement or mutual progress, which is the underpinning for setting up the society, via governance.
While various ethnic nationalities in the country have been irked over one form of marginalisation or the other, the Igbo in particular are piqued over what they consider as poor representation in the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, a situation that is resolvable.
At this critical stage in the trajectory of the Nigerian nation, when the economy is in recession and begs for a concerted effort to achieve a rebound, beating the war drum or issuing quit notice to one ethnic group or the other, is a disservice.
While there have been calls for the country’s political configuration to be restructured to meet ethnic demands, such a quest should not be allowed to degenerate into social insurrection or warfare. Beyond the lessons of Biafra, Nigeria should also learn from the pitfalls of some of its African neighbours such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They went into fratricidal warfare and still bear the ugly scars of war, years after normalcy returned.
While the Federal Government should promptly rise up to the occasion by being decisive in dealing with implacable warmongers, it should also consult widely among respected stakeholders and elder statesmen, representing the ethnic nationalities, with a view to keeping the peace and letting the country run for the sake of progress and development.
Nigeria, being the largest black nation on earth, holds the prospect of greatness, for as long as its stakeholders permit it to run in fairness, unity and patriotic fervour. A splintered Nigeria, divided by war, leaves much to be desired.
