Nigeria at the Threshold of Truth...

SENATE PRESIDENT DAVID MARK

What upsets me about current Nigerian commentators is their frequent reference to America as if that country is perfect. Americans are very critical of their country and themselves though they show unquestioned unity in the face of outside threats. It is not perfect. It was Richard Nixon who confessed that his nation had used its naivety on world affairs, with all the blunders, to learn the dynamics of peaceful co-existence. It was in one of the quarterly reports issued in the 1960s and 1970s on foreign affairs. The strength of America is not in numbers but in mutual trust and the will of the people to live according to the written canons, not forced, but wilfully surrendered by them to the state. Therefore, except for the minority native Americans, all are immigrants. So the system suits them. Nigeria, as composed today, is not an immigrant nation. Some of the nations that make up the country had ruled millions of people before the Europeans set foot on our shores. Prince Juan of Spain, who commissioned Christopher Columbus’s journey across the Atlantic, got the information that people lived beyond the vast waters from what is today glibly called West Africa. Africa derives its name from Africanus, the man who mapped the continent when it was still linked to Asia with the Isthmus of Suez. There is nothing magical in the name. Nigeria, Africa and whatever any other nomenclature to show land mass, do not excite me. What should concern people is mutual co-existence for positive progress.
This is why the renewed call for a national conference is relevant. Although it has come from an unreliable source – David Mark – who had helped to suppress agitation against obvious breaches of the constitution by the executive branch, it nevertheless needs consideration by all Nigerians who desire progress for the black man. One hopes it is not a distraction kite for the festering crisis riddling the PDP apart now. Nigerians need to talk. They do not need American presidential, British parliamentary or the complicated German system. They need a Nigerian system, something that takes care of their diversity and varying aspirations. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and others succeeded in going that distance before the lazy copycats of 1978/79 foisted the immigrant, American presidential system on us. Who told them that we wanted to be like Americans? We want a Nigerian system that will cater for our differences in culture, economic well-being and social aspirations as dictated by our diversity.
We are at the threshold of the truth, the reality of which can guarantee lasting, peaceful co-existence. The alternative may be Pakistanisation. People always argue about what form the national dialogue should take so as not to question the status quo. What really is sovereign without the people? The British came and forcibly merged different ethnic nationalities to form a state for administrative convenience. Forty-two years after another group was added to the territory as a result of the spoils of war, it opted to secede. Southern Cameroons was part of Nigeria at independence and the fourth region, Buea as headquarters. So what is the big deal about sovereignty? If the Midwest had done its homework properly, that was the time it should have dictated terms for belonging to Nigeria. After all, Edo became part of Nigeria in 1914.
The Soviet Union was a federation of many nations cutting through racial barriers. Ukraine, which voluntarily opted to be part of Russia in 1850, is sovereign today. Many of the countries that were whole, at independence from Britain, are now different nations. India had, after independence, broken into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Malaya lost Singapore and both countries are now prosperous. There used to be a West Indian federation. Jamaica opted out of it and gained its own independence. The great Calypsonian, Slinger Francisco (Mighty Sparrow), then labelled Jamaica as a black sheep. We are conversant with the collapse of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Didn’t Eire leave Britain? Has Britain slaughtered the Scottish nationalists gunning to part ways with the United Kingdom? Why do we forbid people to ask for self-determination in Nigeria?
Nigeria is not a settled nation and the current civilians running constitutional rule here have abused all the tenets of peaceful co-existence with corruption, greed, strong arm and murders. Why should any country trifle with unemployment, religious-strife and bare-faced looting of the treasury by a few who got into office by force? They are upstarts. One knew how the old politicians strove to convince the people that they were their servants, and not masters. The military rulers sought accommodation with the people. The present ministers, commissioners and legislators do not consider the people in their welfare matrices. Olusegun Obasanjo would tell unemployed graduates to go to farm when he did not provide land and tools for that purpose. That was not how Nigeria was run at independence and during military rule. It has been 14 years of pursuing a mission with no prospects. Only reason, fair play and justice will save Nigeria from dismemberment.
It is necessary to tell Ebenezer Babatope here that he misled the public when he said Eyo Ita’s challenge to Zik’s stand did not succeed. Ita’s United Nigeria Independent Party cleared all the seats in Efik, Ibiobio, Ogoja and Cameroons area except a few. It returned Jaja Wachukwu, Udo Udoma and Emmanuel Enderley to the Central House of Assembly. And in fact, it was the beginning of the Cameroons’ separation and eventual secession. It weakened the NCNC even in the West. Kingsley Mbadiwe and Kola Balogun’s revolt was not well-founded on ideas, so it failed. As for Samuel Akintola, we should thank God that pro-Awoist Emmanuel Ifeajuna, intervened to settle scores. We were ring-side witnesses.
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