1

The problem of the political society is as complex as manhimself. The complexity becomes more complicated bythe fact that both man and his society are not finishedproducts, absolute and static realities but rather on-goingand dynamic. This is because the political society is notonly open-ended and fluid, but is open to change, andman himself, is not only a creature of this society, butalso a creating and recreating agent who both adapts andadjusts his political society to his convenience andcomfort. Man as a political animal cannot be totally andpassively defined by and contented with his politicalgiven without his conscious input. He is therefore alwaysand constantly in struggle with imposed structure andenvironment in which he is merely bottled and boxedinto a conscripted union which becomes a burden ofconscience.

The ideal principle and genuine basis of any authenticunion should be volition, freedom, conscious choice ofthe creation of the union by the partners for theprospective security arising from the principle and

Introduction

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psychological need of affiliation with others. But whena union or state is created and foisted arbitrarily againstthe conscious determination and choice of the membersor against the terms of relationship of the the state orunion, or created for the interest of a few or another otherthan those in the union, the indigenes of the state or unionbecome both aliens and victims of imposed destiny. Butas conscious creatures of freedom and self-determination,they would always be curious and anxious for changewhen they become endangered species of unjust andimposed institution that threatens their humanity andfreedom and alienates them from their basic rights. Butit is impossible for citizens not to be alienated from thestate and subjected to marginalization, or not to be inconflict when the union is arbitrary, imposed and lackthe interest of the people. This has been the fundamentalproblem of the Nigerian state, formed over one hundredyears ago in drudgery, lacking people’s collectiveconscious creation, input and choice as well as interestin its creation.

Such a political institution or state of imposed structureusually radiates unjust and anti-people ideologies andby this automatically loses its reason for being. But evenwhen it physically persists in existence, it automaticallyceases to be in essence and becomes by implicit reality,a failed state if it generates more confliction and painthan happiness for the majority. It is by virtue of thisprimary deformation and deficiency that alteration,substitution, restructuring or release from such a state or

3

union becomes inevitable and a patriotic quest. This isthe investigation and assertion this work has devoted tomake of the Nigerian state. It analyzes the history ofcoerced creation and imposition of the Nigerian state andcontinuous grudging spirit of the citizens alienated andexcluded from the state function and their primary reasonfor being in the state.

The work has been engineered around the abovesentiment, using the Nigerian institution as a workingexperiment. The work, by the objective judgment of thisthorough investigation of the Nigerian experience fromits inception, believes that continuous existence of thenation in its present alien structure and style is a meregeneration of conflict to the Nigerian humanity.

The Nigerian state and its function, from the imaginabletime of its colonial status to the present moment hasbecome a source of irritation, nausea, provocation anddespair in formation and function. It has digressed frombeing a custodian of protection to generation of frustrationand becomes subject of threat to what it is supposed toprotect.

The work is divided into five chapters. Each directly orindirectly confronts the Nigerian institution, its obnoxiousstructure and the presumptuous sacrosanct ofindissolubility and accompanying enslavement of thepeople. Its task has been to generally analyze the essenceof state and state power in relation to the citizens and

4

human value. It enquires to ascertain if the essence ofthe state is its structure, size, nomenclature, the humanvalue or the realization of the citizens’ happiness and thereason for the formation of the state. It believes thatbelonging to any civilized union or state should be free,optional and not coercive. The failure to fall into thislogic would automatically invalidate and nullify the stateand consequently justify agitation for release of theoppressed and imprisoned citizens.

Chapter one makes an incursion into the history of theNigerian formation and unity by the colonial paternity,to know if this unity has been free in every necessarysense of civilized association and if the inhabitants havewillingly and voluntarily entered the union and actuallybelieve in it. There is no doubt from the experience ofhistory, that the Nigerian unity has been a drudgery offorced labour, conscription and arbitrary imposition. Thefindings of the author consequently enable him to assertthe unavoidable implication of this forced union, whichis consistent reluctance and conflict experienced in thecountry.

Chapter two investigates the Igbo ethnic circumstanceand experience in the Nigerian union before and afterthe civil war in the making of Nigeria and their consistentvictimhood in the course of sustaining a false and forcedunity. The group has known a consistent experience ofthe sacrificial lamb, scapegoating and martyrdom as thesynergy of internally fractured union. The chapter makes

5

it clear and obvious that either the self-oblation of thiscommon animal called the Igbo or the libation of itscontent by others to the gods of unity has directly orindirectly kept the balance of the union that hasconsistently excluded them in the process.

Chapter three might seem to be a repetition of chaptertwo and that would apparently not be out of place becauseboth are emphasizing exclusionism as it involves the Igboethnic group and the collective mass of the citizenry inthe practice of governance which emphasizes the elitefew and negates the majority and the sense of multi-national status of the country.

In 2010, Nigeria celebrated a Golden Jubilee as a nationof independence from Britain and in 2014 celebrated acentury of amalgamation of many countries in one.Chapter four therefore surveys the meaning and conceptof jubilee, the circumstance and condition that inspiredthe amalgamation and their implication in relation to thefreedom and well-being of the citizens. Jubilee does notconsist in the numerical calculation of years, but in actualsense, means the celebration of the gains, joy and qualitysurvival of fifty years. In a practical sense, it is a politicalrelease or liberation to freedom, which substitutes orcompensates the experience of colonization, enslavementor domination. Jubilee is simply not the celebration ofyears but the liberation of man from years of enslavement.A juxtaposition of this meaning and the Nigeriancircumstance brings us to the persuasion of the nation to

6

liberate the inhabitants from present strictures and socio-political suffocation as Nigeria was liberated from Britainin accordance with the meaning of the biblical jubileeyear as liberation. The Nigerian independence iscorrelatively associated with the century ofamalgamation. How has the Nigerian separation fromBritain and existence as a union of common entity beenrealistic and vindicated the wisdom of the union? If thereason and condition for which the amalgamation wasmade become untenable and counterproductive, it losesthe logic to remain and justifies liquidation.

If a nation is deemed failed, it would not acquire itscertificate of failure in a more appropriate field than inthe field of the value and reason related to the essence ofthe being and existence of the state. But the reason forthe being of the state is no more than the welfare andwell-being of the citizenry. Hence, the exclusion of thatwhich is intrinsically central to the essence of the statemakes a state irrelevant and void. Nigeria is a nationwhere citizenship is virtually circumvented and relegatedto the point of nullity and elitism is highly exalted to thepoint of absolutism. If the state is not defined by its geo-physical width and breath or the wealth of the minorityelite by dint of survival of the fittest, then Nigeria existsless than a state. This is the task and point of referencefor chapter five. Nigeria is a country of citizen-less policyand value and therefore nullifies itself from being byvirtue of this deformity.

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Nigerian Historyof Reluctant Unity

C H A P T E R O N E

i. Unity By CoercionUnity is a delightful virtue ordinarily desirable. But unityis laced with the paradox of friction as well as freedom,subjection and enhancing complementarity. As such, thefreedom, volition and freedom of the contractual partnersin any union, to willingly decide to enter or remain in aunion or to opt out of it are not only paramount but pre-eminent. Otherwise, such a union becomes a conscriptionor imprisonment. Therefore, the volition, nature offormation, compatibility, status, consent and conditionof any uniting political entities as essential factorsdetermining the stability and peace of a given state cannotbe over emphasized. When the ligaments of volition,fairness, equity, freedom and tolerance, that should blendthe social contract of obviously divergent, incompatibleand disparate people are lacking, the union becomes acoercion and misadventure bound by resentfulness andfriction and separation is necessitated as ultimatepreference. Therefore, when one is confronted with theproblem of peace, functionality, stability, or otherwiseof any political state like Nigeria in particular, one is

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invariably confronted with an investigative question ofits genetic nature of composition and freedom in theformation of the union and the challenge of exit. TheNigerian union made in 1914 always presents a paradoxwhich confronts one with this dilemma. What type ofstate is it? How is the compatibility of the componentnationalities comfortable and conforming to the union?How willingly was the union and how do these affect thelife and attitude of the citizens and the function of thestate? Do the people still willingly wish to remain togetherand if not, what makes the union imperative? Is Nigeriaa country, an empire, a nation or an agglomeration ofnations in a nation? This question is pertinent becausethe nature of a political state, whether as a homogeneousor heterogeneous unit and the freedom in the choice ofthe union have great impact on the state and the people.This is because the psychology of competition andconflict would be inevitably heightened in aheterogeneous state, but would be less so in ahomogeneous composition and guarantee harmonious co-existence, stability and survival of the state.

The country Nigeria is our peculiar case study in theingredients of the ideal political state formation and unionin determining the forces and causes of its stability orotherwise. The definition of identity has been one greatproblem of any given nation. Therefore, juxtaposing thetwo concepts of nation and country would enable us havea better assessment of our investigation of the nature andidentity of any given country. According to the New

9

Lexicon Webster’s Dictionary, a country can be describedas “a region, district, tract of land, especially withreference to a geographical or esthetic features,… theland in which one was born or to which one owesallegiance, a political state, regions of woods andfields….”1 On the other hand, a nation is “a body ofpeople recognized as an entity by virtue of their historical,linguistic or ethnic links, a body of people united undera particular political organization, and usually occupyinga defined territory…”2 For further elaborations, “A nationis a body of people who share a real or imagined commonhistory, culture, identity, religion, morality, language,traditions, ethnicity or ethnic origin; typically inhabit aparticular country/territory/religion”.3 By thesedistinctions and definitions, one is equipped to placeNigeria, a West African country and its teething historicalproblems, in the proper perspectives. It is easilydiscernible, by the above assertions, that the state ofNigeria is not a nation in the sense it is wrongly perceived,referred to but hardly ruled as a nation. This is because anation must be bound by a shared common culture,religion, language and values that are commonly nativeand exclusive. Accordingly, cultural, religious, politicaland ideological conflicts would be nil or minimal as aresult of homogeneity, even and equitable dispensationof the resources and responsibilities not based ondisparities. On the contrary, the Nigerian country is acomposite of many nations arbitrarily fused and coupledtogether without any common cultural, religious orancestral identity or proper socio-psychological blending

10

to dispose them for a harmonious human ecosystem.Lacking basic human psychological, integral coherenceand organic mechanism, it is therefore a mere accretionand the idea as a nation is a mere political quibble andpure imaginary concept and figment rather than real,though real for those it benefits.

Hence, a nation of the above nature of incongruity andconstitution could inwardly be struggling over internalfracture and contradiction arising from incompatibleunion of externally imposed burden and coercion whileerroneously fiddling and groping in vain under theillusion of nationhood. Perhaps the country Nigeria findsitself in this inner contradiction and infliction of thecomplexity of coerced and externally arranged andimposed unity. In normal circumstances no nation wouldordinarily expend extra energy to persuade for unity andcombat citizens against disintegration as Nigeria is doing,if the fertile and obvious conditions of disintegration arenot intrinsically inherent either in the nation’s structureor the practice of governance. The stress on unity itselfpresupposes a conviction of the disparity and naturaldissimilarity and crack intrinsically inherent in theNigerian union and consequently, threatening thebeneficiaries of the union with premonition jittery andphobia of disintegration. This is now and alwayspsychologically translated into false and exaggeratedunity propaganda and psychological tremor in theNigerian leaders. Why is the word “unity” addressed withsuch a refrain of near neurosis and trepidation in every

11

official and unofficial sentence of the country Nigeriaand her individual and collective elite? For instance, thepreamble of the Amended Constitution of the FederalRepublic of Nigeria begins with a polemic and apologetictone of unity thus, “Having firmly and solemnly resolved:TO LIVE in unity and harmony as one indivisible andindissoluble sovereign Nation…and for the purpose ofconsolidating the unity of our people”.4 The first segment,resolved “to live in unity and harmony as one” suggest aresolution to do something which otherwise should nothave ordinarily been done, which is, to live as one whiletruly they are not one. The second segment suggestsconsolidation as a functional instrument to solidify whatis not after all naturally solid and consolidated. In both,unity is a common and invariable apologue sung withhysteric premonition and persuasion by the elite. Butbesides, the sanctity of the entire document is above all,desecrated by the word ‘resolved’, because there was nosuch known resolution by the peoples of the union priorto the amalgamation or after the independence, to co-exist. It was a veto unilaterally made by Britain. But ofmost fatal is the knot of indissolubility used to chain thosethat were never one in eternal union. The wordindissoluble is therefore not only coercion but a fallacybecause nothing united is ever indissoluble because itsdistinction before union is a pre-disposition ofdissolubility. The country is dissoluble because it wasformerly many but united without consent.

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Nigerian phobia for disintegration is a recurrent andpersistent slogan of militarized and coercive cautionagainst both in war and peace times, to sustain the citizensin a unity that is not natural, feasible and functional. Thus,when Gowon caused and declared a civil war against thecountry in 1967, and threatened the fragile coupling ofthe nations, he fell into contradiction in a desperate needof a psychological weapon to win internal and externalsympathy and support to wage a war for a unity whichhis Northern region had vehemently rejected previously.To win the support, he devised the cheap slogan that,keeping Nigeria one is a task that must be done. However,to the chagrin of Atulayo, this slogan “which informedthe execution of the gruesome civil war, has not beenfollowed in practical terms from our behavior on thedomestic front”.5. The tone of the unity propaganda isnot however persuasive or dialogical. It is rather imbuedwith aggressiveness and garlanded with exaggeratedmilitancy that is suggestive of false protectionism, ulteriormotive and vested interest. But the emphasis only betraysthe truth that the nation is not a unit but has to be unitedby the force of mechanical propaganda in the failure ofefficient administrative machinery of integration. Thishysteric appeal is indicative of something ominous andsuggestive of how the emphasis of the country is wronglyplaced in being merely physically united rather than beingfunctionally and justly administered.

Although America, Britain and other great countries ofthe world are of diverse races and people, their internal

13

administration hardly emphasize unity or caution againstdisintegration, but instead they emphasize national pride,economy and respect for the rule of law, freedom andequality of individuals, right of the citizenry, humandignity and citizenship welfare. In the case of Nigeria, itemphasizes and sustains a phobia for the dreaded virusof inherent disintegration. But this is certainly caused byinherent internal incompatibility, coerced co-existenceof odd fellows, bad governance and fragrant injustice.The Nigerian composition no doubt lacks intrinsicorganic homogeneity but is only being whipped in byextrinsic intimidating force. Admittedly, the country israther a coupling of fragments and accretion of nationsby colonial administration. Earliest history of the countryshows the evidence of distinct and separate entities ofindependent nationalities which were lateradministratively forced together by colonial andextraneous arrangement. The unity has therefore nevernaturally existed but rather mechanically devised,engineered and induced. Hence, Britain had expected itto disintegrate sooner or later they left since they knew itis cosmetic make up. The reluctance and unwillingnessin the union and the force of artificial inclusiveness areas old as Nigeria itself. Michael Crowder’s reference tothe Arthur Richard’s constitution of 1945, the instrumentused to achieve the mechanical welding and the people’srebuff and rejection of the union constitution is evident.In his words, “The constitutional proposals of Sir ArthurRichards in March 1945, though they were attacked onalmost every side by Nigerian nationalists marked the

14

real turning-point in Nigeria’s progress towardsindependence…. The constitution,… had, according tothe governor, three objects: ‘to promote the unity ofNigeria’,… The most important feature of the newconstitution was the inclusion of the North in the centrallegislature, a move that in itself could do nothing butfurther the unity of the country”.6 What is mostexasperating is the manner of the lumping together ofthe strange bed fellows by imposition and the retentionof the constitution which has continuously justified theNigerian reluctance, as in his words, “The Constitutionwas attacked both for its content and for the way in whichit was introduced. The newly formed N.C.N.C. regrettedthe unilateral way the whole proposals were preparedwithout consulting the people”.7 In this spirit, it istherefore futile and delusive to anticipate a peaceful,stable, just and conflict-free nationality because thegerminal seed of contentiousness is arbitrarily sown byinducing people of diverse orientations into a reluctantunion. But the visible and physical conflicts expressedin ethnic and religious conflagration is nothing comparedto the tactical cold war of ethnic and religiousdiscriminations of apartheid nature which many sufferin offices and in the function of the obnoxious FederalCharacter and quota systems. This code is part ofNigeria’s operative codes of injustice, systemicartificiality and pretence to deny or negate the truth andreality of Nigerian disparity. But in its mechanism, itdiscriminates against efficiency and excellence and

15

technically subdues and relegates perceived contendersfor the national cake.

The value of “unity” or “Oneness” is ordinarilyappreciable. But the Nigerian unity is fraught withsuperficiality and contradiction arising from thephilosophy of artificial and contingency coinage fromthree historical and circumstantial devices. It originatedfirst from the historical scramble and partitioning of theBerlin Conference of 1885, which handed over varyingand diverse nations of distinct entities as one to Britain.There was, secondly, the marital mathematics of LordFredrick Lugard’s Amalgamation who again drew a circlearound these distinctive entities in 1914 and falsely calledmany one for administrative convenience. Thirdly, itoriginated as a post-civil war coinage, with which theIgbo were forced to raise their hands in humiliatingsurrender in 1970, to accept and shout, “One Nigeria”,to recast and swallow their vomit of rejection andcessation even without the intention of Nigeria to reallyand practically integrate them in the union after the war.These three historical devices make the coinage andphilosophy of unity mechanical, arbitrary, irrational, andintrinsically contradictory and its function and realizationimpossible. One would argue correctly that there isnothing as the constant refrain of the slogan, ‘OneBritain”, “One United states”, “One China”, etcetera, bythese countries. This is because although they might havecomponent races, they do not have the problem of internaldichotomy of arbitrarily and forcefully fixed strange

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bodies that need to be wielded by the linguistics of ‘one’or ‘unity’. While the countries gradually evolved intoan organic whole, their dichotomies were effectivelyblended by administrative efficient mechanism,distributive justice and equity and not by verbal sophistryand prefix of one. The emphasis on one and unity is itselfa confirmation of not being one but a persuasion to beone. It is a consistent index, arising from the hysteriaand psychological jittery that these strange elementsarbitrarily coupled by the colonial expatriates, andinefficiently and unjustly administered by indigenousneo-colonialists, might disband if necessary aggressionand force are not applied to continuously wield themtogether at all costs. Yet this desperate emphasis on oneand unity rather buttresses and betrays the fact that it isnot one because you can only unite what is many intoone and cannot unite into one what is already one. Theproblem of the coinage and its precept is not only in itsartificiality, but also in the fact that it has defiedworkability. It is therefore encumbered with the torturingconflict between its acceptability and rejection, the realityof unity and its fiction, because it is neither one nor reallyunited, nor has it been treated as one or the truth that itshould not be one accepted. The citizens are thereforeonly condemned and consigned under duress to beconsumed unwillingly in it.

The Nigerian experience of a deformed and paradox ofnationhood is real in the structure of the politicalphilosophy of unitary system imposed on it without

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proper psychological integration and blending in viewof the diversity, obvious lack of homogeneity and ethnicuniformity. Alexander Madiebo, in his book, “TheNigerian Revolution and the Biafran War” observes that,“The Federation of Nigeria, as it exists today, has neverbeen one homogeneous country, for its widely differingpeoples and tribes are yet to find any basis for true unity.The unfortunate but yet obvious fact notwithstanding,the former colonial master had to keep the country one,in order to effectively control his vital economic interestsconcentrated mainly in the more advanced and ‘politicallyunreliable” South. Thus, for administrative convenienceNorthern and Southern Nigeria became amalgamated in1914. Thereafter the only thing these peoples had incommon became the name of their country”.8 An imposedunity accordingly, can only be induced and sustained bypressure of ulterior motive rather than the conviction ofits reality and true conviction in those who enforce it orthose for whom it is enforced. This is evident in theamount of energy exerted in the emphasis for unity, withinherent contradictory and negative practices ofdiscrimination and divide-and-rule tactics exhibited bythe same unity ideologists. This makes the entire effortan abuse of sense and living in duress against the humanright charter which advocates for freedom of associationand self-determination as against conscription.

Given the obvious fact that the basis for the unity isfictitious, unrealistic and fragile from the British era, theadvocates continuously coerce it into the people as

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victims of the unity. Hence, unusual and extraordinarycaution dots every sentence and action of the Nigerianleaders in desperate solicitation for a utilitarian unitywhich serves their personal and ethnic needs at theexpense of citizens of the underdog status. Like in alloppressive capitalism, the elites always have theirpropagandist technique. In the Nigerian case, the elitebenefitting from the loot of the unity theory establishedthe radio Nigeria network in every state to facilitate andtighten the knot of unity, without establishing equivalentand uniform life sustaining utility structures as rights ofcitizenship in most of the states to justify the unity byaction. For instance, while the Igbo South East does nothave any significant Federal government establishmentsuch as refinery, railway line, sea port, federal industries,good roads, etcetera, as in other parts of the county, theyhave formidable radio Nigeria network in all the statesfor the unity propaganda. The propagandist network isfortified with the psychologically intimidating jingle,“Radio Nigeria, uplifting the people and uniting thenation”, which always heralds the national news,interjects it intermittently at every point and closes thenews. But in actual fact, the people are not really upliftedbut downtrodden and the nation is not united butphysically and forcefully glued under psychologicalduress. Perhaps Segun Gbadegesin in his article, “Aquestion of structure” in the back page of “The Nation”of Friday June, 17th 2011 anticipates this frame of mindwhen he classifies two different schools of unitary theoryfor different false reasons thus, “In the first group are

19

the idealists, whose fanatical belief in national unity atall cost prevents them from recognizing the danger theiridealism poses to the realization of their ultimate goal ofnational unity. Just as you cannot force a material blissin the long run without paying attention to the differentneeds and interests of two distinct personalities that makeup the union, so you cannot force a national harmonythat is prerequisite for national unity. If one part is notpersuaded that it is getting a good deal, you are only goingto exacerbate the problem with a recurrent appeal to force.The second group is egoistic pretenders, whose interestin the status quo is not predicated on the good of thenation but on their deep throat and bottomless pocket.As long as the center is in charge and black gold is flowingand selling, they can care less about a future for the nation.…So they also appeal to reason beyond the ego as thedriving force,. So they have powerful arguments aboutthe importance of leadership getting the country out ofeconomic and political morass, and the need to avoidsectional interest. To this end, they would use the powerof the state to break the will of any individual or groupthat fails to fall in line…. The first group will use thatpower to rein in all sections and enshrine unity bywhatever means necessary. The second group will usethat power to appropriate as much of the nationalpatrimony as they can”.9

ii. Together in Permanent ReluctanceIt is pertinent here to make an excursion into the relativeattitude of the different tribes of the country to the unity,

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to evaluate the reality or pretense of Nigerian nationalismand the victims of the negative unity philosophy. Howhas the attitude of the different ethnic nationalities andindividuals belonging to the Nigerian unity project inthe past and present justified or contradicted the claimsincerity, willingness, volition and freedom in the union?Do the attitudes justify the crusade or make it a pretenceand imposition? A historical comparison of the attitudeof the foremost nationalists, late Chief Awolowo and lateDr. Nnamdi Azikiwe is pertinent example. ChiefAwolowo of the Western Region rightly and foresightedlyenvisaged the fantasy and mere trajectory of the Nigeriannationalism and its illusion and decided to concentratehis interest and vision on Yoruba land than in the widerNigerian context. He gave the Yoruba race adevelopmental edge over the rest of Nigeria whencompared with Nnamdi Azikiwe’s amorphous,sensational and sentimental nationalism devoid of Igboperspective and base. Late Awolowo’s attitude, comparedto Nnamdi Azikiwe’s, is self-revealing of the relativityof the belief and philosophy of one Nigeria by differentpeople. In his usual political realism, Chief Awolowoenvisaged and envisioned native ideology and true fiscalfederalism in which the South West was for him theprimary stand point of nationalism and Nigeria wassecondary. Awolowo’s ideology, fashioned on regionalsupremacy and pragmatism, was more realistic than Zik’sutopic unitarianism which negated native and regionalbase. But certain truths are implicated in Awolowo’sPhilosophy too. Awolowo’s wise and pragmatic

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perspective points to the fact that Nigeria should be betterrun either as true fiscal federalism or dissected intosovereign states like former Soviet Union. Human andinfrastructural development will impact on people mucheffectively in restricted sizes and decentralized structurethan in a structure where state unionism is so absolutethat the state becomes inaccessible to the common man.It nevertheless shows that Chief Awolowo in his corporateYoruba personality was not a willing apostle of Nigerianunity in the sense Azikiwe sentimentally was. It is alsoevident that the entire corporate Yoruba nation, takingbearing from Awolowo, have always been sincere anddirect in their quest for self-determination and have nevertolerated a total union but preferred a partial or noneNigeria. That instinct to extricate from the Nigerianbondage as against the Igbo hallucination of pan-Nigerianbond is always and was again signified in their boldinsistence in the 2014 National Conference. Making theircase symbolic, they boldly showcased and symbolizedtheir demand for self-determination with the photographof the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolow on the Nigeriandaily newspapers on Wednesday May 20, 2014.

It is also historically evident that Tafawa Balewa and theNorth never believed in or wanted the Nigerian unity butreluctantly remained in it with the British persuasivecaution on the disadvantage of their separation. If OscarOnwudiwe’s insight into the archives of Nigerian historycorroborates other known evidences, then it standsobviously true that the North never wanted a united

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Nigeria. Referring to their fierce and hostile reluctance,Oscar, in the ‘African Herald Express’, recollectsverbatim the hostile and acrid words of their herospokesman with their usual pre-conditionality: “In 1952,Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa addressed the NorthernHouse of Assembly, thus “The Southern people who areswamping into this region daily in such large numbersare really intruders; we don’t want them and they are notwelcome here in the North. Since 1914, the BritishGovernment has been trying to make Nigeria into onecountry. But the people are different in every way,including religion, custom, language andaspirations….We in the North take it that Nigeria unityis only a British intention for the country they created…In the same year, Sir Ahmadu Bello approached theColonial Secretary and said “If you want us (the North)to be part of this Nigeria you have in mind, then we want50% of the membership of the National Assembly. It wasaccepted by British and the 1953 census figures weremanipulated to justify the concession given”10. Regardingthe British diplomacy and the Nigerian civil war,Sylvanus Atulayo again hints of the British inducementof the North to remain in Nigeria: “Lagos knew very wellthat British diplomacy worked for it because, whileBritain was trying to assuage the north to remain in theNigerian entity, it was Ghana, Ethiopia, and the lateMartin Luther King, the African-American civil rightlegend, who strove on both sides to secure a peacefulnegotiated settlement before the war broke out…”.11

Hence, the northern stay in Nigeria is evidently, externally

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induced and sustained by both Britain and their interestin their expected advantage in leadership and powercontrol with the accompanying sentiment of feelingsuperior over the rest. Apart from their resistance toremain in Nigeria, the North also vehemently rejectedtheir amalgamation with the South but was alsonevertheless coerced into it. Hence, their continuous stayin an inclusive Nigeria against their human freedom andwill is an unjustified false imprisonment by Britain andNigeria. Oscar further shows Awolowo’s honest andrealistic feeling of a regrettable unity during a certainoutbreak of trouble in Sabon-Geri Kano. He recollects,“Papa Awolowo’s reaction to these happenings was inhis ever green speech excerpts of which is “Nigeria isonly a geographical expression to which life was givenby the diabolical amalgamation of 1914, thatamalgamation WILL EVER remain the most painfulinjury a British Government inflicted on SouthernNigeria”.12 Again, referring to the war time dilemma andreluctance to remain or attempt to secede from theNigerian union, Fredrick Forsyth, in his book, ‘TheMaking of An African Legend: The Biafra Story’, remindsus that “Of the three original regions, the East was thelast even to mention the word. The threat to secede hadcome from the North periodically for twenty years. In1953 at the talks in London that gave rise to the 1954constitution, Chief Awolowo heading the Action grouphad threatened the west would secede if Lagos was madethe Federal territory rather than a part of the westernRegion. He was only dissuaded from this course by a

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sharp warning from the colonial secretary, Mr. OliverLyttleton, later Lord Chandos”.13 It was entirely anatmosphere of reluctance and duress that brought themto a place they were completely strangers and averse to.Throughout the Nigerian history, the North has, throughdifferent shades of religious incitements engineered andpreferred a country of their dominion and control orotherwise, a separate Islamic country of their own. Onewonders in all sense of justice and human freedom whya people were continuously forced into a union andassociation against their will. It becomes most culpableand injurious however, that the present generation, awareof the colonial error in which the country was constituted,continues to live anachronistically in the error of thatunity out of pettiness, pretense and the selfishness of fewin spite of the unwillingness of many. The Nigerian unionis therefore an outrageous conscription and falseimprisonment of unwilling and reluctant habitants andtherefore a violation of human rights of association andself-determination and the Igbo are not the first to resentthis union through the declaration of cessation byOdumegwu Ojukwu in opposition to Gowon’s impositionof leadership and forceful union.

The North is therefore tied to Nigeria only for the reasonof prospective leadership advantage and power controlin Nigeria. Once this cannot be guaranteed, the theoryand relevance of unity cannot be sustained. The Igbo too,in their prevailing experience, are partly tied in hostageand captivity to Nigeria by the interest of some Igbo elite

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minority who, for personal ulterior motive and advantage,hypocritically insist on Pan-Nigerian system. The secondumbilical cord holding the Igbo to Nigerian unity is thedilemma and fear of the loss of the overwhelminginvestment of their wealth and resources in all parts ofNigeria which they fear to part with. Many Igbo thereforeprefer to remain in the bondage of Nigerian unity than aliberating and separating attempt in which they wouldlose their network of investments all over Nigeria andoutside Igbo land. Added to this is the caution of theprevious war experience which holds them reminiscentlyjittery and fastens them to Nigeria like mere robot. Thethird factor that keeps them in Nigeria as common slavesis the false fear of the inability to rule themselves, giventheir republicanism, lack of internal coherence andconflict ridden nature. But all these excuses are notsufficiently justifiable enough to remain slaves, as nothingis good enough to make one a slave just as no risk is toobad enough not to free oneself from slavery.

Perhaps the Yoruba too is still reluctantly attached toNigeria out of solidarity to remain with the rest or partlybecause of their overwhelming economic advantagegained by their strategic economic location in Nigeria.Their earlier historical development, courtesy of earlierexposition to western civilization and education as wellas the advantage of Lagos as the first capital territory ofindependent Nigeria are the added incentives. Thesepositively facilitated the socio-economic development ofthe entire Western Nigerian zone more than any other

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part and continuously enhance their development. Butto be fair to the Yoruba South West, historical memoryshows that they had already started developing since the1860s even before the beginning of so called British’sNigeria of 1914. However, they have never beendisadvantaged in the power and economic control ofNigeria and these historical and location factors andadvantages have made the Yoruba less exposed to thepinch and pain of being in Nigeria. Their greatestopportunity was the war period when the Igbo weredisplaced economically and from power control, whichwas actually part of the invisible driving motive of the1967 civil war. They have therefore always hardly beendisadvantaged in the unity arrangement since they alwayshave greater relative economic advantage in the union.However, in spite of the advantage, the Yoruba SouthWest is never addicted adherent and protagonist of theNigerian unity project. Unlike the Igbo, they have alwaysexpressed radical and realistic opinion against theNigerian fictional nationhood and the need forrestructuring or separating the nations of the country. TheYoruba have always favoured and resorted to regionalismbecause they have what it takes in man power, economyand political enlightenment, to survive independently ofthe Nigerian corporate entity and would be far greaterthan the British’s Nigeria if they separate.

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History shows that the Igbo South-East has alwaysuncritically, dogmatically and sacrificially adheredartlessly and naively to the principle of united andindissoluble Nigeria. They have compulsively stuck tothe unity as the burden bearer out of the sheer ineptitudepioneered by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Yet in recent time, theIgbo have developed serious reluctance and hesitationin the union. They are only merely stuck to the entityirrationally under psychological duress and dilemma andwould most preferably quit it, having realized the futilityof the platonic and utopian ideal which their NnamdiAzikiwe worked for. The politically emerging South-South zone, are also by their action, since 2005, provedtheir reluctance but can only remain faithful to the oneNigerian entity on the pre-condition of their control ofits primary oil economy which is the main bedrock ofthe unity. It was actually this new awakening andconsciousness that started the surge of kidnapping inNigeria as a ploy and eventually led to the emergence ofthe first ever democratically elected civilian president ofNigeria from the minority, President Goodluck Jonathan.This was a palliative to keep Nigeria and their oil whichis practically dominated and utilized by the North andthe expatriates.

Hence, all the stakeholders in the Nigerian unity project,the North, the Yoruba, the Igbo and the rest, arereluctantly glued to the union under one mechanicalcompulsion or the other. Conscious of its illogicality andfutility, they nevertheless remain glued to the unity so

28

long as this compulsion, personal interest, illusion or fearsof the unknown danger of its alternative persist. By allstandards of the attributes of the concept of false andforced imprisonment, Nigerians are therefore, reluctantprison inmates conscripted into the wide open maximumprison called Nigeria, by the dictate of a colonial master,Lord Lugard from 1914 and later left under thesurveillance of native surrogate elite wardens who enjoythe dividend of the imprisonment.

Depending on how it favours or affects each, baringpersonal interest, the collective ethnic nationalities, aswell as individual citizens, are only reluctantly graftedto the Nigerian entity with remarkably insipid, indifferentand apathetic attitude. This is because the individual isnot impacted by the Nigerian reality or feels the relevanceof a nation that is callously insensitive to the ordinarycitizenry while the elite, who hypocritically expressmechanical indissolubility and nationalism, can hardlyseparate their personal, ulterior and selfish motive as theultimate driving force. They are in reality bereft of true,genuine and sincere conviction and patriotism in theNigerian project. They do not believe in the Nigerianvalue as a nation much as they do in its business value assource of sustenance. The political elite see the Nigerianentity as a common utility market and the helpless massesas the immediate commodity for their wealth. SundayChampion of September 5, 2010 could not have caughtit any better than Charley boy’s belief that Nigeria is afarm for looting and a plane without pilot, “To most of

29

these political animals, Nigeria is a “farm”, and as longas they live it will continue to be harvest season; theyhave planted stooges all over the political, social andeconomic landscapes and everywhere; yet some of ussay we have a pilot… While we struggle endlessly in abattle to empower hundreds of talented youths out there,some are busy looting the fund that belongs to all of us”.14

They are sincerely convinced in conscience have norealistic sympathy for the country and do not believe inits practicability as much as they believe only in thepersonal material gain that accrues to them for remainingin the wider Nigerian entity as economic and utility union.

The theory of unity and indissolubility has thereforeremained the most viable propagandist instrument,employed by the elite political tacticians to sustain theirlarge empire of socio-economic expedition to holdgullible Nigerians in constant suspense and dilemma. Thistheory is considered much more viable than the principleof efficiency and equity in the running of the nation itself.The unity propaganda has always worked, especially incritical and crisis moments when fear reverberates andrenews their sense of losing grip of their Nigerianeconomic empire. Witnesses of the Nigerian civil warobserve that no propaganda of the war time worked muchmore efficiently and effectively than the invention of theunity theory by the executors, which functioned in favourand sympathy for Gowon and Nigeria to facilitate thecrushing of the Igbo opponent as holocaust for this pettyunity. While neglecting the injustice, genocide and human

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right degradation of the war time and the imbalance ofstate and leadership structure, emphasis was rather givento uniting the nation as the ultimate reason for the warand a human race had to be crushed in order to avoid thedisintegration of a geographical entity. For instance,Atulayo observes that British misgiving and prejudiceagainst Nzeogwu’s audacious coup was generalized andinterpreted against his Igbo identity and background.Besides, his action which was seen as logicallycontradicting and confronting the Nigerian unity ideologyof Britain, reflected in their support of Gowon and theoutcome of the war. Thus he says, “This is why Nigeria,right from the beginning of the war trusted Britain forsupport, which came strongly in the refrain of “to keepNigeria one is a task that must be accomplished”.15

The unity theory has a history and function of mythologyand psychology of fear in Nigeria as strategic nationalmechanism and improvisation hysterically excavatedeach time to caution the threat for disintegrationoccasioned by violence and misrule. It was first, openlyformulated during the war by Yakubu Gowon asinstrument of propaganda to justify and support theprosecution of the war and again in 1970 to force theestranged and disillusioned Igbo back to Nigeria afterthe civil war. It was renewed again during the separationthreat caused by the Northern Sharia law in the 1980sand exhumed again in 1993 during the threat ofdisintegration occasioned by the annulled election ofMoshood Abiola of Western Nigeria. It also remains a

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consistent and recurring caution in suspected post-election crisis, each time electoral injustice and violencetend to threaten and sink the unity boat. From 2011, whenGoodluck Jonathan’s leadership was threatened withuncontrollable bomb blast by the Boko Haram insurgenceand the advocates of Islamic state, “One Nigeria” and“unity” lullaby became once again renewed andreverberated on the Nigerian stage. While administrativeproficiency, commitment to social justice, equity andfairness as function and instrument of integration wanewith optimum neglect, the refrain of unity lullaby havealways remained effective as a permanent index ofmechanical and coercive persuasion.

There is another psychological hysteria built around thisBritish union to create both value and fear for it. Anyform of reaction by the oppressed masses of the countryagainst injustice and bad governance or conflicts arisingfrom religious, ethnic disparities, is usually cautioned bythe beneficiaries as threatening the unity of the country.This is done to make the union sacrosanct and itsseparation abominable, while doing nothing about equitybetween the political elite and the masses, the componentethnic groups or justice for the individuals. Moreimaginary fears of inferiority and insufficiency are alsocreated in the psyche of the ethnic groups, with theimpression and fear that none of them can survive on itsown in the event of the dissolution of the union. Thecaution, united we stand, divided we fall, and that ourstrength is in our unity, is usually re-iterated as

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tranquilizing incantation to calm the frayed nerves ofliberation. But it has to be borne in mind that what isnow united was never one before the British occupationand unification and yet they survived in their distinctpeculiar entities prior to the amalgamation. D. OnuzulikeOkonkwo, a historian, in his ‘History of Nigeria In ANew setting’, opines that, Before the advent of the BritishNigeria existed as a group of free and independentKingdoms… the country consisted of a medley ofrepublics or princely states independent of one anotherand lacking in unity or cohesion. The states were nottiny principalities as some European observers mightthink. They were big and powerful kingdoms, in factlarger than most European nations today. “Bornu aloneis larger than Scotland and Wales, and Belgium can beadded to make up the difference…”.16

Even as the Nigerian masses are left most times in thesocio-economic perdition and ethno-religious conflictstake tolls of Nigerian lives in thousands, the trend remainsunchallenged and unchecked by the citizens because ofthe caution and reluctance that keep all hostage and inflicta trepidation that warns, beware of disunity anddisintegration. This leaves a negative sense that the valueof an entity is hinged only on being united and theresultant largeness in their agglomeration rather than thevalue of freedom and quality of existence. Therefore,while the national news is consistently heralded andinterjected with the jingle of uniting the nation, most

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Nigerians enjoy no true value of unity and citizenshipbecause this is neither realistic nor guaranteed. The unityremains mere physicality, lacking socio-human integralligament of coherence and value in equity and quality.This has made the sense of unity a stage function and amisplaced value, rather than a reality.

The unity theory is at best an instrument which servesonly the exclusive benefit of few opportune gangs, whoby devise of chance and opportunism anchor permanentlyon the leadership pinnacle of a united empire. The restfill the gap of unfulfilled citizenship and unity in theirindividual precarious, opportunistic, harsh and anarchicprinciple of the survival of the fittest. Each, with relativeopportunity and cleverly efficiency, scrambles over andgrabs his own crumb of the Nigerian “national cake”,officially branded “Federal Character”, but with littleinterest in the character of true nationalism which hebelieves does not actually exist. 90% of the Nigeriannatives are indifferent to the Nigerian nationality value,just as the Nigerian system is indifferent to theirinalienable citizenship, their humanity and existence,while the tribal groups are only conscious and concernedfor their representative dividend in the Nigerianleadership shares. This is palpably evident in the Federaldistribution, allocation and scramble for individualministerial posts and appointments along ethnic and stateleanings in every new regime or ministerial reshuffle.

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But would anyone suppose that the Nigerian leadershipcaucus like the Senators, the house of representativemembers, the Governors, the political contractors, theNigerian Presidents and Vice Presidents, past and present,who are eating fat on the Nigerian unity table of Diveswith their children well secured and educated abroad,while the majority of Nigerian Lazarus lean with sore infront of Dives’ sumptuous house and shattered to shredsby bombs in Nigeria, ever allow Nigeria to be dividedand their livelihood dimmed? That is unlikely, becausemost often, what keeps people in slavery is not theirwillingness to remain slaves but either the sustainedinterest of those who enjoy from the tears of their slaveryor their own inability to discard their slavery. Besides,when men lose the ability and reason for their liberationand destination, they devise and develop doubt even forthe means and method of liberation and arrival to thatdestination and resign to fatal fate, merely aided byreluctance and pessimistic skepticism. This is why manyask, into how many countries Nigeria can be divided intheir numerous ethnic nationalities, and where wouldmost of the minority groups outside the three major ethnicgroups belong to and if the Igbo people would be able torule themselves, etcetera. These questions show that it isnot the pillar of superior reason or value that holds theunion, but rather, the reluctance and failure to supplysolution and good reason why they should make Nigeriabetter or quit it for good. Hence, whatever is the worse isendured as the better for the best they lack the power andgut to achieve.

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Evidently, neither the Igbo, the Yoruba nor the North,could be said to adhere to the Nigerian indissolubilityand unity without either a negative compulsion orpersonal incentive psychologically pasting them to theunwilling marriage. In all, the prevailing attitude showsthat the Nigerian nationalism as expressed by thecomponent nationalities is sustained by superficial,spurious and compulsive psychology rather than sincerepatriotism and convinced belief. It is all a pseudo andfeigned mannerism of few ethnic groups and individualsfor whom the Nigerian entity is a viable entrepreneurshipin which the greedy and voracious actors hold the rest ofwearied and bored spectators spell bound in passive andhelpless suspense as instrument for their display.

Another factor keeping the Nigerian structure is merelythe psychology of false spirituality and false sensitivity.For instance, at a certain time, we wanted to reconstructand renovate our obsolete parish altar for convenienceand comfort, considering its discomforting structure,which has always hindered convenient worship. Awielder was asked to remove the alter rail that had becomeobsolete and problematic. The wielder saw the altar railas sacrosanct, felt very reluctant and sympathetic for therail and complained that he felt it irritating to remove ordestroy it. His personal piety made him see the removalas so sacrilegious that he could not consider the obstaclethe rail imposed to human convenience and worship.Again, the length of time it had stayed made him considerit unimaginable to be removed for whatsoever now. But

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when pressured and prevailed on to remove the altar railand he finally did, the comfort and serenity later enjoyedat the altar was unimaginable. Ironically, he too wasfascinated by the new environment and comfort.Similarly, there are people who see the present Nigeriaso inviolable and sacrosanct that it cannot be restructuredor liquidated or else a war must be fought to achievedissolution. But if war is about conflict and weapons ofmutual destruction of life and property, starvationinsecurity and death, Nigeria has never lacked war in theunion. The resort to the fear of war is the defeatistpsychology of uncivilized and unenlightened alarmistsand oppressors who believe freedom or change is neverachieved without war while in the alarm of war they holdthe people to a ransom of slavery worse than war.

But no political state is so static, absolute, or so sacrosanctthat it cannot be reduced, increased, reconstructed,assimilated, dissolved, or even disintegrated for humanconvenience. Every political state or country, includingNigeria, is relative and susceptible to change at any givenstate or time since a state is subject to man’s discretionalingenuity of restructuring, disintegration or separationfor the realization of man’s greater political andexistential comfort. Every political state or union istherefore a product of and subject to man’s constantdiscretional review. Given Nigeria’s background andhistory in particular, Michael Crowder opines in his book‘The Story of Nigeria’ that: “Any country is, in a sense,an artificial creation. In the case of Nigeria, however,

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union was so sudden, and included such widely differinggroups of peoples that not only the British, who createdit, but the inhabitants themselves have often doubtedwhether it could survive as a special entity”.17

Nigeria would therefore become an ideal state only whenthe colonial extraneous compulsion which constituted theunion is denounced and the inhabitants freely re-contracttheir own brand of state, where geo-physical unity is de-emphasized in favour of the supremacy of the equality,freedom, and universal right of citizenship of all personsand ethnic groups. There should be less exaggeratedverbal unity but more emphasis on the philosophy of goodgovernance hinged on the equality of the human personsunclassified by the status and tag of tribal, religious orindividual distinctions or powers. Justice and equity mustbecome the common decimal of the reality and essenceof common humanity and nationality above a meretogetherness of conflict and struggle. On the contrary,the present sense of Nigerian unity which does not impactbeyond mere tool for the survival of the country’s physicallargeness and the political class and consigns the rest tothe territory and margin of debris of inconsequential,urgently tasks our curious sense for an alternative Nigeria,where territorial nomenclature would no longer supersedehuman value and freedom.

Beginning from the earliest history of Nigeria of thecolonial amalgamation as Crowder observes, Nigeria hasbeen an ecological structure of on-going scramble and

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conflict that has always yielded itself and the union tojustifiable doubt because by its nature of formation, theunion is an aberration while its separation remainsultimately, an innately predisposed solution. This isowing to the fact that Nigeria could be likened to a zooof wide expanse of wild spectrum of heterogeneousanimals and of parallel and hostile temperaments, mannedby untrained wild zoologists that enjoy the discord ofthe untamed animals united in conflict which results inthe spill of the blood of the weaker animals which thefittest animals and the zoologists feed on to grow andsurvive. Such ecological habitation is artificial andunnatural to life instinct, as it is not in reality withharmony and prospect of survival. The irony of thisecological project is in the inherent contradiction that,as an error, it should not have existed, but yet, while theBritish engineers of the union confess to its artificiality,error of invention and aware that it cannot be sustained,they still insist on its continued existence for the extensionand retention of personal and neo-colonial convenience.

The function of this ecosystem can only be possible byaccepting the ecological incompatibility or taming boththe animals and the zoo attendants known as the leaders,or separating the inmates into a homogeneous zoo ofrelative and closer homogeneity and harmony. But so far,the taming looks unachievable and impossible, therebymaking separation much more persuasive and viable. Inan interview by Dele Omotunde and Onome Osifo-Whysky in ‘Tell’ Magazine of March 21, 2005, Harold

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Smith, former colonial officer of Nigeria snaps,“Nigerians are fully capable of leading Africa, let aloneNigeria, into fully-functioning nationhood. My problemis that I see Nigeria as partly artificial and created fromwithout for the convenience of others”.18 This remainsthe greatest insincerity and political malice of the Britishcolonialist which would ever inflict them and ourcollective conscience and continuously hurt the nation.

The paradox, treachery and hypocrisy of this artificialcreation lie in the truth that those who created it hopedand expected it to break after they had left and would besurprised that it continues to exist in the form they createdit. Therefore, being not only artificial, but an accidentthat passively happened to a people without theirconscious choice creation or willing acceptance, theNigerian unity project remains an imposed project ofabsurdity and deferred nullity. If a country is created forthe convenience of another, in vain would the citizensever live in it with the convenience suitable either forthemselves, since it was not customized for them, norenjoy the convenience of another, since one cannot livethe comfort of another. But Harold Smith’s affirmationis a self-indictment of the British conscience while theimposition remains a deliberate foundation for permanentneo-colonial and external interference, surveillance, anddomination of a country they intentionally instituted byveto and tend to superintend in proxy. This was justifiedby the British insistence and intrusion in 2014 that withher presumed and purported sovereignty and

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independence, Nigeria would still have no freedom notto practice gay and same sex marriage and are not free tooutlaw or prosecute those who practice the abominationor else the country would lose the British financial aids.But it was this that Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwuenvisaged and fought against, not in hatred but in sincereacknowledgment that we live in imposed foundation ofanother’s permanent convenience for Nigeria’sinconvenience. Hence, he perceived that it was better toseparate in permanent peace and convenience than unitein permanent slavery and drudgery, which Gowon tendedto retain by swerving for Ogundipe’s position tostrengthen that imposition to represent the British interestfor which he did not want the Nigerian separation anddissolution.

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1. The New lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of theEnglish Language: Lexicon Publications Inc. Danbury, CT USA,1992, p.223

2. Ibid., P. 6663. www.quoro.com/what is the difference between nation-state-and-

country., Accessed 6/27/20124. Amended Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria p.195. Onuoha S.A., The Game Nigerian plays; The Biafran Challenge

and Nigeria’s foreign policy and diplomacy (1960-2010) Edu-Edy Graphics, 2010, p.

6. Crowder M. The story of Nigerian: Faber and Faber London,1962, p/273

7. Ibid p.2748. Madiebo A.A.: The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War:

Fourth Dimension Publishing Co. Ltd. Enugu Nigeria, 1980. p.39. Friday June 17, 2012, back page10. African Herald Express, July 25-31, 2011, p.611. Ibid, p.612. Ibid, p.613. Forsyth F., The making of an African Legend; The Biafra Story

Penguin Books Ltd., England, 1977, p.14. Sunday Champion, September 5, 2010, p.2015. Onuoha S.A., Ibid, p.4316. Okonkwo O.O., History of Nigeria in a New setting: Tabansi

Bookshops Onitsha, 1962, p.2517. Crowder M., Ibid, p.2318. Tell, March 21,2005, p.30

Endnotes

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i. From Colonial to Independent EraYakubu Gowon’s words of no victor no vanquished atthe end of the war remains for the Igbo a blind folding offools and imbeciles because it is a deceit of the mind andsustenance of false existence. But in reality, the conquestof the Igbo is not in the shredding of the millions of theirpeople with the bangs of bullets or the silencing of theiragitation for secession, but the defeat is mainly in thepermanent silencing of their self-consciousness,economic strangulation and the assimilation of theirpopulation into the anonymous and the castrated of thenation. Their dynamism and relevance is only felt in theirfunction of synergy of unity and development of Nigeriaand creation of wealth for others, to whom they remainpermanent hireling and entertainers without a rightbeyond the marginal of gratuitous given of existence.

It is evident that the pliability, sacrifice and gullibility ofthe Igbo and the docility of the entire Nigerian citizensremain the secrete thread holding the unity of the Nigerianentity. But because the irony of the Nigerian society is

The Fragile SynergyAnd Victim Of Unity

C H A P T E R T W O

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the tendency to victimize those who stand for the truthand the right principle of existence, there are victims aswell as beneficiaries of the Nigerian controversial unity.The victims include in one category, those not given tomendacity and pretense but in truth and justifiableskepticism challenge the reality of the Nigerian unitystructure. These would with courageous intent, give openobjection to the fictitiousness and pettiness of Nigerianstate and suffer the fate of dissenting dissidents. LateChukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was one of thosewho fell into this category of victims for confronting whathe perceived as the parody of unity. Gani Fawehinmiwas not spared the hostility and tyranny of incessantimprisonment when he confronted the socio-moral andpolitical infirmity of the state and the ruling class ratherthan conforming to the train and gains of socialcorruption. In another category are those who, ingullibility submit to the superstition and trajectory of theunity dogma and compromise their right, distinct identityand self-determination for the survival of the Nigeriancorporate identity. The corporate Igbo fall into this classof oblation. The Igbo particularly stands out by designor chance, as the apostle and equipoise of Nigerian unitybut is more often victimized by the Nigeriancircumstances given their posture of self-inflicted, socio-political lethargy and ineptitude which progressivelyenhance their victimhood. There is also the category ofthose who, with selfish intent, cling to the pseudo unityfor their entrenched sectional interest in Nigeria for which

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the rest suffer as victims of unity. This category includesindividuals or tribes in their relative attitude to Nigeria.

The Igbo, by circumstance of their dynamic migration,birth, unrestricted residential spread across the nation,are the most nationalistic, authentic and valid Nigeriancitizens. Unlike the rest of Nigerians, most Igbo citizens,great and small, past and present, dead or alive, dating asold as Nigeria, were by providence or design born andbred in different parts of Nigeria other than their nativeIgbo land. Hence, they freely distribute their presencein the rest of Nigeria. Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, thepioneer and vanguard of Nigerian independence standsthe metaphor and prototype of this Igbo truism of bothvictim and detribalizer. The description of Dr. Azikiwe’straversing and synergic picture in his funeral oration istrue of the rest of Igbo people: “The geography of themilestones in the life of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe predisposedhim to a national consciousness, nationalistic sentimentsand proclivities. He was born far from his home townOnitsha, and far from his own Eastern Region, on 16thNovember, 1904 in Zungeru, Niger State in the thenNorthern Region… his closest political associates werefar flung from his home area. Thus in governance, asthe premier of Eastern region, his private secretary wasfrom the North, his parliamentary secretary was fromthe West, his aid-de-camp was a Yoruba man andcharacteristically it was under his administration that thefirst non-indigene, a Hausa man became Mayor of Enugu,that capital city of his region”.1

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Only the Igbo are the people of Nigeria who voluntarilyand indiscriminately reside in and develop all parts ofNigeria apart for reasons of compulsory and official civilservice posting. On the contrary, the rest of Nigeriansare demobilized and localized in their native land, excepton ground of official temporary national assignmentwhich compulsorily takes them outside their ethnic origin.It is only the Igbo who freely establish and spread theirprivate and independent business enterprises in other partsof Nigerian states other than their native land, while otherNigerians sparingly establish in other parts of Nigeriaand hardly in Igbo land. One challenges to know forinstance, how many of Aliko Dangote’s internationallyacclaimed industries are established in any of the SouthEast States of Nigeria, compared to other parts of Nigeriaas at the time of writing this book. He instead, loads histrucks of cement from cement industries built in otherparts of Nigeria down to the South East states for retailsales in the South East and turns his truck back, leavingno trace of his industrial presence for employment of theIgbo consumers. Only the Igbo, for his indiscriminateresidential spread psychosis, have their cars and othervehicular machines, replete with other Nigerian state platenumbers and names as they traverse other states with thenaive belief that every part of Nigeria is a home for all.Their children’s baptismal and birth certificatesindiscriminately bear all the names of the 36 states ofNigeria and villages including the remotest parts of thecountry outside Igbo land. Majority of the Igbo citizensmaster, sing and speak all Nigerian tribal languages and

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dialects with exceptional efficiency and proficiency evenat the risk of losing their own native language. At death,the Igbo are the only people in Nigeria whose funeralorations are replete with strange names of interiorvillages, towns and states outside Igbo land, where theyresided, traversed and made their greatest socio-economicimputes. With their viability and usefulness exhausted,overused, and now aged, they would come back to theirnative Igbo land, old, retired and expired for use. Whenthey are now wasted and die, they are buried in a soilthey never endeared themselves to, while spending theirlives outside as “detribalized” but “trivialized” andvictimized nationalists. In times of religious or tribalcrisis, the Igbo blood and wealth must be part or the onlyinescapable harvest and appeasing libation and victimof national hostility outside his native land but nevershares in the victory of national harvest in moment ofpeace.

Though the most sincere and committed advocate, theepicenter, the anchor and stabilizer of the Nigerian unityand co-existence, the Igbo is nevertheless, today andalways, the very victim of that unity. Courtesy of RalphUwechue’s diligent historical insight titled, “Ndigbo:Nigeria’s nation builders”, he highlighted an ex-ray ofIgbo sacrifice to keep a nation that eventually refuses tokeep her. In his analysis in Daily Champion November16, 2009, it is deducible that there could probably havebeen no Nigeria as it is today if the Igbo, through theflexibility and compromise of Nnamdi Azikiwe, had not

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offered to forfeit the Igbo autonomy, independence andsovereignty to keep Nigeria one when Lord Lugardoffered the opportunity of regional independence. Thushe opines, “…with the offer of independence to the threeregions individually, provided any two accepted the offer;a political crisis loomed large on the national horizon.The Northern Region led by the Northern People’sCongress (NPC) took the position that the North was notready for that level of independence. The WesternRegion, led by Chief Obafami Awolowo’s Action Group(AG) promptly declared its readiness to accept the offer.It was the Igbo-led (NCNC) that held the balance. Itwas an issue that could make or break Nigeria, if Ndigbo,Nigeria’s Nation builders among the three Regions choseto go their separate ways to independence. The NCNCleader, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe took the stand that althoughthe Eastern Region was ready to assume theresponsibilities of Regional independence, its attainmentwithout the North would lead, in his own words, the“Balkanization of the Nigerian Nation” and conceivablya break-up of the country. The Eastern Region wouldrather suppress its appetite for independence and theobvious gains it would entail until the Northern Regionwas ready”.2

The independent struggle leaves its trace of this synergicvictim in Nnamdi Azikiwe. Historical observers of theNigerian events believe that Nnamdi Azikiwe of Igbowas a major arrowhead in the independent struggleagainst British colonialism while Britain was the major

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supporter of Nigeria against the Igbo in the civil war.Many would hardly discern the reason for the Britishsupport of Nigeria against the Igbo during the civil warbeyond her economic interest and the protection ofNigeria as her colony. The reason goes beyond theprotection of Nigeria as her colony but is conterminouswith the thesis of the Igbo as victim of the Nigeriacircumstance. Thus the support for Nigeria is theexpression of Britain’s bias and vengeance against theZik of Igbo land. Britain therefore hated the Igbo becauseof Nnamdi Azikiwe of Igbo extraction who most activelyfore-fronted and championed the nationalist fight forcolonial liberation of Nigeria and coincidentally becamethe pioneer recipient of its maiden leadership as the firstpresident of independent Nigeria. Again, the strongestresistance of the colonial rule was from the Igbo region,thus resulting in the use of the indirect rule. PatrickNzeogwu too, who featured in the coup and itsantecedents of the secession war against Britain’s Nigeriawas also considered to be of Igbo stock, because “hisfather, Obi Nzeogwu hailed from Umuomake quartersin Obodogwu village, one of the clusters of villagesconstituting Okpanam in what was then known as Asabadivision, in the Igbo speaking areas of Bendel State, Westof the lower Niger River”.3 Since Britain insisted oninclusive and indivisible Nigeria in her colonialadministration, a separationist war was seen as a waragainst Britain and her colonial philosophy, policy andideology, especially by a part she consideredeconomically less viable, administratively uninteresting

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and uncooperative in their colonial administration. So acombined psychological force of vengeance, economicinterest and protection of her colony swelled against theIgbo in the war, making the Igbo the Nigerian liberator-victim. Today, the misadventure and blunder of Britainand the European allies in insisting on the unexaminedunity of Nigeria resulted in two classical historical errorand negative consequences, in which the Igbo lost most.Thus, Britain succeeded in fixing into a permanent boxof conflict, humanities of incongruous, parallel and ever-conflicting religious groups separated in socio-culturalworld views, descent and psychological attitudes. Theyalso succeeded in suppressing and subjecting an emergingIgbo energetic African Black power under permanentrepression in the Nigerian lazy union and dulled aprogressively enlightened, intellectual and egalitarianYoruba race under an obnoxious, snail going anddrudging unity. Ironically, it is the North who in pretence,fought to unite Nigeria with the aid of Britain whomentored and forced them into one Nigeria against theirwish, that has always brought the religious fire and anti-European and Western, cultural and educationalxenophobia, to dissect the same Nigeria they and Britaincontrived in conspiracy and error.

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was the arch culprit of a naivehistorical miscalculation and short sightedness that keptthe entire people in the dilemma of disfigured unionbecause the proposed plan for the independent andseparate existence of the major ethnic nations was rejected

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and forestalled by him as he insisted that the North thenwas not yet ready and prepared for independence. Heconsequently deprived his people and the rest theopportunity of severance from the country when it wasmost appropriate. It was this costly historical sacrificeof the forfeiture of Igbo freedom by an Igbo statesmanin sympathy for the North that became the beacon onwhich the country later and permanently stood wronglyand erroneously as one with the Igbo as the worse affectedin it.

Close to a century of that conscripted union, another Igbo,Chief Ralph Uwazurike was suspected and alleged tohave replayed the script of compromise in favour of unity.This was at a time when the Igbo race and other Nigerianswere still agitating and negotiating to be meaningfullygrafted in the scheme of justice in Nigeria or to disengagefrom its unjust organ. Having led many of his desperateIgbo kinsmen in a militancy that lead to the abattoir andsquander of their lives in the hands of Nigerian securityagencies in the process of liberating them from Nigeria,he was suspected to have reneged. Wearing the toga andlegendry of a Messiah, he dominated the space of awfulinfluence of an emperor and created an aura and cynosureof a daunting liberator for desperate prisoners underemergency. But like Nnamdi Azikiwe, he was suspectedand alleged to have cheaply signed off and gave up thecause in 2013 in favour of Nigerian unity. Thus, in 2013,Nigeria again drifted to the brink of tearing tension andanxiety under the weight of 2015 power succession

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struggle between the North and the South. Yet, thepolitical calculation of who rules Nigeria in the long runalso completely excluded and neglected the Igbo. Thereblazed a multi-faceted power crisis of a gang up of theNorth against the South in one hand and against thepresidential ambition of Goodluck Jonathan of the South-South in another and also an internal turmoil in the rulingparty. Nigeria’s fragile existence was again on the brinkof somersault and a Jonah was needed to be jettisonedinto the sea to lighten the drowning unity boat. Suddenly,some strange men convened in Imo state, one of the IgboSouth Eastern states of Nigeria, allegedly claiming tosolidify the Nigerian unity. Most, if not all of the menmay have never before visited the Igbo South-East orImo state as part of Nigeria all their lives except nowthat they needed to use the zone as ransom andpropitiating oblation for their interest to keep bothPresident Jonathan and Nigeria on the stabilizing lifemachine. And that life support machine is the Igbo. OnThursday, September 12, 2013, in the gathering of mightyagitators and militants of the West, the North, the South-South and the South-East, namely, Hamza Mustapha,Ralph Uwazurike, Asari Dokubo, Mohamed Abacha,Fredrick Fasheun, Hilda Dokuba, Fanny Amun, etcetera,there was a suspected withdrawal from the struggle forthe Sovereign State of Biafra to keep Nigeria united. ‘TheUnion’ newspaper of November 3-9, 2013, confirmedthis in the interview granted to Dr. Federick Fasheun,the leader of Yoruba OPC in Lagos, that the leaders ofthese groups actually met in Owerri, the capital of Imo

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state and formed the National Unity Alliance to mobilizethe youths of the country for effective participation inthe affairs of the group with which they intend to fortifythe unity. While the activists gathered to reach an accordto drop their militancy and pursue the physical unity ofthe geographical territory, they spared no thought for thelanguishing humanity of the common citizens sufferingin that territory in the midst of plenty or those crusheddaily by religious bigotry which challenges that unity.

Speculations went wild on the suspected unilateralsurrender and compromise of the Biafran agitation forthe unity of the same country that necessitated itsemergence in 1967 and still treats the Igbo as aliens andvassals of the nation. But what was more demoralizingis that the collective opinion of the followers of the Biafraagitation was never consulted nor a stake put up tonegotiate the Igbo problem in Nigeria as a pre-conditionfor denouncing the struggle for self-determination. Butthat action, which many considered as sabotage andbetrayal of confidence and trust, re-enacted painfully theIgbo synergic servitude in the Nigerian unity. It posturesthe Igbo as the victim and synergy of unity for whichthey are always sacrificed without a price. Yet theNigerian ironic equivocation and prevarication is a proofthat the unity postulation is a mere axiom in which denialand affirmation exist simultaneously in constant conflictas a torture of the national conscience. Thus, monthsafter the meeting to strengthen the unity agenda withRalph Uwazurike in Imo state, their spokesman,

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Frederick Fasheun, admitted and insisted in an interviewwith ‘The Union’ news paper, that the amalgamationwhich united the country lacks legality, and not only thatwe are not a nation but a country of various states, andthat the unity expires by 2014 of its 100 years. He alsoaccepted that every ethnic nationality group has the legalright to withdraw from the union. Yet, aware of thisenormous truism, they pretended to gather to strengthenthe unity of expired union.

Barely one month after Chief Ralph Uwazurike’s allegedsurrender of the Igbo agitation, another Igbo wasintimidated into the resignation and surrender of hisnational appointment for saying an obvious and knowntruth about the Nigerian census. It is as true as night givesway to day that from inception, Nigeria has neverconducted or agreed to the truth of any valid, genuineand authentic head count. Every previous census isbelieved to have been manipulated, rigged, distorted orlopsidedly scaled in favour or against one region, onereligion, one ethnic group or the other. Most often theobvious suspicion in census irregularities is that theNorthern region is usually favoured against the South.Nigeria’s first post-independence census was withdrawnand canceled, so was 1963 and 1973 census which neversaw the light of day. Not even the colonial Britain gave afair head count. The provisional result of 2006 censuswas also disputed. Lagos for instance, also disputed andnever accepted the higher figure of Kano’s 9.4 millionabove Lagos’ 9.0 million in 2006. Every honest Nigerian

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and ethnic group has contested and never agreed on theauthenticity of any true national population figure inNigeria.

Therefore, the Director General of the NationalPopulation Commission, Mr. Eze Festus Odimegwu, inmaking the same claim in 2013, only mimicked thepopular opinion and truth that past Nigerian populationcounts were flawed. He thus challenged Nigeria for amore credible census in 2016. The critique brought himacid hostility. A Northern Governor of Kano statetraduced him and insinuated for action against him. Hewas queried by the Federal government. Sequel to thequery, either pressure or quest for self-integrity or bothforced him to honourably quit his job rather than subdueor renege on the truth. But eye witnesses andfunctionaries of Nigerian census who were sent from theSouth of Nigeria to work in the North always allege withconviction that the Northern elites not only registerneighboring foreign citizens and adherents of Islamicreligion in their census, but mandate native censusworkers to manufacture and allocate fictitious figures totheir constituencies. Perhaps other parts of Nigeria dosimilar thing to counter their trick. Therefore there canbe and has never been any valid and true census.Odimegwu’s intimidation out of office for expressing thistruth further strengthens the truth that Nigeria is aninstitutional structure of falsehood and conspiracy forwhich a victim is always needed in the Igbo as theinevitable object of stitching together and sustaining the

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disjointed fabric of a nation whenever crisis tends to tearit.

But the audacity of the sword of truth, nurtured by purityof conscience, would always pierce the base pretence offalsehood and intimidation which cudgel the truth infavour of regal lies and confines the horizon of truenationhood in collective mediocrity. Only the audacityof truth would liberate a nation from the stranglehold ofpseudo existence which stunts its aspiration to the idealsit lacks but pretends to have in obeisance to mean flatters,while victimizing and clipping the bold minds of truththat give true flight to genuine horizon. The urgency anddispatch with which the query was given to Odimegwuand the acceptance of his resignation by presidentJonathan for saying a popular and obvious truth confirmthe truth that there has never been hitherto a true nationalpresident but mere ethnic representative heads dressedin ethnic attires representing discordant ethnic sentimentsrather than national truth. Therefore no Nigerianpresident dances to the tune and rhythm of noble passionof patriotic truth but the sentiments and emotions thatsuit precarious convenience and comfort of interests justto retain the fragile throne of a fractured kingdom ofdiverse nationalities. Having resigned his office forsaying the truth, the country would need and preferanother Igbo successor to Odimegwu, who wouldcontrary to the truth, succumb to the falsehood and liethat every Nigerian census has been perfect and so

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subordinate to a stereotype census to satisfy the cravingsof a favoured group if he must retain his seat.

History puts it clear that though ChukwuemekaOdumegwu Ojukwu no doubt, was stiff for a compromisein the civil war. He was nevertheless non-malicious andnot the aggressor but yet became the victim of propriety,justice and equity in a nation of mediocre. It is on recordthat Ojukwu did not engineer or support the coup thatsparked off a counter coup and latter a civil war. On thecontrary, “It was to Ojukwu’s credit that the coup loststeam in the north, where it had succeeded. Lt. ColOdumegwu Ojukwu supported the forces loyal to theSupreme commander of the Nigerian armed forces,Major-general Aguyi-Ironsi”.4 But sooner, Ojukwubecame the victim of Nigeria dishonesty in his pursuanceof equity and fairness, for insisting on the right ofleadership succession. Thus, as the counter coupeliminated the Supreme commander, General Aguyi-Ironsi, “Ojukwu insisted that the military hierarchy mustbe preserved. This means that Brigadier Ogundipe andnot Colonel Yakubu Gowon, should take over the batonof leadership. However, the leaders of the counter-coupinsisted that colonel Gowon be made Head of State”.5

The irony here is that Ojukwu did not insist that he orany of his Igbo kinsmen be made the head of state, butrather a Yoruba. Yet the later joined forces against himin favour of the North. This characteristic insincerity ofthe Nigerian nation which victimizes virtues andsabotages principle at the altar of ethnic and personal

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interest depicts a nation with the sterility of value andready to retain the chaff at the expense of the substance.

Even as the leader of the secessionist Biafra, and whilestill defending his Igbo people against Nigeria,Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was neverthelesssimultaneously concerned for the Nigerian unity. This isevident in his actions and words that, “Easterners residentin the North were massacred in the first pogrom of May1966…our people began to run home from the North infear and panic. A number of them came to me personallyas the military governor of the Eastern group of provinces.While sympathizing with their pitiable condition, I gavethem assurances that justice would be done and persuadedthem to return to the North. They took my word andreturned. My belief and interest in the oneness of andunity of Nigeria remained overriding, as furtherevidenced by my appointment of the Emir of Kano asthe chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, inreplacement of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, that much belovedand revered son of Biafra”.6 How else could a peoplehave expressed lavished chauvinism for their country thansacrificing the interest of their own revered son for theoneness and unity of a hoax nation?

But a reversal and direct opposite of this characteristicpatriotic commitment to the Nigerian unity was playedout by Yakubu Gowon, who was never sincere and seriousabout Nigeria. Yet he was seen as a better Nigerian thanOjukwu for acting as usual on the impulse of mere

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opportunism and pretext of uniting the nation when heactually acted under the influence and instruction ofBritain to retain power for the North against the South.Hence, coincidentally it was Ogundipe and Britain whofacilitated and aided Gowon’s ambition by the treacheryof Britain, who invited Ogundipe to take up the office ofa commissioner in Britain instead of the Nigerian headof state that fell on him. It was this that made a leewayfor the leadership of Yakubu Gowon and the North againstthe South. But this was rebuffed by Ojukwu. When thewar ensued because of this intrigue, Gowon claimed inpretext to keep together, a Nigeria he and the North neverbelieved in beyond his interest of being the military headof state for the North. Ojukwu’s selected speech revealsthe dubious and pretentious hypocrisy that has sustainedthe unity and on those who actually hold the ace of unity,“Gowon, in fact, personally told me over the phone (andthe conversation was duly recorded) that the Northwanted to secede. Much as the idea shocked me at thattime, I told him that if that would lead to peace, theycould go ahead. Gowon had left the Lagos Island toIkeja barracks, where the Northern flag of the newRepublic of the North was flown. A speech had beenprepared for him, announcing the secession of the Northfrom the rest of Nigeria… It was the British and Americandiplomatic representatives in Lagos who intervened andstopped the North from seceding as had been their definiteplan… As a result, the speech as finally delivered byGowon bore traces of very hasty amendment and edition

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which did not conceal the real underlining reason for themutiny - which the basis of unity in Nigeria did not exist”.7

Our task so far, is to establish the fact of the Igbo synergictravail in the course of the country’s continuous co-existence over a century of wobbling union in spite of itsintrinsic susceptibility for break-up and the permanentreluctance and unwillingness of the partners of the union.For those with religious sentiment, God has sustainedNigeria against disintegration because God loves Nigeriaand wants them to remain as one. For others, it is courtesyof the patriotism of the Nigerian leaders and their abilityto have wielded the unwilling diverse componentstogether for a century of co-existence. On the contrary,it is evident, by error or design, that from inception, the“Igbo factor”, is obviously the secret synergy and lifesupport that is consciously or unconsciously supplyingthe psychology and animation of the fire of national unityby their sheer disposition of sacrifice and victimhood.For instance, the Igbo ubiquitous and unrestricted mixturewith every imaginable community in Nigeria in theirremotest recesses, even to the detriment and loss of theirown identity and root, has always powerfully andpsychologically fostered and vivified the Nigerianconsciousness of pan nationalism. While the rest ofNigerians have 99 percent of their wealth and investmentsin their states of origin and other parts of Nigeria apartfrom the Igbo South East, the Igbos have 95 percent oftheir wealth and investments in other states of Nigeria

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outside their native Igbo states of origin and yet theyremain on the margin of things in Nigeria.

The Igbo presence, tolerance, accommodation anddiffusion in every part of Nigeria, wordlessly and tacitlyinvoke a permeating social and sociologicalconsciousness of integration which remind all in theSouth East, South-South, the North, South west and thecities of Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Ibadan,Calabar, Sokoto, Ogun, Ilorin, Ilesha, etc., that this isone country. This psychology of synergy is not providedby any other tribal group in Nigeria. Apart from theNigerian oil, the Igbo is the next visible ligament mosteffectively fastening the knots of the skeleton calledNigeria with their permeating infusion and interwovensocio-cultural and linguistic mechanism. In the religiouscommunities, market places, offices and social gatheringsthe Igbo enkindles national fraternity with theirunrestricted mixer attitude. Should the Igbo restrict theirmovement within Igbo land and withdraw from otherNigerian tribes like the Yoruba, Hausa and the rest ofNigerians do, the porosity and hollowness of the Nigeriannationalism and unity consciousness would becomeobvious and visible.

Sincere Nigerians from other tribes realize and admit thefact of the Igbo great cost of sustaining the nation to thedetriment of their own native land and identity. It isobserved with suppressed satire and irony that theNigerian co-existence and the Igbo migration and

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development of other parts of Nigeria, impose on theIgbo people a burden and victim status of self-diminishingeffect for their own native land. That means, the Igbomaking of Nigeria has in reverse become the unmakingand underdevelopment of the Igbo. Fredrick Fasheun, aYoruba leader, observes this with deep sense of pity in‘The Source’, August 22, 2011: “…look at the Igbopopulation in Yoruba land. Go to Oshodi, Yaba, Obalandeand everywhere, they are there doing their normalbusiness. I once asked one of my Igbo friends if he stillhave anybody at home; he laughed and asked why? ThenI replied that every Igbo person that is capable ofcontributing to the development of Igbo land is here inLagos. Igbos are hardworking people. The developmentof Nigeria is largely the effort of the Igbos. I think thereshould be effort for some Igbo good brains to developthe rich cultural heritage of the Igbos”.8

From the 1914 amalgamation to the 2014 centenary year,the Igbo have been the vanguard of Nigerian unity andintegration. The evidence of their custodianship of unitybecame obvious by the crack of the civil war and neardisintegration the moment they were provoked to callthe bluff in 1967. From a negative angle, it is also obviousthat following the civil war, the exclusion and mutualconspiracy among other Nigerians against a commonlymisconstrued Igbo entity remain another secretestabilizing the Nigerian unity. Hence, if all Nigerianshardly agree on any issue, they hardly disagree onundermining, excluding, victimizing and compromising

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the Igbo right and destiny and consequently reconcile attheir expense. This negative instrumentality of the Igbofactor has always fostered the unity of the rest in thedominantly tripartite and triangular relationship of theIgbo-Hausa-Yoruba ethnic structure since 1967. The restalways use the Igbo to settle and balance theirdisagreement on common Nigerian political impasse. Ontheir own, the Igbo have always shown compliance,readiness and docility to this mutual conspiracy out ofpsychological complex of false guilt, reminiscence of thepast civil war and preferred the option for a victim statusthan a justified inquisitor. Thus, to avoid a repeat blameof 1967, the Igbo have learnt to passively swallow thehook even in the worse humiliation and deprivation andthis has always kept the country going. Hence, there hasbeen a continuous circumvention and trivialization of theIgbo political destiny, presumptuous of their passivityand pacifism blended with their political ineptitude. Thereis therefore and will continue to be a united Nigeria solong as the Igbo remain the passive dumb victim,anonymous and compromised political and reconciliatoryvictim for the rest. It is tragic to note that an Igbo man iswilling to compromise, jeopardize, relegate or neglecthis brother’s right, plight or need anytime and anywherein order not to offend the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba orNigeria. In any conflict or dilemma, they are much morewilling and ready to sacrifice their interest or theirbrother’s to placate others and have naively disposedthemselves as permanent libation poured to the gods tokeep Nigeria together. Simon Kolawole confirms this

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when he identifies the Igbo as the flesh cut to patch upthe wounded and bleeding nation. In ‘This Day’newspaper of Sunday, January 30, 2011, he observes,“Ironically, Yoruba’s route to “center politics” wasthrough an unusual source. Derided for “selling out”because he did not support Awolowo in the SecondRepublic, Abiola began building bridges across thecountry. When he eventually had a shot at the presidencyin 1993, he won hands down. The annulment of theelection created a serious national crises; the powers thatbe decided they had to appease the Yoruba by zoning thepresidency to them in 1999. The beneficiary, GeneralOlusegun Obasanjo, another Yoruba reviled at home for“selling out” because he did not support Awolowo andthe Yoruba cause in 1979.... Again, in that national crisisof 1993, the Igbo, symbolized by the dumbed AlexEkwueme, became the flesh that was to be cut to patchup the wounded and bleeding nation to keep it alive”.9

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was admittedly an epitome of idealnationalism and citizenship. Yet his practice of universaland ideal pan-nationalism resulted in the neglect of hisimmediate Igbo constituency and totally alienated himfrom his people. On the reverse, his counterpart, ChiefAwolowo, practised tribal and regional primacy andsuccessfully laid solid foundation for the posterity of hisimmediate western region. In the remotest memory of1955, he laid the foundation for free education andregional infrastructural integration in the entire Westernregion. This eventually put the Yoruba race on

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unshakeable educational and infrastructural pedestalahead of the rest of Nigerians and Azikiwe who practicedabstract pan-Nigerianism. While the Yoruba have everyjustifiable reason to venerate the legendry of Awolowofor his heroic native concern and regional vision, the Igbohave a contrary but justifiable reason to castigate thenaivety and political myopia of Nnamdi Azikiwe in hisabstract and political villainy and wish he had never beentheir political pioneer. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s leadership ofNigeria and his bogus and fabulous pan-nationalism thatneglected the Igbo root, when compared to ChiefAwolowo who never ruled Nigeria for once, clearly scoresthe Igbo tragedy of Nigeria and a nauseating reminiscenceof Azikiwe’s pioneering as a mishap in the search ofabsurd nationalism.

ii. 1999-2011 Igbo Experience of NationalVictimization

Further ex-ray of the Igbo synergy of the Nigeriannationalism and its consequent victim is evidentlyenormous in the contemporary Nigerian political intriguesfrom 1999 till date. Perhaps no humiliation can be worsethan pushing a person out of the house he initiated itsidea and laid the foundation as was done to AlexEkwueme at the beginning of the civilian democraticexperiment in 1999. Having conceived the idea of G34which later became a national political party, he was shortchanged and replaced with Olusegun Obasanjo as theflag bearer to contest the election. In Ekwueme, the Igbosuffered the first casualty of injustice and intrigue in the

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Nigerian annals of civilian democratic experiment afterthe military regime. Alex Ekwueme’s humiliation wasactually used to compensate the Yoruba, whose presumedwin of the election by Abiola was annulled by Babangidafrom the North. The next is ken Nnamani, ProfessorMaurice Iwu and the 207 election. The election of 2007was evidently truncated and violated with utmostindecency and outrageous barbarism, courtesy of theruling party leadership. The alleged “do or die” incitementorder by the then presidency of Obasanjo and theincumbency factor wrecked the ship of the election tointernational embarrassment. The election wasaccordingly globally condemned with a universalconsensus and concordance. But Ken Nnamani, the thenSenate president of Igbo extraction and member of theruling party, wanted to play true nationalism and patrioticstatesmanship rather than the hypocrisy and sycophancyof political and ethnic partisanship. Hence in spite ofhis tribal lineage with the national electoral chairman,Professor Maurice Iwu, Ken Nnamani refused to playtribal partisanship but joined the world to vocally andopenly condemn the election as flawed and defrauded.For this he became the victim of his nationalistic pietyfor not playing along with his ruling party. He wasattacked for condemning the election won by his partyand was charged for anti-party activism. He was kickedout and silenced. Yet the then Nigerian president, lateUmaru Musa Yar’adua and recipient of the fouledelection, acknowledged and admitted that the election

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that brought him to power was actually flawed andirregular.

In response to this truth, the president made a cardinalresolution on assumption of office, to set up electoralreform machinery for subsequent elections, to forestall arepeat of the previous rag election. Months later the entireNigeria condemned Professor Maurice Iwu and calledfor his sack for a clearly concocted election. But no actionwas taken against the former president whose order for a“do or die” biding to the electoral body and his partywas obeyed robustly by Iwu. Professor Iwu was sackedbarely two months before his tenure was over. PresidentYar’adua’s acknowledgment of a foul election and thesack of the electoral chairman vindicated Ken Nnamaniwho condemned the election but was still victimized. Yetthe former president who imposed a bad election and asick president at all cost still retained the chairmanshipof the Board of Trustee of the party that stage-managedthe election while the man he commanded to do hisbidding in the election was victimized, antagonized andhumiliated out.

Later from November 2009, as predicted by Nigerians,the imposed president could no longer manage eitherNigeria or his health. The Nigerian political environmentbecame murky, tensed and headed for the rock. Its destinywas threatened on account of the high secrecysurrounding the health and office of the president. Theentire leadership, including the Federal Executive

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Council, again played ethnic politicking, sycophanticloyalty and personal survivalist instinct to the detrimentof enlightened rationality and nationalism. Perhaps anIgbo blood was also needed to be spilled for an appeasinglibation to calm the nerves of the gods of Nigerian unity.It would be remembered that in the previous years whenthe same president made a similar health related trip, theformer secretary to the government for speaking freelyon his health issue. So it was foolhardy, risky anddangerous for any person to speak on the same healthissue. But yet, an Igbo woman, Professor Dora Akunyilispoke out. It means Akunyili radically threatened her ownjob as Minister for Information and communication byspeaking to save the country when others muted tacitlyin their politics of conservatism, hidden interest and “saveyour head syndrome”. She played the patriotism worthyof true nationalism in the midst of Nigerian parochialhypocrisy in the prevailing necessity to save the polity.

It has to be reminded that it was Olusegun Obasanjo ofYoruba, who imposed an ailing president, Yar’adua onthe country while it was the North and the governmentloyalists who skillfully concealed the health status of thepresident while tactfully restraining the vice president,Goodluck Jonathan from taking over as Acting Presidentagainst their personal, tribal and religious interest. Thiscaused unprecedented crisis and tension that almost torethe country apart. But it was the Igbo that became thevictim of the crisis in the person of Dr. Dora Akunyilifor speaking out against the intrigue. The Newswatch of

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February 15, 2010 tailored the entire scenario concerningObasanjo, the election and its other problems thus: “Wehad always suspected that he and he alone gave us a go-slow and health-challenged president for reasons thatwere far from patriotic. Perhaps Obasanjo did not quiteappreciate how much he was personally held responsiblefor his peculiar brand of democracy that bent to the whimsof our political leaders,…Two things should be ofparticular interest to us in Obasanjo’s sermon on ensuringYar’adua’s victory became, you would recall, a do-or-die affair for Obasanjo. Obasanjo admitted he knewYar’adua had health challenges…. It is so painful thatwe have now found the tattered pieces of our courage tosay that in imposing Yar’adua on us, Obasanjo acted forObasanjo in the interest of Obasanjo and at the expenseof Nigeria”.10 In the midst of all this, it was Dora Akunyiliwho had the uncommon courage to present a memo tothe National Assembly on the health challenge of latePresident Yar’adua and openly called the nation to dothe right thing.

Both the West and the North knew the president’s healthhad failed and that he could not make it, but they decidedto play the ostrich, waiting for the victim of truth andcourage in the Igbo. In fact, the president was believedto have already died long ago while the Northernkinsmen, insisting he was still alive on life support, heldtenaciously to the seat of government in proxy andprevented the vice president from taking over. But hereis Akunyili’s texture of nationalism that supplied the

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victim in her, as opined by the Newswatch: “We are allin a better position to know that the polity is overheatedto a frightening level. Posterity will judge us harshly ifwe do not positively intervene to resolve this logjam. Iwish to call on the Federal Executive Council to act nowin the best interest of our dear president and our dearnation…. We need to do what is morally right andconstitutional for the president to officially hand over tothe vice president to function as acting president, if hedoes not; we can evoke whichever aspect of theconstitution that should make the vice president an actingpresident…. when the president resumes duty as soon ashe recovers, by the grace of God, he takes over hisposition”.11 But for this patriotic action and of all thatspoke up and others that kept sycophantic mute for theirsafety while the nation boiled, Dora Akunyili becamethe selective victim of attack. The Spectator puts it thus,“For her boldness and rare courage she incurred the wrathof the cabal and the Governors’ forum, both bent onretaining the status quo, with the members calling forher resignation… the Northern caucus of the House ofRepresentatives asked Akunyili to resign over hercomments”.12 Although she never resigned nor was sheremoved, she nevertheless became the escape goat in theentire national crisis whose originating seed was not sownby Akunyili or any Igbo but by the animating principleof “do-or-die” of a Yoruba born president who imposedthe Northern Yar’adua as President. This caused the crisesbut victimized Akunyili as Igbo for the cause of GoodluckJonathan of the South-South Presidency. This is typical

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of the case of Ojukwu, Gowon and Ogundipe in the 1967crisis, in which Ojukwu and the Igbo became the victimof the conspiracy of Britain, Ogundipe and Gowon whileOjukwu was antagonized for vouching for Ogundipe andright of succession.

Unfortunately, Professor Akunyili’s action could totallybe defined in the irony of fate when one analysesGoodluck Jonathan’s Presidential ambition in theperspective of the South-South relationship with the Igbo.The South-South is hardly friendly with the Igbo butrather treats the Igbo with repulsion and resentment andcould probably hardly support any Igbo cause in Nigeria.Neither could they believe the Igbo could take a risk fora South-South presidential cause. But Akunyili’s patrioticadventure to vouch for Jonathan’s cause and save Nigeriareplicated the usual Igbo chauvinistic syndrome forunrewarded nationalism which has always disabled andvictimized their own individual and collective entity intheir pursuance to keep the Nigerian state. The Spectator,again caught it precisely as it quotes Akunyili’s boldpatriotic radicalism against her own personal fate: “Then,she emphasizes for the umpteenth time: “I am not so tiedto this job as to keep quiet in the face of evil so that I willsave my job. If my leaving this job will bring stability toNigeria, then it’s the best thing that can happen to me”13.But the tragedy and paradox of the Nigerian nationalismlie in that irony and hypocrisy which sanctify doublestandard, false principle and vouch for self-servingpretenders while victimizing true and sincere patriots.

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And the Igbo is always that willing constant victimdisposed as ransom for national propitiation.

As though the victimization is not enough, there cameagain the contentious zoning issue which blazed upimmediately after President Yar’adua’s death. There wasobvious fact that the ruling party agreed on a pact forzoning for equity and fairness in respect of the Nigerianpolitical ethnic anatomy of diversity. In trying to playthe script of agreement and equity to keep Nigeria stableby the zoning system contracted by the ruling party ratherthan play political opportunism, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor,the then National Chairman of the party, announced andinsisted that the zoning system of the party would stand.He maintained that in the spirit of the zoning, the Northwould complete its eight year term in 2011 after GoodluckJonathan must have completed the transition consequentto Yar’adua’s death. This too was just and fair andfavoured the North and the principle of agreement. Buthe quickly realized that nationalism and contractualprinciples could be relativized and compromised whenindividual and ethnic interests become absolute andprimary, and that patriots could be turned pawns andsacrificed at the altar of ethnic interest. Therefore,Ogbulafor was not only slammed with a sack from hisPDP national position for maintaining party andnationalistic principle, but was also booked for trial on acontrived and fathomed corruption charge to pay for hisIgboness and statesmanship zealotry. He became thevictim for sustaining the party zoning agreement for

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equity and stability. His Igbo kinsman, Dr. OkwesiliezeNwodo was fixed in his place, again in waiting for theslaughter, pending when he would be victimized andsacrificed for Nigerian pretentious unity.

No sooner did Nwodo inherit the broken kingdom of hiskinsman, Vincent Ogbulafor, than he thrived to contradictand disprove his brother, in order to please Nigeria andsustain the false and fragile unity which Ogbulaforseemed to have cracked. Tailoring the entire scenariotogether in the context of zoning, the “Sun” observes onFriday, July 16, 2010, “But greed and lust for powerstepped in. And fairness was thrown out through thewindow. Immediate past national chairman of the PDP,Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, made the mistake of declaringthat the zoning formula of the party stays, and pronto,corruption charges were conjured against him. Theshadows of old sins just emerged from nowhere, and hewas forced out of office. Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo is thenew party chairman, and he has been speaking from bothsides of the mouth about zoning. First he said the policyhad been jettisoned since year 2002, and the next day hecame out screaming blue murder, claiming he wasmisquoted. And now, the position is that eligibility forall positions has been thrown open. No more zoning.Anybody can aspire for anything, including GoodluckJonathan… That is what the Nigerian constitution says,and a party’s constitution cannot be greater than that ofthe country”14. But the Igbo race has naively lost, notonly the logic of the Nigerian institutionalized

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inconsistency and victimization of the just but also theirown collective sense of bearing and their non-inclusiveness in Nigeria. Hence, Nwodo was also quicklygrinded and snuffed as usual, for the good health ofNigeria, by a combined intrigue of his own Igbo domesticforces and Nigeria. The intrigue was effective against arace that believes naively and zealously in keeping anation that does not keep her, to the extent that theycollaborate with others to destroy themselves to keep thenation. In a work titled, ‘The Burden of Self-imposedMarginalization – An Igbo Experience’, the author, BenOgu, insisted severally that the Igbo are usuallymarginalized or victimized by their own collaboration,because every successful marginalization of the Igbo hasthe Igbo internal collaborator as its enabling catalyst andworking tool against the Igbo. Believing that the Igbo istruly marginalized, he however insists that the same Igbo“is not exonerated in the realization of his ownenslavement… thus, one would observe with surprise thatthe complainant and oppressed Igbo is also an accused,a self-oppressor and a collaborator in his oppression. Thatis to say that ironically, in the midst of the discriminativeoutrage against the Igbo is also the more self-cleansingattitude of the oppressed Igbo themselves in a project ofself-marginalization”.15

But for every good step and intention taken by an Igboin his naivety to express his national chauvinism and bringimpossible sanity to Nigeria, he becomes a handy victim

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and scapegoat of the Nigerian state. Bala, a northerner,in revealing the travail of Nwodo, his frustration tosanitize Nigeria and the national party and how he wasremoved, writes in “The Nation” of Saturday February12, 2011 that, “At every opportunity given to him, heemphasized the need for credible election and condemnedcash-and-carry democracy… Unfortunately, this loftyvision of Dr. Nwodo and his team became his albatross….One could see that the reforms embarked upon by Dr.Nwodo were generally received by party membership butwas rejected by those who feared that the party was beingtaken away from their hands and handed over to thepeople…His efforts to return the party to the people,which was the dream of the founding fathers of the partywas stoutly opposed by his colleagues… As for thegovernors, most of them were apprehensive of the reformagenda… They all welcomed the agenda to removehim…his colleagues in the NWC saw the reform agendabeing pushed by Nwodo as criticism against them andthe way they were doing things before… After theconvention, the South-East governors met at the zonallevel, with very poor presentation and issued out acommuniqué asking the national chairman to resign…Imust say that I was disappointed about the role of theSouth East in the whole show. The shameful act ofconspiracy to remove Dr. Nwodo has created a deep scarin the present and future political leadership about anyIgboman in the country…. I find the pull down syndromeof the Igbo very strange”.16

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The Guardian, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 again,confirms this thus, “When the South-East governorsstarted pushing for Nwodo’s removal, Jonathan, a sourcesaid, “couldn’t say no to their request. Hence Nwodo’sfall… Consequently, the South-East zonal caucus of theparty met and passed a vote of no confidence on him andalso asked the PDP to remove him as nationalchairman”.17 Ironically and tragically too, the samepeople, Ogbulafor and Nwodo suffered for theirpathological disease of their defence of Nigeria. Onesuffered for being in favour of zoning to achieve politicalequity, balance and stability among ethnic orientationsand the other suffered for rejecting it to avoid Nigeriandestabilization and ethnic politics respectively.Paradoxically in each case, both were trying either tosanitize the ruling national party for national credibilityor to sustain the machinery of political equity and justiceto achieve a stable and fair national unity. But both weresacrificed in the course of their statesmanship andstraightforwardness which the nation is allergic to.Nigeria is still too indisposed and unready for Akunyili’stype of courage and national truth in the circumstance ofYar’adua’s illness in 2010, Ogbulafor’s respect forprinciple of agreement for justice and sharing of powerin a multi-ethnic polity, or Nwodo’s political sanctityand puritan stance to sanitize a corrupt party. Nigeria isonly better disposed for ethnic, sectional and parochialpartisanship rather than national patriotism, while merelyposturing a verbal nationalism.

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The culmination of Igbo victimization was in 2011. Whilethe zoning and rotation of the presidency as a matter ofcourse, should have favoured the Igbo if they supportedthe North in 2011, they abandoned their ambition forGoodluck Jonathan and even adopted him as thepresidential flag bearer of their native political party, theAPGA. This they believed was because of their presumedcloser affinity with Jonathan and the South-South. Butthis is a decision that would eventually keep the Igbo inpermanent limbo as the logic of supporting Jonathanagainst the North and the zoning would certainly turnagainst their fortune. Ironically, it was when Jonathanascended to that presidency that the dredging of the RiverNiger and other projects already commenced by latepresident Yar’adua for the South East was put intoabeyance. But when the President wanted a re-electionfor 2015, he again taught of the Niger Bridge as politicalploy.

Another truth of the paradox of the Igbo synergy of theNigerian co-existence is revealed in the invention of theNational Youth Service Corps (NYSC). This was aproject of the post-civil war for national integration. Untilthe Sun newspaper of Saturday January 28, 2012 openedthe revealing scroll, the invention of the National YouthService Corps was erroneously attributed to YakubuGowon. But who could ever believe that an Igbo manfrom Itu, Ezinihitte Mbaise, in Imo state, is the originalconceiver and inventor of the famous NYSC as Dr. AlexIfeanyichukwu Ekwueme is believed to have conceived

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the idea of the six geo-political zones of Nigeria as wellas the G34 that later metamorphosed into the People’sDemocratic Party which eventually excluded him andthe Igbo from its apex leadership? Yakubu Gowon couldhave exploited the Aburi dialogue to avert the war hedeclared which tore Nigeria apart from 1967-1970 buthe failed to do so. If the war was averted and Nigeria hadan evolutionary progress, he would have taken the gloryas incumbent president. Accordingly no one else shouldtake the blame of the war than Gowon, on whom it wasincumbent to avert it but rather declared it. Yet, whenthe war tore the country apart, it was an Igbo man,Professor Timothy Uzodimma Nwala from Itu, Mbaisein Imo state who actually conceived the idea to reintegrateand reunify and stitch together the shredded garmentcalled Nigeria. He conceived the idea of East CentralState Youth Volunteer Services Corps in Enugu, thecapital of former East Central State in 1970 asreintegration project for the Biafra people after the war.He later submitted a memorandum to the Yakubu Gowon-led Federal government for a National Youth VolunteerServices. Gowon accepted and later called it the NationalYouth Service corps in 1973. Referring to the history ofthe NYSC and professor T.U. Nwala, the ‘Sun’ opines,“But perhaps most profoundly he played a role in hisyouthful days immediately after the civil war that didmuch in the rehabilitation of victims of the war in theEast Central State (ECS). When the effort blossomed inEnugu, its birthplace, it grew large to reach the wholestate and the entire nation. And that exceptional role, he

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would vehemently tell you, gave rise to the mostcherished youth nationalistic orientation programme inNigeria - the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)… Itwas exciting listening to this scholar for hours tell hisstory of how the NYSC was incubated in Enugu, hatchedin Lagos and spread to the entire nation…he was majorchampion of the processes that led finally to the NYSC,although according to him the government refused toacknowledge his roles and those of his mates in thatlaudable idea…three years after, the Gowonadministration announced the creation of the NYSC.What we sent was not called the NYSC, but it was solelythe idea with some adjustments”.18 Perhaps, the Head ofState technically delayed the idea for three years until ithad lost connective memory with the Prof. Nwala andIgbo pioneering initiative just to make it the president’sinvention. Ironically, while other Nigerians have madea contribution in the death list of youth corpers in thereligious hostility that visited their service in the Northerndeath zone, the Igbo ethnic group lost the greatest numberof youths in the scheme the Igbo man initiated toreintegrate Nigeria. In other words, while the Igbooriginated the NYSC to stitch together the Nigeria tornby Gowon’s war, Gowon erroneously took the glory ofthe project while the Igbo citizens suffer the greatestcasualties among the Youth Corpers as the victims ofBoko Haram religious terrorism initiated by Gowon’sNorth.

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It is in the understanding of the foregoing of the Igbovictim status that the first son of late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwehad a re-think and denounced his late father’s brand ofnationalism. He himself still bears the usual toga of Igbozealotry and chauvinism for Nigerian nationalism anddetribalization by bearing Bamidele, a Yoruba name. Oneis not against this demonstration of national tolerance,but challenges to know how many Yoruba or Hausa wouldanswer or attach Igbo names to their personal or businessnames as the Igbos do to express national tolerance?However, Bamidele cautioned the abuse of the Igbopeople as the sacrificial lamb of the Nigerian cause. Hemakes a reversal of his father’s style and calls for Igbochange of attitude to Nigerian nationalism. The Igboshould no longer tread the path of anachronisticnationalism of Zik through a torturing self-immolationof the cheap and unrewarded victim. Radically put, theSun opines: “Although Chief Chukwuemeka BamideleAzikiwe, the present Owelle of Onitsha and first son ofNigeria’s first president and governor-general, the lateRt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, shares in the aspirationand ideology of one Nigeria of his late father, he stillbelieves that this ideology has become anachronistic.Chief Azikiwe who expressed this opinion in an interviewwith Daily Sun at Nsukka, said the ideology has out-lived its usefulness, pointing out that the ideology servedas a tool to keep Nigeria together for the attainment ofindependence…but said no one tribe should be left aloneto face the challenges posed by the unity”.19 A genuineco-existence cannot be fostered by one tribe, religion or

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the majority of citizens who suffer the burden of unity inthe hands of others, or a negligible minority with whosepalpitating handcuff of horror, the rest are fasteneddumbly to the abattoir of dogmatic unity.

An ideal unity and co-existence must be one of acollectively shared responsibility and duty, risks andgains, for a common destiny where no one is a means tobut all are equal pilgrims on the way to a common destinyand where no one group bears excess burden or gain forthe collective being. A Nigerian society where the Igbo,the Yoruba, the North or South, the common citizens ora certain religion, retains the monopoly of the permanentholocaust and self-immolation for the appeasement ofthe god of unity lacks moral reason of equity and logicof co-existence as a just society. It loses the justifiablereason for remaining a human political society becausethe nature of any state of a heterogeneous character mustadmit of corporate responsibility and collective accentof equity for the collective survival of the entire people.But Professor Chinedum Nwajiuba painfully observeson the contrary that, “Sadly, 46 years since 1966, 59 yearssince 1953 in Kano, and indeed 67 years since the firstmass murder of the Igbo in Jos in 1945, the blood of theIgbo is still routinely being spilled as sacrifice at theshrines of Nigeria unity to strange and insane gods. Thesystemic elimination of the Igbo via the programmed riotscommencing May 29, July 29, and September 29, 1966seem music to the ears and souls of the deprived, whonever reprimanded nor punished have raised off springs,

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and successor generations, who cherish mass murder asroutine vocation, palatable as kunu to their palate. Evenin this season, the Igbo are being murdered acrossnorthern Nigeria. Southerners are being ordered to leavenorthern Nigeria, by a group that has shown ability toimplement her threats against a helpless Nigeria state,and one that is in denial of the dire situation”.20 All tribesand persons should be noble and honourable men andlive as the reason for the being of the state and notexpendable means, consigned to the chagrins of chanceand optional gratuity for the survival of the state.Honourable disunity should therefore rather be preferredto servile and slavish unity in which one retains the statusof victimhood for co-existence.

Since after the civil war the Igbo have unreservedlyinfused and immersed their entire identity andconsciousness into the Nigerian flood of universal beingand incurred a total loss of their own distinct identity asa people and relevance in the nation. They have soemptied themselves physically and psychologically intothe rest of Nigerian communities that they reserve nofeeling for their root and ethnic identity. The Yoruba staysin Yoruba, thinks Yoruba and sees Nigeria from Yorubaethnic consciousness and perspective; so does the North.Each has a native feeling for their region and hardly putall their eggs in the Nigerian basket of unity. On thecontrary, the Igbo people think Nigeria first and onlyreluctantly remember Igbo when Nigeria fails them. TheIgbo victimhood is therefore a direct implication of the

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fact that, having poured their entire passion andconsciousness into Nigeria and outside their native Igboland, they are bound to be affected squarely as the victimof the slightest thing that happens in Nigeria outside theIgbo land. For their undue and zealous sentiment forNigerian unity, they easily appropriate the danger ofnegative consequences of Nigerian unity crises, as is seenin the experience of Dora Akunyili, Ken Nnamani,Ogbulafor and Nwodo respectively. But it is the Igbodocility and the stripping of themselves off the nativeand ethnic consciousness and patronage, their lack of thesense of native affinity and collective anger againstoppression that have sustained the national union in beingas they negate their own sense of being.

Unless the Igbo make their home secure and habitableby mutual tolerance, eschewing and reducing all formsof mutual hostility and social insecurity, and unless theydevelop nostalgia for native soil, they would remain tiedto the self-incurred victim status in Nigeria. Giving thecombined forces of socio-economic and politicalparalysis of the Igbo, the banality of her elite citizensand the Nigerian conspiracy, the Igbo nation is bound toremain the Nigerian political prisoner of war, theendangered species, subject to subjugation, assimilationand extinction through gradual harrowing repression inthe Nigerian space. Unless they extricate themselvesfrom the union they belong to as negligible andexpendable chaff, they will ever remain mere disposable

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syringe in the Nigerian garbage bin. It amounts toabsurdity and pretentious existence to remain in a stateor union whose sustenance is dependent exclusively onone’s blood bank and subordination of own identity andexistence to thrive as it is with the Igbos of Nigeria.

The passiveness and docility of the entire Nigeriancitizens constitute another synergy that holds the countryin a floundering and smoldering existence. Nigeriancitizens could be said to be one of the most naively docileand tolerant in the world in the face of callous negligence,flagrant oppression and injustice meted to theirsensitivities. This is as a result of the ignorance of rightand the susceptibility and willingness to connive withsubjugation. Nigerian citizens have great servileadaptability to frustrations rather than inquisition forrights. Consequently, in the crucibles of socio-economicdeprivation engineered by the elite, the citizens easilyconsign and resign themselves to the defeatist fatalismof passive absorber of national alienation. The onehundred years of dehumanization, alienation andfrustration of the Nigerian citizens in a union whichemphasizes the fallacy and euphoria of unity and sizeover the quality of human persons, have led to a psychicalbrain over-pressure and pseudo-excitement of Nigerianswhich world observers mistakenly term happiness. Asthe synergy and victims of the misrule, the citizens,mesmerized by the elite, have out of frustration, becomemere anaesthetized laughing morons mistaken for happypeople. Thus, while the country fails to produce genuine

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incentive for patriotism and internal happiness, thecitizens take recourse to wild hullabaloo of foreignfootball and addiction for home video to close the gap ofunemployment and frustration. Hypnotized by foreignChelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid,etcetera, they even kill opponent fans and supporters offoreign teams that have become substitute and excitementfor loss of native patriotism. Foreign football and homevideo has become a sort of sedative and alternative forloss of national consciousness caused by nationalfrustration. In this neurotic state of misplaced mindsetthat lacks genuine happiness, Nigerians were declaredthe “happiest people on earth” in 2010 and on ThursdayApril 5th, 2012, the Channels Television announced that,“The united Nation (UN)’s first comprehensive surveyon national mood has rated Nigerians as the 100thhappiest people in the world”.21 But what the deceivedworld calls happiness, is what late Nigerian musician,Fela Anikalapo Kuti in his real Nigerian experienceproperly called “suffering and smiling” because thesmiling is not realistic happiness.

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1. Garba R., Funeral oration Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe November 16,1996, p.2

2. Daily Champion, November 16, 2009, p.11 and back page3. Olusegu O., Nzeogwu: Spectrum Books Limited, Ibadan, 1987,

p.94. The Patriot Rests (Funeral brochure), 2nd March, 2012, p.25. Ibid, p.26. Ojukwu C.O, Biafra selected speeches of C. Odumegwu Ojukwu,

Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969, p. 37. Ibid, p.58. The Source, August 22, 2011,p.249. This Day, January 20, 2011, p.1610. Newswatch, February 15, 2010, p.511. Ibid, p.1512. The Spectator, Friday March 5-Friday March 12, 2010, p.813. Ibid, p.714. Daily Sun, Friday July 16, 2010, back page15. Ogu. B. The Burden of self-imposed marginalization-An Igbo

Experience: Edu-Edy Publications, Owerri 2009, ps. 2 and 416. The Nation, Saturday February 12, 2011, p.5717. The Guardian, January 19, 2011, p.418. Saturday Sun, January 28, 2012, p.17-1819. Daily Sun, February 17, 2010, p.2120. The White-Paper, Wednesday February 15, 2012-Thursday 16,

2012, p.521. Channels Television, Thursday April 5, 2012

Endnotes

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Three essential elements constitute the basic ingredientsin the formation of any political state. These include thehuman element or the people, without which there is nostate even in thought. The state exists because the peopleor the citizens exist and not otherwise. Next is thesociology and anthropological character of the state,which is the factors of social and cultural diversity,compatibility or homogeneity of this human element orcommunities that make up the state, whether they haveany thing in common or otherwise a disparity of peopleand orientations and to what degree. Thirdly is theideological construct and principle of the state function.This means the system formula and formulation buddingthe ideals and mission or objective for the existence andoperation of the state. What type of state is it, that is,what is the system of governance and how suitable andfunctional is it in relation to the socio-anthropologicalcontext? These must be the overriding factors of any stateformation and foundation. In the absence of these, a statebecomes a mere abstract structure and function of politicalcompetition for position and leadership over a people

A Chronicle ofExclusivist Nationalism

C H A P T E R T H R E E

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without definition, mission and guiding principle orideology giving meaning to the people and state.

A political state is not just the gathering of a group ofpeople in a certain geographical area or definition forthe purpose of physical identity. This unfortunately, wasthe error of the British colonial legacy in the Nigerianstate heritage. The Nigerian state was formed strictly onthe primary consideration of physical unity. What wasparamount in the formation of the Nigerian state was notthe human element but the administrative convenienceand economic cost and gain which was the market valueand reason for amalgamating the protectorates. All thecritical elements of language, religious and culturalcompatibility and temperament which constitute basicelements of the sociology of human ecology wereignored, while unity, which is accidental and secondaryto human and state survival, was made basic. The peoplewere united without proper knowledge of whom theyare, what makes them different or common and how tobe united in civilized and enlightened manner evenwithout being the same people. This has and will alwaysconstitute the absurdity and incubator of tragedy in theNigerian state and make it unmarketable as a nation.

The configuration of the Nigerian state was like a multifetus, gratuitously nourished in the British womb,delivered, weaned and adopted as diverse and aggregateraces or strange children from diverse parentage andbackground. Nigeria is therefore to Britain, children

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given birth by different parents but adopted by a strangecouple, whose interest is to use the children for theirneeds, and not having their interest at heart, laterabandoned them to their fate but secretly manipulatesand controls their affairs from a distance. In 1914, theseadopted children were arbitrarily fused andconglomerated in an unholy erroneous chemical textureof a nation. By a unilateral choice the name Nigeria wascontrived by a woman, the wife of Lord Lugard, andfoisted on them by the prerogative of the colonial step-parent. They later became sovereign independent statefrom Britain and finally given the free rein for self-ruleon October 1st, 1960. But they were never free fromeither external tutelage or internal self-colonization byindigenous rulers and the elite totalitarianism. Were theyprobably freed so they could enslave themselves inexchange and in substitution for external colonization?This is obviously the case. As Britain was a stranger andforeign to the country it formed so are the differentNigerian nationalities strangers to each other in culture,religion and behavior and the people are strangers to theelite that replaced Britain. This has left the entire systema master-slave relationship and a strange union of conflictand struggle.

The trend of events within a century of Nigerianamalgamation therefore ironically makes thereminiscence of British colonization a rather blissfulnostalgia and its substitute independence a mere exchangeof identical state of slavery, making the people wish that

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Britain would come back to colonize and rule theminstead. This is because though Britain dominated Nigeriawith the sense of presumptuous superiority of a race overanother with a monodrama leadership, the Nigerianaristocratic elite, having retrieved power from colonialelite retained it for the native elite with the same sense ofsuperiority over the people whom they also ratherdominate as aliens. But the elite superiority of the colonialmaster over the Nigerian citizens whom they saw assecond class and inferior humanity was understandablebecause they were a different people from a foreign landand arguably had evident superior claim over their hostcitizens. This is because in the prevailing circumstanceof time and history they introduced their hosts to differentmodern civilization, technology, education and newreligion. But there is no justification getting a tougherdeal from the Nigerian elite rulers after independence.And yet the transfer of independence to the natives wassooner or later turned a dirge of funeral worse thancolonization because the native compatriots havecontinuously dealt the psyche of the citizens with suchbrutal and callous insensitivity never displayed by foreignBritain. A recapture of post Nigerian independentleadership trend is therefore pertinent here.

From inception, the Nigerian trend has been one of classand exclusivist system of relegation at one time or theother, some particular groups or the people element ofthe country, following the tenet of the colonial legacy ofclass system. The Nigerian systemic trend of excluding

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the people and some ethnic groups or the minorities couldbe traced back from the 1960s when the political leadersdominated the scene without regard to the ordinarycitizens and recently it excluded particularly the Igbopeople from governance. For instance, in the chronicleof governance, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, briefly heldpower as the governor General from November 16, 1960and later became the first Nigerian ceremonial presidentfrom October 1, 1963-January 16, 1966. Following thecoup and counter coup of 1966, Johnson Aguiyi Ironsibecame the head of the federal Military government fromJanuary 16, 1966 to July 29, 1966. Following the civilwar, Yakubu Gowon from the North usurped the right ofpower and reigned as the head of the Federal Militarygovernment for nine years, from August 1, 1966-July29, 1975. He handed over to Murtala Mohammed alsofrom the North from July 29, 1975 - February 13, 1976.From February 13, 1976 – October 1, 1979, the mantleof leadership and power was in the hand of GeneralOlusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba. Having surrendered themilitary power seemingly meant to implement theEgyptian task force over the Igbo, Obasanjo handedpower over again to Alhaji Shehu Shagari, a Northernerafter a civilian “election” from October 1, 1979 -December 31, 1983. From here the Igbo werepermanently excluded from the apex leadership up to2015, except in 1979 when Dr. Alex Ekwueme playedthe unanimous second fiddle of vice president to AlhajiShehu Shagari of the North. Probably out of fear thatpower might slip off the Northern Fulani hegemony in

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the course of civilized election, General MuhammaduBuhari interfered and retained power in the North with amilitary force on December 31, 1983 - August 27, 1985.As if in a deliberate plan to keep power static in the North,General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida of the same Northwrestled out power again by force from MuhamaduBuhari on August 27, 1985-August 26, 1993 through abloodless coup. He artfully monopolized the leadershipfor nearly nine solid years. Unable to stand the heat ofsocio-political pressure groups especially the Yorubainspired NADECO, who vented anger on him forcanceling the Moshood Abiola presumed winner of the1993 presidential election, Babangida surrendered powerand “stepped aside”. As if acting in consonance with ahidden agenda and conspiracy that power must circulateonly between the two tribes of the Hausa Fulani Northand the Yoruba South-West, General Babangida bowedto national and international pressure and handed powerover to Ernest Shonekan, also a Yoruba for an interimgovernment from August 26, 1993-November 17,1993.After a brief rule, (1993-1994), Shonekan was rudelydischarged of power by yet another Northern powerstrategist, General Sani Abacha, who ruled fromNovember 17, 1993 to January June 8, 1998. This wasanother moment of uninterrupted reckless imperialismand absolutism that held all Nigerians in raw and ruthlessbrutality never known in the colonial era. It was a totaltheatre of brazing dehumanization of human right anddignity that Britain never imagined for her perceivedinferior colony. When again General Sani Abacha was

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fagged out and exhausted with the fatigue of arbitrariness,one would have thought of power shifting to a differentground in reality with a multi-ethnic nation. But the reinof power was again dribbled back to General AbusalamiAbubakar, another Northerner, from June 8, 1998 - May29, 1999. He ruled briefly and handed over again to yet aYoruba Olusegun Obasanjo through an arranged electionin May 29, 1999 - May 29, 2007. He ruled again foranother solid eight years. Hence, from 1966 -2007 andbeyond, the Igbo in particular, and other minority groupswere completely excluded from the Nigerian leadershiptrend until Goodluck Jonathan of the minorityaccidentally came to power in 2010.

This consistent monopolization of leadership betweentwo ethnic groups become so multi-ethnic-blinded andlopsided that one would conclude that Nigeria wascomposed of only two arranged teams with indefiniteand infallible license of monopoly to play in the Nigerianstadium of power and leadership with the rest as passivespectators. It was with hope that a democratic civiliandispensation would be competed on and won freely, thata machinery to float a political party was formed by Dr.Alex Ekwueme prior to 1999 election. He gathered agroup of eminent Nigerians, called G.34, which latermetamorphosed into the People’s Democratic Party.Having formed and weaned the party, General OlusegunObasanjo, a Yoruba and former military head of statefrom 1970-1978, who was then held in prison detentionby Abacha over alleged coup plot, was pulled out of

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prison and stage-managed to displace Dr. Alex Ekwuemeas the flag bearer of the party which Ekwueme conceived.Replicating the sacrificial Jonah destined to be jettisonedand dumped into the sea to calm the buffeting Nigerianpolitical boat, ruptured by General Babangida by thecancellation of the election, Dr. Ekwueme was pushedout with casual impunity. Also like the compromisingpolitical grandchild of Zik and Igbo land, to sustain apseudo nationalism and avoid rocking the boat of unity,Alex Ekwueme never raised a finger of agitation orcontention.

Thus, Olusegun Obasanjo of the Yoruba became thepresident of Nigeria for another eight years in 1999 atthe expense of the Igbo and other minority ethnic groups.Yet at the close of that regime, unable to give up powercompletely, he reincarnated by cloning himself in theimage of another northerner, Umaru Musa Yar’adua towhom he handed over in 2007 for a reason most personaland undisclosed. It became obvious that the Igbo arebeing deliberately excluded not by chance but by design.In the words of THISDAY of Sunday, November 7th,2010, “Again, in 1999, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, an illustriousson of the South East had made a bold challenge for thepresidency. He started getting like minds together to forma formidable political party, which sought to return power,back to the people. Ekwueme was considered the bestcandidate by many Nigerians; he did not win the PDPprimaries. In fact, there are many who still insist that theEkwueme challenge remained the best opportunity for

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an Igbo man to become the president of this country, manyyears after the civil war. Ekwueme was seeminglysacrificed in 1999 for one man’s mistake in 1993!.”1 If itis worrisome that in a country of multi-nationality, powerhas revolved exclusively around two ethnic groups from1966 – 2007, it is all the more exasperating seeing thosewho had ruled the country before, angling to return tothe same seat or plant their allies to remain in power byproxy. For instance, Olusegun Obasanjo ruled Nigeriafrom 1970-1978 as Military Head of state and came backas civilian president in 1999 and was alleged to contrivefor a third tenure at the end of the regime in 2007. Uptill 2011 and 2015, Muhammadu Buhari from the Northremained permanent and career presidential aspirant,making frantic efforts to come back to the throne of powerhe had been before, while the rest watch indefinitely asalien spectators.

From 1966 – 2015, it was still unimaginable to definethe leadership of Nigeria that includes the Igbo exceptas the hunter dog that perspires racing for the catch of adangerous animal that would be eaten by the masters.The Igbo exclusion has been predicated and excused onthe pretext of the 1967 civil war fought by the Igbo indefence of the extinction of their race. But for whateverpretext or rationalization, the consistency of this chronicleof deliberate or inadvertent relegation gives credence tothe suspicion of a conspiracy that a certain race has beendeliberately put on political and leadership embargo andatrophy. The routine of Nigerian election and process of

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succession has at best proved to be a matter of commonagreement and arrangement to satisfy and sustain thisconspiracy of exclusion. This was revealed in thecontroversy that rocked the secret political boat ofagreement between the North and the South-South afterYar’adua’s death and contributed to the unprecedentedpower intrigue of succession in 2010-2015. Thus, theletter written by Ango Abdullahi, exposed in “TheSpectator” of Saturday August 7th-13th, is a warning andreminder of such agreements with the South-South. Theagreement which already shares power at the exclusionof the Igbo reads, “I am sure you and your associateswould also recall that after numerous meetings in Warriand in Abuja, it was agreed that the ‘Northern Union’would support a South-South Vice-president in return ofa reciprocal support for a successful Northern presidentin 2007… “When eventually the so called PDP leader(Obasanjo) hand-picked Dr. Jonathan, yourdisappointment to the point of anger waspalpable…Please note that this letter is being copied toDr. Olusola Saraki, the Waziri of Ilorin. I trust he is awitness as well as the leader of my group at the timeunder reference and he can confirm that our workingagreement was based on 8 years for the North and 8 yearsfor the South-South after the North. It is my fervent hopethat you will have a rethink so as not to damage the long-standing good relationship between our various zones”.2

This was the same way Olusegun Obasanjo was parceledand arranged from the prison for 1999 election and was

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“given” the power to pacify the Yoruba and the Nigerianpolitical rage to the detriment of the Igbo. With the circleconcluded and repeated between the Hausa and Yoruba,for political equilibrium, distributive justice and multi-ethnic character, one thought the Igbo would in the sameway, be conceded the presidency. But rather, at the closeof president Obasanjo’s tenure, he supported anotherNortherner, Umaru Musa Yar’adua to rule the country.Thus, the practice of organized political exclusionismhas remained the constant Nigerian tradition and system,fashioned especially against the majority of the widerNigerian masses or the Igbo. Ikenna Emewu, writing onthe ‘Saturday Sun’ of February 27, 2010, confirms thesystemic game when he opines that “But actually, theentire game points in the wrong direction that somepeople who are concerned for themselves more than thenation, as has always been the tradition, are at theirgame…. These gambits make many believe that the cabalin the north has come to entrench a truism that the nationbelongs to them about 80 percent and about 20 percentto the Yoruba. That was the reason they allowed ChiefOlusegun Obasanjo to hold power for eight years withan agreement that he returns it to them after use. It alsocreates the home truth that outside these power-ownerblocs; nobody else from the other 455 ethnic groups inthe nation has any hope of producing the president”.3

Hence the President, Umaru Musa Yar’adua, came onboard the Nigerian leadership on May 29th, 2007 in amanner that was meant to satisfy the usual traditionalarrangement and agreement procedure and the consistent

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trend of injustice and disparity in which the unity principleis upheld.

It was not too long when the president’s health knockedas was expected it would and while on medical trip inKing Fasad hospital, Saudi Arabia, the vice president,Goodluck Jonathan was transformed to Acting Presidentthrough the contrivance of ‘doctrine of necessity’ by theNational Assembly, pending his recovery and return topower. But on Wednesday May 5th, 2010 the presidentwas finally announced to have died and the actingpresident, Good Luck Jonathan, was formerly sworn inas the substantive president to finish up his remainingtenure.

Arguably, either by rotation, zoning, concession oragreement as the routine has been, the completion ofYar’adua’s regime in 2011 or 2015 by whosoever maycomplete it, was supposed to naturally open up the Igboturn of leadership or else provoke the Igbo question ofdestiny and belongingness to Nigeria. That Igbo questionis: do the Igbo really belong to Nigeria and have equalright with the rest of Nigerian citizens and ethnic groups?If not, why, and what is supposed to be their next logicalstep in the puzzle? Is the civil war or any other reasonsufficient and justifiable excuse or argument by anycivilized standard to permanently exclude a part of acountry from its leadership? If a person is so permanentlyexcluded from participating in the leadership of an organhe is part of, he is automatically presumed and permitted

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to be on his own. Is there any justifiable reason why sucha segment of the country should remain in the union as aspectator of the country’s political voyage?

Having circulated the control of power round in repeatedturns in military and civilian regimes among two out ofthe three and minor ethnic groups in Nigeria for morethan fifty years without the Igbo, Nigeria should haveexhausted every excuse against the Igbo not to take theirturn. The only remaining excuse is the suspectedconspiracy that some Nigerians actually conspired thatthe Igbo will never ever be allowed to ascend the Nigerianapex leadership and this trend of exclusion is a proof ofthe allegation. That would mean that such ethnic groupis permanently consigned to servilely remain subordinateto the commands of others in power in Bertrand Russell’sbelief that, “…there must, if collective enterprises are tosucceed, be some men who give orders and others whoobey them. But the fact that this is possible, and stillmore the fact that the actual inequalities of power exceedwhat is made necessary by technical causes, can lonelybe explained in terms of individual psychology andphysiology. Some men’s characters lead them always tocommand, others always to obey; between these extremeslies the mass of average human beings, who like tocommand in some situations, but in others prefer to besubject to a leader”4. But are the Igbo of Nigeria, byobjective estimation of quality and relevance, reallydeserving of only servile followership and obedience oforders? Could their docility and passivity confirm the

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assumption that the Igbo of Nigeria are psychologicallyand physiologically pre-disposed to only obey and notcommand?

In a union of selective justice, where the dividend ofpower is either granted or denied arbitrarily by theprejudice and discretion of those in power who share theproceeds of power only with their allies, rotation ofpower, confederation, total separation or dissolution ofthe union become both necessary and justifiable option.Again, because political power is an essential prerequisiteof democratic dividend and determination of political lifethe permanent exclusion of a group from the trend ofleadership implies their exclusion from the benefit of statelife. Therefore, zoning system and rotation is the onlyway to guarantee even opportunity of leadership for themarginalized, weak ethnic groups and the minorities tocheck monopoly of power by only one or few in a multi-tribal country and guarantee equal access to the dividendof power to justify the sense of union. This is morepertinent in a polity, where might and opportunism ratherthan the rule of law are the supreme rule and right. Thistruism was actually and initially envisaged by the rulingparty internal democracy and for wider national parityand stability. In the words of the Daily Sun of Friday,July 9, 2010 referring to Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu’s anger atDr. Nwodo and the zoning, it asserts, “Nwodo did notconsult the South East before his controversial commenton zoning, noting that he, as founding national secretaryof the party and now national chairman, had been a

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beneficiary of the zoning arrangement put in place toaddress the issue of marginalization against some sectionsof the country by others… The eminent scientist-turnedpolitician…said the South East was in total support ofthe zoning arrangement in the party and was insistingthat it should go round as a way of ensuring that everysection of the country is given a sense of belonging”.5

Following the completion of Yar’adua’s regime, by himor any other person up to 2015, power would have, as amatter of course and rotation, returned to the South andautomatically to the Igbo South-East or any otherSouthern region besides the South West. But this wasagain thwarted and aborted to maintain the exclusivetrend against the gullible and docile Igbo.

There was no doubt that the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) had an agreement to rotate power between theNorth and the South on an eight-year basis and that bothOlusegun Obasanjo and Yar’adua got their tickets basedon this agreement. But when the tendency to excludethose considered aliens to the right of ruling reignedsupreme, political sophistry and equivocation became theart of the party and a country with certified dearth ofintegrity. In the loss of national integrity to the instinctof base ego and double standard, it is not believing thetruth or disbelieving the falsehood that is in contest, butdishonouring the virtues and principles of truth andagreement for the cult of selfishness in which others andthe truth become victims. Hence, even Nwodo whorejected zoning to satisfy the prevailing sentiment of the

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time was sliced and flung away in the base orgies of thecountry and the party to satisfy their deal to exclude thosethey wanted to. And so, The Nation newspaper got itproperly in these words, “-A careless reading of thepolitical barometer on zoning undid Ogbulafor when heasserted that zoning was alive. Today Nwodo isdiscovering that the world is much more complex thanthe simple and uncluttered dualism he was taught in partone in the university. He is discovering that if hispredecessor was unhorsed for supporting zoning his ownposition and survival may not necessarily be sustainedor enhanced by opposing zoning”.6 Nwodo was alsoforced out by other means and formula and the Igbo wasexcluded from the box of zoning and Jonathan wasdeclared free to run against the zoning principle.

The Igbo again, immediately quietly abandoned zoningand adjusted themselves in favour of Jonathan for the2011 election. Their support was total, unusual andunrivalled in the history of Nigerian election, but notwithout the usual implication of self-negation for thepeace of Nigeria and other people. While it was expectedto be their turn after the North and the Yoruba had heldpower for too long, their failure to clinch power in 2011or after put them in terrible political danger. The principleof social justice and equity justify the Igbo support forzoning and for North continuation in 2011 on theassumption that power will be conceded next to the Igboin 2015. But while geographical affinity and infantilesentiment of supposed relationship with the South-South

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and Jonathan were the only basis for their support forJonathan’s presidency against the North, it implied thaton completion by Jonathan after 2015, the Igbo mightforget the power, since President Jonathan is from thesame South with the Igbo.

There would be zero excuse for the North not to takepower effortlessly and unchallenged in 2019 with thecalculation and logic of North-South zoning power shiftinstead of geo-political zoning which could favour theIgbo. In this calculation, the Igbo people would retaintheir permanent spectator status. This created a mostconfused and dazzling political dilemma for the Igbo inthe political calculation of Nigeria. Whenever powersharing and equity related problem provoke the tempersof the subjects and violent agitation for justice confrontsa nation of diverse nature, the reality of its disparitybecomes glaring and the option for separation isilluminated for equilibrium or liberation of the oppressedand marginalized of the nation’s humanity. This is whyAsari Dokubo, in separate replies in an interview, spokerightly both for pulling apart as a solution for peace andfor the justice of the relegated Igbo, when he said, “Thepost-election violence has clearly shown that we cannotbe together and there is an urgent and compelling needfor us to sit down and discuss, in a conference, how weare going to live together or pull apart, as it has happenedin Sudan…But I believe that naturally, for equity andjustice, power should go to the Igbo in 2015. If we wantto run a country that is balanced and equitable, where

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justice reigns supreme, then we must look at the numberof years ruled by each of the zones. The mostdisadvantageous zone now is the South East. They haveheld executive powers for less than one year. Andnaturally everybody should concur and give them politicalpower. And I am totally in support of that”.7

The exclusion of the Igbo from the Nigerian leadershipis only one aspect of the Nigerian exclusivist ideology.From the 1960s, the ordinary template of governance inNigeria has been the exclusion and relegation of thecommon citizens in the scheme of things because thecolonial legacy bequeathed to the country an elitist systemof anti-masses and anti-people ideology. It is a system ofextreme bipolarity of the masses and the elite class inwhich the elite ruling class represents the interest of thearistocrats and their cronies and makes citizenship righta class system. It replicates a wide dichotomy betweenthe common masses and the political class with a callouscapitalism which partitions the state into a stratum of theextremely poor and the extremely rich in which the formerreduces the later to mere footnote existence or entirelynon-existence. lt creates a fundamental disconnect whichnegates and contradicts the principle of unity andcommon nationality. In its further application, thedividend of power is reserved for certain geographicalareas and the ruling hegemony at the expense of themajority of the ordinary citizenry and the multi-nationalityof the country. But the principle of unity is eitherauthenticated by all-inclusive participation of all the

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constituents of the country or else contradicted byexclusive and selective participation which makes theprinciple a mere contraption.

But the power of systematic exclusion is a virus nourishedby the docility and passivity of the oppressed andexcluded people, whose inaction empowers the tyrannyagainst them because it can only happen with the enablingdisposition of the excluded. The oppressed and theexcluded people are therefore as culpable and indictableas the system or government which excludes them solong as their docility is the cause and excuse for theirexclusion. But the system of exclusion of parts of a wholeof a union is a distortion that contradicts and depreciatesthe sense of union and justifies separation becauseexclusion is equivalent to separation and break up. It isin this that the Nigerian union loses its inviolability, andbeing so vulnerably less sacrosanct and infallible, subjectsitself to justifiable negotiability and partitioning. Likein the partitioning of the African nations in 1885 ascrambling for power and supremacy which permanentlyexcludes some implicitly separates them for independentexistence since they are already separated in practice.What actually justifies a union and common nationalityof a country when some people of the same country areexcluded from the right of apex leadership and citizenscannot get job opportunities in other states of theirresidence because they are Moslems or Christians or non-indigenes of these states?

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1. This Day, November 7,2010, p.2. The Spectator, Saturday, August 7-Friday August 13, 2010, p.103. Saturday Sun, February 27, 2010, p.104. Russel B., Power: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1938, p.135. Daily Sun, Friday July 9, 2010, p.86. The Nation July 11, 2010, back page7. Saturday Sun, April 30, 2011, p.71

Endnotes

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i. Jubilee And Its MeaningBetween 2010 and 2014, the country Nigeria celebratedtwo important anniversaries, a golden jubilee ofindependence and a centenary of the unification, perhaps,without actually underscoring the meaning andimplication of the celebrations on the people. Jubilee hasa religious connotation, origin and a psychology directlylinked to liberation and restoration. The Jewish conceptof jubilee from the Christian scripture reads thus: “Youwill count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years,that is to say a period of seven weeks of years, forty-nineyears… On the day of expiation you will sound thetrumpet throughout the land. You will declare this fiftiethyear to be sacred and proclaim the liberation of all thecountry’s inhabitants…., neither of you may exploit theother” In his Dictionary of the Bible, John L. Mckenzie,S. J. corroborates this when he opines, “The lawprescribes that after 49 years each man shall return to hisown landed property; the soil is not to be cultivated.Property sold between jubilee years is rather released thansold; the price is to be calculated on the number of years

The Challenge ofJubilee And Centenary

C H A P T E R F O U R

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remaining until the jubilee”1. The mission and manifestoof Jesus as a liberator did not lose sight of the principleand essence of jubilee as liberation in his missionmanifesto when it says: “The spirit of the Lord is on mefor Yahweh has anointed me. He has sent me to bringthe news to the afflicted, to soothe the broken-hearted,to proclaim liberty to captives, release to those in prison,to proclaim a year of favour from Yahweh and a day ofvengeance for our God, to comfort all who mourn,…, togive them for ashes a garland,…, and they will be called‘terebinths’ of saving justice” (Isaiah 61:1-3). WhenNigeria celebrated the independent jubilee in 2010, theyobviously celebrated 50 years of liberation and freedomfrom the pangs of British colonial rule. Ironically, theNigerian populace are so subjected and sold to perpetualdependence, penury and oppression against which thefreedom and liberation were celebrated. It is sheerhypocrisy and deceit celebrating the jubilee of a nation’sindependence and freedom from foreign colonialismwhile her own people are holding her citizens underperpetual dependence by a few internal and native neo-colonialists. It is therefore instructive in the aboveunderstanding to reflect the true meaning of independenceand jubilee in the Nigerian experience.

Independence is a state of the experience and exercise ofself-reliance or freedom from the tethers and tutelage ofanother’s extrinsic influence, dictation, control ormanipulation, whether economic, political orpsychological. Independence is the capacity or ability to

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live responsibly with a reasonable autonomy on one’sown defined term and destiny. Independence understoodas mere physical separation is the error of the concept offreedom. Independence embraces a totality of psycho-social and mental detachment from the control of anotherand the actualization of self-reliance and self-determination, while maintaining a voluntary socio-political, or economic interrelationship with another.Independence or freedom from another is ineffectualwithout self-liberation from the internal pangs whichsubject one to worse slave of others or oneself.Independence from another when still enslaved by selfis comparable to the destiny of one acquitted by anotherwhile internally bleeding with self-guilt. This ironically,is the state of present Nigeria and most African countriesbattered by internal conflicts arising from bad rule andexternal economic and political crisis long after theirindependence from foreign colonialism. Liberated fromBritain since 1960, Nigeria and her citizens are stillshackled by the stereotype surveillance of external neo-colonialism and operating on the obsolete and politicalstructure stitched together by external powers while theircitizens remain wretched slaves of the ineptitude andgreed of native compatriots.

Life is a communal cell of a collective consciousness ofcommon humanity. A true nation or union cannottherefore ideally function as an isolation of governmentfrom this mass of common humanity. A country cannotaccordingly be said to be genuinely a nation and truly

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free when the countrymen who are a collective essenceof the state are either in chains, isolated from governanceor abandoned. This is because the pangs of those underimposed social chains in the common humanity, mustalways paste on the psyche of the genuinely and trulyhuman, the scar of turbulent discomfort feeling, which,in that common humanity, reminds the freed that thosewho are free are one with those in chains. Those freedfrom slavery must therefore not enjoy the royalties andloyalty of the enslavement of others or relish the savageryof power over the weak, since as the same humanity, savethe benevolence of opportunity and auspices of destinyand chance, they might have been the weak that othersare. Hence, the independence and freedom which untieus to tie others with the string with which we were oncetied and freed, is the error of ingratitude, base reactionand attitude of primitive minds. Regrettably, this isironically the bitter experience of Nigerian citizens heldin chains and superintended by surrogate leaders of thepost-colonial and independent history. Such independentjubilee celebration suffers from internal contradiction ofthe jubilation of shrouded and illusory sense of historyand unity.

Some states in the world, including America, gotindependence by force of arms against their colonizersand freely chose their system of self-governance. But theindependence of most African countries, especiallyNigeria, were like food cooked to the style and taste ofthe colonial masters and imposed on the table of a

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desperate subject without consultation for suitability, tasteand consent. Nigerian creation and union in particular,could be likened to a ready-made dress sown in theabsence of the owner and without the proper measurementof size and height or regard for fitness, thus making thecostume strange and clumsy to wear. Akinjide alludedto this in the Sunday Sun of March 4, 2012 when heopines that, “They created Nigeria and created a structurewhich suited British economic interest…they didn’t havethe interest of Nigeria at heart….There are documents inthe archive in London which showed that Luggarddeliberately created things so that the north will bedominant and the south will be subservient…”.2 Theindigenes and natives were never consulted either for theplanned name of the country or the compatibility of herpeoples, religion or culture. But the greatest failure ofcolonial Britain was their inability to give themorientation on how to co-habit in their diversity as a singlehumanity. It is simply a muddling of strange peoplesarbitrarily coupled in hurried and disparate condition. Butthe strangeness and incongruity of this pre-arrangedcostume and the continuous pinching and discomfort ofthe imposed garb have accordingly imposedimperativeness for review of its unilateral imposition inthe light of the hundred years of communal hitches andhiccups which groan for liberation. This is the challengeand the understanding of the jubilee and centenarycelebration.

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ii The Jubilee ChallengeThe Nigerian structure is a permanently open-endedreality and negotiable for the reason of the 1914 unilateralunification against native will and volition and the failureof the inhabitants to manage the structure after a centuryof existence. The urgency of negotiability is also hingedon the need to avert impending tragedy of the cohabitationto the detriment of the survival of the religious, culturalor ancestral specie of some inhabitants as a result of theaggression and hostility of some others. The continuousdiscrimination against each other and the demand forseperate and imposition of a single state religion on theentire country, are clear demonstrations of protest againstforced co-existence under duress. After a hundred yearsof collective existence, an ominous signal ofdisgruntlement and rebellion against this imposedstructure and a desire for release can only be ignored inpreference to collective explosion.

The concept of jubilee as liberation therefore holdsexceptional implication for the Igbo people in particular.This is because it is the section of the country that hadthe courage of confronting the urgency of liberation fromwhat is now universally admitted as the Nigerianhypocrisy and fallacy of nationalism. For thatunavoidable face-off the Igbo incurred the country’swrath and threat for annihilation and for defending theirexistence from annihilation they retained Nigerianvendetta and have been practically and tactfully schemedout of the national livelihood. Consequently, their

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genuineness of belonging to Nigeria has remained a farceand superficial while their enslavement is obvious. Yettheir work force and humanity are totally used and abusedin the Nigerian national farm without being involved inthe national harvest. The jubilee and centenary celebrationcan only be meaningful if the Igbo are unconditionallyintegrated into Nigeria or released into their ownsovereignty of freedom and the Nigerian citizens ingeneral are liberated from the pangs of the few elites.Otherwise they remain as robots and dross of politicalwaste bin and prisoners of hard labour of the Nigerianpolitical contraption called a nation.

At the end of the apartheid outrage, the South Africancountry constituted a Truth and Reconciliation Committee(TRC) in 1995 comprising of three fundamentalsegments, such as the Human Rights ViolationCommittee, The Reparation and RehabilitationCommittees, each of which diagnosed the fundamentalerrors, violations and excesses of the apartheid era. Thepurpose was to restore human dignity, grant necessaryamnesty, promote and restore national unity and reconcilesevered and ruptured relationships of the citizens. Withthat, and healed from its discriminatory and oppressivedisparities, South Africa was restored to the dignity anorganic, genuine nationhood where all are dignified freeand equal citizens of a common nation. Unlike SouthAfrica, Yakubu Gowon, unilaterally, and callously threwup a private smoke of uncommitted words ofreconciliation after his war of attrition and severed

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relationship, while the grievances and scars of the warand the Nigerian structure which caused it, permanentlyremain with the country with sustained and constantlyrenewed mutual hostility and vendetta. Neither Gowonnor Ojukwu was interrogated to answer to the immediateor remote cause of the war, its manner of brutal executionagainst Nigerians and deterrents to similar conflicts.Therefore the root cause of the war still remains basicand potential in Nigerian present and future conflicts.

Gowon’s monologue of three Rs of Reconciliation,Reconstruction and rehabilitation and the “no victor novanquished” pronouncement, remain a subjectivesoliloquy which replicated the dishonesty and insinceritythat coloured his declaration of the war. Truereconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation mustinclude the rehabilitation and restoration of the citizens’confidence in the governance in which they and the laware supreme and primary over the individual leaders orrecognize their right to liberation from such unjust andimposed unity structure whose obsolete anachronism,distort equity and freedom of the choice of association.Luke Nnamdi Mbaefo is right to observe succinctly that,“Available evidence indicates that the war has ended butthe questions that began the war are yet to be solvedsatisfactorily. It is correct to maintain that the politics ofpresent-day Nigeria is still grappling with the Biafraquestion…For Europeans, the Berlin Congress called byBismack was primarily to assure peace in Europe. The

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arbitrary division of Africa among the colonial powersdid not take the wish of the Africans into consideration.After political independence, the African nations, in thespirit of African solidarity and its legendary hospitality,had the opportunity to redefine the boundaries and theconditions of continued association”.3 The jubilee andcentenary of amalgamation in the true sense, should havebeen declared Nigerian year of forgiveness, restorationof equity and equality of all ethnic groups, religions andpersons in a country where the rulers are equal with thecommon citizens under the law without any differentiaand all individuals have equal access to the Nigeriancommon wealth irrespective of their background andorigin. The war too, should have been declared truly aNigerian war and not Igbo war against Nigeria, andGowon, who caused and declared the war, should havebeen apportioned appropriate blame or prosecuted forthe aggression and declaration of war as deterrence forfuture untoward power arrogance, rather thanprejudicially throwing the blame at Ojukwu and the Igbo.This is properly so because according to JosephineEffiong, “Contrary to what a particular trend of thoughtadvocates, Biafra was not Igbo endeavor. Those of uswho were close to the helm of its affairs and not of Igboorigin seem to be more acutely aware of this fact. A reviewof some of the then Lt. Col. Ojukwu’s top administrativestaff could throw some light on the across the board (ofEastern Nigeria) nature the Biafran administration. Thesemen led by Colnel Ojukwu along with their Igbocounterparts were the creators of the Ahiara Declaration,

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they include, Maj. Gen. Philip Effiong, A. EkukinamBassey, Eyo Ita, O. U. Ikpa, Matthew T. Mbu, and manyothers. Lt. Colnel Ojukwu did not just embark onsecession without trying dialogue and diplomaticalternatives that could ensure peaceful co-existence withthe rest of Nigeria. The Aburi accord reached after ameeting mediated by president Afrifah of Ghana in Aburi,Ghana on 4th and 5th January, 1967 was the hope to avoidhostilities. The Federal side reneged on agreementsreached at the meeting. This duplicity on the federal sidedid much to heighten the insecurity of the Easterners”.4

War is literarily the conflict of unresolved cause offrustration and struggle of the mind and ego to dominateand impose its will on another. In civilized environment,the Nigerian civil war would be properly seen in the rightperspective as the normal course of the struggle of humanmind against false and distorted institution and forcedco-existence and the course of adjustment and maturitytowards the unfeasibility and travesty of nationhood.When the world’s dynamic process of historicalevolutions are susceptible to the synthesis of diversity ofchallenges of negative or positive evolutions, it smacksof drift to the relics of incivility to treat with vendetta, apeople involved in a war that was a proper question tothe reality of nationhood and a defence against theirethnic annihilation. Therefore, the National Assembly andprospective Nigerian leaders, in sincere pursuance ofnational integration and true sense of unity, shouldabsolve the Igbo of all blackmail and psychological jinx

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and refrain from insidious vendetta because of the warand restore them to unconditional parity with the rest ofNigerians. Otherwise, they should tolerate their freedomto separate from the Nigerian union which continues toperceive and treat them as adversaries and second citizensof Nigeria. Only this can bring a holistic healing to thecollective psyche of the Nigerian nationhood or else itremains an absurd theory.

The Nigerian civil war is not therefore a confinedexperience of guilt and culpability hanging exclusivelyon the Igbo but a national phenomenal conflict of justiceand truth, and repulsion of sham and pretentious unionand nationalism. It is also the result of the experience ofcollective internal and external diplomatic failure andfalsehood of the global community, the tyranny ofusurpation and arrogance of power and breach ofprinciple by the then world powers and incumbentpresident, Yakubu Gowon. It was this that led to thehistorical tragedy of the war of the first fifty years of theNigerian self-rule. Part of the wastage of that war is notjust the human casualties of millions of Igbo and non-Igbo citizens lavished in that furnace of human instinctivebrutality. The inability to learn from its negative causeand experience and the failure to apply proactive antidoteof that history to forestall stimulus that could replaysimilar unpalatable past now and in the future, remainthe worse casualty and the tragedy of Nigerian humanityand history. That tragedy of humanity’s negligence of

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the truth of history is constantly predicated on theunexamined, false sacrosanct of indissolubility imposedon unity and co-existence of disparate peoples withouttheir consent or proper governance to make them feel asone.

One hundred years of amalgamation should not beappraised to have been successful just on ground ofnumerical calculation and continuous union in theabsence of a commensurate socio-economic viability,harmonious co-existence and valued citizenship. Ifanything, the appraisal of the unity is on the stoic,persevering and drudging spirit of the Nigerians who inthe bitter condition of disharmony and conflict,nevertheless continue to co-exist physically in gaggedconscience without existing meaningfully. But union isnot the measure of quality and valuable nationhood andexistence is not the measurement of ideal life. It is aconsensus acknowledgement that the present Nigerianstructure is an inventory coercively foisted on theNigerian people without content disclosure, dialogue orconsent and superintended by a clique of characterdisordered and disoriented intent and insane psychology.So far, the experience of the management of the estateshows that the structure is still a transitory project thatneeds a native restructuring, redesigning, redefinition orpeaceful dislodgement in case of impossible renovation,so as to release its inmates to freedom to avoid possibleimplosion.

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Four main factors permanently disable and impede thefunctionality of the Nigerian union project. They includethe encumbrances and clumsiness arising from the vaststructure, erroneously famed “big” or “great”, whosebreathe and length cannot be grappled by the politicaloverseers, owing to their human and psychologicaldistortions, limitations and bad will. However, vastnessor size is a secondary problem because the whole ofNigeria is less than two states of the fifty states of theUnited States of America. By way of illustration, whilean air flight from some states of the U.S. to another maytake up to four to eight hours, a flight from any state ofNigeria to another takes a maximum of forty five minutesto two hours. This tarnishes the premium and euphoriaput on union and size and makes it a non issue in thefactor and argument for national pride. Therefore, themindset and disability of the leaders and the incongruityof the people are the greater factors of impediment andconcern. The second is the diverse temperaments andincompatibility of the cultural, socio-religious texture ofthe ethnic groups which were never blended into acivilized unit. The peoples have total disparity ofbackgrounds, traits and formation, which continuouslyhunt the harmony of the union. The third is the alienationand estranged nature of the country. As an imposed unionthe country hardly wins anybody’s sense of ownershipand patronage except as object of scramble and loot as itdoes not seem to be anybody’s choice. These elementsmake it permanently and innately fragile, impracticableand constantly prone to internal strife, friction and

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inflammation. The fourth factor of impediment is theelement of the Nigerian leadership and subjects, whichis the psychologically and morally depravedconfiguration of the Nigerian citizens and leadersoperating the structure. The human element of themanagement of the structure is so chronically corrupt,psychologically unsound and adept, depraved and ill-disposed, that the Nigerian collective project under theircharge remains permanently a mirage. The leadershipepitomized by the elite character, is basically depraved,epicurean, stoic and hedonistic in their desires and sadisticand inhuman to the citizens and apathetic and unpatrioticto the state. Nigerian leaders behave like instinctiverobots, sub-humans, primitive and unintelligent machinesprompted by the remote and sensations of money andpower rather than altruistic reason and patriotism towardsthe state and fellow citizens.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the Nigerianpersonality and character exemplified by the leadershipstyle in its aggrandizing and capitalistic greed lack humanspirituality, normal psychology and psychic balance.Otherwise, what does one say of the normalcy of a groupof leaders who siphon the national fund and unrestrictedlylodge the national fund into foreign banks of developedcountries while leaving their land underdeveloped, fallowand famished? Therefore Akinjide is again right that theproblem of Nigeria is not just in the constitution but inthe human element because, in his words, “if you bringthe constitution of the United states, which is working

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very well in the US to Nigeria, it will not work becauseof the character, attitude and the human element in theNigerian people. In the same vein, if you take theconstitution of the Nigeria to the United States ofAmerica, because of their character and human element,it will work very well… The critical thing is that Nigeriais just a country and not a nation”.5 If given its historicaldistortion the structure is unworkable and the humanelement is unhealthy, then it is certified a failed andunviable state and this justifies the imperativeness of therelease of the inmates to alternative autonomous statesor they are retained in such a state as condemnedprisoners. Given the negative factors, it is in vain that abetter and peaceful Nigeria can be expected than it shouldbe rather separated and peacefully dissolved. This wouldachieve the essence of jubilee which in reality is liberationfrom, setting free from or releasing from a condition ofslavery or dependence.

More than fifty years of independence and a hundredyears of unification should have been an opportunity toassess the viability of co-existence or in the alternative,to disband into homogenous, compatible and independentsovereignties where cohabitation does not interpret toco-extermination. This is because humanity would prefercommunity when it is in harmony and not harmful, orelse disintegration into isolation of safety and freedomat nobler option than integration that is combustible andimplosive. A convergence towards the sloppy tributaries

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of death should never be preferred to a divergence anddispersion that liberate to freedom and life. In thealternatives of unity or disunity, congregation orsegregation, the values of peace, happiness and freedomwhich could be lost in the conflict and friction of lethalunity must never be preferred to the segregation andisolation that yield to peace and freedom.

i. The Apartheid Trend And A Return to Pre-1914

The Nigerian trend of oppressive capitalism and classstructure bequeathed by the colonial Britain in which theelite are Lords and Masters over the people posturesNigeria as a great deal of apartheid polity which existsin disparity and relative relevance for different classesand groups. Hence, it exists nominally for the massesbut in reality for the privileged few who monopolize itsresources and share its wealth among party affiliationsand allied cliques of the elite and political class. Thismakes the independent jubilee of 2010 a jubilation forthe few freed to dominate the country and the centenaryof 2014 a celebration of one hundred years of joiningand pillaging together the economic field of the multi-nationalities by few organized elite who hold the massesin perpetual dependence. Nigerian unity in this regard,is a hoax and fictitious theory, used to swindle thecommon man, assimilate and sap the Igbo race of its vitalforce and subsume it for the building of Nigeria. In thisunion, the rest of the greater Nigerian masses grind their

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teeth in excruciating agony of unspeakabledehumanization under the heavy booth of a meagerminority despots who dish out and share the money andoil wells among the greater than thou citizens. The oil,quality education and employment opportunities arereserved for some classes of the citizens of ethinc groupsor accessed through them in some unusual rigorous andexpensive manner of the survival of the fittest system.

Little differentiates former South African apartheidsystem and the Nigerian unofficial apartheid since Nigeriastill practices indigene clause and other clauses ofdiscrimination. Indigene clause is a Nigerian practicewhereby opportunities such as university admission,employment, certain professional studies and politicalappointments, etcetera, are denied or reserved for certainclassified indigenous citizens of the states and ethnicorigin on grounds of tongue, birth or place of origin inspite of qualification and merit of others in the samecountry. University admission and mode of tuition andpersonnel recruitment are regulated discretely by quotaof indigenous clauses and not by merit. This is after acentury of unification as a country and disengagementfrom colonial discrimination of white against black fromwhich the country was freed. Having been liberated fromthe external tyranny and apartheid predicated on colour,superiority of a colonial expatriate, how could we beentangled by a greater internal insidious tyranny ofassumed superiority by indigenous and native citizensover fellow patriots, whose implosion could consume us?

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A country that assisted in the Black South Africanliberation from the claws of White discrimination againstthe black tagged “apartheid” is relishing internal apartheidagainst her own people of the same colour after a centuryof unification. Apartheid is simply the attitude ofapartness of partiality, discrimination and unjustdeprivation which create classes of the favoured anddisfavoured and un-equals among equal citizens of thesame colour and nationality on grounds of the tags of‘class’, ‘state of origin’, ‘tongue’, ‘religion’, ‘surname’or historical prejudice. In his Autobiography, Mandelasays of Apartheid, “It literally means “apartness” and itrepresented the codification in one oppressive system ofall the law and regulations that had kept Africans in aninferior position to whites for centuries”.6 Apartheid wasa South African domestic system of oppressive andrepressive mechanism of class, colour, tribe, inferior andsuperior, master and servant discrimination, whichdispensed advantage and favour by choice and not bymerit. In Nigeria, apartheid exists by implicit codificationexpressed in such deceptive and disguises of balance andjustice carefully cut in “Educationally backward states”,“Federal Character”, or “quota system”, which istechnically used to repress and suppress the progressiveand naturally endowed groups in favour of the lazy andthe indolent, thereby discouraging and suppressingexcellence and promoting mediocrity and injustice. TheNigerian apartheid is expressed in the imposition ofpresumed superiority of religion or power over others

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and dictating the essence and measure of the being ofothers. In this hidden apartheid, people are not perceivedfrom the reality of their persons, intelligence, quality, rightor enduring capabilities but from the overt appearancethat depicts their state of origin and language, theirreligion and the sense of competition which sees them asopponents and adversaries rather than fellow citizens ina common nationality.

The clear evidence of apartheid in Nigeria can be seen inthe instances of maritime transport and railway systemamong others. Incidentally, by the magnitude of theirimportation, mobility, commercial and business activitiesin Nigeria, the Igbo are the major and greatest travelerswho patronize the sea, land and air transportation morethan any other people in Nigeria. Ironically the sea portis managed by those in charge of the Nigerian economyand political power, who deliberately continue to operatea congested sea port in Lagos and resist building one inthe Onitsha South East area of the River Niger wheregoods could also land directly. The unavoidableimplication is the stifling charges of duties, demurrageand other tight up conditions that affect the bulk ownersof importation businesses who are predominantly Igbo.All attempts to dredge the River Niger for the sea portand berthing of ships in the Igbo area have beenpoliticized and tactfully avoided so that the South Eastand South-South business men would continue to wreatheand bleed under the oppressive scorching cost of clearingtheir goods and providing job and revenue for others

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through their business. No prejudice to Lagos where itis deservedly located. But just as the Nigerian systemwhich operates an oppressive, congested and centralizedunion needs decentralization and decongestion of thesqueeze, a sea port is needed in the South East for businesscomfort. But this has been denied. The demand for asecond River Niger bridge which would decongest theold one and serve, not only the Igbo but the entire EasternRegion and other Nigerians became an object of indefiniteplay of words and politicization for many years todiscriminate against those it would directly benefit by itsaffinity of location. The contract for railwaytransportation system in Nigeria for the Northern andWestern Nigeria was long made without mention of theIgbo south-East. By 2014 railway transportation has longresumed in the West and has tactfully circumvented theIgbo South-East area while passing around them to theNorth and West. Similarly, refineries are built in otherparts of the country without reference to the Igbo South-East who are by every measure the greatest travelers andconsumers of petroleum products among Nigerians. Thisis the truth of apartheid system that makes the Nigerianunion questionable.

As the entire Nigerian humanity endures a dehumanizingexperience of a union whose centenary matured inJanuary 1, 2014, each passing experience gives areminiscence of a country of historic inadvertence,misadventure and forced imprisonment of the citizens ina cursory arrangement by a historical fault. Every segment

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of the union, including the Southern Protectorate, theNorth, the Western and Eastern region, one way or theother repulsed the union but were forced into it. Today,with the butchering machine of the Islamic militancy,the North is again signifying its desire for separation fromthe forced union. Participation in a union shouldpresuppose volition and harmony as well as the freedomto opt out at will unless equity, justice and universal rightof all would prevail in total parity. Any union that lacksthe satisfaction of the basic conditions and ingredientsof volition and of the consideration of the United NationHuman Rights Declaration of freedom is conscriptionand not union. It is only in the free choice of the citizensin deciding their nationality or independent entitiesthrough a referendum that true sense of jubilee and unionwould be realized, because jubilee is not a celebration ofconscription and imposition but of liberation andfreedom.

It was the historical struggle of the European countriesover the sharing of the African continents, popularlyknown as the Scramble for Africa which eventually ledto the Berlin Conference in 1885. The conference was agathering of foreign powers to mutually and officiallyagree on how to partition and distribute the Africancontinent among themselves according to the economicinterests of each foreign nation. The territory later calledNigeria was a mere trading territorial field occupied by aEuropean country. After the Berlin Conference of 1885,Britain declared a protectorate over what was later called

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Nigeria. But before 1914, each component of the presentNigeria successfully existed as independent territoriesor countries until eventually conquered and occupied.Finally in January 1, 1914, the separate and independententities were willy-nilly fused together and lumped asone country by Frederick Lugard. The amalgamation ofthe two protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeriaand the entire people by Britain was without their consentor it was only passively reluctant and indifferent, or theagitation to reject it but the people was weak andindifferent because they could not take a common forceagainst a union they did not consider a common andbinding heritage. So indifference and passivity undercolonial coercion was their only contribution. They wereso to say, conscripted into the union and have sinceremained reluctantly apathetic and mutually in conflictunder the duress and surveillance of Britain and herinternal surrogates from January 1, 1914 to January 1,2014 of the first one hundred years of tagging as acountry.

The impact and implication of the logic and psychologyof the Berlin Conference, the way Nigeria was “given”to Britain without Nigerian consent define and continueto affect the total psychology of indifference of the peopleto the country’s existence as stereotype. Besides, apartfrom the intellectual battle of the statesmen, Nigeria didnot wage a war of liberation against Britain to personallyassert their independence and freedom and form theirown power and governance. There is therefore a

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corresponding similarity between the Berlin arrangement,the independence and amalgamation of Nigeria. InOctober 1, 1960, the country was, in the same style ofthe Berlin pact, handed over to few Nigerian nationalistelites as award for championing the colonial severance,without the collective consent of the generality of thepeople with regard to whether they all wanted to belongand be identified as Nigeria or not. The absence of consentand assent through a conscious discourse on the Nigerianunion and the lack of the collective spirit of all segmentsin fighting for the independence and demanding for aunion of the nations became and would continue to befundamental to the lack of the attitude of spiritual,psychological and patriotic attachment to an imposedcountry and unwarranted union that leaves the peopleestranged and alienated to the state and themselves.

Nigeria has attained two remarkable milestones ofhistorical records as a jubilee country of independenceand a centenary of unification in 1914. The challenge ofthese epochal records invokes inward introspection andinterrogation, than just holding mechanically or rigidlyto the glory of numerical years of union or independence.There is need to review this psychology and strangemechanism of the history which gave birth to their realitysimilar to Berlin spirit which has constituted the countryan object of scramble and conflict. It therefore constantlydemands partitioning just as the partitioning of Africainto territories as solution to avoid permanent frictionand conflict of interest among the scramblers. From 1914

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-2014, the Nigerian experience continuously replicate theoriginal scramble and staggered conferences that gavebirth to the country and other African countries of thecontinent. Could Nigeria which has remainedpermanently under the conflict of scramble amongcontending ethnic groups, the elites and contendingreligions like the European countries and their religion,not necessitate partitioning the country as a permanentsolution to avoid war and implosion? The historical factof the amalgamation is that Nigeria was a mechanismfor British administrative and commercial purpose andnot meant to be a country but incidentally became acountry by accident. It can only remain truly a nation,not by the same accidental process or as institution ofunjust scramble for the stronger ethnic, religious orindividual bidder as in the Berlin, but an ideal institutionof equality and equity for the commonest citizens orgroups the weak and the strong. Otherwise, it stands betterpartitioned peacefully into manageable entities, wherehomogeneity and collective volition and consent wouldameliorate the friction of heterogeneous union glued byforces of interests to the detriment of parity, universalright and freedom.

Unlike the Igbo, the Yorubas are more realistic aboutthe limitedness of the Nigerian unity which Britainenvisaged that Nigeria could not continuously remainunited as one country but should exist within a limitedperiod of time. They therefore admit that it has expiration

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period. The Yorubas, beginning from the late sage,Obafemi Awolowo, realized this truism. It is thereforewrong to view the idea of those who think the unity isnegotiable as aberration or treasonable. In his words, thefrank speaking Dr. Federick Fasheun admits that,“Legality is not symbolic, Lord Lugard said he puts ustogether for 100 years, starting from 1914 and we arestill enjoying the togetherness he put us. Next year thattogetherness expires, so every ethnic nationality grouphas the legal right to withdraw from the union, unless wesit down to renew that togetherness… We are not a nation;we are a country of various states. Now nobody is alivenow in this country that can hit his chest and say I wasparty to the amalgamation discussion. Even if LordLugard were alive, he would not have the mouth to saythat I have amalgamated you for more than a 100 yearsbecause it is in his document, the amalgamation will befor a 100 years and 100 years from 1914 will expire nextyear. So Nigerians should feel grateful to PresidentJonathan who has seen and who has heard what theAmericans have said that we would expire, next year,2014… but I admire him for looking at the future andsuspecting that various ethnic nationality groups mightbe withdrawing from the union next year”7. Thisexpiration is internally and naturally embedded in thevery logic and nature of the Nigerian creation andunification. Thus, if the amalgamation was made forBritish administrative purpose and convenience, then theamalgamation expires by the expiration of that

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administration because what has been in place from theyear 1914 to January 2014 remains properly speaking, aBritish administrative and commercial organization onone hundred years lease to the Nigerian surrogate leaders.But no union of such status can be authentic, except incollective and conscious volition the people create astructure of their own convenience and the comfort ofall, where none is an alien or exists in the margin anddictate of another’s convenience.

Towards the completion of a centenary of the 1914amalgamation, the spuriousness and insincerity of theunity precept became more pronounced in the agitationand turmoil that followed the emergence of PresidentGoodluck Jonathan of the Southern Nigeria minority in2010 and his intention to continue on the seat beyond2015. This re-ignited the contention of the Hausa FulaniNorth to retrieve power from him and the SouthernNigeria. They saw it as a task to restore the powerbequeathed to the North by the British before it sleeps oftheir hand as it was the pre-condition and reason for whichthey reluctantly joined the union in 1914. Thus, with theformation of the opposition party, the All ProgressivesCongress, dominated by the Yoruba and the North, theambition of the North to retrieve power was consuming.It was the primary reason for the unprecedented strongeropposition in 2013. A flood gate of carpet crossing anddefection from the ruling party of Jonathan to theopposition party opened. The former vice president, AtikuAbubakar defected to the new opposition, all in a bid to

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pull the stool of power off Jonathan’s buttock to the North,who insisted that power must return to them. By the actionof 2007-2015, it became obvious to the Niger Delta andthe South-South who their true brothers are in Nigeriathe Igbo, the North or Yoruba in spite of NnamdiAzikiwe’s blunder with Ita Eyo and the propaganda ofthe 1967 civil war. Hence, though Jonathan did nothingfor the Igbo who gave him overwhelming block vote in2011, only the Igbo were still ready to drown with himto keep him on seat beyond 2015. The furrow andefficiency with which the navigation for the change ofpower was pursued manifestly revealed Nigeria as a mereunion of mutual conflict and contention for power controlfrom 1914 to 2014. Given the agglomeration of thesegmented entities the country has never been a stableand coherent stature of nationhood but from Lugard toJonathan, has remained a cacophony of ethnocentricstruggle for balance of power between the North andSouth, East and West, North and West, East and North.The struggle for power has only ended up in producing abickering of ethnic frontiers rather than national patriotsin Awo and Zik, Balewa, and Zik, Balewa and Awo,Ojukwu and Gowon, Obasanjo and Babangida, Obasanjoand Abacha, Abiola and Abacha, Obasanjo and Atiku,Obasanjo and Jonathan, Jonathan and Buhari and betweenparty and party, in an unbreakable train of infantilecomedy of political clowns from 1914-2014. Hence, thebasic invariables that constitute the union fromamalgamation to its centenary are reluctance, coercion,

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negative struggle, looting and conflict, occasioned byarbitrary failed union. Genuine stability and peace mighttherefore only come in peaceful separation of thiscommon interest to avert persistent conflict and war. Solong as the seed of hostility, contention and conflict arethe essential content of this disparately incompatibleunion bound by compulsion, even another one hundredyears cannot bring a panacea or eschew the conflict aswould, the separation from the common pot of contentionbecause there is simply no sense of nationhood but aunion of contention.

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1. MCKenzie J.L. Dictionary of the Bible: Asian TradingCorporation Bangalore, 1998, p.460

2. Sunday Sun, March 4, 2012, p.73. Mbaefo L.N., Coping with Nigeria’s Two-Fold heritage: Spiritan

Publication, 19964. Daily Sun, March 2, 2012, p.195. Sunday Sun, March 4, 2012, p.56. Mandela N., Long Walk to Freedom: Little, Brown and company

New York Boston, 1994, p.1117. The Union, November 3-9, 2013, p. 12

Endnotes

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i. The Concept of CitizenshipThere must be, at the foundation of any successful project,a conceptual and ideological content and commitmentto that project as a compass towards a goal. Theideological concept is a guiding philosophy and principlethat defines action or system and its content and objective.Without ideology a nation gropes in the unprincipled darkof arbitrariness and consigns the socio-political andeconomic destiny of her citizens to the fatality of chanceand inadvertence. Ideology is a support principle andvalue statement encapsulating the intended goals of a stateor organization in an umbrella statement. J. C. Johariexplains the element and relevance of ideology thus, “Butthe striking point is that all ideologies have some commonelements that seek to suggest a certain type of reality –political, or economic, or social – and that they alsoembody a programme of action so as to translate the ideasinto practice. In this way, each ideology comes to have anormative character by virtue of incorporating a systemof value preferences for the attainment of certain ends”.1

In Nigeria the trend and manner of events so negates

Nigerian CitizenshipAnd Nationalism

C H A P T E R F I V E

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ideological precepts that the country in its function canhardly be categorized as any system, either socialism orcommunism, federalism, con-federalism or regionalism,democracy or military, since it is a mixture of all andhardly any.

Nigeria is then, in character and function, similar to thekingdom in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of statue made ofriotous parts, “a statue, a great statue of extremebrightness,… terrible to see. The head of this statue wasa fine gold, its chest and arms were of silver, its bellyand thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet iron, partclay”. Not even political parties that run the affairs ofthe state have a set of defined ideologies for their partiesregarding their vision for the nation. The victim of thisamorphous, non-ideological and undefined system is nomore than the common citizens tossed and boxed aroundarbitrarily like basket ball in the hands of greedy politicalelite minority.

Our focus in this chapter is therefore the issue ofcitizenship which is most affected as the victim ofNigeria. A certain Nigerian who intended to bring hischildren to the United States of America was given apre-condition to get a befitting house and to show certifiedcapacity to guarantee a standard living for the childrenwhen they come to America. This is in line with theirprinciple and policy of committed citizenship welfare,even for the African residents. He was forced to makeall necessary provisions ready for their comfort before

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bringing them over and today all the children of the familyare in America in a swoop, to flee the Nigerian non-citizenwelfare policy. A friend who travelled to Brazil once toldme that pregnant mothers are usually taken care of andprovided for from pregnancy to delivery as their babiesare treated as state citizens from the moment of pregnancyto birth. He narrated that an African brought his pregnantwife to deliver in Brazil. The woman was taken to theclinic by the husband’s friend at the instance of the absenthusband. From arrival till the delivery of the baby, thewoman was provided with maximum relevant necessitiesfor her condition. Overwhelmed by constant andexcessive supply of her needs without any charge for themoment, the woman was scared and requested herhusband’s friend to reduce the supplies as it would betoo much for her husband to foot the bill. The manlaughed with scorn. But her greatest bewilderment waswhen at the end of the stay in the hospital, she was chargednothing, but was also taken to her house with freegovernment transportation and extra post-natal gifts totake care of her baby. No wonder one of my friendsonce told me “my wife went to UK to deliver her baby”.2

Again on calling a certain woman on phone without reachfor a very long time, when I eventually got her, she saidshe travelled to America “to deliver my baby”.3 The ideabehind Nigerian women traveling to overseas to delivertheir babies is to incardinate and acquire European andAmerican “citizenship” for their Nigerian children as aresult of the coveted American and European citizenship.Citizenship policy and welfare is a priority in these

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countries and is not a preserve and privilege of a selectedrich few but a value and right even for the unborn,including foreigners. Because there is a defined andcommitted citizenship policy and value, Africans andNigerians in particular pride and identify themselves asAmerican citizens and prefer America to Nigeriancitizenship.

Citizenship derives naturally from birth as ordinary andbasic prerequisite of a person’s right of belonging to thestate. Birth or nativity is the natural and automaticinitiation of a person into the citizenship of a countrywhile long established residence or naturalization in acountry are the social, constitutional and legal prerequisiteof the citizenship of a country. The Constitution of theFederal Republic of Nigeria defines the basic prerequisiteof citizenship in its several applications, namely birthand registration. Thus, by birth (a) “every person bornin Nigeria before the date of independence, either ofwhose parents or any of whose grandparents belongs orbelonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria: providedthat a person shall not become a citizen of Nigeria byvirtue of his section if neither of his parents nor any ofhis grandparents was born in Nigeria; (b) every personborn in Nigeria after the date of independence either ofthose parents or any of whose grandparents is a citizenof Nigeria: and (c) every person born outside Nigeriaeither of whose parents is a citizen of Nigeria”.4

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The true test and measurement of any ideal nation isanchored on the realization, fulfillment and protectionof the primary and inalienable rights, legitimate needsand common good of the citizens while the credibility ofthe nation is predicated on the realization and fulfillmentof this primary right. The passion, patronage andpatriotism and fulfillment of social responsibility and dutyof the citizen towards the state based on the state’smotivation, fulfillment, relevance and responsibility tothe citizens is Nationalism. Nationalism is the sense ofpositive disposition of sentiment and patriotic emotiontowards one’s natural or domicile community, nation orrace. It is a generous attitude of affection and consciousconcern for one’s proper or acquired state. Nationality isbelonging to a certain nation and the loyalty and devotionor interest towards that nation. Citizenship andnationalism are therefore interchangeable, interwovenand reciprocal. Citizenship is the bestowal of natural andautomatic right of relationship and responsibility to theindividual by the State consequent upon birth in a parentor residential nation. Citizenship is the exercise andenjoyment of one’s value of the right of propriety of birthor legal belongingness in a country. In return, nationalismis an equivalent loyalty, devotion, patriotism, sentimentof love accorded by a citizen to the state or country ofresidence in reciprocity to an enjoyed citizenship.

In a responsible state, the rights of citizenship areenshrined and provided for by statutory and constitutionalprescription as against executive, personal and arbitrary

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discretion or dictation. Therefore, citizenship rights areordinary universal relationship of equity and fairnesstowards all persons as individual citizens, devoid of anyrelativity or discrimination based on age, political positionand hierarchy, social affiliation or background. It isstrictly a proper automatic and natural bestowal of properright to a person by origin of birth or lawful and legalnaturalization or acquisition. Lawful residence within acertain number of years and of good social conduct andsatisfaction of required legal documents merits a personthe citizenship of a country. Citizenship right is nottherefore a privilege to, but a right towards a person as acitizen.

iv. The Classified CitizenshipOrdinarily, in every civilized nation, all, including a dayold child of a country, have in total parity, equal right ofcitizenship with the country’s President, the Governor,the Senator, the House of Representative member andthe rest of the elite. The president of a country, includingthe United States of America and any civilized nation,has no greater rights or privileged access to the wealth,health care or security of the nation than the baby childexcept as exclusive right or privilege that accrues to himdirectly from his executive position and office. Unlikein Nigeria where citizens are pushed into the gutter orthey hysterically park on a stand still by the road side forthe president or governor’s convoy to pass, not even thepresident or governor of the United States have a greateraccess or claim to the road than the pedestrians beyond

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what belongs to them as their lane. On the contrary, thepedestrians are most respected and feared to be knockedunder serious penalty. Nigerian citizenship right is rathera charity, limited, exclusive and revolves around aselective conclave of few elite and leadership class andtheir progenies and only extended to the rest grudginglyas undeserved privilege. The right of citizenship,including the right to life, happiness, usage of the road,security and good health belong to the exclusive list ofthe elite and political leaders. For this group therefore,there is Nigeria and there would continue to be anindissoluble and indivisible larger Nigeria for their selfishand parasitic tendencies. Nigeria of this exclusivistcitizenship exists for the Hausa-Fulani for whom theNigerian leadership is an exclusive patrimony and right.It is an ideal Nigeria for the comfort of few privilegedIgbo political elite who dominate the political corridorfor petty Federal government political appointment andcontract offer at the expense and exclusion of the majorityof their kinsmen who are consigned to the residue ofservitude and neglect. They persuade them to patronizeand remain in an indivisible Nigerian union in which theyare mere aliens and accidental appendages of physicaloccupation of the Nigerian space and industrial machinesthat develop Nigeria but never enjoy the fruit of theirlabour. This is the citizenship which exists for few Yorubaelite who monopolize the Nigerian wealth and economyfor their nucleus families and engage few Yoruba andother Nigerians as their paid employees.

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The classified citizenship is sustained to favour thearistocratic elite and political class who exclusively sharethe national resources and political positions with theircronies, allies and political associates. In maintenanceof the trend, their substitutes are laid in waiting toreplicate and replace them the sooner they retire fromthe politics of official looting mania. They are sponsoredin overseas universities with looted public funds to takeover the reins of the looting machine from their retiringparents and political god fathers. While in school, theirautomatic jobs are reserved for them, while thedispensable poor masses must pay throat-cutting sum ofmoney or offer sexual gratification to their elite to begrudgingly offered menial employment, school admissionand other opportunities. The immigration recruitmenttragedy of March 15, 2014 in which many Nigerianyouths lost their lives in stampede while scrambling fornon-existent job explains this malaise. Ironically,unemployed applicants stampeded themselves to deathas employment papers were thrown up to them in the airin public stadium while the jobs could already have beenoffered in secrete to the friends and allies of notablepoliticians and the elite.

While many Nigerians are socially and economicallydislocated and mangled by poverty and joblessness, theseprivileged citizens who are outrageously paid,nevertheless constitute a gang of organized looting ofthe national treasury with impunity. The do this throughweak legislations contrived and sponsored by them with

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loopholes that shield them with executive immunity. It isthese rare billionaires in the midst of haggard andwretched of the earth, with billions stuffed in theirnational and international accounts and always assuredof its constant flow, that hypocritically propagate anindissoluble unity to guarantee their self-enhancement.The more the country is united the better and more assuredof their extensive and expanded empire of wealth. Thisexclusive advantage and the imaginary fear that somegroups may not survive when separated from a unitedNigeria and that the union is needed for a stronger nation,remain the reason and strongest propaganda concealedin the unity kit rather than the protection the unity givesto the citizens.

Citizenship in Nigeria is not only discriminately gradedand classified on the disparities of social and politicalstatus and connectivity, it also varies with great disparityalong ethnic groups, political zones and from place toplace similar to the former South African apartheid systemof discrimination between Blacks and Whites. Hence,the attitude to citizenship and its rating is hardly uniformin Nigeria. The disparity varies in relation to some areasand the federal government’s relation to and perceptionof certain areas and people of the country. For instance,in the Northern part of the country, the state and federalgovernment provide virtually every livelihood and publicutilities at little or no cost to the citizens, includingeducation and employment. There is a near practice ofsocialism in the provision of social comforts in the North.

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Education, social amenities and employment are almostrendered free as ordinary right of the Northern citizens.They look to the federal and state government for theprovision of public utilities and education at no orsubsidized cost and even demand it as right. In the statesof Northern Nigeria, citizens are usually pleaded with orforced with threat of imprisonment of their parents to goto school at no cost while those in the Igbo South Eastare internally and externally confronted with hurdles thatimpede their access to education. Most Notherners secureemployments as undergraduates or even before they gainuniversity admission, to gradually upgrade themselvesas working students without strict demand for qualifyingcertificates for such works. Undergraduate citizens ofNorthern origin would ordinarily not quality for certainjobs on certificate basis, are bosses and in charge ofcertain Federal government offices where they work withand give order to their Southern counterparts, especiallythe Igbo, who are degree or masters holders withexperience. Many Igbo employees have resigned theirjobs as a result of this humiliating condition and insult.

Giving their presumptuous claim of right of first classcitizens instilled by Britain, they contribute minimally tothe productivity of the national economy in labour forceand technological input but expect and actually enjoygreater dividend of Nigerian wealth when compared tothe South. In public service, the army, police, customservice and military recruitments, Northern citizensusually expect to be, and are actually treated with

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preference and as sacrosanct, privileged and more equalthan the rest. This attitude of disparity in citizenship whichseparates the Northern Hausa Fulani from the rest falsifiesand defies justice and the uniformity of citizenship andnationalism. Thus, they could leisurely do businessconsidered exclusive and somehow illegal with certifiedimpunity without arrest while this is not possible forothers. The Fulani cattle rearing nomads can destroy theirhosts’ economic crops in any part of Nigeria and evenattack, rape and kill their hosts and go scot-free. In mostcases, the military and police would usually surround theirenvironment with preempted red-alert security to shieldand protect them against any reprisal or revenge attackwhenever they cause any assault on their host state. Thisis not possible for the Southern citizens.

Citizenship in the South Eastern part of Nigeria is achallenging and totally different reality. Conditioned bythe neglect of the zone by the Nigerian government andaided by the greed, selfishness and materialism of theirpolitical leaders, disparity and neglect of citizenship isunrivalled and supreme here. Community and individualself-help is prevalent in the provision of such basic needsas electricity, water, education and even roads in the IgboSouth-East political zone. Here, each individual or familyis a complete self-enhanced, self-made and self-containedLocal Government, as they single handedly struggle andprovide all their basic needs and utility without thegovernment. Although the people are extremely dynamic,hardworking, industrious and energetic and make great

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input in the labour and economic vehicle of the country,they are left in extreme subservient, self-struggle and self-sustenance by their own elite and the country. The peopleare landlocked with great population density, surging manpower and human resources, with unexploited humanresources that are abandoned to fend for themselves orget stifle in the same country. To avoid implosion underhard condition and congestion, the Igbo citizens migrateout of frustration to all parts of the country as menial andhard labour undertakers.

Deprived by the country and conditioned by thematerialism and selfishness of their elite, the principleof personal survival of the fittest is prevalent in the IgboSouth East. Here, a great many of the citizens are forcedto haggle, negotiate, purchase or bribe their admissioninto the universities as well as preferred course of study.They also purchase their employment after graduation atexorbitant cost both within their zone and other parts ofthe country, while only a minimal few gain admission oremployment by merit through dint of extraordinary hardwork or divine providence. For instance, the citizens ofthe zone are allotted the highest score grade differentfrom other parts of the country, which they must makebefore they can gain admission in the federal ownedinstitutions of learning. There is no equal or commoncitizenship between the Igbo South-East and otherNigerian citizens. There is generally a combinedsickening apathy and coordinated conspiracy of the Igbopolitical elite and the Nigerian government against the

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Igbo citizens since after the civil war. The zone existsexclusively and survives or stifles on their own individualperspiration with little or no attention from the federal ortheir state governments.

In the Yoruba South West, there is a practice of nearsocialism with moderate capitalism. The citizens aregreatly provided for by their indigenous state and FederalGovernments. Giving the mental and politicalenlightenment and near socialism of their politicalstructure and the elite, life is relatively easier and greaterrespect for the basic rights of citizenship is guaranteed.Closeness to the Nigerian economy and the altruisticattitude of their leaders make a great disparity betweentheir citizens and other Nigerians. This is because theentire hub and structure of the Nigerian economy isconcentrated in the area and they have greater grip andcontrol over it than the rest. In all, there is no uniformcitizenship in Nigeria but rather, an arbitrarily anddiscretionally dispensed gratuity that vary from place toplace, in relation to the degree of familiarity with thecentral Government and the political class. An averagequalified Yoruba graduate in Nigeria does not look foremployment for long but selects the type of employmenthe would prefer. The Hausa Fulani citizen neither looksfor nor selects job type but in most cases the job waitsfor him prior to graduation without prerequisiteconditions while the Igbo citizen and others neither seenor select jobs but purchase whatever is offered them atexorbitant cost even with the highest qualification. In

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this sense of disparity of citizenship, unity or nationalismis mere figment of the mind.

By her exclusivist elitism, classified and disparateattitude, Nigerian citizenship is a relative concept whichaffects different people differently and lacking a unifiedsystem, makes the unity less binding. This is why manycall for its disbandment while the beneficiaries insist onits consolidation without improving on the common goodand welfare of the common man as there is no commonNigeria. The generality of the oppressed Nigerian masses,the classless commoners and the neglected in the suburband ghettos, experience a different but abstract, alienatedor non-existent citizenship. For this group of thedefenselessness and lack of reference value, the countryexists as utopian idea, object of indifferentism and apathy,whose reality is only felt in the negative impact ofconstant victimhood, vulnerability and endangeredspecies. Citizenship for this class is the exercise ofphysical hazardous existence and occupation of space ina defined locality called Nigeria, where the masses matterin the value of number and object of use for the elite.Their survival is anchored on the contingencies ofpersonal risks and chance events and the grudginggratuitousness from the waste basket of the prodigalityand extravagance of the political class. The reality ofthis citizenship is in the paradox and polarity which makeaccessibility to the national wealth a right for only thefew powerful, the socially and politically connected andthose with the license of violence and militancy. For the

149

weak majority and the gentle citizenship right isinaccessible and elusive luxury.

There is a different but fractured citizenship reserved forthe vulnerable majority of the endangered commonersbutchered and hacked down by Islamic religious bigotry,munched and crushed daily on rugged Ore-Lagos, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Lagos-Benin roads of bandits and multipleaccidents. The Lords of the country are protected withthe federal and state security and fly the safe air spacewith the common wealth. The fractured Nigeriancitizenship is made practically clear when the NorthernMuslim fundamentalists issued a warning to NigerianSoutherners in 2013 to leave the north for them, as aclear evidence of lack of universal Nigerian citizenship.A person’s destiny and citizenship is defined by his orher tongue, religion, state of origin and name rather thanstatutory citizenship. This gives credence to ChinuaAchebe’s painful and pathetic observation that, “ANigerian child seeking admission into a federal school,a student wishing to enter a College or University, agraduate seeking employment in the public service,… acitizen applying for a passport, filing a report with thepolice…, will sooner or later fill out a form which requireshim to confess his tribe (or less crudely and morehypocritically, his state of origin)”.5 In this confusion,one wonders whether there is actually a Nigeria and whatit means to be a Nigerian and how one can considerhimself a Nigerian, when everything clearly tells him thathe is not, either because the word “Nigeria” is not realistic

150

or he is not included in practice in its definition as acitizen.

In the Nigerian classified citizenship, the secondarycitizens are the desperate and endangered Nigerians flungall over the world as voluntary refugees in search ofgreener pasture in other pariah countries in the midst ofNigerian plenty and the elite extravagance and prodigality.As a giant nation dwarfed by lack of mentalenlightenment and enriched with greed, these citizensbecome the scavengers and dignified refugees, willinglybegging for and lending themselves to artificial asylumin smaller nations in peace time, as corruption and warof greed dehumanize their condition and magnify theirindignity. It is because of this infamous degradation thatthe children of the Nigerian giant maintain the highestand undignified position of refugee seekers as expressedhere: “Nigerians have been ranked top on the list ofpeople seeking asylum worldwide in 2009, according toa report released by the UN Refugees Agency… Forsecond time in two years, Nigeria maintained its seventhposition on the United Nations (UN) High Commissionfor Refugee (UNHCR) ranking on country of origin ofasylum seekers”.6 The citizens of the war torn Iraqi,Liberia, Afghanistan, Syria, etcetera, would be justifiedto seek asylum because of civil war but Nigerian citizensseek for self-asylum of the war of infatuated greed, man-made poverty, misplacement of values and disfiguredcitizenship.

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Apart from the inordinate ambition for wealth,institutionalized and systemic structure of frustrationcertified state and system failure, are the major andprevailing reasons for the drive for citizens’ exodus tosmaller foreign countries where they are respected anddignified prisoners. This is the national tragedy that huntsfrustrated Nigerian citizens in their quest to escape thegrave yard called Nigeria for greener pasture. Ambitionmay contribute only 20% of the desperation to seekartificial asylum in foreign countries. But the greaterpercentage cannot be reduced to mere psychology ofambition. It is rather the veiled reality of the irony andparadox of the poverty of the citizenry in the country ofplenty where the elite sleeps on stolen billions of nairawith impunity while the majority of citizens defecate onbedridden abject poverty. Like the prodigal son, manyNigerian citizens hire themselves out to piggery servicein foreign lands when their father land is full of wastedplenty. In the shocking observation of Lugard Aimiuwa,“most Nigerians still earn less than $2 (two dollars) dayless than the feeding allowance of a cow in Europe”.7

Yet the Nigerian presidents, senators and members ofthe House and other politicians live on more bogusmoney, drive more exotic cars and live more luxuriouslife style than the American and British counterparts andother world politicians. They go on multi-million nairacars and flamboyant life style that can never be imaginedfor European and American politicians. It is a country ofthe metaphor of a baby who in desperate thirst, sucks thepulse of his wound when his mother has plenty of breast

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milk, or one who suffers dirt and thirst in the midst ofsurrounding water.

Nigerian citizens die in desert drown in ship wrecks ofbuffeting seas to escape illegally to Europe and Americaaway from the Nigerian artificial destitution while manymore incarcerate in prisons worldwide, and the elite swimand drown in the sea of obsessive hoarding and lootingin the same country. The Saturday Sun of April 17, 2010likens the various tragedies of many citizens in desperateurge to flee Nigeria to “Suicide Mission” in this word:“The family of a Nigerian, who wanted to play JamesBond and perhaps, shock the world with his plan iscurrently gnashing its teeth, as the venture has ended intragedy… a young Nigerian, Mr. Emeka OkechukwuOkeke, recently wanted to do the impossible bysmuggling himself into the United Sates, but ended uparriving not only in body bag but also as a mangledbody. This is not the first time people are sneaking outof Nigeria through that means”.8 Again, in 2013, anotherNigerian sneaked into the wheel apartment of the planeto sneak to a foreign country and escape the frustrationthat awaits his youth. The illustration is the symptom ofa failed state and nationalism.

A failed state is in reality, a state that has failed in theprimary responsibility towards the citizens andautomatically begets a failed nationalistic attitude. TheEmeka Okeke tragedy and Daniel’s adventure above isthe unavoidable tragedy and effect of a failed state and

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citizenship and in reverse, why Nigeria cannot havepatriotic citizens because a failed state is in convertibleequivalence to a failed national consciousness. This isbecause the patriotism and sentiment of love of thecitizens for the nation cannot be persuaded by andguaranteed for a failed state since the state does not existfor the realization of the good of the citizens but for itsname. The tragedy of the nationalism of such a stateincapable of meeting the ordinary basic needs of thecitizens is the reduction of national patriotism to therelativity of individual discretion and option and thecorporate conduct of patriotism towards the state toindifferentism. Thus some people could be ready tosacrifice and die for their personal survival but wouldhardly spare a breathe for the survival of the state exceptfor a reason still attached to their personal instinct ofsurvival.

A failed state does not necessarily mean a state that hasstructurally and physically collapsed out of existence. Itmeans system, function and value failure, with internalincapacitation, disability and deficiency to sustain thebasic and minimum socio-physical and human structurefor the good of the ordinary citizenry. There are severalsigns of evidence of Nigerian failed state as it affectsNigerian citizenship. This is evidenced in the desperatemigration and deportation of frustrated Nigerian citizenswith accompanying humiliation. The Guardian ofOctober 2, 2009 reports this national demise from theangle of deportation: “There seems to be no end in sight

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to the deportation of Nigerians from foreign lands,especially by Libya, which has deported 740 illegalimmigrants in four days. With the fresh deportation,Libya has deported 1,064 Nigerians from its shores inthe last one month, having brought back about 330Nigerians in August this year. Precisely on October 27,2009, Libya deported 150 Nigerians; - all male at about15.30 hours with the aircraft registered numberSUME…While the latest deportees were still goingthrough immigration processes, the North Africancountry at 14:15p.m. deported another 150 males fromits country”..9

The irony and paradox that portrays the Nigerian failedstate is its operation in the opposite direction of naturallaw and normalcy of growth and development. Animatethings, human society and institutions grow and developprogressively towards higher perfections and teleologicalend till they die rather than recede to the worse state oftheir beginning. On the contrary, the Nigerian nationoperates in a retrogressive, receding and backwarddirection in terms of infrastructural, citizenship welfareand political enlightenment and development. By wayof illustration, during the colonial era and afterindependence, Nigerian students were picked for jobemployment while still in school. After more than fiftyyears of independence and a hundred years existence asa country, graduates are turned out from school withouthope for any job. An elder statesman narrated how heused to stay outside of lecture hall to avoid the chilling

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air conditioner in the lecture hall for health reasons inthe 1970s. Ironically, after fifty years of independence,the Nigerian university students cannot afford the primarynecessity of class room seats, decent toiletries andmicrophone for lecture in a lengthy crowded hall, to talkof standing or ceiling fans or the luxury of air conditioner.‘The News’ magazine got the trend right from ProfessorPat Utomi when he refers to this picture of degenerativephenomenon thus, “From being a relatively wealthycountry of rotund citizens in the 1970s, Nigeria hasterribly degenerated into a community of impoverishedanimals, lean of limbs and shorn of happiness, renderedso by the unconscionable criminality of its leaders”.10

But the irony is that given the disparity in citizenshipfailure the degenerative trend impacts its negative bruntonly on the greater majority of citizens while the fewaristocratic elite enjoy a constantly and consistent upwardgrade of socio-economic life of wide dichotomy in thesame society. Every serving and retired NigerianGovernor, Senator, Member of the House ofRepresentative, President, down to Local governmentChairman, have billion naira investments in South Africa,Dubai, London, United States of America, etcetera,including private refineries, but cannot maintain a qualitypublic primary school, road or hospital in his state. Anaverage Nigerian politician has multi-million dollarhospital, hotel or university in Ghana or South Africaand while the Nigerian hospitals and universities retardinto coma, with protracted strike actions, they fund the

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education of their children and treat their slightest diseaseand that of their families overseas.

What is remarkable is that no single one of the asylumseekers or deported citizens is the son or daughter ofserving or former Nigerian President, vice president,Minister, Commissioner, Local Government Chairman,Governor, national or state Houses of Assembly. Theseuse the national and state funds to cross their childrenlegitimately for overseas sophisticated life and wellpackaged citizenship. This automatically nullifiesNigerian sense of common statehood. There is therefore,logically, no nation or country besides that nomenclatureof personal interest coined by Britain and later leased tothe indigenous elite class, who later prefixed the word‘one’ to form the phrase “One Nigeria”. It is thereforeonly a common conglomerate and platform for thesharing of the natural resources by the elite and to oppressthe weak, credulous and gullible majority. The term oneNigeria is simply a gambling table and the commoncitizens are the cards played in disparity and paradox offeelings of elation by the elite and depression by thecommoners on the table of un-equals. In this disrepairand disparity of citizenship where others are extremelyin pain of penury and others extremely enjoy in plenty,in which some are meant to die for others to live, thecountry is either the worse state or no state at all andshould not be called a unit or united, except in drudgeryand duress as there can be no unity between penury andplenty or the slave and the freed. The great philosopher,

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Plato would in this reasoning discountenance Nigeria asa true state and hardly a union because he believes thatdisparity is the worse evil in a state and argues thus, “Doesnot the worst evil for a state arise from anything thattends to rend it asunder and destroy its unity, whilenothing does it more good than whatever teds to bind ittogether and make it one?... And are not citizens boundtogether by sharing in the same pleasures and pains, allfeeling glad or grieved on the same occasions of gain orloss; whereas the bond is broken when such feelings areno longer universal, but any event of public or personalconcern fills some with joy and others with distress?..And this disunion comes about when the words ‘mine’and ‘not mine’, ‘another’s’ and ‘not another’s are notapplied to the same things throughout the community.The best ordered state will be the one in which the largestnumber of persons use these terms in the same sense,and which accordingly most nearly resembles a singleperson”.11 A state does not exist without a functional anduniform citizenship because citizenship is the essence ofthe state. If such a state of disparity of feeling is presumedto exist, it is invalid and not binding in conscience on thepeople and should not be imposed on the vulnerablemajority jeopardized by its existence of pain for thepleasure of others. Therefore, the disparity,incompatibility and contradictions which constitute themythical Nigerian foundation and confounded thecitizens, ultimately provoke the question, is there reallya country, Nigeria? It should therefore be inserted in theconstitution for any section of the country to enjoy the

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freedom of self-determination to separate in peace fromthe union if they so wish, because neither the union northe country has ever really existed since they wereunilaterally forced to enter into union unwillingly andyet they exist in disparity and parallelism. Humanity isnot necessarily unified by only physical unity but by aglobal fraternity of the universal humanity and the bridgeof common socio-political and economic consciousnessand interest. Here, though physical boundaries exist, theyare broken and dissolved into a common humanity ofscience of love and technology of communication thanphysical union of lethal conflict.

There is a universal humanity that flows in the vein ofevery human and is blind to race, colour, religion, gender,surname and the accidents of nationality and birth. UntilI was forced in defence of the Igbo endangered humanity,I do not see in the Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba or the rest, theseed of racial, ethnic or class difference, but the seed ofuniversal gene of common humanity, only differentiatedby the physical disparities and accidents of birth andrace. This is what ought to prevail in the Nigerian andglobal attitude and relationship, where all, as equal andone humanity, are treated with equity in fairness andjustice. The name Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and the rest, areaccidental identifications and differentiations as Peter isdifferentiated from Paul as separate individuals and notdifferent humanities. So are the Whites and Black,Europe, America, Africa, Asian races of the world andall religions. Unfortunately, this universal ideal and value

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is not recognized in the Nigerian union and only the Igbowho live up to it do so as victims of naivety. The restheld tenaciously to their absolute and undiluted faith andloyality of their religion and ethnic survival against theuniversal humanity and nationalism. But unless thisuniversal enlightenment can be fostered in Nigeria, whereall are treated, not by the tags and barges of religion,ethnicity, surname, and the disabilities of opportunism,but as citizens of the organic humanity, the union remainsas it is, paradox of a contraption and snare that traps somefor the pleasure of others and therefore negotiable forthe greater value of freedom.

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1. Johani, J.C., International Relations and Politics (TheoreticalPerspective in the Post-Cold War Era): Sterling Publishers PrivateLimited, New Delhi, 1985, p.385

2. Oral Conversation with anonymous3. Oral Conversation with anonymous4. Amended Constitution of the Federal republic of Nigeria, 2011,

p.355. Achebe C., The trouble with Nigeria: Fourth Dimension

Publishing Co. Ltd. Enugu Nigeria, 1983, p.86. Daily Champion, March 25, 2010, p.17. Saturday Sun, April 17, 20108. The Guardian, October 2, 2009, back page9. The News: 07 May, 2012, p.1410. Cornford , F.M, The Republic of Plato; Oxford University Press

London, 1941, p.163

Endnotes

161

Ojukwu C.O. Biafra selected speeches of C.Odumegwu Ojukwu new York, 1969

Ogu. B. The Burden of self-imposedmarginalization-An Igbo Experience:Edu-Edy Publications, Owerri 2009

Forsyth F. The making of an African legend: TheBiafran story; Richard Clay (TheChancer Press) Ltd. Great Britain 1077

Russell B., Power George Allan and Uwin Ltd London,1975

Joharic J.C. International relations and politics:Starting Publishers Private LimitedNew Delhi 2009

Madiebo A.A. The Nigerian revolution and theBiafran war fourth d i m e n s i o npublishers, 1980

MCkenzie J.L Dictionary of the bible: GeofferyChapman 1980, AmendedConstitution of the Federal Republicof Nigeria

Onuoha S.A The Game Nigerian plays; The BiafranChallenge and Nigeria’s foreign

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policy and diplomacy (1960- 2 0 1 0 )clockwise services limited, 2010

Mbeto L.N, Coping with Nigerians Two-foldheritage: spiritual publicationsOntisha, 1996

Cornford F.M The republic of Plato: OxfordUniversity press London 1941

Crowder M., The story of Nigerian: Faber and FaberLondon, 1962

Mandela N. , Long walk to freedom: Little, brownand Company, New York 1994

Obasanjo O. Nzeogwu: Spectrum Books Limited Sunshinehouse, Ibadan 1987 Amendedconstitution of the federal republic ofNigeria

Okonkwo D.O. History of Nigeria in a new setting:Tabansi Bookshop, Onitsha, 1962

…………………………………………………Sunday Sun, March 4, 2012 vol. 29 no-465Saturday Sun, September 3, 2011 vol. 8 no-453Daily Sun, March 2,2012 vol. 6 no-2316Saturday Sun, April 17, 2010 vol. 7 no-378Daily Sun, November 4, 2011 vol. 6 no-2219Daily Sun, February 17, 2010 vol. 6 no-1678Daily Champion, November 16, 2009 vol. 22 no-228Daily Champion, March 25, 2010 vol. 23 n0-060Sunday Champion, September 5, 2010 vol. 25 no-36Saturday Sun, January 28, 2012 vol. 8 no-474Daily Sun, July 16, 2010 vol. 6 no-1818Daily Sun, July 9, 2010 vol. 6 no-1881Saturday Sun, April 30, 2011

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This Day Sunday November 7, 2010 p. 24The White-Paper February 15-16, 2012 vol. 3 no-18The Spectator March 5-12, 2010, vol. 2 no-96African Herald Express July 25-31, 2011 vol. 1 no-007The Guardian October 2, 2009 vol. 27 no-11, 237The Spectator August 7-13, 2010 vol. 2 no. 118The Nation February 12, 2011 vol. 05 no-1668The Guardian January 19, 2011 vol. 28 no-11,711Daily Sun March 17, 2010 vol. 6 no-1701Daily Sun March 22, 2010 vol. 6 no-1706The Nation July 11, 2010 vol. 04 no-1451The Nation June 17, 2011 vol. 6 no-1793

Tell no. 12 March 21, 2005Newswatch February 15, 2010The news vol. 38 no. 18 May 7, 2012The Source 29 no. 11 July 4, 2011The Source vol. 29 no. 18 August 22, 2011The Patriot Rests Funeral Brochure of Ojukwu March 2, 2012Funeral oration Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe November 16, 1996What is the difference Nation-State and a Country-www.quora.comThe Union, Vol. 1, No.6, November 3-9, 2013

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AAburi Accord 115Acquire 6, 137, 139Affiliation 2, 121, 140Affinity 76, 82, 101, 125Akinjide 110, 119Alex Ekwueme 63, 64, 65, 90, 92, 93Ambition 51, 58, 70, 76, 131, 151America 136, 137, 138, 140, 152Anachronistic 24, 79Apartheid 14, 112, 121, 122, 123,

124, 125, 143Apartness 123APGA 76Archive 21, 110Aristocratic 89, 142, 155Arthur Richards 13Artificial 13, 14, 15, 16, 36, 38, 39,

150, 151, 152Asaba division 48Asari Dokubo 51, 102Assumption 66, 99, 101Asylum 150, 151, 156Atrophy 94Atulayo 12, 22, 30Awolowo 20, 21, 23, 47, 63, 64, 130Azikiwe 20, 21, 27, 44, 46, 47, 48,

49, 50, 57, 63, 64, 79, 85, 90,132, 163

Index

BBabangida 65, 91, 93, 132Balewa 21, 22, 132Bamidele Azikiwe 79Basket of unity 81Ben Ogu 73Beneficiaries 10, 31, 43, 148Berlin Congress 113Bestowal 139, 140Biafra 17, 23, 41, 51, 52, 57, 77, 85,

113, 114, 161Blackmail 115Board of Trustee 66Bomb 31, 34British interest 40Buhari 91, 94, 132

CCapitalism 18, 103, 121, 147Captives 107Centenary 61, 106, 110, 112, 114,

121, 125, 128, 131, 132Cessation 15, 24Character 14, 33, 44, 56, 57, 80, 86,

96, 98, 117, 119, 120, 135, 136Chauvinism 57, 73, 79Citizens 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13,

16, 18, 28, 32, 33, 37, 39, 42,44, 45, 52, 54, 63, 78, 80, 82,83, 84, 86, 89, 90, 97, 103, 104,

165

107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114,116, 117, 119, 122, 123, 124,125, 126, 129, 135, 136, 137,138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143,144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149,150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155,156, 157, 159

Citizenship 6, 13, 18, 32, 33, 37, 63,103, 117, 136, 137, 138, 139,140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146,147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153,154, 155, 156, 157

Classified 140Colonial 22, 42Country 163

DDr. Jonathan 95Dubai 155

EEast Central State 77Easterners 57, 115Egyptian 90Emeka Okeke 153Enugu 41, 44, 77, 78, 149, 160Europeans 113Ezinihitte Mbaise 76

FFederal Character 14, 33, 123Fragile 42Fredrick Fasheun 51, 61

GG34 64, 77Ghana 22, 115, 155Gowon 12, 24, 29, 30, 40, 42, 56, 57,

58, 70, 76, 77, 78, 79, 90, 112,113, 114, 116, 132

HHarold Smith 38, 39

Hausa Fulani 91, 131, 145, 147Humanity 158

IIlesha 60Independence 107, 108

JJ. C. Johari 135James Bond 152Jesus 107John L. Mckenzie 106Jonah 51, 93Jubilee 5, 106, 111

KKano 23, 53, 54, 57, 80Ken Nnamani 65, 66, 82King Fasad 97

LLondon 23, 41, 110, 155, 160, 161,

162

MMaj. Gen. Philip Effiong 115Marginalization 73Maurice Iwu 65, 66Michael Crowder 13, 36Moshood Abiola 30, 91

NNation 11, 18, 21, 22, 47, 52, 54, 64,

68, 71, 74, 76, 77, 78, 84, 85,86, 97, 101, 105, 115, 126, 135,139, 150, 163

Nnamdi Azikiwe 20, 27, 44, 46, 47,48, 49, 50, 57, 63, 64, 79, 85,90, 163

Nnamdi Mbaefo 113Nomenclature 4, 37, 156Non-citizen 137Normative character 135

166

Nsukka 57, 79Nwodo 72, 73, 74, 75, 82, 99, 100,

101NYSC 76, 77, 78Nzeogwu 48, 85, 162

OOgundipe 56, 58, 70Oil wells 122Ojukwu 24, 40, 43, 56, 57, 58, 70,

85, 113, 114, 115, 132, 161, 163Okpanam 48Okwesilieze Nwodo 72Olusola Saraki 95Onitsha 41, 44, 79, 124, 162Order 17, 30, 62, 65, 66, 72, 144Orientation 78, 110Origin 9, 45, 59, 60, 106, 114, 122,

124, 140, 144, 149, 150Oscar 21, 22, 23Overheated 69

PPacifism 62Parasitic 141Parentage 87Pariah 150Parish altar 35Parochial 67, 75Pat Utomi 155Patronage 82, 118, 139Petty 29, 141Physically 2, 12, 18, 81, 117, 153Pleasures 157Polarity 148Policy 6, 41, 48, 72, 136, 137, 138,

162Political paralysis 82Posterity 63, 69Prerequisite 19, 99, 138, 147Prodigality 148, 150Proficiency 31, 46Propaganda 10, 12, 18, 29, 30, 132,

143

Prototype 44Proxy 39, 68, 94Pseudo 35, 43, 55, 83, 93Pseudo nationalism 93Psychosis 45Pull down syndrome 74Pulse 152

RReconciliation 112, 113Redesigning 117Refugee 150Regionalism 26, 136Rehabilitation 77, 112, 113Reincarnated 93Relativity 20, 140, 153Reluctance 4, 13, 14, 22, 23, 24, 27,

32, 34, 59, 132Reneged 50, 115Repression 49, 82Republic of Plato 160Restructuring 2, 26, 36, 117Revolution 17, 41, 161River Niger 76, 124, 125Rotation 76, 97, 99, 100

SSacrificed 52, 71, 72, 75, 94Sacrosanct 3, 31, 35, 36, 104, 117,

145Saudi Arabia 97Savagery 109Scot-free 145Scotland 32Secede 23, 58Self-diminishing 61Self-immolation 79, 80Self-imposed 73Self-imposed 85, 161Self-indictment 39Self-negation 101Self-reliance 107, 108Selling out 63

167

Servile 81, 83, 98Servitude 52, 141Slavery 25, 34, 36, 40, 88, 109, 120Slogan 12, 15Socialism 136, 143, 147Sophistry 16, 100South Africa 112, 155South-East 26, 51, 74, 75, 100, 125,

145, 146South-South 27, 51, 60, 70, 76, 95,

101, 124, 132Southern Protectorate 126Soviet Union 21Species 2, 82, 148Stability 7, 8, 70, 72, 75, 99, 133Stabilizer 46Statue 136Stereotype 56, 108, 127Structure 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 16, 18, 21,

30, 35, 37, 43, 54, 62, 86, 108,110, 111, 113, 117, 118, 119,120, 121, 131, 147, 151, 153

Struggle 1, 29, 37, 47, 51, 52, 88,115, 126, 132, 133, 145, 146

Subject 3, 36, 82, 98, 108, 110Subservient 110, 146Subsidized 144Suffocation 6Suicide 152Superiority 89, 122, 123Surrogate 28, 109, 131Survival 5, 6, 8, 33, 37, 38, 43, 80,

81, 87, 101, 111, 122, 146, 148,153, 159

Synergy 4, 42, 52, 59, 60, 64, 76, 83,84

Syringe 83

TTeleological 154Temperaments 38, 118Territory 9, 23, 25, 37, 52, 126The Spectator 69, 70, 85, 95, 105,

163

Toiletries 155Tolerance 7, 60, 79, 82Totalitarianism 88Transition 71Trend 32, 88, 89, 92, 97, 98, 99, 100,

114, 121, 135, 142, 155Tributaries 120Tutelage 88, 107

UUK 137Un-equals 123, 156Unconscionable 155Undergraduates 144Unification 32, 106, 111, 120, 122,

123, 128, 130Uniform 18, 143, 147, 157Uniformity 17, 145Unilateral unification 111Unitarianism 20United 84, 126, 150Universal 37, 63, 65, 81, 126, 129,

140, 149, 157, 158, 159Usurped 90Uzodimma Nwala 77

VViability 46, 117, 120Victim 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 54, 56,

61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71,72, 74, 79, 82, 136

Victimhood 4, 43, 59, 81, 82, 148Vincent Ogbulafor 71, 72Virus 13, 104Vision 20, 64, 74, 136

Wwobbling union 59

Zzoning agreement 72Zungeru 44