A nation not built

How successive govts frittered opportunities to build a united Nigeria
..Current divisive tendencies may nail the coffin – pundits  

CHUKS OLUIGBO

 

In spite of several decades of mouthing the slogan ‘One Nigeria’, and notwithstanding the grandstanding by successive governments since independence that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable, one does not need to consult a soothsayer or gaze into the crystal ball to decipher that Nigeria is more divided now than ever.

In his broadcast on Radio Nigeria, Kaduna on January 15, 1966 announcing Nigeria’s first military coup, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu told Nigerians, “The aim of the Revolutionary Council is to establish a strong, united and prosperous nation, free from corruption and internal strife.” Fifty years later, Nigeria is yet to attain unity. The Nigerian landscape is littered with glaring signs and symptoms of a house divided against itself. 

These symptoms manifest in the form of the post-election triumphalism often exhibited by any section of the country that produces the president, the unending fears of domination and cries of marginalisation, the deafening calls for restructuring of the federation reverberating across the land, the gongs of secession resounding in every nook and cranny, the agitations for resource control, the religious wars, and many more. 

They manifest in such groups as Niger Delta Avengers, Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), O’odua People’s Congress (OPC), Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), and even in the murderous campaigns of the rampaging Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and other Islamist killer groups, including those who hack down defenceless Christians in the name of religious purity.

These, according to political pundits, are all glaring signs of a nation not built, a nation where citizens’ loyalty to their ethnic groups (Nigeria has over 250 of them) or religion comes first before loyalty to fatherland.

According to pundits, the most unfortunate thing is that successive governments, both civilian and military, over the decades failed to make genuine commitments and efforts towards building a truly strong, united, virile and stable Nigeria where the principles of freedom, fraternity and egalitarianism will be enthroned irrespective of tribe, tongue or religion. Rather, these leaders continued, and still continue, to sow seeds of discord among the citizenry, adopting divide-and-rule strategy and often whipping up ethnic and religious sentiments just to score cheap political goals. Nigeria in its present form, according to one analyst, is a Tower of Babel, where there is neither cohesion nor coherence.

In today’s Nigeria, the point made in 1947 by Obafemi Awolowo, then Premier of Western Nigeria, that “Nigeria is not a nation” but a “mere geographical expression” continues to hold sway nearly 70 years after those words were uttered. Same with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa’s statement to the Legislative Council in 1948, that “the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds, in their religious beliefs and customs and do not show themselves any sign of willingness to unite”. The same notion, which was repeated by Alhaji Usman Liman during a sitting of the Northern House of Assembly in 1964 when he said, “North is for Northerners, East for Easterners, West for Westerners, and the Federation is for us all”, is indeed upheld every day by many Nigerians, especially so-called leaders, through their actions and utterances. 

Nation-building and lost opportunities

Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has been to the brink and back several times. Some of the sore points in the nation’s chequered history include the Nigeria/Biafra Civil War which raged from July 1967 to January 1970, the June 12 saga, and numerous religious and national elections crises that have rocked the country over the years. But most analysts believe the civil war provided the best opportunity to resolve most of the ugly scenes that keep rearing their heads in today’s Nigeria. But then, Yakubu Gowon, the then military head of state, bungled that opportunity. 

Gowon and the civil war

Even though the Gowon administration fought to keep Nigeria together, declaring at the end of hostilities that there was no victor and no vanquished, pundits believe that his subsequent actions did not bear out this “no victor, no vanquished” stance as pious pronouncements were no backed with positive actions. Neither Gowon nor any successive administration after him made genuine efforts to heal the wounds of Nigerians – not just the peoples of the former Eastern Region who bore the brunt of the war, but all Nigerians, because as John Pepper Clark aptly captures it in his beautifully-crafted poem “Casualties”, we were all casualties, Biafrans as well as other Nigerians. Yakubu Gowon’s 3Rs policy – reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation – noble as it was, turned out to be half-hearted in its execution.

“The post-war reconstruction of Igboland was shoddy. There were no genuine efforts on the part of the victorious Federal Government to assist the Igbo people towards the rebuilding of their war-damaged infrastructure…. The little assistance the Federal Government extended to the Igbo was mere window-dressing and inadequate to prevent thousands of them from dying of starvation immediately after the war,” writes Paul Obi-Ani, a senior lecturer in the Department of History, University of Nigeria Nsukka, in his book ‘Post-Civil War Social and Economic Reconstruction of Igboland: 1970-1983’.

Agwu Okpanku, in a 1975 article in the Enugu Sunday Renaissance, said: “Biafra as an active physical rebellion is dead; it died in 1970. But there is always Biafra. In other words, any group of Nigerians, whether ethnically or in terms of their social class or their profession or their geographical origin, would revolt if they felt mistreated by this country.”

In a recent article “The Biafran ghost”, Sam Omatseye, chairman of Editorial Board, The Nation newspaper, echoed Okpanku when he argued that the civil war rages on because Nigeria has failed to confront its past as leaders continue to live in self-delusion.

“We did not solve the problem when it confronted us. When Gowon exploited his name as an acronym of unity, GO ON WITH ONE NIGERIA turned out to be an empty epithet, a feel-good delusion from a victor. Nothing concrete was resolved other than fell the enemy in battle,” Omatseye writes.

“Did we resolve the issue of abandoned properties? Leading up to the war, pogrom lit up the North in incandescent murders. Not only Igbo were killed…. The slaughter up North targeted anyone who was not Yoruba, and that included the sweep of minorities in the today’s Niger Delta. Urhobo, Itsekiri, Edo, Efik, Ogoni, etc were mincemeat in the cauldron of death,” he writes further.

Omatseye laments that no enquiries were conducted into that sanguinary chapter; even the northern elite, including political, feudal and military leaders, who reportedly encouraged the barbarities, no one has been officially investigated, punished or reprimanded.

“We know too that Nzeogwu’s coup was seen as tendentious, and it inspired some Igbo to provoke northerners with their proprietary swagger, boasting that they had taken over the country. Have we looked at that, too? If the swagger was bad, the killings were never justified. But even at that, have we addressed them as a people? Ironsi enacted Decree 34, and some analysts said it was naïve because he did not intend to introduce a unitary system to impose Igbo hegemony. If that act was naïve, what of the second act? He did not want to try the coup plotters. That, according to critics, gave him away as an Igbo jingoist,” he writes.

“Have we revisited the Aburi meeting, and its aftermath, and how that confab either ossified or laid bare the fissures of our inter-ethnic relations? Were there blames? Where there acts of overreach on both sides? Was the war avoidable? Did the pogrom make war inevitable? How come a region that knew it was tactically and materially inferior to its opponent took the plunge into war?” he adds.

On the issue of war atrocities, Omatseye regrets that what Ojukwu’s army did in the Midwest when Biafra invaded, the killings of the Igbo in Asaba and the alleged genocide by Murtala’s Second Division, among others, are yet to be investigated.

“So, when hostilities ended, Gowon declared that there was no victor and no vanquished. We know that was as vacuous as GOWON. We just wanted to move on, like a child who walks into a party from a bathroom without cleaning up. The smell and mess linger,” he writes.

“The ghost has followed us ever since. In education, over whether we should have catchment areas or not. In the Orkar coup. In Saro Wiwa’s murder. In the Matatsine imbroglio. In the meltdown of Fulani and indigenes relations in the plateau. In the June 12 logjam. In the choice of Jonathan as president. In the choice of Buhari as counter president. The list is endless,” he adds.

Unfortunately, all administrations after Gowon, except perhaps Shehu Shagari who granted state pardon to Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, leader of the secessionist Biafra, have sidestepped the Biafran Question and the issue of reconciling aggrieved sections of the country, until former President Olusegun Obasanjo set up the Oputa Panel in 1999. 

Obasanjo and the Oputa Panel

When on June 14, 1999, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration set up the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC), otherwise known as Oputa Panel, to investigate human rights abuses that took place from January 15, 1966 (when the first military coup occurred) to May 28, 1999 (the day before the last military handover to civilians), hopes were high that it would genuinely reconcile all aggrieved sections of the country and chart a new beginning for a united Nigeria.

The seven-man commission, headed by Chukwudifu Oputa, a retired justice, began its sittings on October 23, 2000, and by May 21, 2002, submitted its "interim report" in six volumes to then President Obasanjo in Abuja. Seven days later, on May 28, the panel submitted its "main report" in 60 large boxes.

Unfortunately, when former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, was summoned by the Oputa Panel, he refused to appear, and instead went to the Court of Appeal where, on October 31, 2001, he got a favourable judgment that the Oputa Panel, lacking legal backing, had no right to summon him. The Federal Government appealed to the Supreme Court.

Furthermore, on June 3, 2002, IBB filed a suit at the Federal High Court asking it to stop President Obasanjo from implementing the report of the Oputa Panel. The suit, jointly filed with Halilu Akilu, former director of Military Intelligence, and Kunle Togun, had as defendants Obasanjo, the Attorney General of the Federation, and Oputa and his commission.

Finally, on February 3, 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the panel had “no powers to summon witnesses outside the Federal Capital Territory”, and further “that the 1999 Constitution made no provision for tribunals of inquiry”. This development ended further action on the Commission’s reports. Till date, as shocking as the revelations in the panel were, the reports are still gathering dust in the shelves.

While the sittings of the Oputa Panel were going on, many far-sighted Nigerians had raised concerns that the panel might as well end up as “a toothless bulldog” – all barks and no bite. But the Obasanjo government kept mute, until the panel met a dead-end. In the end, the Obasanjo government, through the Oputa Panel, only reopened old wounds, leaving the totality of Nigerians dripping with fresh blood. He had an opportunity to build an ever more united Nigeria, but he bungled it.

In May 2011, Matthew Hassan Kukah, secretary of the Oputa Panel, who is now the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, reportedly expressed worry over the non-implementation of the final report of the commission. 

Speaking in London at the launch of his book ‘Witness to Justice: An Insider’s Account of Nigeria’s Truth Commission’, Kukah recalled that the commission did offer concrete suggestions on how to alleviate anxieties across the country, such as communal violence, religious crisis, culture of impunity and illegal detentions of people.

“My argument is that the inability or unwillingness of government to deal with very practical processes, especially the ones that arose from the findings of the Oputa Commission, is likely to have an impact on the politics of Nigeria,” he had said.

Lessons from other lands

On January 18, 2013, at a ceremony to welcome him home after he retired as chairman of PDP Board of Trustees, Obasanjo urged Nigerians to put the pains of the civil war behind them in the interest of the continued corporate existence of the country, saying it was worrisome that over four decades after the civil war ended, Nigerians were still mourning and groaning about the events around the 30-month war.

“I believe the time has come when all of us in this country should put the civil war behind us…. How many years has the war been over now? January 1970, 43 years. If after 43 years we are still mourning and groaning about the civil war, I wonder. The Second World War ended in 1945 and the combatants became the best of friends less than 10 years after, I just believe that we should put the civil war behind us,” Obasanjo had said.

Analysts, however, contended that Obasanjo’s statement fell far short of expectation as it sounded like dismissing a crucial part of Nigeria’s history with a wave of the hand.

“The former president missed a crucial point: deep wounds don’t just heal; they are treated, and with the right medication, else they become infected by tetanus. Then you won’t just have the wounds to contend with, you will also be battling with the severe muscular spasms and contractions that go with tetanus – and this seems to be the point where we are right now,” said one analyst who craved anonymity, arguing that with the establishment of the Oputa Panel, Obasanjo was poised to make history as the father of modern Nigeria, but he frittered the opportunity out of mischief.

“Following the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up, headed by Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town, where witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution. It was generally seen as a crucial component of the transition to full and free democracy in South Africa,” he told BDSUNDAY.

“But the important thing about the TRC was that it was backed by law: it was set up in terms of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 of 1995, and had the mandate to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as reparation and rehabilitation. Despite numerous criticisms, the TRC is generally considered to have been successful. Why was the Oputa Panel not backed by law? The answer is simple: mischief,” he added.

For Omatseye, the difference between Nigeria and other nations that have witnessed crisis is that these other nations understand the merits of closure.

“Last week, Britain unveiled the Chilcot report and picked to pieces all the facts of that ignoble chapter of the Iraq War. Tony Blair was exposed, as well as some of the intelligence community and the parliament. The nation looked itself in the mirror, and mea culpa replaced a sense of righteousness,” he writes.

“On the Iraq war, the New York Times issued a lengthy apology for allowing the emotion of the day sway its professional duties. Next time, both England and United States will think deeper before throwing innocents at the teeth of battle. The crisis of the Balkans is still lapping up its culprits today. Enquiries have dredged up the bad guys and they are subjected to the rule of law. The Hutus and Tutsis have also had theirs and those who inflamed the land to butchery have been exposed and punished,” he adds.

He also refers to World War II, which could not be concluded without a clear resolution through the Nuremberg trials, adding that it was the absence of such enquiry after World War I and the isolation and punishment of Germany by the victors that led to the resurgence of Germany, rise of Hitler and World War II.

Jonathan and the National Conference

Many political commentators believe that one of the boldest steps taken by the Goodluck Jonathan was the convocation of the 2014 National Conference. Prior to that conference, there had been agitations from several for such a forum where Nigerians would decide whether or not to live together as one entity, and if so, define the terms of such togetherness.

Many, however, say the flaw in the conference’s terms of reference was the inclusion of “no-go areas”, arguing that no one had the right to impose unity upon Nigerians as that was contrary to the UN Charter that grants every people a right to self-determination.

But as flawed as the National Conference may be, pundits are agreed that its report is a document that the present administration must revisit with a view to implementing it or conducting a referendum to enable Nigerians decide the way forward for their country.

Buhari and the repeat of history

One major accusation against Muhammadu Buhari when he ruled Nigeria as military head of state was that he constituted the most non-inclusive government in the country’s history, with the head of state, his deputy, defence chief and army chief all Northerners and the Supreme Military Council overwhelmingly dominated by Northerners.

In the build-up to the 2015 elections, the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) severally accused Buhari of being an ethnic and religious bigot, but the All Progressives Congress (APC) vehemently denied such label, claiming that most of Buhari’s domestic staff were non-Muslims and non-Northerners.

However, on July 22, 2015, less than two months after his inauguration, President Muhammadu Buhari told a gathering at the United States Institute for Peace, “I hope you have a copy of the election results. The constituents that, for example, gave me 97 percent [of the vote] cannot in all honesty be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5 percent. I think these are political reality.”

Many analysts believe that Buhari’s subsequent actions have borne out his statement above. These include appointments, and perhaps the administration’s policy choices – such as initial refusal to deregulate oil prices, preference for a fixed exchange rate, attempts by the president to foreclose discussions relating to the 2014 National Conference and political/constitutional restructuring, concerted attempts to force through grazing routes/reserves for Fulani herdsmen across the country, the silence over the herdsmen menace, among others.

Today, according to Opeyemi Agbaje, a Lagos-based public policy analyst, with the recent appointment of a Northern Muslim as acting Inspector General of Police, “every major security and law enforcement position, with the exceptions of the Chief of Defense Staff (who has no operational troops under his command) and the Chief of Naval Staff (which has always been treated by the powerful army as a ‘civilian’ institution), is occupied by a Northern Muslim”. These include the Minister of Defence, National Security Adviser, Minister of Interior, Chiefs of Army and Air Staff, director general of the State Security Services, the heads of Immigration, NSDSC, Prisons and Customs and Excise, the Attorney General of the Federation and chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The appointments generally have been skewed in favour of the North against the South, particularly South-East and South-South.

“In order to appoint the new IGP, the president opted to retire scores of senior police officers of the ranks of AIG and DIG prematurely, putting to waste the nation’s huge investment in these individuals’ careers. It is difficult to accept that the complete domination of the nation’s security apparatus by officers of particular ethnic, regional and religious persuasion is an objective coincidence devoid of prejudice,” Agbaje writes in a recent article “A more divided people”.

Buttressing this point, Agbaje points to the lopsidedness in the reconstituted board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in favour of Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri Muslims, which so irked Nigerians that sceptics renamed the government-owned oil company Northern Nigerian Petroleum Corporation. Even the Senate has had to suspend deliberation on a list of 47 ambassadorial nominees sent to it by the president on complaints that four Nigerian states were not represented in the nominations while some other states had as many as four nominees.

“I believe the obvious and apparent inclination towards regional preferences in appointments and policies has led to an escalation of ethnic and regional grievances in Nigeria. The security forces have dealt in a harsh and repressive manner with peaceful demonstrators, whether they be Shia Muslims in Zaria or pro-Biafra activists in Onitsha. In both cases, it appears unarmed protesters have been mowed down in a manner that may rise to the standard required for characterization as crimes against humanity,” Agbaje writes.

“The only group the administration has dealt with in a sober and considered manner, after an initial attempt to apply force, has been the Niger-Delta Avengers who have their own apparatus of violence and ability to inflict damage on the nation’s oil economy. The other group the government has treated with kid’s gloves has been the so-called Fulani herdsmen, the AK47-wielding terrorists who have killed, murdered and pillaged across the country, while government argued for grazing reserves on their behalf. Again the ’97 percent-5 percent’ principle appears to explain government’s curious restraint in this regard,” he adds.

Agbaje further argues that the consequences of all these are heightened ethno-religious sensibilities across the country and new sources of political risk.

“In the Niger-Delta, oil production volumes are being disrupted by resurgent militants; pro-Biafra sentiments are surging again in Igboland; calls for restructuring and ‘true federalism’ are rising again in the Yoruba West; fears of Fulani domination are elevated in the Christian Middle-Belt; and concerns over religious marginalisation and sectarian differences are topical once again,” he says.

“One of the key opportunities President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2015 was to unite the nation behind a big and bold promise of change. While some continue to delude themselves, my sense is that that opportunity is being frittered away in favour of pandering to narrow constituencies while failing to define a broad national vision everyone can sign on to, apart from anti-corruption. Even the anti-corruption effort, while generally supported, is obviously subject to ethnic, partisan and regime considerations. The way the government rushed to exonerate Army Chief of accusations that he owned properties in Dubai at the same time others were being hounded based on similar allegations has done no small damage to the regime’s credibility,” he further notes.

Way forward

While it is true that Nigeria is not yet a nation, pundits are of the opinion that the country can still attain nationhood – if only the leaders begin a true process of nation-building. According to them, the journey to nationhood is a long, tortuous one requiring full commitment, not lip service. They add that unless President Buhari quickly changes tack, with the drums of war beating across the land, he may well be the last president of a united Nigeria.

“A nation doesn’t happen by decree or by fighting a war to keep a country together; it does not happen by creating an amnesty programme whenever a section of the country revolts; it does not happen by playing the ostrich, brushing aside the real issues, delineating ‘no-go areas’ when national conferences are convened, and hoping the problems would just go away; and it does not happen by verbal threats or by unleashing the army and other security personnel on a bunch of protesting youths,” says an analyst on conditions of anonymity.

“Questions must be asked – penetrating, soul-searching questions. We must confront the ghosts of our past if we desire a warm embrace with our future. There are wounds to be healed – across the land. President Buhari has another chance; he must muster the will to begin the process of building a truly united nation – not widen the crevices. There is the report of the last National Conference to consider, as flawed as it may be considering that there were no-go areas,” says the analyst.

Agbaje believes that Buhari’s change of track on economic policy is a proof that he can change his direction where his approach is not producing optimal results.

“He needs a more inclusive and broad-minded attitude towards governing Nigeria or else the nation may splinter under him. He must also be willing to discuss the political and constitutional aspects of Nigeria’s required reforms. If anything, his actions make the subject inescapable,” he adds.