Diran Apata's Sunday Message

THE debate over the political future of Nigeria has reached a critical point. We Nigerians are basically agreed on certain points. Our readings and assessments of our present realities are more or less uniform. There is no responsible Nigerian who will say that he is happy with the prevailing conditions of his country today. From the North, East and West, we all agree that our country has come to a terrible pass indeed. Basically, ours is a land of great resources and great natural promises. But the crooked and dishonorable wheeling and dealing of our political elite have turned all our natural wealth into poverty for the masses of our people. As a country, we have earned among the countries of the world the ignominious distinction of taking great wealth to produce great poverty.

Most of us too are not in doubt as to the roots of this disaster that has befallen us in our country. By accumulating all power over our country, over all our resources, and over the management of virtually all significant areas of our life as a country, in the hands of a central government, we stymied all development, destroyed all regional and local initiative and push, and set the stage for the most sordid practice of official corruption in the world. The enormous giant of corruption has swallowed up the spirit of enterprise, and turned most of our most capable men and women into debased hustlers for shares in stolen public money. In the context of this, even the lowliest civil servant strives to defraud the state or to rob members of the public in order to get his share of the unearned wealth that has become the signature of Nigeria.  Finding themselves losing hold of their lives, most poor Nigerians are compelled to find other hapless Nigerians to defraud.  We have therefore become a country in which basic loyalties among humans have vanished – a country in which human life has been egregiously debased. Driven by poverty, neglect, and a feeling of outrage, large numbers of our youths turn to crimes – crimes that often look not like ordinary crimes at all, but vengeful barbarisms of devalued and depraved beings.  Driven also by poverty and hopelessness, some of our youths have found outlet in extreme kinds of religious passion, hatred and violence.

Definitely, we cannot go on like this. About that most of us agree. If our leading citizens continue to insist that we should go on as we are now doing, there can be no doubt that we will head straight into a horrendous cataclysm.

The debate among us Nigerians has therefore crystallised into two opposing propositions. One proposition advocates that we should restructure our federation – that we should deemphasise the centre and give more resources and more managerial power and initiative to our states. Many who propose this also propose that we should change the parameters of our states – that we should give needed recognition to the obvious fact that we are a country of many different nations. They advocate that we should, as much as possible, use our nationalities as the basis of our states, with the proviso, of course, that small and contiguous nationalities in any part of our country may agree among them to form a state. Many believe that the best way to get this done is through a National Sovereignty Conference.  But, because a part of our country solidly opposes a National Sovereignty Conference, a lot of people have given up on it.

The other proposition now is that we should hold on to the messy concoction of a constitutional and political structure which our series of military regimes have foisted on our country. This is a proposition emanating from the North. Rather than change the conditions of our country by restructuring our federation, the advocates of this proposition now insist that we should break up Nigeria. These important voices tell us that the North will not take the initiative in breaking up Nigeria, but that the North will not oppose it. They affirm that their homeland can take care of itself if Nigeria breaks up. I agree with them that any part of Nigeria can take good care of itself if Nigeria is dissolved. I don’t believe that there is any doubt about that at all. Those who say that the North will not be able to take good care of itself if Nigeria breaks up are simply ignorant. Their view insults all Black people in the world. The Hausa-Fulani homeland was a prosperous and prestigious country before the coming of the British.  Today, even after a century of disruption by colonialism, and the enormous dissipation of energy over efforts to dominate Nigeria, the Hausa-Fulani homeland is still a country with great capabilities to build itself into a respectable nation-state in the world.

Whether any part of Nigeria will prosper if Nigeria breaks up is not the important question facing us now really. I must repeat that I don’t see any part of Nigeria suffering because Nigeria breaks up. The important question facing us now is how the rest of Nigeria should respond to the proposition that Nigeria be dissolved. Faced with such a proposition from the leaders of one of Nigeria’s nations, the leaders of every other Nigerian nation owe a heavy duty to their own nation, large or small, to come up with their own nation’s response. I must confess my belief that Ango Abdulahi, Junaid Mohamed, and some other leaders of the North, deserve honour for the statements they have made in recent weeks on behalf of the North.  Theirs is not merely a parade of personal opinions. They have spoken on behalf of their nation. And what they have repeatedly said is heavy and worthy of the most serious response by the other nations of Nigeria.

As a Yoruba man, I know what leading Yoruba citizens have said in this Nigerian debate. I know what has been said by our front-liners like Bola Tinubu, Afe Babalola, Bisi Akande, Onaolapo Soleye, Olaniwun Ajayi, Emmanuel Gbonigi, Tokunbo Ajasin, Alani Akinrinade, Wole Soyinka, Tunji Braithwaite, John Oyegun, Ayo Opadokun, and even our most eminent citizen, and most eminent private citizen of Nigeria, General Olusegun Obasanjo. I am aware that they all stand for a rational federation as well as for peaceful resolution of the problems of Nigeria.  Even so, the truth remains that all their voices are no more than a parade of private opinions.  We, the Yoruba nation, need that our nation’s voice be heard unambiguously in this debate over the future of Nigeria. The interests of the Yoruba nation, and the interests of all the other nations of Nigeria, demand that the voice of the Yoruba nation as the Yoruba nation be heard loud and clear now.

The same stands for the Igbo nation. I know that eminent Igbo men like Olisa Agbakoba, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, and Ben Nwabueze, and many others, are veteran warriors for a rational federation for Nigeria.  But now that the leaders of one major Nigerian nation propose dissolution of Nigeria instead, what does the Igbo nation say? It is important to the Igbo nation and to the other nations of Nigeria that the Igbo nation’s voice should now come out loud and clear.

All of us Nigerians, and most of the people of the world, know what the nations of the Niger Delta have been saying for decades. They are the ones who have suffered the most persistently and devastatingly from the crookedness and rapacity that define Nigeria’s system of governance. They are tired of having their God-given resources turned into a curse for them. They demand control over those resources. We all know all of that. But now, they need to speak clearly and unambiguously, with an authoritative national voice, at this stage of the Nigerian debate.

And the same stands also for the Kanuri and related peoples of our far Northeast, as well as for the many nations of our Middle Belt. We hear a lot of voices from all these nations. The time for scattered personal opinions is over.  The time for clear unambiguous national voices is now. It is in the interest of every nation in Nigeria, large or small, and in the interest of all the nations of Nigeria, that every nation should now make its voice heard clearly and strongly.

There is a very mighty advantage from having the voice of every nation speak out clearly.  A lot of the wars and conflicts in human history result from nations or groups misunderstanding, or not understanding, one another. If we eliminate the danger of poor understanding, or misunderstanding, among us the nations of Nigeria, we stand a good chance of sorting out the Nigerian situation one way or other without conflict or violence.

The leaders of the different nations of Nigeria owe yet another debt to their respective nations now. I believe that Wole Soyinka struck a note of genius when he proposed about a week ago that each section of Nigeria should tighten its belt and take care of its own affairs. I agree absolutely that we have reached such a point in the history of Nigeria. Given the potent uncertainties surrounding Nigeria and Nigeria’s future, every group of leaders needs to give less energy and time to Nigerian politics and seriously face the task of improving the quality of their people’s lives and the prospects for their people’s future. Again, as an indigene of the Southwest, I would want the Southwestern leaders of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the party which we in the Southwest voted massively for a few months ago, to pay much more attention to the affairs of the Southwest than to Nigerian politics. I would want to see all other Southwestern political leaders of all parties give most of their thoughts and actions to the task of reviving the prosperity of the Southwest. Recently, an organisation of some of our men and women, with the name of Afenifere Renewal Group, published a                well-thought out programme for integrated regional development in our Southwest. We, the citizens of the Southwest, would like to see our Southwestern leadership seriously take on that task, and give less time and energy to the same old unproductive chasing of the chimera of Nigerian politics which we started in 1959 and which has cost us so much. There is news that some other regions of Nigeria are working on similar integrated regional development programmes. Yes, in today’s circumstances, that is the sensible and constructive path forward for the leaders of all the various peoples of Nigeria. These times call for decision and action in the interest of our people and our future.