THE DANGERS OF SECESSION FROM THE TOP – – Recently, Southern Governors came together to make a demand for restructuring and it was obvious it was their own move to respond to the ongoing Yoruba Nation and Biafra secessionist movements. The struggle against marginalisation of Southern tribes and for self determination in Nigeria is being hijacked by Governors and the Southern elites and attention should be paid to that. This is mostly to use the genuine grieviances of the masses as a landing pad for different election campaigns within Nigeria, or to possibly hijack control of the seceded states in the future.
Sunday Igboho was seen in a video recently speaking about Tinubu and how Tinubu is going to fail at securing a party ticket to contest as the president of Nigeria and he is going to be ‘given’ the presidency of the Yoruba Nation by the Yoruba Nation campaigners. Except that this portrays the emerging Yoruba Nation as mostly undemocratic where selections will replace elections and people will be ‘given’ electoral positions, this also portrays the fact that the present model of the secessionist campaigns are just bargaining chips for 2023 presidency contests and/or a Plan B for when those contests fail.
Femi Fani Kayode, a popular Yoruba Nation advocate is reputed as a woman beater, who takes every opportunity to speak lowly of women. He is also know to be a Christian fanatic. What then is the hope for religious minorities and the women folk in a Yoruba Nation built from the influence of such personalities?
Nnamdi Kanu is popular for propaganda about how Igbos are a God’s chosen tribe like Israel and how they are connected to Israelites directly. This is mostly done with a strong Zionist apology within the secessionist movement he is campaigning for. The world recently watched the Zionist Israeli Apartheid State attack innocent Palestinians and maim many of them including children. This is the same state Nnamdi Kanu wants to model Biafra after. It is ironic how Nnamdi Kanu does not see the relationship between the struggle of Biafrans and the Struggle of Palestinians against Israel. Nnamdi Kanu’s idolisation of Israel means approval of war, genocide, Apartheid and land grabbing by him and his movement.
All of these portrays the motivation of most secessionist campaigns going on in Nigeria. They are mostly motivated by selfish interests of a section of the elite of that part of the country who have been bypassed in the corrupt sharing of the National cake within the elite. They are not motivated by independence or autonomy, but by bigotry and fascist tendencies. Like some critics rightly pointed out, state governors who advocated for regional autonomy are the same state governors denying local governments of autonomy despite the importance of that tier of government to the welfare of the masses, as it is the closest to the common people. In that line, Yoruba Nation and Biafra Nation campaigners are also railroading minority tribes that they’ve historically oppressed in their region into their secessionist agenda.
This is why it is important to approach secession from below. This is the reason to root the secessionist movements in the democratic aspirations of the masses who feel held down by a backward ‘One Nigeria’ and wish to build a new country that can scientifically progress beyond all of the corrupt limitations of the Nigerian state.
A truly new country cannot be created out of tribalist propaganda. If that kind of country happens, it’s going to be business as usual like Nigeria. A new country cannot be created out of religious sentiments. While Sharia law is being used to oppress religious minorities in some parts of Nigeria, Palestine Muslims are victims of Apartheid by Isreal, with a religious propaganda to condemn the Muslim God of the Palestinians. A new country can only be created by scientific and critical political thought.
There is insecurity in Nigeria and it takes tribal shapes in some circumstances, but the truth is that the ‘tribalisation’ of insecurity in Nigeria does not make the situation better. In fact, it makes the situation worse, adding tribal hate killings to the list of killings going on in Nigeria.
Today, almost all families in Nigeria have lost one close or distant relative to the current insecurity situation in Nigeria. It is therefore in the interest of all of us to fight for peace, and approach insecurity with the most peaceful solutions. Whether we believe or not that insecurity has tribal ramifications in Nigeria, what’s important is to not reply that insecurity with hate and create further crises, but with peaceful methods. The best response is to treat every Nigerian, Biafran or Yoruba as equals in our effort to find make that secession happen.
We must treat ourselves equal by democratising the struggle for self determination and take it away from the hands of the corrupt political elites no matter their tribal extraction. This can be best exemplified in a referendum campaign to take a poll of the kind of country that people who want secession want to create, and to know the percentage of Southerners who wish to leave Nigeria if they are a majority of that region.
It is when this peaceful revolution has been made impossible that it might become necessary to get the will of the majority executed by any means necessary.
Omole Ibukun, writes from Abuja, Nigeria
