THE NON-NEGOTIABLE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION

It is worth repeating, channeling our national sage Wole Soyinka that the only non-negotiable fact about Nigeria is her people’s right to self-determination. The much touted non-negotiability of the unity of Nigeria is in fact a farce, a sham and an oxymoron. Nigeria is perfectly negotiable and must be negotiated every inch of the way for her to have any future ahead of her.

The truth of this inalienable right of our people to self-determination which Soyinka expounds is hardly ever appreciated by the Nigerian elite. Anybody who ventures to assert it is either branded by them as an enemy of the state or an enemy of a united Nigeria. The current structure of Nigeria, clearly a product of colonial criminality, they often don with the cloak of sanctity so as to preserve it for their unending pillaging. The whole clamor for a united Nigeria does not necessarily spring from patriotism but from criminals with the intent to continue fattening themselves with the largesse of the hobbled nation.

As perhaps should be expected, the passionate defenders of the unworkable structure of Nigeria are those who have the most to lose when it is perhaps torn down. But torn asunder it must either now or in the nearest future. This skewed structure of Nigeria will never last. Nigeria must be re-negotiated whether the elite like it or not.

A country that fosters and favors criminality and patronizes the Hausa-Fulani oil-block stealing oligarchy must be torn down one way or the other. Nigeria as it is currently structured has absolutely no reason to exist. It must either be restructured or allowed to disintegrate. This has to be the creed of every sensible Nigerian. Nigeria of today is Europe of 17th and 18th century. Our country must be updated or be allowed to die a natural death!

Thank goodness all the forces that could lead to a fundamental restructuring of the amorphous and unworkable entity called Nigeria are coming together. First, the phenomenal hurricane that is Nnamdi Kanu has given the leaderless Igbo people and their relatives of the Niger Delta region the leadership and the voice they had been lacking for the past fifty years. Now the Igbo and their Niger Delta cousins can stick together once again and make their demands to Nigeria in clear terms through the voice and vision of one young man who risks everything in pursuit of justice for his people.

Since the end of the civil war the Igbo and their brothers from the so-called South-south zone have been running from one pretender leader to another. Every now and then a pretender leader would arise among them. But sooner than later he would be bought and “settled” by the powers-that-be only for him to flip around completely transforming into the chief proponent of the very task he had previously disavowed himself of.

Though too early to conclude, Nnamdi Kanu seems to break out of this tragic mould. He appears to be somebody who cannot easily be bought and settled like his Igbo predecessors who ran the outfit before him. And this does not bode well for those who pretend that all is well with the current structure of Nigeria.

Nnamdi Kanu has forced both the pillaging elite and the perennially victimized masses of Nigeria to confront the most important question about their country; namely, is Nigeria a temporary outfit or built to last? Nnamdi Kanu and the pro-Biafran activists are clearly of the opinion that after 100 years of this criminal colonial experiment called Nigeria, the country should go its separate ways peacefully. This seems to be where one finds the majority among the Igbo ethnic group and their cousins in the Niger Delta region. However, the only way to procure a scientific answer to any question regarding Nigeria’s continued existence must be through a UN-backed and supervised referendum. Hence there must be a referendum in Nigeria.

The Northern Christian Elders Forum is another outfit that has come out to speak the truth about Nigeria. Some of the architects of the defeat of the Biafran project are now saying for the first time that the project of Islamizing Nigeria has begun in earnest. What a turn-around! Danjuma, Lekwot and the rest who fought, killed and subjugated Biafrans fifty years ago have now seen clearly even though belatedly what the Biafran struggle was all about. Wonders will never cease to happen in Nigeria. But better late than never!

For any reasonable Nigeria, violent Islamic fundamentalism is the last death nail on the coffin of a united Nigeria. It is practically impossible to get a south-easterner in Nigeria whose culture has transformed and melded with Christianity to consider tolerating even for a minute violent Islamism. With the rise of violent Islamic fundamentalism, Nigeria is forever gone. What one should pray for is that the separation be peaceful and not through warfare.

As if the turn-around of the Northern States Elders Christian Forum is not cheery news enough, just in the past few days, another group from Muslim-dominated North called Coalition of Northern Groups allegedly sent a letter to the UN throwing their support behind a referendum to determine and decide the future of Nigeria. This is absolutely heaven-send. What are we waiting for? Let us go for it. Referendum all the way!

With all these variegated groups who normally would not see eye-to-eye on contentious national issues coalescing and proffering a common solution to the problem of Nigeria, surely a peaceful resolution of the Nigerian question is around the corner. What remains is the political will to apply the solution already isolated as a panacea to our country’s multiple problems.

But I do not think the Buhari administration has any other option than to listen to the people and apply the solution they have already discovered and agreed upon as answer to their problems. There is no going back on the way to move the people of Nigeria forward. There has to be some form of renegotiation and re-agreement to belong to a nation called Nigeria. Belonging to Nigeria will no longer be by force. It will have to be henceforward an act of free choice.

Especially with Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen prowling around the nation and depleting the population of non-Muslims in Nigeria, and with the Buhari administration appointing only Muslims in key security and economic sectors of Nigeria, the movement to have Nigeria divided will only grow in popularity. For an average Christian in Nigeria who is committed to his faith, he or she would rather die than live in a violent fundamentalist Islamic nation.

For me as a person, my creed is; let those who want to live under Sharia law be given their own country and let those who prefer to live under the common secular laws of the world live in their own country. Let Nigerians be allowed to choose one of the two. The problem of Nigeria is not necessarily an ethnic thing but something much more fundamental than that, namely, our religious faith.