The Biggest Losers If Nigeria Breaks Up
Fredrick Nwabufo
Splintering the entity has often been exalted as the remedy to Nigeria’s
problems. But this is a defective reasoning because in this instance,
Nigeria is defined by its geography and not its people. Nigeria is its
people. It is the same people that will occupy the emergent states not
angels. There is no paradise anywhere. The problem with Nigeria is a
people-problem. Recalibrating the map will not change anything – if the
minds of the people do not conform to progressive values.
The assumption that there will be ‘’divine concordance’’ if Nigeria
breaks up according to regional lines is obtuse. That a people speak a
common language does not put a stamp of camaraderie on group
relationship. In the south-east for instance, there is native
discrimination among people of the same region. Some are regarded as
‘’impure Igbo breeds’’ while others consider themselves as ‘’true Igbo
scions’’. There are areas sons of certain states are advised not to
tread in search of love. Also, it is quotidian among the Igbo to
describe people from certain areas in Ebonyi with the pejorative of
‘’wah awah’’ – ‘’impure breeds’’. And there is a deep gulf among classes
on the social ladder in the region.
So, what will change if, for example, there is a south-east state as
some are campaigning for? Will the present social order be inverted?
Will the internecine hate and wrangling dissipate? Well, for sure I
think the current revulsion that some have for the entity ‘’Nigeria’’
will be reserved for the emergent state. Elite corruption and abuse will
still dominate the polity because the new order will be from the same
predatory gene-pool. Non-ethnic predation will give way for ethnic
predation because at the end of day class struggle is not resolved by
the unity of language, religion or culture.
There is a classic example of a country in Africa steeped in economic
and civil crisis after breaking away from the motherboard. The case of
oil-rich South-Sudan rings a familiar bell. Today, South-Sudan is one of
the poorest countries on the surface of the earth despite its oil
wealth. All the hoopla and gyrations that followed the country’s
severance from Sudan soon gave way for tears, sorrow and blood.
As of 2019, 400,000 citizens have been killed in the South-Sudan crisis.
Four million refugees created and 1.8 million people internally
displaced. The cause of these tragedies boils down to power struggle
among the elite who quickly mobilised themselves behind the emergent
state to capture power. A country fabled to be a lodestar in Africa and
which was to be a compelling argument for splintering ‘’artificially
created’’ states on the continent is now a functional example of why
breaking up countries in Africa is not expedient.
An often parroted argument for Nigeria’s dissolution is that the country
is an inorganic fabrication of the British. True, but so are many
countries on the planet, yet they are thriving and working according to a
common purpose. Most countries in the world were created by accidents
of history. It is nearly impossible to find a homogenous country. The
problem with Nigeria, as we all know, is that we are yet to have a
people’s leadership or as Chinua Achebe puts it, a leader “humbled by
the trust placed on him by the people’’ and ‘’willing to use the power
given to him for the good of the people’’.
We are stronger together. This is not a platitude but a fact. 90 percent
of the wealth of the Igbo is not warehoused in the south-east. The Igbo
are a peripatetic people gifted with extraordinary entrepreneurial
abilities. They are among the most financially fortunate Nigerians.
Nigeria and beyond are their trading arcade. They are in every nook,
cranny and crevices in the country. It is unarguable that a united
Nigeria is a more viable emporium for the Igbo than a fragmented
Nigeria. It will not be the same for the business-minded Igbo with new
states emerging from the wreck of Nigeria – the emergent states will
certainly want to put up hedges that will protect their own people
against outsiders. Where does that leave Chukwuma who has billions of
naira worth of investments doting the north and the south-west?
The same theory applies to the north of which economy thrives on
agriculture. Nigeria with its bubbling population is a consumer paradise
for the agricultural produce of the north. In addition, there are
bountiful benefits for the north from Nigeria’s oil wealth.
The south-west as well cannot subsist as an island. It needs the
commerce of the Igbo, the endowments of the north, and rich cultural and
material resources of other groups to blossom. We need each other.
Our diversity should count for something. It should be our strength. We
will be the biggest losers if the Nigerian enterprise is liquidated. We
must make Nigeria work.
*Fredrick Nwabufo is a writer and journalist. Twitter @FredrickNwabufo
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