It is forty years after the end of the Nigerian Civil War. The war, fought from 1967-1970,was between the breakaway Eastern Region (Biafra) and Nigeria. Millions of people perished in the conflict which was the most traumatic and devastating experience of the nation since regaining its independence from Britain in 1960.
At the end of hostilities on January 12, 1970, the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, declared that there was no victor and no vanquished. But events immediately after the war, and later, have consistently proved beyond doubt that there was, indeed, a victor and a vanquished.
The way and manner the Gowon administration and subsequent administrations in Nigeria, whether military or civilian, have treated the Igbos in the Nigerian federation suggests that the claim that there was no vanquished in the war was mere lip service.Gowon’s post-war programme of ‘Reconcilia- tion, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation’ (3R’s) was mere palliative.
It was not meant to relieve the Igbos of the hostilities and destruction occasioned by the most atrocious but avoidable human carnage in Africa. In the creation of states in Nigeria, the Igbos have been marginalized. Up till today, the South East geo-political zone is the only one with five states while others have six a piece and one zone, the North West, has seven states. Igbos are also short-changed in the distribution of Local Government Areas. Yet, nothing is being done by the Nigerian state to redress these anomalies. The property of Igbos confiscated under the guise of abandoned property, especially in Port Harcourt, was one of the haunting, unresolved issues of the Biafran war.
Forty years after the war, there has not been any concerted effort by the federal government to integrate the Igbos into the political, economic and social fabric of Nigeria. Politically and economically, the Igbos have been emasculated and rendered irrelevant in the nation’s socio-economic power structure. A census of Nigerian heads of government illustrates this obvious historical fact.The indigenization programme that was executed after the war when Igbos had no financial muscle is a case in point. The policy to pay every Igbo twenty pounds irrespective of the amount he had in the bank before the war was a further demonstration of a policy to impoverish them.Since the end of the war, there has been deliberate effort to exclude the Igbos from the commanding heights of the military, police, other para-military outfits, politics and the economy. Because of the war, there has been a conspiracy to deny the Igbos the presidency of Nigeria.
The Nigerian nation, which won the war, has not amply demonstrated equity and fairness in dealing with the various components that make up Nigeria, including those of the breakaway Biafra. Though, Nigeria won the battle, but the situation on the ground shows that it has not won the peace. The ghost of Biafra is still hovering over Nigeria. Forty long years after the war, the problems that led to the war are still extant and even multiplying with each passing day. Non-resolution of these problems have led to tension, militancy and restiveness in the polity. The frequent ethno-religious crises in Northern Nigeria and the militancy in the Niger Delta are veritable signposts and signals that all is not well with the entity called Nigeria. The existences of more separatist agitations are indications that our nationhood is daily being questioned.
It is now clear that the 1914 Lugardian experiment of founding a nation from many diverse and unwilling tribes has not been very successful. Its first baptism of fire was the Biafran war, which came barely six years after independence. So far, the nation has been faltering from one drift to another as exemplified by its absurdist power and revenue sharing formulae.
We cannot continue in this drift. The Nigerian nation should be conscious of the fact that no nation ever survives two civil wars. It is high time it started addressing all the issues that led to the Biafran war. The issues should never be overlooked. These include domination, marginalization, state and local government creation, religious fundamentalism, citizenship question, power sharing, resource control and true federalism. Glossing over them is like postponing the doomsday.
It is lamentable that Nigeria has not learnt any lessons from the war. We have not learnt enough lessons from the horrors of war and human losses. We lack fellow feeling and a sense of nationhood, and still operate from ethnic and religious prisms. It seems that our government does not value human lives, hence, frequent killings of Nigerians by fellow Nigerians in certain parts of Northern Nigeria under the guise of religion. Protection of lives has not become a priority. Our humanity is still under siege as lives and property remain insecure. Nigeria is behaving as if Biafra never existed. Continued silence on Biafra by subsequent Nigerian regimes does not help matters. The existence of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) indicates that there are still hangovers of the war. Nigerian children should be taught about the war. They need to know what caused it and what the government is doing to prevent another one.
It is unfortunate that Nigeria failed to tap the Biafran technological ingenuity that helped its resistance for three gruesome years of fratricidal war without external assistance. At the heat of the war, Biafrans invented weapons of mass destruction like Ogbunigwe and refined their own petroleum in make-shift refineries, among other innovative achievements. They built their own airport and radio communication systems.
No doubt, the remote cause of the war was economic. Without the prospect of oil in commercial quantity, the war would not have assumed the horrendous dimension it did. Forty years after the war, the oil bearing region is restive with militant agitations that border on resource control and self-determination. The oil factor is still a source of friction and doom to the nation. The way the Nigerian government prosecuted the war is part of our problem today as more power and resources are controlled by the highly unitarized federal government. The revenue sharing formula concentrates much revenue in the federal purse. All regimes since Gowon followed that pattern. It is still the same divide and rule tactics of yore that is in vogue. Yesterday, it was the Igbo; today it is the Niger Delta. Tomorrow, it might be another zone.
Since revenue sharing formula is at the root of our problem, it is high time this core issue was addressed. One way to do this is to go back to true federalism. We must free our federal system from unitary contagion inflicted upon it by the military. All indices point out that ours is not yet a nation. As we lament our failed hopes and squandered opportunities, we can still overcome these problems if we operate a truly federal system and allow each federating unit to control its resources and develop at its own pace. The new Nigeria of our dream must be built on justice and equity. Let us strive to do those things that can make us a real nation where patriotism reigns.
No comments:
Post a Comment