ON October 1, 2017, we will be marking (not celebrating) the 57th anniversary of our Independence. Taking everything under consideration, there may be nothing to have fun approximately a blood-soaked countrywide records; a kingdom whose independence has handiest delivered incredible misery to the generality of its people who've now became towards one another with hearts full of hatred, or so it seems.
acting President Yemi Osinbajo has a completely hard mission on his fingers. Even with out the whole toga of government power (let’s face it: the cabal of President Muhammadu Buhari’s kinsmen in the corridors of strength are on protect watching each pass he makes) Osinbajo has been pulling the various tiers of leadership from throughout the nation’s geopolitical divides to reaffirm religion inside the sanctity of Nigeria’s unity.
the opposite day, I cited that the Buhari Presidency is sort of a coin with the obverse and opposite aspects. Buhari, the primary face of the coin, created the hassle we are presently facing via going in opposition to our constitution which needs the equitable distribution of the offices and facilities of the kingdom to offer every group within our diversity a sense of belonging.
at some point of his inaugural speech on twenty ninth may additionally 2015, President Buhari pledged to Nigerians: “I belong to all and sundry and i belong to no one”. however nearly months later on 22nd July at the usa Institute of Peace USIP, Washington DC, the President contradicted this noble pledge while he stated he would provide greater favours to people who gave him “ninety seven%” of the votes that added him to power whilst folks who gave him “5%” might have to manage with less. Alarmed, I wrote a piece of writing on 14th December 2015, with a identify: “ninety seven%/five%, A formulation For countrywide Upheaval”, which has became out prophetic.
Now with Buhari away on medical go away, acting President Osinbajo has been looking to deal with the harm created by the faithful implementation of this obnoxious policy. He has even overtly criticised “lack of inclusive governance”, though he did not make direct connection with absolutely everyone. obviously, it became the President’s refusal to hold all Nigerians alongside that made the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra IPOB, chief, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the overnight “hero” he seems to have become. the search for Biafra were tepidly and peacefully pursued for over 20 years via Barrister Ralph Uwazuruike’s motion for the Actualisation of the Sovereign kingdom of Biafra, MASSOB.
Buhari’s assumption of strength and his unwillingness to carry the South East (and to a lesser volume, the South-South) alongside furnished the gasoline with which Nnamdi Kanu’s pirate Radio Biafra stuck the imagination of hundreds of thousands of angry Igbo teens. Kanu claims that his Biafra agitation is “non-violent”. that is hardly ever the case. what's violence? Is it best while you threaten others (or your usa) with hands? I don’t assume so. when you abuse humans, call them dirty names and dehumanise them with incendiary rhetoric; that is violence. And when you mobilise humans to block the roads and as a consequence save you different regulation-abiding citizens from going approximately their normal obligations; this is rarely “non violent”. you're violating their fundamental right to loose motion. but whilst you boycott socio-economic activities and study a “take a seat-at-home” call without being forced to do so, I don’t think that is violence because you have not stopped anyone from taking part in their constitutional liberties. it is a valid shape of agitation.
it's far on this mild that I see the “cease notice” issued on Igbo living inside the North through a coalition of Arewa youths as a completely unhelpful response to the Biafra agitation. not only did the “Arewa youths” supply a set of Nigerians cease observe, additionally they threatened to “pull out of Nigeria” as they're no longer inclined to stay inside the equal usa “with the Igbo”.
The manner I see it, Nnamdi Kanu and the Arewa adolescents who issued the Kaduna assertion are birds of a feather. Their activities, in my personal judgement, are treasonable because they both are trying to find to unsettle the cohesiveness of Nigeria thru verbal violence which would possibly give manner to other types of violence if not well handled.
both aspects being guilty, however, i wonder why the Arewa youths have not been arrested via the law-enforcement businesses as Kanu and some of his disciples were in December 2017. Kanu is still on trial for treason. he's most effective out on court-ordered bail. I comprehend it is not an smooth count to address. it can appear partial that the IPOB leaders were arrested and put on trial whilst the Arewa boys have been left untouched, almost 3 weeks after Governor Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna kingdom and the Inspector fashionable of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, requested for them to be nabbed.
My suspicion is that the authorities have learnt their lesson from the Kanu arrest episode. It introduced tens of millions of his seasoned-Biafra devotees into the streets in encounters which, consistent with an Amnesty international AI, file led to the loss of 1,967 lives. It ended up making Kanu a “hero”. i am very satisfied that the Arewa youths have been sponsored via some faceless people with a hidden time table. I do no longer think their “stop note” is the general attitude of the Northern humans and their leadership toward the Igbo. within the same vein, I do no longer trust that Nnamdi Kanu’s violent outbursts in opposition to non-Igbo Nigerians are shared by the generality of Igbo people.
I clearly don’t percentage in it due to the fact I haven't any trouble with fellow Nigerians, along with Northern Nigerians as a people. That the Igbo human beings thrive in different parts of Nigeria is a powerful testimony to the reality that even though we often quarrel, Nigerians don't have any problem residing together as compatriots. simply because the Igbo hobby organizations resident inside the North have distanced themselves from Nnamdi Kanu’s adverse Biafra agitation, Arewa humans living inside the East have also pop out boldly to sentence the “end word”.
i am a Nigerian to the middle. I believe that the Igbo human beings are co-owners of this doubtlessly extremely good Nigerian commonwealth. nobody can chase out a stakeholder from a property he co-owns. it is also preposterous for a co-owner to abandon his assets and “pass”.
The trouble with Nigeria of which I whinge ordinary here and some other place is with the gadget we function. it is a gadget that makes every person sad. It produces awful leaders and makes nation-constructing extremely tough. Even the Northerners who are regularly accused of oppressing the others have statistically been proved to be at the back of in most indices of human improvement whilst folks who whinge the loudest are nicely beforehand at the average. Nigeria need to be restructured to offer energy back to the peoples of our respective localities to take their destinies in their arms. Nigeria ought to be made to become effective once more.
but the “give up word” problem can not be left as it's miles. folks that issued it and their sponsors must be made to apologise and retract their ultimatum. They must be made to realize they may be no longer untouchable. proper now, they're still very defiant to the factor of writing the Presidency to assist ease the Igbo out of Nigeria, which include folks that aren't on the equal page with Nnamdi Kanu. If not anything is performed about this stop notice, i am afraid there may be important mass movements as we near October 1, 2017. All it takes to cause off a main countrywide disaster is a little spark somewhere, perhaps staged through a few mischief-makers. If it starts, nobody may be secure.
that is the time for the security corporations which might be empowered to protect Nigeria and Nigerians to exit and do their paintings.
