We are in bondage

Commentary@ITRealms:

"I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves"- Harriet Tubman

How can anyone describe Nigeria as a free nation when Sheik Othman Dan Fodio, the hero of the core Muslim north, the father of the Fulani Caliphate and the first Mahdi of Nigeria once said,

"Allah has bestowed on me and my people the historic duty to spread the holy faith of the Prophet throughout the Caliphate and convert these pagans. If they refuse to accept Allah and his Prophet we will wash the earth, the forests, the mountains, the rivers and the streams with their pagan blood. Ours is a holy and righteous calling. We are doing the work of Allah".

How can anyone describe Nigeria as a free nation when Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Saurdana of Sokoto, the Premier of the Northern Region and the second Mahdi of Nigeria once said,

"The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the north as willing tools and the south as conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future".

How can anyone describe Nigeria as being free when General Muhammadu Buhari, the indisputable King of the north, the avenging sword of the Caliphate, the almighty President of the Federal Republic, the unquestionable leader of the African Mujahadeen and the third and last Mahdi of Nigeria once said,

"It is my intention to spread sharia to every part of Nigeria" and that "why should Christians bother when Muslims chop off the hands of Muslims in the name of sharia" and that "Muslims should only vote for Muslims" and finally that "an attack on Boko Haram is an attack on the north".

What portion do those of us that are southerners and Middle Belters have in this so-called "free country" and why have we been consistently denied the right to decide whether we wish to remain in it by having a referendum?

Were we born to be slaves whilst others were born to rule? God forbid it. My Christian faith teaches me that I am the head and not the tail.

It teaches me that it is a sore sight and a great evil under the sun to see the sons of slaves riding on horseback whilst the sons of the King walk around on bare feet.

It teaches me that we are the head and not the tail and that light is meant to overcome darkness and not that darkness overcomes the light.

The truth is that whichever way you look at it Nigeria is not free and Nigeria is not one nation.

We are in bondage and servitude to the sons and daughters of Futa Jalon and we are badly divided. That is the subject of this essay.

*Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation & former Minister of Culture & Tourism, sent this from Ile-Ife, Osun State

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Commentary: Are We All Biafrans?

Commentary@ITRealms:

On May 31st, my good friend Chido Onumah made a public presentation of his book, We Are All Biafrans. The book is a passionate plea to all Nigerians to work together to ensure that we stop “sleepwalking to disaster”. 

The discussions on the book in the media were completely overshadowed by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s support for the political restructuring of the country, expressed in the same event. Chido makes the case that we need to renegotiate but it should not be done “solely on the basis of ethnic, religious or cultural affinity”. 

Biafra, he argues, is not an “Igbo problem” but a Nigerian one and the way forward is to build our federalism along civic lines and on the basis of “justice and equal opportunities for all”. I completely agree with the argument. Nonetheless, the discourse of marginalisation has permeated Igbo consciousness, just as it is the case for other Nigerians and the issue of unpacking ethnic narratives is extremely important.

I tried to do so in seven articles published in this column on marginalisation as perceived by Nigerians in the six geopolitical zones between October 29 and December 17, 2012 and the articles did not raise a ripple. Following the rekindling of the Biafra question by IPOB and others, I returned to what I called the Igbo Question on November 30th, 2015 and this time, I got the bashing of my life.

One of the issues raised was how can I dare to tell the Igbo story. The famous blogger, Victoria Ohaeri put it this way: “There are five main reasons why Sir Jibrin’s (I don’t know when she gave me the knighthood) article warrants a duteous rewrite, or at best, an outright retraction. First, the growing tradition and bourgeoning number of outsiders telling the Igbo story, rewriting their history and shoving down their squinted narratives as legitimate accounts of Igboism is something to deeply ponder about.

To be clear, it is the constitutionally enshrined right of every citizen to proffer proposals for promoting integrated political and economic development of any part of the country. However, what makes the teeming exercise of this right questionable is the excessive focus on the Igbo question at the expense of more burning issues of national significance such as full-blown terrorism in the North-East, reported mass killings of Nigerian soldiers, the crumbling economy, disappearing fundamental rights and freedoms, child marriages, internal displacements and so forth, most of which are occurring outside the region.”

The irony is that Victoria knows me well and is aware that I have written on all the issues she mentioned. She simply believes I have no right to address the Igbo question; I wonder why? Chidi Odinkalu also wrote a diatribe in which he made false attributions to me creating a straw man that he thrashed, to which I responded.

The most surprising bashing I received, however, was from my good friend Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu, accusing me of a single strand ethnic narrative. Following his energetic promotion of his response to me on the social media, I was inundated by attacks and insults for weeks, mainly by Igbo writers angry that I had insulted them. The problem was that most of them had not read what I wrote; they simply followed what Ibeanu told them I had said. 

He had written that, “In your Electoral Geography book in which you tried to attribute specific behavioural attributes to ethno-regional elites. Your book for instance had said that Igbo political elite is preoccupied with seeking money, are kidnappers, etc., basically things to that effect.” It was a very unfortunate statement because he misrepresented the argument in the book. 

I had edited the book in 2005 with Professor Sam Egwu after extensive consultations in all the geopolitical zones in the country. In the Enugu workshop, stakeholders – civil society, media, political parties and academics – focused on the matter of the moment: the kidnapping of a sitting governor, one Chris Ngige, by a godfather for money. By giving the impression that I was the one accusing Igbos of seeking money and kidnapping, there was no surprise I was subjected to all manners of insults.

The irony is that Ibeanu himself had engaged in his own analysis of the contention between the Igbos and the Nigerian State. The two of us had edited a book in 2009 entitled “Beyond Resource Violence”. In his chapter in the book, Ibeanu had argued and I quote that: “The creation of states was designed to alter the Igbo ethnic boundary by encouraging a number of groups, most of them in the Niger Delta, who spoke dialects of the Igbo language to abandon pan-Igbo ethnic identities like Ikwerre, Etche, Ogba and Ndoni. The propaganda of the federal government at the time was to cast these groups as victims of the hegemony of Igbos from the “hinterland”. By so doing, the federal government sought to break the Igbo solidarity and weaken the Biafran secession bid.

Secondly, state creation was meant to get other ethnic minorities of the Eastern region, such as the Ijaw, Ogoni and Efik to cast their lot with the federal government in the war. This move sought to build on already existing ill feelings towards the Igbo.” Ibeanu concludes this argument on the note that “the decision of Shell-BP to pay royalties to the federal side and not the Biafran side” decided the outcome of the civil war. It is interesting that Ohaeri and Ibeanu believe that they are entitled to analyse Igbo ethnic identity issues, but I am not.

If we are all Biafrans, then we must all have the right to discuss widespread perceptions among virtually all Nigerian groups that they are marginalised and they seek redress in the new Nigerian. 

Of course ethnicity is not the only issue. Precisely for that reason, in my article on the Igbo Question, I raised issues about the history of the civil war, economic transformation and growing inequality among the Igbo, the sociological fault line that had developed between the wealthy and disenfranchised youth and partisan political tactics within the zone. To dismiss all these as single strand narrative simply because it comes from a non-Igbo is not the way to go.

Historically, the fears of domination of one region over the others played a central role in convincing Nigerian politicians of the necessity of a federal solution. The First Republic however operated essentially as equilibrium of regional tyrannies and was characterised by the domination of each region by a majority ethnic group and the repression of regional minorities. The relative autonomy enjoyed by the regions was eroded during three decades of military rule and the creation of states from two regions to thirty-six states, which should have addressed the domination issue. It has not. 

The steady rise of ethno-regional tensions and conflicts has continued unabated. The reason for this has been the supplanting of the federal tradition with the rise of a Jacobin unitary state. The erosion of multiple poles of political power that have existed in Nigeria by military dictators and subsequently by an all-powerful presidency has exacerbated the spectre of the fear of domination in the country.

The Nigerian state is no longer seen as a neutral arbiter. Negotiation and conflict resolution mechanisms have broken down and ethno-regional political actors have been taking maximalist positions and treating compromise with disdain. Each bloc believes it has the worst deal in the country. It is for this reason that marginalisation, defined, as the outcome of domination, is the most favoured word used by the Nigerian elite to describe their perceived political reality and above all to seek for more access to the national cake.

By examining these narratives, it is possible to show that the same arguments can be made for all groups. I have the right to talk about all Nigerian groups and will continue to do so. Yes Chido, we are all Biafrans and let’s continue to discuss what we think we are.

Muhammad Ali: the Greatest

THE GREATEST, Muhammad Ali transited to the other side on June 4th. He was the greatest boxer, indeed sports person of the century; but that was not why he was the greatest. He was one of the greatest poets and entertainers of the century but that was not why he was the greatest. He was one of the most committed advocates for civil rights and racial equality but that was not why he was the greatest.

He was the greatest because he taught oppressed Blacks and all oppressed minorities to develop and articulate their voice on the basis of self-esteem. He showed the world that with voice you could struggle and succeed in rolling back oppression, creating access to opportunities and advancing humanity. RIP Muhammad Ali, the GREATEST for all you did for us, we will continue to use the voice you gave us to continue to struggle to transform oppressed minorities into battle hardened fighters for rights.

Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja.

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Are we all Biafrans?

Book Review@ITRealms: 

In a few weeks, precisely on the 31st day of May, 2016, the writer and political activist, Chido Onumah, will present his latest book, We are all Biafrans- A Participant-Observer's Intervention in a Country Sleepwalking to Disaster, to the public.

The book is a deserved addition to his two previous books, Time to Reclaim Nigeria and Nigeria is negotiable.

A word or two on Chido Onumah, here. There is something original and courageous about Onumah who, in so many ways, engages our humanity with courage, exposes some of its triumphs and defeats, writs his finer thoughts that are consistent with the ideals of freedom and justice he cherishes dearly on the slate of our public conversation, advances and trades honest ideas in our marketplace.

In his engagement with the Nigerian public, he consistently calls attention to our flawed federation, posing the argument that our country needs to be reinvented. Engaging episodic upheavals that threaten the Nigerian state is the recurring theme of his public engagement.

Onumah understands the dangers of posing issues our governing class considers as settled or closed. He is familiar with those lonely places public intellectuals who are "unwilling to accept easy formulas, or ready-made clichés, or smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say" find themselves in a country that despises truth, disdains public intellectuals of courage. The public intellectual, the type Edward Said wrote about in his acclaimed seminal work, Representations of the Intellectual, as original, embarrassing, contrarian, questioning, courageous and unpleasant, even to the point of unsettling his audience, is hard to find in a country like ours that devalues intellect and promotes mediocrity.

The role of a true public intellectual is to read and interpret the word, and to change the world. Only those who display original thoughts, who possess the courage of their convictions can truly read and interpret the word and change the world!

He is his own man, Onumah. A true public intellectual with razor-sharp wit, brilliant intellect, who has no Moloch to look up to for unwavering guidance, or be worshipped, "who has neither offices to protect nor territory to consolidate and guard".

For him, there are no limits, there are no boundaries for inquiring into the shenanigans of our governing elite.

Back to the book: this is what the media statement announcing its public presentation says: “In his book, Chido Onumah argues that many, if not all, of the problems of Nigeria are rooted in the structure of the country. He makes a case, as he did in his two previous books, for the socio-political restructuring of Nigeria. He argues that the country needs to engage the episodic political convulsions that threaten its very foundation, including Biafra, June 12, Boko Haram, the "National Question", citizens rights and ‘militocracy’.

“In We are all Biafrans, Onumah takes on Nigeria's indolent and reactionary ruling elite – civilian and military – and their allies, as well as bandits in uniform, scoundrels posing as statesmen, and conservative ideologues, religious bigots and ethnic chauvinists posing as patriots.

“He raises fundamental questions: what is Nigeria and who is a Nigerian? If Nigeria is a federal republic, what constitutes or should constitute the federating units? He posits that the different manifestation of Biafra may as well be a metaphor, to that extent, we are all Biafrans as long as we seek to confront the clear and present danger.

 “The author notes that we can't achieve any meaningful progress as a people until we come to terms with the reality of our existence- that Nigeria is a deeply flawed nation- and sincerely and selflessly confront it. Forging a nation out of the disparate and often antagonistic entities, in the author's view, is perhaps the greatest challenge confronting Nigeria.”

“This book, a compilation of articles published in traditional and online newspapers in the last three years (2013-2016) is divided into five chapters. The first chapter, “The Politics of 2015”, deals with the high-wire politics of the 2015 election which, given its zero-sum character, was rightly regarded as a crucial factor in the survival of Nigeria as a country.

“The second chapter, “Dancing on the Brink” focuses on the issue of the Sovereign National Conference, a controversial subject that splits Nigerians right down the middle, but which rulers of Nigeria have not been bold enough to confront in a fruitful way. The third chapter, “Unmaking Nigeria”, highlights those phenomena that not only constitute an ugly phase of our history, but also expose our pretense to being a nation.

“The fourth chapter, “Of Scoundrels and Statesmen”, is a narrative of some individuals and groups in and out of government whose actions have either enriched our polity or reinforced it as the “giant of Africa” only in name. The fifth chapter, “Last 'Missionary' Journey”, is again a reminder that unless we sit at the table to negotiate the terms of our co-existence as a people, our country, to quote the late human rights activist, Dr. Beko Ransone-Kuti, ‘would continue to go round and round’.”

Here, Onumah poses two fundamental questions – what is Nigeria and who is a Nigerian? – that beg for answers, true and real answers.

There is a growing number of those who close off the prospect of engaging around the question of what is Nigeria and what constitutes Nigeria; and it is this closing-off, or attempt at closing-off engagements, that invariably spawns resistance, rejection, denunciation and renunciation of Nigeria.

Those who seek a different perspectival understanding of Nigeria, who pose a different narrative of state formation, reject the notion of being dragged along by the chariot-wheels of those who cry, "Nigeria is non-negotiable".

 Nothing in the cry suggests that there are attempts at addressing the question beyond seeking to supplant the aspirations of diverse ethnic nations with the single unity of the fictional ideal and with the aspirations of the fictional nation-state.

The problem here is that the criers assume that Nigeria is a settled question. How can it possibly be? Modern nation-states are not natural creations, and Nigeria is not different.

As a colonial entity, forged out of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, Nigeria still presents the historical problems of discord, disharmony, antagonism, chaos, differences and division sowed at the moment of amalgamation. Let truth be told, amalgamation did not dissolve ethnic nationalities identities, nor did it extinguish those ethnic nations that existed before the Lugardian economic experiment of amalgamation emerged.

Amalgamation enthroned its tension – the tension of constantly differentiating and reconciling differences, of constantly seeking to resolve the ambiguities of identity, and differences.

Nigeria is not an empty geospatial entity. What constitutes it are the many ethnic nations that emerged from the pre-colonial empires and kingdoms of the past. The non-recognition of this logic, this fact of history, and the refusal to articulate and mediate the tension and differences, makes the search for answers problematic. The closure of debate and the imposition of a single narrative of unity make the question of identity more problematic.

The closure of debate, the refusal to articulate and mediate tension, and the non-recognition of differences beyond the platitude of the national anthem, implicates the way the nation-state is often viewed and encountered. A young Bini who glimpses into the narrative body of his Bini ethnic nation, for instance, to find an intelligible narrative that gives meaning to his identity and existence would accept the narrative as true to his story. Here, what is good for the young Bini is determined by the goodness he finds in the narrative, or in the story that gives true meaning to his life and his identity.

For him, assuming a national identity that is hollow and vacuous becomes a taboo. Here, too, the idea of Biafra flourishes in him and he becomes a Biafran as well.

The return to Biafra, in my opinion, is driven by three impulses.

First, by the desire to realize one's first nature, identify with it, and rekindle affinity with a place that makes better meaning, provides greater clarity to life and its many stories.

Second, and more importantly, to express the right to self-determination or the right to be treated as equals as a natural right. Agitation for this right often takes the form of self-assertion, or in extreme cases as non-constitutional action.

Truth is: self-assertion and non-constitutional action are escapes from "huge impersonal authority that ignores ethnic, regional and religious differences, cravings for 'natural' units of 'human' size".

Third, to challenge the authority of members of the ruling class who impose their values on the nation-state and to resist the corrosion of their values.

The return to the metaphorical Biafra could mean anything from the preservation of cultural legacies and dreams to the defence of identities.

Social formation like the nation-state is ever threatened by its constitutive outside.

The antagonistic ‘otherness’ that Onumah invites us to confront always operates as an enemy of the nation-state.

How can the "other" be integrated? How can difference be used as a tool for modern nation-state building? Onumah addresses the questions in his book.

Are we all Biafrans? I shall provide a brief answer here.

Insofar the Nigerian state continues to trample on the rights of citizens, abandons its constitutional responsibility of securing lives and property, ensures unequal distribution of social and economic wealth and guarantees the greatest happiness for the smallest number, we are all Biafrans.

The constitutive outside is real. Nothing exemplifies the un-seriousness of rulers of the nation-state in addressing the problem of antagonism, division and differences than the brazen use of divisive political language.

Here is one example of a divisive remark credited to Mr. President: "With the way Sahara is advancing, with Boko Haram, growing number of people and uncertainty over rainfall, in a land where we fought civil war leading to the death of about two million, it would be foolhardy for someone to just say he would chase us away".

The reader may want to ask who that someone is, and who are us? To this question I volunteer no answer.

Let it be known that divisive language drains support for the fictional nation-state, that the binary of WE and THEM is unhelpful.

*Abdul Mahmud is a lawyer and poet and President of the Public Interest Lawyers League (PILL), Nigeria.

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Pix: Abdul Mahmud