Sudanizing Nigeria?
By Peter Uduehi
Those who know Nigeria well and remember its heyday with fond memories are today calling for the splitting of the country based on the kind of referendum that would determine the future of Sudan: whether or not the South will succeed in separating from the North. The African Union will soon have another member joining its ranks in July as most Southern Sudanese have voted for a split.
Nobody is wishing for the kind of split Libyan leader Col Muamar Gaddafi is wishing for Nigeria, which would further exacerbate the conflagration of ethnic divisions in today’s Nigeria, similar to balkanization with its attendant confusion. Gaddafi likes confusion and nobody needs his help.
These bona fide observers and historians of Nigeria, along with seasoned intellectuals who are serious about a responsible formula for solving the African giant’s geopolitical quagmires, say that Nigeria’s developmental imbroglio could be resolved effortlessly with a referendum like Sudan’s. Several eminent Nigerians, like the late Pa Anthony Enahoro, have produced prefaces to the Sudanization of Nigeria with their call for a major conference of all the different regions of Nigeria to discuss the future of the country’s “ethnic nationalities”. Few people realize that Nigeria is indeed a nation of many nationalities and that its consistency requires enormous undertakings of political technology and human sacrifice to weld its complicated fabric. Its multiplicity of ethnic divisions is supposed to be a source of strength, instead Africa’s most populous nation sits on a tinderbox ready to explode, because of the disorganized state of affairs brought on by unforgiving divisions — a Babel-like conundrum of multitudinal and tumultuous language groupings.
It is clear that if Nigeria must march forward the South must separate from the North, the proponents charge. And some may say for good reason. They point to the enormous corruption plaguing the country, the incessant purposeful underdevelopment of the minds of the Northern youths by the oligarchs who rule over them, and the sheer roadblocks these northern oligarchs use in derailing real progress for the rest of the country in education, science, technology, religion, politics and policies, ideology and culture. Among Nigeria’s thirty-six states, disparities abound to dizzying levels. Northern states’ youths are regularly ill-educated and are not keen on enlightenment, and while a southern state like Edo could produce over half a million high school graduates perennially Zamfara state in the north could only boast of 500 to 1,000. This is an unconscionable gulf that suggests that the two halves of the country have different agendas and careering into the abysmal condition of cataclysm. Matters as simple as the inoculation of children against certain diseases become unnecessarily problematic because of senseless adherence to fanatical attachments borne out of religious bigotry. This is a reference to the recalcitrant refusal by northern elements and their leaders to vaccinate their children against polio because of the deluded thinking that such a project is a conspiracy by Westerners (backed by Nigeria’s Christian South) to poison the people of the north and thwart their reproductive ability. Such is the situation we have in Nigeria that it has become virtually untenable to think of the whole country as heading in the same direction.
How can two halves of a country be so different? If the north of Nigeria professes to act separately from the rest of us, is that not enough indication that they wish to separate themselves? So why are they not clamouring to have their own country? Why must they continue to live or exist within the same nation-space called Nigeria? Why should southerners continue to suggest separation to northerners?
We dare to suggest that oil and gas (the mainstay of the country’s economy produced enormously in the south) are the only reasons keeping the north within the fold of the Nigerian nation-space.
The north would have long sought separation or independence (or split) if their region produced most of the wealth of the country, even though they are further deluded by their own ability to survive without quick petro-dollars.
After all, how did they survive without oil money before the advent of petrol as a source of hard currency? They actually did well, but haphazard and lackadaisical thinking have pervaded the mindset so much so that greed is the only option nowadays.
The truth of the matter is that Nigeria is one country with two systems. Just when you think all is well and that the country is heading in the right direction something happens to take us back a hundred years. A case in point is the Olusengun Obasanjo administration. His government brought sound economic choices that enhanced the country’s foreign exchange earnings, paid down our debt, and instituted a “rainy day” fund of up to 20 billion dollars. But the Umaru Yaradua administration turned everything he accomplished on its head. Yaradua, a northerner and now late, replaced the Central bank governor with a northern oligarch who has introduced 18th century monetary policies that have taken the entire country to the middle ages. Nigeria today is poorer, with only $400 million in the “rainy day” kitty. All because northern oligarchs must be placated, people who have no plans for the rest of us.
Proponents of the Sudanization of Nigeria thus are correct in their opinion that the country cannot continue to function as it is. We agree there needs to be a change if Nigeria is to remain a nation-state. As things now stand, the country is indeed a consummate parody of nation-sense. The truth of the matter is that Nigeria as it now stands is unworkable. A referendum should be called to discuss the future of its nationalities. If a split is necessary like Sudan it should take effect for the better. Southern Nigerians have endured to long at the hands of their northern neighbours. Not because all will be rosy if Nigeria’s South becomes an independent nation, but at least intellectualism and modernization will be less of a hassle to attain. It’s easier to work with people of like-minds. The usual clamour of the Niger Delta might still flourish, the petty jealousies among the different ethnic groups of the south might still hold true, and the abuse of corruptive influences might still be sonorous; however, the aspirations of the people of the south bottled in the quest for modernization and real development free of religious bigotry and fanaticism is an essential encouragement for nation-building. It will be the thread for a more prosperous union, instead of the perennial Islamic flare-ups gripping the current Nigerian nation-space. With hundreds of thousands dying needlessly every decade because of northern-Islamo-fascist leanings, a referendum for the splitting of the country into two halves could be the harbinger to peace for most people who wish to live without stress.