Category: Ropo Sekoni

By Ropo Sekoni

In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears it ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious, he may form some picture of a mechanism, which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism, and he cannot even imagine the possibility of the meaning of such a comparison-Albert Einstein 

A theory is an attempt to find explanations for the way things are or can be. In its facile or formal sense, the objective of a theory is to describe and explain phenomena, events, and situations. In general, a theory is heuristic, that is, it can stimulate and foster further development of knowledge of the matter under study. In today’s piece, therefore, Gumi’s theory will be viewed in relation to the problem that his theory is designed to address such as restoring peace in Nigeria by preventing herders, bandits, and kidnappers from being considered as criminals, rather than victims.

The more focused a theory is, the higher its chances of serving as an effective explanation, especially if the subject of the theory is about human behavior that includes human actions and motivations and goals for taking such actions. Readers will remember when during the decades of military rule in the country, successions of military presidents popularized the concept that moving away from the pre-independence federal system to a unitary model can facilitate unification of the various cultures in Nigeria. If anything, the events of the last few weeks have shown the futility of such theory.

Similarly, the theory of Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi about why some Fulani men are involved in kidnapping, banditry, and killing of farmers in many parts of the country may explain some of the factors responsible for such immoral acts but certainly not all. Gumi’s efforts thus beckon to others in the multinational federation to proffer more theories. Currently, the energy being given to promotion of Gumi’s theory in the media runs the risk of leaving Gumi’s theory as basis for formulating public policies on a matter that certainly requires additional thinking by people who are theoretically inclined in other parts of the country. With respect to the Yoruba region, thinkers across the region should not leave thinking about how to solve the problem before the country to Sheikh Gumi, governors, and members of the state assemblies in the region alone. The current problem requires input from all opinion influencers-state and non-state actors, more importantly non-state actors.

The core of Gumi’s theory is that Fulani people involved in banditry, kidnapping, and herder-to-farmer terrorism should not be viewed as criminals, but solely as members of Fulani ethnic militia that should be given amnesty and paid reparations for past abuse or marginalization if the country really wants the return of peace and harmony. The following are some of th main themes of Gumi’s theory in his own words: “It is a complex issue. It is an ethnic war and the solution is dialogue and teaching them Islam. To them, they are talking about an ethnic existence.  “If you have seen them (herdsmen), you will discover they have nothing like civilization other than the guns they are carrying. “If you are talking about victims, they have more victims on their side than others. “If the pressure is too much, I am afraid they can be influenced by Boko Haram and we have seen the signs that Boko Haram have gone to infiltrate them but so far, they are not Boko Haram. They are ready to lay down their arms. “I think it is a population that is pushed by circumstances into criminality. And this is what we should look for. Let’s remove the pressure, let’s remove the things that made them criminals because we have lived thousands of years without any problems with nomadic herdsmen. They are peaceful people. But something happened that led them to this.”

Many questions have arisen from the complaints from members of the ethnic militia the Sheikh met in the forest. One is whether Gumi’s ‘victims of Nigeria’ gave him any idea about the geography of the bad treatment meted to them. For example, in what ways did the people of Southwest neglect Fulani herders in Nigeria and from other countries in West Africa in the distant past or in recent time? If there is no history of mistreatment of the Fulani in the Southwest, then why would taxes paid by the people of the Southwest be used to pay amnesty and reparations to the herders, after losing lives and property to herders’ actions?

In the northern states, in which states were Fulani people dehumanized, when, how, and by whom? It is not enough to hear complaints from those with grievances, it is necessary to have specific details of such abuse that are verifiable, before papers are prepared for amnesty allowance.  Given the emphasis by many governors that the Fulani-looking people perpetrating criminal acts in Nigeria are from other West African countries, why would the Fulani of Nigeria be paid compensation by the Nigerian government from the common federation account of Nigeria? Apart from statements by the Fulani visited by Sheikh Gumi in the forest, there is need for fuller investigations to determine the credibility of the complaints made by the few people Gumi had interviewed.

Given the commitment of Gumi to justice, is he prepared to benchmark his own ideas with those of non-state actors like him in each of the country’s six regions, before a national policy document or legislative bill is prepared on amnesty and reparations to any ethnic group? This question arises because there is no evidence that the Sheikh has been given any opportunity to meet victims of herders’ terrorism in other many parts of Nigeria, especially in non-Fulani areas. To avoid each nationality group asking for amnesty because of marginalization or neglect, the least to do with the Sheikh’s findings is to submit them to a formal Truth and Restitution panel.

One important lesson from Sheikh Gumi’s dialogues and negotiations with marginalized or neglected Nigerian Fulani that had been forced into criminality in huge numbers is that leaders of federal and state governments in the country ought to, after dodging or ignoring calls for a national conference to create a constitution agreed to by all Nigerian communities should start to speak up. No country is likely to make any sustainable progress if it continues to drift from one security problem or crisis to the other.

If anything, Sheikh Gumi’s self-financed search for solutions to the festering problem of kidnapping, banditry, and herders’ terrorism of farmers across the federation, need to wake up and realize the reality of politics of identity in the country. If a respectable influencer like Sheikh Gumi can make such partisan recommendations on behalf of fellow Fulani militants, it is foolhardy for similar influencers to stop playing the game that Nigeria is endowed with special qualities to turn a non-Westphalian State into a Westphalian nation-state.

As we have said several times on this page, the dynamics of and requirements for managing and nurturing a non-Westphalian multi-national federation are starkly different from those required for Westphalian nation-states. The sooner the managers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria realize this, the better for Nigeria, the West African region, and the world at large. Nigeria has the potential to become one of the wonders of modern nation-building if it is sustained. So does it have the potential to become an embarrassment to the Africa and the rest of the world, if it is pushed into war by failing to realize its peculiarities and its need to privilege justice, equality, and equity over any manner of hegemonic rule.

By Ropo Sekoni

What is ravaging the Southwest now; they are not the Hausa/Fulani people from Nigeria; not the Fulani who have been living with us for the past 100 years. They have not been killing people…I confronted this problem long ago when this thing was rampant in my area, I summoned the Obas in Ijesha land in my constituency… So, we found out that it was the Obas who employed the Fulani herdsmen as their herbalists in their domains to oppress their people—Senator Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi 

Since the diplomatic shuttles between northern and southern governors after the order from Ondo State governor to illegal occupants of forest reserves, the country’s insecurity has worsened. A violent clash between Yoruba and Hausa traders in Shasha in Oyo State had occurred, farmers in Edo, Kaduna, Plateau, and Ondo states had been killed. More recently, the virus of abduction reached Government Science School in Kagara, Niger State, where one student had been killed, 27 abducted and, according to the latest count, three teachers, two non-teaching staff, and eight family members had been abducted.

Fortunately, however, the president had pledged on twitter to protect the entirety of the country’s population: “Our government will protect all religious and ethnic groups in Nigeria, whether majority or minority, in line with our responsibility under the constitution. We will not allow any ethnic or religious groups to stoke up hatred and violence against other groups. I appeal to religious and traditional leaders, as well as Governors and other elected leaders across the country, to join hands with the Federal Government to ensure that communities in their domain are not splintered along ethnic and other primordial lines.

But it is still too soon for anybody in many parts of the country to sleep with both eyes closed for obvious reasons. One, the departing Chief of Army Staff, Lt- Gen. Tukur Buratai just announced in his valedictory speech that insurgency may persist for 20 years; two, kidnapping and banditry continue to feature in various parts of the country, in Kaduna, Edo, and Niger states, etc. Further, the current Minister of Defence, Maj-Gen. Bashir Mangashi, has advised Nigerians, while reacting to the recent news of killing and abductions of students in Kagara, to stand and face bandits when they come, adding, “Is it (security) the responsibility of the military alone? We shouldn’t be cowards.”

Despite efforts by members of the Nigeria Governors Forum and General Abdusalami Abubakar, former Head of State and current Chairman of the National Peace Committee to move the country away from an implosion, it seems there is still too much cynicism in the air that can startle or discourage citizens. For instance, the statements by General Buratai and the defence minister are not likely to make citizens comfortable, just as the recent disclosure by Senator Francis Fadahunsi quoted in italics overleaf can unsettle many people in the Southwest and add to the mistrust between citizens and rulers in the region.

While President Buhari and the governors may be about creating new structures and strategies that can pull the country back from the precipice because of growing insecurity, this column would like to advise national and subnational political leaders to engage in efforts that can start to restore what looks like loss of trust in the capacity of the country to protect lives and property of the people of Nigeria. After about 60 years of belief in social contract theory of modern governance and the principle of the rule of law as the engine that powers most of the world’s democracies, it is rather late in the day for Nigeria to fall into what Thomas Hobbes once described as the state of nature in which each person constitutes himself into a one-man army to defend himself against his brutish neighbour, a state of anomie defended by Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State recently in his spirited defence of AK-47 carrying herders across the country.

There are already too many worrisome actions and statements about kidnapping, banditry, and violent attacks on farmers by herders in many parts of the country that call for thorough investigation by the federal government. President Buhari should in the spirit of protecting all citizens call for an Independent Commission of Inquiry to unearth the roots of the country’s lack of security at the instance of bandits, kidnappers, and marauders—home grown or foreign born.

One commission should be dedicated to threats to the lives and property of Nigerians in most of the regions of the country; banditry and kidnapping, which are closely related in terms of method and outcome. The second commission of inquiry should focus on farmer-herder violent conflicts in the Southwest, Southcentral, Southeast, and Northcentral. It should pay special attention to the role of foreigners in this crime against Nigerians including which specific countries such violent killers come from, their motives, and how they entered Nigeria with their cattle and weapons, without being detected by immigration officers and other law enforcement agencies.

Citizens are now bombarded by contradictory stories about the geography and scale of violence in the country. For example, the current state of knowledge about a crime believed to be perpetrated by foreigners needs to be saved from the vineyard of exaggerations, rumours, distortions, misinformation, and disinformation. Just as there is already mistrust between victims of farmer-herder conflict and Nigerians from citizens from ethnic backgrounds linked to specific crimes, it is also possible for the unverified news of foreign Fulani herdsmen to spark animosity between Nigerian farmers and Fulani people from countries in the ECOWAS region with Fulani presence, especially that Nigerians are just recovering from border closures to neighboring countries that were  believed to be at the verge of sabotaging Nigeria’s economy through reckless cross-border smuggling.

Relatedly, such inquiry should also probe claims that there are internal and external people that do not wish the country and its democracy well to the extent of sponsoring sabotage against the country. Members of both commissions of inquiry should be as independent as is humanly possible.

At the subnational level, governors, especially those in the Southwest should call for investigations of claims that traditional rulers cannot be totally absolved from the presence of foreign herdsmen and their illegal activities in the region. The recent disclosure by a senator of the federal republic from the Southwest about the presence of foreign herdsmen in the region and   interactions between them and traditional rulers is too serious to be ignored or dismissed. Doing so can impugning the integrity of members of a highly revered class of people in the region. This commission of inquiry should not limit its investigations to traditional rulers; its probe should be extended to other categories of civil servants, law enforcement officers, and other members of the privileged class in the state.

Spending resources on investigating what had happened to Nigeria’s security or insecurity in the recent past, rather than just investing dwindling resources on facilitating governments’ recent re-dedication to protecting citizens’ lives and property, wherever they reside in the country, may look like crying over split milk. But establishing commissions of inquiry to find out more information about why and how Nigeria’s security came to this low in the past few years can make aggrieved citizens feel a sense of justice that is direly needed to restore their trust in government at the national and subnational level. So can finding out the causes of the country’s insecurity also reduce the anxiety of citizens in general, especially when they have reasons to believe that their government is working hard to restore the country to its pride of place as one of Africa’s safest havens for citizens and foreigners.

By Ropo Sekoni

Historically, unity as pre-condition to security or democratic governance and rule of law did not become prominent in the country until the mid-1960s. Before that time, harping on unity as the challenge facing Nigeria’s development became popular among politicians during the trial of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, particularly in the mouths of those who preferred a one-party system for Nigeria. After Awolowo was sent to jail, the ruling group continued to plead for unity while the aggrieved people of Western Nigeria continued to demand for justice, particularly after the rigging of the parliamentary elections in the region in 1965.

Between the first and second coup, the ruling group (then General Aguiyi-Ironsi) brought the spectre of unity back to the nation’s political and media space, principally through his Unification Decree that turned the four regions into provinces and national governance into a command system manned by an overlord surrounded by prefects in the provinces. With the success of the second coup, regionalism quickly replaced unity as a mantra. And not surprisingly, unity as an end became strident again during the civil war and the slogan “to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done.” But unity lost its prime of place in the nation’s political discourse once the war was over, giving way to return of unity and fighting corruption as excuses for each new coup maker.

However, once some sections of Nigeria called for re-structuring or restoration of federalism in the wake of annulment of MKO Abiola’s election and after the election of Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, the rhetoric of imperative of national unity returned to the political sphere to crowd out the call for structural and social justice. Even the transition to democracy programme was constructed as an attempt to reunify the country, hence, the decision by military men in charge of transition to civil rule to make a member of Abiola’s native community the presidential candidate of the party that attracted most of the military generals, just as Shonekan, from the same community with Abiola, was recruited as Interim President after the annulment of Abiola’s election.

Yet Obasanjo’s election as president did not end the eternal search for unity. To sustain Unity Discourse in the media, Obasanjo convened a conference on political reform to look for how to keep the country united, apart from sponsoring a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But all references to the conference died out soon after its sittings in Abuja. Similarly, the Jonathan era revitalized the unity discourse, first to counter the threats from Boko Haram and later to silence citizens that were calling for restructuring. Jonathan’s administration organized a national dialogue, and like Obasanjo’s conference, the recommendations were archived shortly after they were delivered ceremoniously to Jonathan, leaving self-respecting delegates to justify their time at the conference by insisting, after Jonathan’s departure, for implementation of recommendations of the conference.

At the time of the 2015 election that unseated Jonathan, politicians in all parties did not act as if there was any threat to the country’s unity, apart from the Boko Haram menace in the Northeast. The party that won the election came to power not on the theme of unity but on the manifesto of change. The party campaigned noticeably on the theme of structural, political, economic, and social justice, which many citizens considered to be a recognition by new rulers of the solidity of the country’s territorial and political unity. Voters, especially in the Southwest also believed that APC’s promise of change was not at variance with the call for true federalism, which the presidential candidate and the party at large endorsed with the promise to “Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit.”

The mantra of unity got renewed when security of life and property of citizens started waning noticeably in 2017, particularly when herdsmen started moving into farmlands across the country and without any respect for the property rights of fellow citizens who own farms. As the number of violent acts grew, so did the stridency of the song of unity grow. As complaints from farming communities grew, so did excuses from the federal government increase about the presence of foreign herders in the country and the importance of national unity.

While no foreigner was ever arrested and prosecuted for illegally entering the country to commit crimes against citizens, the federal government in charge of the borders turned up the noise on the need to keep the country united. Its pundits informed the country about the need to understand the sociology of a Fulani group across West and Central Africa with no sense of borders and full expectation of impunity while roaming their cattle across national borders to feed. To charges of many of such foreign herders entering Nigeria with AK-47, attempts were made to link such aberration to availability of such weapons in post-crisis Libya.

Fasting forward to 2021, when Ondo State governor ordered unregistered herdsmen out of the state’s forest reserves, it was Miyetti Allah, a Nigerian association for cattle owners, that cried foul about efforts of the chief security officer of the state to disrespect the fundamental rights of Fulani herdsmen to live anywhere they desire in compliance with the 1999 Constitution. Many political leaders and sociocultural organizations including Miyetti Allah continued to emphasize that it was foreign Fulani herders that inhabited the forest reserves and farms in many states with complaints about dispossession of farmers by herders; rape of girls and women in farming communities, and kidnapping of farmers for ransom.  Although no national or international herdsmen have been arrested for crimes against Nigerians so far, the rhetoric of unity in government circles and among sociocultural organizations has been returned to the screen for citizens to notice.

Leaders in all political parties need to come to terms with the reality before the country: decentralization of the polity and economy. If governor Akeredolu had been like governors in other federations, he would have had the police to prevent illegal herders—local or foreign—from residing in forest reserves. Similarly, if governor Makinde had state police, there would have been no reason for Sunday Igboho to take on the responsibility of protecting Ibarapa people from marauders—domestic or foreign. The on-and-off recourse to unity as an end in the last 60 years and as a means of making calls for justice and restructuring sound like avoidable distraction seems to be wearing off in terms of significance. Citizens are beginning to see the rhetoric of unity as a bogey to create fear for believers in the role of justice and security of life and property of all citizens in sustaining national unity in a federation.

Any unity that needs to be mystified as ours has been on-and-off since 1966 has the tendency to make search for national unity an eternal and only task of government, while emphasis should be on protection of liberty and security in all parts of country for all citizens. Any attempt to make unity an end rather than a means cannot but constitute an overdose for citizens who expect more from their country than recurrent verbiage about national unity.

Instead of pumping more steroidal unity rhetoric into citizens, the Buhari government needs to acknowledge that there is more to holding a multinational federation together than selling the message of unity to citizens, ahead of selling the message of justice, equality, and self-rule to subnational governments in a federal polity. National unity is not the problem of the nation at present, it is security of life and property of all citizens that is under severe threat. What needs to be fixed is how federal and subnational governments can have a constitution that empowers both levels to provide with equity effective security in the country.

This piece first appeared in 2017 but it has been re-touched to make it relevant to current events in the country.  

By Ropo Sekoni

As the twenty-first century progresses, the geographical factors that have helped determine our history will mostly continue to determine our future…. Of course, geography does not dictate the course of all events. Great ideas and great leaders are part of the push and pull of history. But they must all operate within the confines of geography— Tim Marshall in Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You need to Know about Global Politics.

This is the fourth time this piece is appearing on this page, each time with the same thesis but with different emphasis. The problem of Fulani herdsmen versus non-Fulani farmers seems to have reached a dangerous stage in the recent massacre of men, women, and even children a few days ago in Benue State. With the spate of killings that have made some people refer hyperbolically to Nigeria as a place of genocide, it seems that the search for solution is now imperative, given the speed with which the Minister of Agriculture announced a policy change— from ranching to establishment of cattle colonies. More recently, the current tension in the country over the right way to raise cattle in the country calls caution and imagination on the part of political leaders and their policymakers.

As many pundits have observed in the last ten years in relation to demographic shifts in the Sahel, desertification or ‘Sahelization’ may be a remote cause of the problem between herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria, but desertification is not peculiar to Nigeria. About 900 million people in the five continents live in zones that are threatened by desertification.  But most countries adopt new techniques to cope with such challenges of geography. Nigeria must find ways to acquire such knowledge to save itself from creating or living with ad-hoc solutions to problems that require a futuristic imagination, especially in relation to preventing efforts to ensure food security from becoming a source of strife or disharmony among its people(s).

Indiscriminate cattle grazing has not always been a problem in the country. Those who were born before independence would know that up to the 1980s when the Sahel had not moved down as radically as it has in the last twenty years, herders-farmers violence was unheard of whether within the north or between the north and the south. One immediate cause of herdsmen/farmers clash in the last few years seems to be the fear of Fulani herdsmen to accept the unworkability of the old system of roaming with cattle across states and the fear of adopting new modes of cattle raising. Others have proffered that foreign Fulani herders in West Africa, especially those averse to sedentary life and are characterized as people who are by tradition not constrained by borders in the practice of their occupation have aggravated the tension between farmers and herders in Nigeria.

The recent recommendation by the governor of Kano State and his suggestion that cattle grazing across the country should be discontinued and replaced by ranching that includes adequate financial support by the government—federal, state, and local. Pundits who had complained about market-hostile subsidy to cattle farmers (including this writer in one of his earlier responses to federal government’s Ruga settlements by the federal government) need to rethink. It is better for the federal government to provide financial support through grants and loans to make it easy for nomadic herders to migrate to modern cattle farming, such as we are already doing with other farms of agriculture.

The fact that herdsmen in the past had moved before the spread of the Sahel from one area of the north to another part does not mean that herdsmen should continue to be encouraged by the federal government to move all over the country in search of pasture and water for their cattle. The geographical conditions that made nomadic cattle farming necessary has been overcome by advances in science and technology. Most countries of the world produce cattle through the ranch model. Even Qatar currently has ranches that specialize in beef and dairy cattle through an experiment with species of cattle imported from Germany. If Qatar can make a success of this experiment, it is bound to be easier for Nigeria to make ranching a greater success with local species. Other political leaders need not re-invent the wheel. Ganduje’s model is modern enough to induce a revolution in cattle farming that can prevent crisis between farmers and herders, wherever they are located.

With or without climate change, the world is changing in geographical terms and is likely to continue to change. Science and technology are now deployed to assist humanity to cope with constraints of geography. The federal government needs to get more scientific input from global best practices in cattle farming. These are the types of issues that Nigeria should bring to the attention of its development partners, just as we recently did with modernizing the country’s railway.

But while the governments are doing necessary comparative studies on raising cattle in states vulnerable to desert encroachment, the federal government should pay immediate attention to investigations that can lead to prosecution and punishment of those who had given Nigeria the worst name possible in international relations: a country ready to throw away all the advantages of its diversity over insistence of cattle grazing as an occupation.

Political leaders and policymakers from all the states need to benefit from two Nigerian proverbs about the imperative of change. The Igbo proverb says in English “life is like a dance, you need to follow the dance, in order to enjoy it.” The Yoruba version says, “it is the contemporary dog that is used to chase the contemporary rabbit.” Both proverbs promote adaptability to new realities.  The challenge for the ministries of agriculture and the environment is how to fight desertification frontally and how to adopt new ways to produce cattle, goats, and other ruminants.

If herdsmen were children of upper or middle-class men and women in our country, they would have cried foul for being hired to nurse cattle for the rich at great risk to their being. If the country had created an educational system akin to what exists in Kaduna today—free and compulsory basic education for all—it would have been impossible for current owners of cattle to find herdsmen to follow cattle to the length and breadth of the country.  Such difficulty must come to cattle owners if part of the goals of national development and integration include ensuring equality and equity. Having herdsmen in the 21st century should be discouraged; potential herdsmen should be in school like the children of the owners of the cattle they are hired to herd and thus get psychologically prepared for a new and more rancour-free way of raising animals—Ranching.

Solving the problem of conflict between farmers and herders will allow the government to confront other problems such as banditry, ritual killing, and kidnapping that are not connected to the search by herders for pasture for their cattle. Such crimes also need frontal confrontation from law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, adopting state police and local government police, as suggested by the Taraba State governor can assist the governments to prevent cattle farmers from losing their occupation, just as it will prevent farmers from losing their land to interlopers—local or foreign. The nation’s leaders ought to take advantage of new knowledge that can help it to reduce its fault lines and encourage them to focus on   nation building that can lead away from avoidable win-win solutions for both farmers and herders. The challenge of sustainable development facing the country at present does not require the intermittent hobbling of the country that grows from inter-ethnic or inter-state fight over land.

By Ropo Sekoni

Around this time last week, a visitor to this country would have thought that the country was at the risk of disintegration, with the weight of anti-federalist words in the air, because of the order from the Ondo State governor that people without permission to be in the state’s forest reserves vacate the premises. If any of such visitors were to return to Nigeria today, a week after the threat of fire and brimstone that included threats from various sociocultural organizations, such visitor would have exclaimed for experiencing physically the Nigerian Factor of compulsive ‘a-logicality’ or unpredictability.

To think that what almost set the country on fire last week, according to the communique at the end of the Akure meeting, was the claim that the words of Governor Akeredolu about the need for trespassers to stay out of the state’s forest reserves were misconstrued. The good thing is that many Nigerians who understand that this is the only country we have would have slept better since the visits of governors from Ondo and Oyo states to President Buhari, where some requested for additional anti-riot police.

Now that the people of Ondo State and their supporters across the land and members of Miyetti Allah and their supporters can breathe better is a good time to give a little more attention to the roots of whatever must have gone awry two weeks ago in Ondo State—things that should have happened to the nation’s security that could have been nipped in the bud the problem that nearly shook Nigeria to its foundation two weeks ago. A Yoruba proverb that had appeared frequently on this page in the past; Bi omode ba subu, a wo iwaju, bi agbalagba ba subu a woeyin (If a toddler trips, he or she looks to the front for help, but if an elderly person trips, he looks back for the cause) becomes useful for today’s discussion. In which direction should those ruling the country have looked to avoid the rise in political temperature in Akure and even in Ibarapa in the past two weeks? Or what should the governments at the subnational levels—state and local—do to prevent putting the country under stress over proper management of subnational land, going forward?

One point was missed at the Akure meeting or during visits of Southwest governors to the president after the meeting: restating the call for subnational policing. We have lived with avoidable contradictions in the country for too long and the crisis of the last two weeks in Akure and Igangan are traceable to our-head-in-the-sand approach to security in the land. In most parts of the world, governments have more and better access to state-of-the-art knowledge about just anything than other institutions. In Nigeria, the fear of change instilled in the nation’s psyche by military rule and civilian beneficiaries from the current military-authored constitution has also encouraged those who govern Nigeria at all levels to settle for a culture of ruling from one crisis to another, rather than doing something novel that can move the country forward.

No government institution illustrates this attitude better than the country’s system of policing. British colonizers left a keep-the-natives-peaceful police system to protect the national government while allowing subnational governments to protect life and property at the subnational level. Without any deep study, military rulers demonized subnational policing and transformed the colonial police into a monopoly police that is an anathema in federations and even in many countries with unitary constitutions. And the rest is history.

If there is a matter that should arise from the recent rapprochement between the governors of the Southwest and Miyetti Allah, it is the need to recognize the importance of multilevel policing that would allow states to have police to protect life and property at the subnational level, without state governors having to wait for the 500,000 national police hired to protect the life and property of over 200 million Nigerians and state property like forest reserves.

People calling for subnational policing are not necessarily noisemakers that many political leaders call them. They may be some compass that political leaders may find useful, if they want to avoid the kind of rattling of the nation that took place in Ondo and Oyo states two weeks ago. It is nice to be optimistic about the rapprochement in Akure, but it may be foolhardy to believe that we have put the matter of farmer-herder violence and other forms of crime such as kidnapping and banditry to rest permanently, even though this writer and many other believers in the advantages of multinational federalism would have wished so.

One important group that was absent at the Akure peace meeting is that of international or foreign Fulani herdsmen. From the response of many leaders from federal and subnational governments to complaints in the last few years about violence against farmers and increase in the number of AK-47-carrying young herders across the country, one point that frequently surfaces from government quarters is that most of such killers are not from Nigeria. There is, therefore, a good reason for Ondo and other states to have an autonomous security response to such foreign herders whenever they appear in the country. Rather than thinking that the view that many violent herdsmen in the country are foreigners, governors should be empowered to prepare for such reality, as security leaders have done in other countries.  

In a book, Leading Policing in Europe: An Empirical Study of Strategic Police Leadership by Bryn Caless and Steve Tong, the issue of preparing for future policing that can respond to changes in Europe revealed that new crimes arising from technology and globalization call for new thinking in individual EU countries and in the larger federation of states itself. It is important for political leaders, especially in a large country like Nigeria, to borrow knowledge from other countries faced with rising number of crimes and additional policing in a fast-changing world: cybercrime, public order, internal terrorism, illegal trafficking, transnational organized crime including external terrorism, etc. Is the current one-stone-to-kill-all-birds policing system in Nigeria suitable for the new world that is distinct from the one confronted by British colonizers when they created the Nigeria Police Force?

This is a time for Nigerian political leaders to act in a way to suggest that the worldviews and human behaviour once held by military rulers in the country has started changing, given the exposure they receive from international training. So have civilians in Nigeria with awareness of wht is happening other parts of the world been changing. Had Akeredolu or Makinde had a state police designed to protect life and property in each state and one that is fully equipped to provide security, there would have been no reason for the governors to wait this long to prevent their states from being overrun by violent herdsmen—national or international. I heard President Buhari warn ECOWAS leaders the other day about the importance of reinforcing security in the region. But Nigeria as one country with about 45% of the population of ECOWAS needs such advice, even for home use.

For over one year, Nigeria’s borders had been closed to its neighbours, yet there were enough foreign Fulani herders in the land. As ECOWAS grows, at it should do for the sake of the region’s economic development, there will be many more foreign Fulani, Yoruba, Creole, Wolof, Bambara, and many others in Nigeria. As part of the human family, many of such people will come here to improve their livelihood legally while some will be criminal-minded. Does Nigeria have a police system to protect the giant of Africa from its historical duty as the region’s largest country? No, if Nigeria does not have reliable security in its subnational space.

There is no better time for the ruling party, the opposition party, President Buhari, and the national and state legislatures, and governors to come to terms with the reality that the Nigeria Police Force needs help from subnational police systems that is better empowered than the current Amotekun. The country has seen enough insecurity in the last few years to continue believing that one central police can meet the security challenges facing the country, now and in the future.  We need subnational police that will save state governors from waiting for trespassers to settle in forest reserves before ordering them to leave and prevent private citizens, like Sunday Igboho, from having to protect the life and property of members of his natal community that is a tax-paying part of a larger federation.

If you are going to call Nigeria a failing state or a state that risks failure—and many, many Nigerians believe that—you ‘re implying that Nigeria is a nation-state as the world traditionally defines it…First to recognize Nigeria for what it is, not a state in the classic Westphalian mode but a post-colonial entity…John Campbell. 

By Ropo Sekoni

This column has several times in the last ten years urged readers to start viewing Nigeria as a non-Westphalian nation-state and stop hoping to turn it into one, arguing each time that Nigeria is wired as a multinational state by its colonizer in the 20th century and that there is no shame about managing a multinational state in the 21st century. The recent release of Nigeria and the Nation-State: Rethinking Diplomacy with the Postcolonial World by former United States’ Ambassador to Nigeria is the motivation for today’s discussion, among other issues. By way of reminder, this is Campbell’s second book on Nigeria, the first in 2013 being Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink, an examination of Nigeria at a time, like now, that it was looking helpless in its struggle to aspire to become a conventional modern state.

Without believing that Campbell’s book is as much about Nigeria as it is about how the United States should approach Nigeria, the new book’s emphasis on the importance of understanding the subject of the matter before you as a diplomat is, to this writer, applicable to Nigerian citizens that care about the future of their country. It is Campbell’s coming to terms with the nature of the State called Nigeria that I believe should be brought back to my readers through the eyes of a respected scholar with a bent for problem solution, where he perceives one.

Campbell’s characterization of Nigeria as a non-Westphalian nation-state is distinct from previous comments from Europe and North America about how postcolonial African states should all aspire to become like the Westphalian or near Westphalian nations that colonized Africa and created the postcolonial states that now seem like an albatross around the necks of many sub-Saharan African states and occasionally around the necks of some of the development partners of Nigeria. Even though Campbell’s principal interest seems to be warning his own country against using an old or obsolete template, such as was used in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries, Nigerian political thinkers and observers ought to listen to their international friends who spared time to see their country differently from the way they have done since 1960.

As this page had argued in the past, the bulk of the literature on politics and political development in Nigeria from within and outside Nigeria had been on the problems that had not allowed the country to get modern and developed in the way that other developed countries in Europe and North America had done. Prominent among obstacles to Nigeria’s development have since 1960 been perceived to be ethnicity, especially that many of the peoples in the country do not speak the same language, do not worship God the same way, do not have a common history, similar achievement orientations, and ambitions. Another is that people in the country do not seem to be making enough effort to transcend their places in history, by becoming supra-ethnic or de-ethnicized to the point of pushing Nigeria into the group or class of Westphalian nation-states through sincere efforts to be like the Joneses. With the new book from Campbell, a new way of looking is provided that can make other development partners including Britain and Nigerians themselves consider the benefits of remaining a multinational state.

It is noteworthy that Campbell, having seen Nigeria long enough, is not doing with the new book what many historians and political scientists have done well—compiling a grocery list of things for Nigeria to do to become what it does not seem to have been wired to be, by its British creators and most of the elites, especially military dictators and local scholars and civil servants that served military ‘re-designers’ of Nigeria since the Nigeria-Biafra War. As Nigeria, like many other sub-Saharan states, became independent during the Cold War, the two state systems popular to the elites that took over from British colonizers were the Westphalian model of Western Europe and North America and the Soviet System that acted then as one that had become Westphalian under communism. The European Union had not emerged fully in the 1960s for military rulers to see as a new possibility to learn from.

The desire by many of the political leaders, apart from Obafemi Awolowo and many of the members of his inner circle, was how to turn Nigeria into a conventional nation-state in Africa through mindless centralization. The new military ruling class saw a rare advantage in the abundance of petroleum wells capable of producing enough funds to create a predatory class that could sustain Nigeria for the narrow elite primarily. This was despite the reality left behind by the colonial group—structuring Nigeria as a federation in contradistinction to the usual unitary model in vogue at that time.

But Nigeria had not always been a “prebendal archipelago.” The British stayed long enough in the country to realize that it might not become a regular Westphalian nation-state and restructured Nigeria as a federal state one decade before independence after ruling Nigeria indirectly for just 46 years. Had the decades of military dictatorship kept that structure intact, it is possible that Nigeria would not become the prebendal archipelago that it is today. But the point for Nigerian political thinkers to consider from Campbell’s Nigeria and the Nation-State is that it may not be too late, for Nigeria to start thinking about a new political destiny that may be different from the Westphalian one military rulers admired and aspired to become through gradual dismantling of the federal system handed over to its first prime minister in 1960 and which the first elected government improved upon with a properly negotiated Republican Constitution in 1963.

No serious thinker would expect Ambassador Campbell and a scholar in his own rights to think for Nigeria or Nigerians. But something worth learning from his analysis of the Nigerian condition is his recognition that not all countries in the postcolonial era should aspire to become a monocultural society and polity. Many Nigerians that have always found arguments to prevent Nigeria from reforming or restructuring itself into a multicultural polity ought to look back to Nigeria’s era of federalism in relation to what the country has become today, to determine whether it is what the citizens have not done or what previous rulers have done to the governance of the country that makes it look like a failed or failing state in 2020.

Nigeria has no reason to be a failed or failing state, if it has chosen to recognize the danger in giving anything or everything to become an African Westphalian nation-state, without most of the wiring needed for this to survive or thrive: A unified worldview, one language, one historical experience, one vision of the future, etc. But the good thing about this field of diversity is that it can be re-designed to become a mini-European Union. As a federal state, as advocates for restructuring toward re-federalization have argued, a choice of political system to nurture Nigeria as a federal state has more possibilities for its peoples than insisting on retaining it as a unitary state that deceives itself about growing over time into what Campbell calls a conventional nation-state.

It is thus a good coincidence that Campbell’s Nigeria and the Nation-State: Rethinking Diplomacy with the Postcolonial World, unlike his earlier book, Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink, has come out at a time that many Nigerians are clamouring for a return to its original form at independence.

As this page had observed several times in respect of the imperative of re-federalizing the country, it is myopic for some politicians to prefer to prepare Nigeria to become a one-nation-one-destiny state of the Westphalian mode. Nigeria’s asset remains its cultural diversity and the readiness of its leaders to see the danger inherent in preferring to nudge the country in an opposite direction to aspiring to become an ultra-modern state, a federation of states, like the European Union or the United States of America.

By Ropo Sekoni

Given the need to get this page ready for readers to read on Sunday morning, January 3, 2021, the draft of whatever gets on this page on Sunday, needs to reach my editor by 1p.m. on the preceding Friday for editing. Hence, today’s article was written on December 31 when the topic it now discusses was at its most exciting period; the moment of suspense, when it was not clear whether the position of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Ondo State on Crossover Service for the outgoing year would prevail over that of the state government. Time will tell.

But the avoidable controversy between Ondo State Government and the Ondo State Branch of CAN is one public debate that needs to be examined by public affairs observers and commenters, regardless of what takes place on Thursday night in Ondo State and other states where some CAN members have chosen to flex muscles with people elected to govern the state. The threats of CAN’s representatives in Ondo State over the position of the government on mitigating or even avoiding spread of coronavirus in its second wave in the state hints at aspects of the 1999 Constitution that requires rethinking.

A short summary of developments on federal government’s efforts to save Nigeria from the second wave of the pandemic, as it has succeeded in doing with the first wave. The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 advised religious leaders against church services in the late hours of December 31, insisting on adherence to the regulation against mass gathering of people. Some of the main Christian denominations, such as Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), the Winners Chapel, and Daystar announced their agreement with the federal government’s advice on Crossover Service for 2020. The chairman of the national body of Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev. Samuel Ayokunle, advised it state chapters to abide by the federal government’s directives on mass gathering in the night of December 31, pleading with Christians, “There is no sacrifice that is too much to put an end to the Coronavirus pandemic in the interest of all and sundry,” a reference to the citizenry, primary owners of the country’s social contract and sovereignty to which this page will return to later in this piece.

It was also reported as the eve of Dec 31 got nearer that some states still quietly insisted on lobbying governors to allow Crossover services to hold. But the state Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Ondo State has been reported to have kicked against the directive of the government, saying “the association was not consulted before the decision was taken.” It was immediately after Oladapo’s release of the preceding statement that the writing of today’s piece got written. And it is in the juxtaposition of the statement by the national body of CAN, “There is no sacrifice that is too much to put an end to the Coronavirus pandemic in the interest of all and sundry” and the statement of the Ondo branch of the same association, “Services hold as the normal tradition demands. We were not consulted. We are not aware of that” that the thesis of today’s page, the need to avoid needless disagreement capable of creating avoidable confusion in a democracy was formed.

The 1999 Constitution, despite its many flaws, is clear on the right of citizens to practice his or her faith without fetters. Correspondingly, conventional wisdom is a given in democracies that that nobody would ordinarily practice such faith at the expense of the security of others, in other words, at the risk of life and property of fellow members of the same physical and political territory. Even though citizens do not generally discuss the danger that can come from an irresponsible practice of religion, except as we often do in Nigeria when we choose to list fault lines at the instance of politicians. What makes human rights meaningful to citizens is recognition of the importance of each citizen protecting his right without disrupting national security and the security of individuals.

Should any religious group have the right to frustrate the government of any state from protecting citizens from physical or psychological danger? The main concern today is the danger posed by any attempt of groups of people—be they Christians, Muslims, Jews, Agnostics, Atheists, or Animists—for the security of citizens other areas including health matters such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Should the Ondo State branch of CAN succeed in holding this year’s Crossover service despite the insistence of the state government on the obligation of all citizens and residents in the state to refrain from holding mass gatherings that can add management of the pandemic to the country’s list of threats to the security of the land.

Is the insistence of Ondo State Christian body a right thing to do in a situation of national health emergency such as the second wave of the pandemic represents across the globe? Does any religious organization require a special consultation other than the consultation with the most important stakeholders, the citizenry? Does any country struggling with such a deadly virus be further encumbered by a section of one of the country’s faith communities? If the federal government needs to consult every faith community specially about the logic of discouraging mass gatherings during a second wave of the pandemic outside the consultation with citizens as collective owners of the polity and the territory, how feasible would this be, given the uncontrollable speed of the virus?

As this column prays that this current pandemic is the last in the country’s history, democracy and constitution watchers should start thinking anew about the 1999 Constitution that avoids identifying itself as a secular State while proclaiming that Nigeria is a multireligious society. Given the fierceness of Ondo State branch of CAN on its right to special consultation from the state government before enforcing the federal government’s protocol of no Crossover service while the second wave of Covid-19 lasts, the danger remains real that the country may be put at the risk of subjecting policies made in the name and for the interest of all citizens to the whims of special religious groups in a multireligious society.

It should be possible to have a multireligious society that is also a secular polity. The United States is one such example. What may be confusing is what Nigeria has at present, a multireligious society that is unwilling to become a secular polity. Democracy is given its chance through an executive and legislative system that enables citizens or special interest groups to lobby those in government, but it frowns on encouraging special interest groups or individuals to insist that it requires to give its consent before government can carry out its regulations. Those who are clamoring for constitution amendments ought to consider making Nigerian constitution overtly secular, rather than hiding under the canopy of multireligious society.

This column plans to return to the confusion about which level of government has the authority to plan strategies and methods to prevent spread of Covid-19 infections after the true picture of the extent of adherence to protocols surrounding Crossover service in all states become clear after January 1 from reports of professional journalists.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!