On Monday, July 16, the people who constitute what is supposedly referred to as the Middle Belt Region (MBR) of Nigeria converged on Makurdi, the Benue State capital. The assemblage of these leaders had just one agenda: to examine the plethora of issues and challenges bedeviling the region and to also drum support for the restructuring of the country.
Several prominent sons and daughters of the region attended this August gathering including two governors, Samuel Ortom of Benue State and Dairus Ishaku of Taraba State. But the delegations from southwest and southeastern parts of the country, on solidarity participation in the parley, were reportedly denied landing rights by the aviation authorities’.
Apart from lamentations of denial of political patronage and development generally, one speaker after the other took turns to condemn the incessant and endemic attacks on communities within the region by herdsmen. Such attacks have annoyingly led to the loss of thousands of lives, destruction of properties and also, the displacement of thousands of citizens from their ancestral homes.
I am aware that the Middle Belt has been through this path before now and what the conference is trying to do is really nothing new. Founding fathers in the region tried it before, successes were achieved and grave challenges encountered in the process, but the journey truncated mid-way. We are bound to commit same mistakes again, if not today, then in future.
Gven Nigeria’s present constitutional cum geographical arrangements which presently serve as a basis for power sharing, Central Nigeria/Middle Belt comprise Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau states. Regrettably, only two governors in these states attended this August meeting.
Why? The region is sharply divided along ethnic, but more seriously, along religious lines. Unlike other regions that enjoy some semblance of homogeneity linguistically and religiously, the Middle Belt region is not so. This largely explains why it is the only region that does not have a forum where their governors meet to discuss issues of common interests.
Away from that, there is a sense in which historically, the region has experienced what I would call a fragile unity shortly before and since the attainment of independence. For instance, the idea of a separate Middle Belt Region originated from the Northern Nigeria Non-Muslim League (NNNML) formed by a small group of Christian leaders in 1949. It was this league that later metamorphosed severally and finally, as the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC). It became the fulcrum of mobilization in the region particularly in the years leading to independence and thereafter.
The dream and aspirations of the people of the region for self-determination was the overriding factor in the political horse trading posture of the area before and after independence. And so, the UMBC-AG alliance of 1959 (which later collapsed following the victory of the NPC) would subsequently lead to the fractionalization of the party, as individuals and groups defected to other parties.
With the electoral victory of the NPC at the centre and the collapse of the UMBC/AG alliance, the central coordinating organ of the Middle Belt became weak, broken and dashed. As a result, some ethnic groups within pitched tents with the hitherto deserted NPC.
This experienced marked the beginning of politics of patronage. This effectively ended MBR’s politics of opposition to the northern hegemony within the north or in Nigeria generally.
As a result of this political misfortune that befell the region between 1959 and 1964, the UMBC became essentially a Tiv affair, as its operational base was shifted to Gboko by its president, Joseph Tarka.
In the Second Republic, some of the Middle Belt politicians such as J.S. Tarka, who had criticized the northern oligarchy in the First Republic, ostensibly due to personal gains, joined the same political party formed by the same northern oligarchy – the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Several states in the region would in the passage of time join the northern oligarchy.
This injurious posture by leaders of MBR has been replicated in subsequent democratic dispensations- 1999-2003, 2003-2007, 2007 -2011, and worse in 2015, as the entire states that constitute the region shifted their tents to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The failure of the region to achieve set goals as shown from the events of the First and Second Republics and the present Fourth Republic, stem from the fact that the elites in the region have been enmeshed in politics of patronage which is antithetical to the logic of the region as espoused by its founding fathers.
The decay took a nosedive in the present dispensation. For instance, despite the region’s involvement in mainstream politics in the last 19 years, it is difficult to see the practical benefits in terms of infrastructure and development.
It may be apt to argue that the killings in the region and perhaps, the need to canvass for the restructuring of the country may have necessitated the convocation of the Makurdi Conference. But my observation when I visited the Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) Square, venue of the event would indicate that some elites in the region are possibly on the march to yet another political machination to satisfy personal and selfish ends to emasculate the MBR.
First, the meeting is coming few months to the 2019 general elections. The fundamental question is why now? Secondly, the venue of the event was inundated with posters of contestants into various elective offices, which blighted the main purpose of the event, ordinarily aimed at critically discussing the variegated challenges confronting the region.
Thirdly, I still do not see the ideology upon which the resurgent struggle is built upon. What is the ideological foundation that would be used to unite the various multi-ethnic and multi-religious groups in the region for the purpose of achieving set goals? History has taught us that politics and partisanship led to the break up of this union in the First Republic. What is it that we are doing differently now to sustain this reunion? This is critical, if the region must chart a new course.
The major challenge confronting the region presently is the herders’ attacks. However, the body language of the governors of the region does not seem to suggest that they are on the same page as far as checkmating the killing spree by the marauding herders is concerned, as manifest in the revulsion of the governors to the passage of Open Grazing Prohibition Bill into Law, indiscernibly preferring other reconciliatory approaches, which is a problem itself.
As 2019 approaches, there is likely to be political convulsion epitomized by the infiltration of the forum by politicians from other sections of the country. Several elites and political hawks in the region are more interested in achieving personal benefits rather than group or collective attainments. And it signifies that the intention of the forum is likely to end up as a déjà vu.
While there is need to have a MBF, such a union must be deeply rooted in a solid ideology to drive the process. Such an ideology must be inclusive and must necessarily carry the people in the region along irrespective of language, religion and culture and devoid of politics and partisanship.
This would afford the region the opportunity to carry out periodic SWOT analysis of its activities. Also, governors of the region – clearly defined – must come to a round table and chart a course for the area. Such a meeting would provide an opportunity for peer review with a view to meeting the ends of development.
- Ukase, PhD is of the Department of History and International Studies,
Kogi State University, Anyigba.
