The Nation Newspaper

Tag: nationalities

  • Edo ethnic nationalities drum up support for Obaseki

    The Coalition of Ethnic Nationalities (COAEN)in Edo State, which is made up the Igbo, the Yoruba, the Hausa, the Ibira, the Urhobo, the Itsekiri, the Efik and other tribes, has backed the candidature of Mr. Godwin Obaseki of the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying he is more prepared for the challenges of governance.

    Its Executive Director, Mr. Clement Shola, said the choice of Obaseki and his running mate, Hon. Philip Shaibu, was the best for the state at the moment, given the precarious state of the  economy.

    He said the group would mobilise and move from one location to another to educate the people on the need to vote for Obaseki, because he is the best man that can tackle the current economic challenges facing the state.

    Shola said: “We recognise that Mr. Godwin Obaseki is the best candidate amongst all the contestants. We have seen and we know that Mr. Godwin Obaseki is aptly prepared for the job, especially as a high-ranking member of Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s administration.

    “We trust also that as a man who has shown good and sound advisory qualities becoming the next man in charge will definitely lead to further developments in the right track for the state.”

    “We assure you that we will be moving from one location to another, particularly places where we have a comparative advantage to sensitise our people to unite en masse for the Obaseki/Shaibu ticket, which we believe is the best we can get in the current circumstance.”

    In his remark, Obaseki thanked the group for their support and promised to empower them, by not discriminating against any tribe and group living in the state.

    He said: “There is no road constructed that I don’t know about, because I raised the money to pay the contractor. There is no school built that I don’t know of; there is no borehole that has been sunk that I don’t know about and I know in the plan we have. We will do more of what we have started.

    “I have never stolen from government and I want to assure you that all the money that Edo will make will be used to work for the people. There are still a lot of roads to be done and by the grace of God, we will continue doing the roads. There are many schools that we are yet to build, we will build them and train teachers to all the schools.

    “What we will do that has not been done is to emphasise on human development. We will bring investors to the state, so that jobs will be created. I have over 30 years experience in investment and that is how I made my money and many investors are waiting to come to the state. Once we start work by November, I will give 70 per cent of my time to the economy.

    “But you must make sure it happens; I don’t want to preach to the converted, so you have to go out to the markets and in your individual meetings convince people that Obaseki is a businessman, he has worked hard and he is capable of governing Edo state. Tell the people that we made a mistake before and that we will not make it again.”

  • Yes, ours are respectable nationalities – 1

    A number of times in this column, I have urged caution and common sense in the way we handle our many nationalities in the course of our efforts at building Nigeria. I have urged that we can build a harmonious, stable and prosperous country only if we build everything upon a culture of respect for all our nationalities, large and small, and if we structure and manage our country according to that culture. Repeatedly, I get compatriots who ask me whether I am right in comparing our nationalities – Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Ijaw, etc – with European nationalities like the English, French, Germans, etc. I am asked whether our nationalities are not too primitive to be compared with these European nationalities.

    The answer is NO. Our nationalities are like any other nationalities in the world. Every nationality has its own uniqueness. On every continent, different nationalities have survived for many centuries as members of large countries (for example, the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh in Britain, or the Spaniards, Basques and Catalans in Spain). Therefore, we must assume that our nationalities will most likely be alive for many centuries to come in Nigeria (if Nigeria lives that long). It is extremely foolish to behave as if we are sure that our nationalities will meld together and disappear as distinct entities. To bequeath a stable and peaceful country to our descendants, our only sensible option is to handle our nationalities carefully and make each confident that its interests are protected in Nigeria.

    In answer to those who believe that our nationalities are primitive entities that we can deal with anyhow and treat anyhow, my answer is to describe a few of our nationalities – especially our three largest nationalities – Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo. In population and land area, each of these three is larger than most nationalities of Europe. I need to give some space here to each of the ones I choose to describe, and therefore I may have to extend this answer into next week. I start with the Hausa-Fulani and Igbo today.

    The Hausa nation is the single largest nationality in the broad West African grassland north of the Niger valley and south of the Sahara Desert. The Hausa had lived in their homeland for thousands of years, and had developed into a number of kingdoms (each with a main town) many centuries before the 19th century. Though separated by vast grasslands, the kingdoms had the same national culture and language, and were interconnected by powerful traditions. The Hausa country was copiously interconnected by trade, and had culturally and commercially rich contacts with non-Hausa neighbours in all directions. Located immediately south of the Sahara Desert, the Hausa country benefited greatly from the trans-Saharan trade with the Mediterranean world, and some of its towns ranked among the leading trading centres in the West African Sudan and Sahel. With this trade also had come Islam, with the result that the Hausa kingdoms and rulers were mostly Muslims, with the important cultural asset of literacy in Arabic.

    Another ethnic group, the Fulani, a mostly nomadic people, who had for centuries migrated slowly from the grasslands far to the west, had become part of the Hausa towns and countryside by the 18th century. In the first years of the 19th century, some of the town-settled Fulani started an Islamic reform movement, and launched a jihad against the Hausa kingdoms. The Fulani immigrant people were very few in comparison with the Hausa, but their call for reforms in Islam won the support of the masses of Hausa Muslim folks. The jihad quickly subdued the rulers of the old Hausa kingdoms and replaced them with Fulani rulers with the title of Emirs. Loosely federated, Hausaland became one large Fulani-ruled empire or sultanate.

    This homeland of the Hausa (more correctly Hausa-Fulani from the early 19th century) then grew more rapidly in commerce and wealth, as well as in Islamic literacy and scholarship. There is no doubt whatsoever that this sultanate, as it stood by the late 19th century, before the coming of the British, commanded the capacity to evolve into a dynamic and prosperous modern country of its own  in the heart of West Africa in our times. This was one large nation-state with clear attributes of a nation-state – a commonly accepted government, reasonably clear boundaries, common language (the Hausa language), a culture of writing, and a well-developed economy in agriculture, animal husbandry, very ancient and far-flung commerce, and a rich multiplicity of crafts and manufactures in iron and other metals, in leather, wood, otton, dyes, etc.

    Then, let us look at our Igbo nation. In the country east of the Lower Niger, the Igbo nation had evolved probably 6000 years before the coming of the British. They had early evolved a rich and artistic culture, mostly in small village polities that were parts of larger entities such as clans. All were however united by one cultural heritage, language, religion and customs. By the 19th century, the Igbo were a great trading people, and the available evidence indicates that they had been a trading people long before then. They were a major contributor to the very substantial trade that evolved with the outside world along the Lower Niger in the course of the century.

    Probably more than that of any other major Black African people, the image of the Igbo nation has, since the beginning of the 20th century, suffered much distortion and downgrading at the hands of European colonial agents, colonial scholars, and colonial propagandists. It has also suffered the same in the hands of even some Nigerians who believe that building Nigeria requires that the various nationalities in Nigeria be pushed down and suppressed. In general, the tendency among such writers has been to take the absence of large political structures (kingdoms, empires, etc.) among most of the Igbo as proof that the Igbo were a primitive people – or that they were not even a definite people or nationality at all.

    Happily, however, in more recent times, though that tone has not been completely silenced, stronger and more scholarly voices have arisen to restore to the Igbo nation a more balanced picture for its image. It would be difficult to doubt today that the Igbo nation had the cultural attributes that might have transformed their nation, on its own, into a virile and dynamic nation state in the modern world.  But then, in the last decades of the 19th century, the Igbo were forcibly incorporated into the evolving British Empire in West Africa, ultimately becoming part of Nigeria.

    In the course of the 20th century, the Igbo have proved to be a very dynamic and modernizing people. They command a kind of national uniqueness that would have built a restlessly exploring, experimenting, and pushful country in the eastern part of West Africa. The Igbo nation is an indisputable example of an African nation denied the chance, by European imperialism, of growing into a prosperous country on its own in the modern world.

    Once, in Obafemi Awolowo University in the mid-1970s, in one of the introductory Nigerian History classes that I loved to teach, one of my young Igbo students asked me a touching question. “I strongly believe, sir”, he started, “that if we Igbo people had been allowed to have our own country from the beginning of the 20thcentury, even if we had been a British colony, we would be easily competing with a country like Japan today in technology, industries and world trade. What do you think, sir?” I answered that I agreed absolutely with him, and I could see that he was surprised that I would agree so promptly and so definitely. The truth is that nobody who has spent a whole adult life learning the history of our Black African peoples, as I have had the privilege of doing, can deny that any of our peoples (Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, Kanuri, Edo, etc), is a proudly achieving nation that commands the native and intrinsic capability to make a success of its life in the modern world.

    I believe that we should, and can, stop the crudely integrationist policies, and the destructive centralization of power and resources, that we have been pursuing since independence.  I repeat – we need to make everyone of our nationalities feel belonging. Such steps are crucial to making Nigeria live long in stability and prosperity.

  • Yes, ours are respectable nationalities – 1

    A number of times in this column, I have urged caution and common sense in the way we handle our many nationalities in the course of our efforts at building Nigeria. I have urged that we can build a harmonious, stable and prosperous country only if we build everything upon a culture of respect for all our nationalities, large and small, and if we structure and manage our country according to that culture. Repeatedly, I get compatriots who ask me whether I am right in comparing our nationalities – Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Ijaw, etc – with European nationalities like the English, French, Germans, etc. I am asked whether our nationalities are not too primitive to be compared with these European nationalities.

    The answer is NO. Our nationalities are like any other nationalities in the world. Every nationality has its own uniqueness. On every continent, different nationalities have survived for many centuries as members of large countries (for example, the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh in Britain, or the Spaniards, Basques and Catalans in Spain). Therefore, we must assume that our nationalities will most likely be alive for many centuries to come in Nigeria (if Nigeria lives that long). It is extremely foolish to behave as if we are sure that our nationalities will meld together and disappear as distinct entities. To bequeath a stable and peaceful country to our descendants, our only sensible option is to handle our nationalities carefully and make each confident that its interests are protected in Nigeria.

    In answer to those who believe that our nationalities are primitive entities that we can deal with anyhow and treat anyhow, my answer is to describe a few of our nationalities – especially our three largest nationalities – Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo. In population and land area, each of these three is larger than most nationalities of Europe. I need to give some space here to each of the ones I choose to describe, and therefore I may have to extend this answer into next week. I start with the Hausa-Fulani and Igbo today.

    The Hausa nation is the single largest nationality in the broad West African grassland north of the Niger valley and south of the Sahara Desert. The Hausa had lived in their homeland for thousands of years, and had developed into a number of kingdoms (each with a main town) many centuries before the 19th century. Though separated by vast grasslands, the kingdoms had the same national culture and language, and were interconnected by powerful traditions. The Hausa country was copiously interconnected by trade, and had culturally and commercially rich contacts with non-Hausa neighbours in all directions. Located immediately south of the Sahara Desert, the Hausa country benefited greatly from the trans-Saharan trade with the Mediterranean world, and some of its towns ranked among the leading trading centres in the West African Sudan and Sahel. With this trade also had come Islam, with the result that the Hausa kingdoms and rulers were mostly Muslims, with the important cultural asset of literacy in Arabic.

    Another ethnic group, the Fulani, a mostly nomadic people, who had for centuries migrated slowly from the grasslands far to the west, had become part of the Hausa towns and countryside by the 18th century. In the first years of the 19th century, some of the town-settled Fulani started an Islamic reform movement, and launched a jihad against the Hausa kingdoms. The Fulani immigrant people were very few in comparison with the Hausa, but their call for reforms in Islam won the support of the masses of Hausa Muslim folks. The jihad quickly subdued the rulers of the old Hausa kingdoms and replaced them with Fulani rulers with the title of Emirs. Loosely federated, Hausaland became one large Fulani-ruled empire or sultanate.

    This homeland of the Hausa (more correctly Hausa-Fulani from the early 19th century) then grew more rapidly in commerce and wealth, as well as in Islamic literacy and scholarship. There is no doubt whatsoever that this sultanate, as it stood by the late 19th century, before the coming of the British, commanded the capacity to evolve into a dynamic and prosperous modern country of its own  in the heart of West Africa in our times. This was one large nation-state with clear attributes of a nation-state – a commonly accepted government, reasonably clear boundaries, common language (the Hausa language), a culture of writing, and a well-developed economy in agriculture, animal husbandry, very ancient and far-flung commerce, and a rich multiplicity of crafts and manufactures in iron and other metals, in leather, wood, otton, dyes, etc.

    Then, let us look at our Igbo nation. In the country east of the Lower Niger, the Igbo nation had evolved probably 6000 years before the coming of the British. They had early evolved a rich and artistic culture, mostly in small village polities that were parts of larger entities such as clans. All were however united by one cultural heritage, language, religion and customs. By the 19th century, the Igbo were a great trading people, and the available evidence indicates that they had been a trading people long before then. They were a major contributor to the very substantial trade that evolved with the outside world along the Lower Niger in the course of the century.

    Probably more than that of any other major Black African people, the image of the Igbo nation has, since the beginning of the 20th century, suffered much distortion and downgrading at the hands of European colonial agents, colonial scholars, and colonial propagandists. It has also suffered the same in the hands of even some Nigerians who believe that building Nigeria requires that the various nationalities in Nigeria be pushed down and suppressed. In general, the tendency among such writers has been to take the absence of large political structures (kingdoms, empires, etc.) among most of the Igbo as proof that the Igbo were a primitive people – or that they were not even a definite people or nationality at all.

    Happily, however, in more recent times, though that tone has not been completely silenced, stronger and more scholarly voices have arisen to restore to the Igbo nation a more balanced picture for its image. It would be difficult to doubt today that the Igbo nation had the cultural attributes that might have transformed their nation, on its own, into a virile and dynamic nation state in the modern world.  But then, in the last decades of the 19th century, the Igbo were forcibly incorporated into the evolving British Empire in West Africa, ultimately becoming part of Nigeria.

    In the course of the 20th century, the Igbo have proved to be a very dynamic and modernizing people. They command a kind of national uniqueness that would have built a restlessly exploring, experimenting, and pushful country in the eastern part of West Africa. The Igbo nation is an indisputable example of an African nation denied the chance, by European imperialism, of growing into a prosperous country on its own in the modern world.

    Once, in Obafemi Awolowo University in the mid-1970s, in one of the introductory Nigerian History classes that I loved to teach, one of my young Igbo students asked me a touching question. “I strongly believe, sir”, he started, “that if we Igbo people had been allowed to have our own country from the beginning of the 20thcentury, even if we had been a British colony, we would be easily competing with a country like Japan today in technology, industries and world trade. What do you think, sir?” I answered that I agreed absolutely with him, and I could see that he was surprised that I would agree so promptly and so definitely. The truth is that nobody who has spent a whole adult life learning the history of our Black African peoples, as I have had the privilege of doing, can deny that any of our peoples (Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, Kanuri, Edo, etc), is a proudly achieving nation that commands the native and intrinsic capability to make a success of its life in the modern world.

    I believe that we should, and can, stop the crudely integrationist policies, and the destructive centralization of power and resources, that we have been pursuing since independence.  I repeat – we need to make everyone of our nationalities feel belonging. Such steps are crucial to making Nigeria live long in stability and prosperity.

  • National Conference: Respect for nationalities (large or small)

    There are some Nigerians who think that the way to build a “Nigerian nation” is to destroy our various distinct nationalities and their cultures. Since independence in 1960, this has been the dominant direction of the policies of those who control our federal government. They have engaged in all sorts of manipulations aimed at depressing and gradually eliminating our various nationalities.

    Their master strategy has been to build the federal government into the controller-in-chief of every minutest detail of public policy, resource control, and administration in our country. In that, they have succeeded considerably. And from that intoxicating mountain top, they have gradually eliminated the teaching of our indigenous languages, history and cultures from the curricula of our schools, subdued our state governments to implement the federal educational policies, and generally tried to raise a new generation of Nigerians with no roots in any of our indigenous nationalities or cultures – a new generation of culturally (and ethically) mangled, confused and opaque “Nigerians”.

    Those who have allowed themselves to fall into this kind of thinking about the future of our country need to look more carefully at what they are doing and promoting. Any kind of folly can be romanticized and made to look attractive, but, in the final analysis, folly is folly. This aggressive integrationist approach to the building of Nigeria (or of any country) is folly unlimited. It will not only fail to “unite Nigeria”. Some influential Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Ijaw, etc of today may, for various reasons of their own, accept and promote the federal integrationist agenda for their nationalities. But if they succeed, they cannot thereby create a united Nigeria; what they are very likely to create would be something like a repellently monstrous Nigerian society – a Nigerian society in which Nigeria’s currently evolving character of the amoral, the greedy, the corrupt, the comprehensively disloyal, etc, will be ruthlessly dominant. From the vortex of this kind of society, there will almost certainly emerge someday a new generation of Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Ijaw, etc, that will embark upon reviving and recreating their authentic indigenous cultures and nationalities.

    In short, the experience in our world is that indigenous nationalities and their cultures are near impossible to destroy. Men and women who find themselves in the position of leading and guiding a young country like Nigeria ought to look around them in the world – need to try and understand how certain things have evolved in older countries that are similar to our country. In the world, there are very many countries that are, like Nigeria, multi-ethnic – countries in which different nationalities live in their ancestral homelands. Many of these countries have existed for hundreds of years, and yet in none of them have the nationalities died out or fused into one integrated mixture. It doesn’t happen.

    Let’s take the example of Spain. Spain has existed since the mid-15th century (that is about 600 years) as a country consisting of Spaniards, Catalans and Basques. The Spaniards have been the overwhelming majority since the beginning, and that, coupled with general mixing of the various peoples over time, has helped Spanish culture, especially the Spanish language, to spread quite strongly among the smaller nationalities. In fact, Spain came under a dictatorial regime in the first half of the last century, and the regime tried ruthlessly to suppress the identities, especially the languages, of the small nationalities – and declared their languages illegal. It didn’t work. In recent decades, the Catalans and Basques have revived their cultures and their languages very successfully. Both now want separate countries of their own out of Spain.

    Britain (or the United Kingdom) has been a country consisting of the English, Scotts, Irish and Welsh for about 500 years. Because the English have been the largest nationality from the beginning, the English language has spread in the homelands of the other nationalities. Each of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales has large numbers of citizens from other homelands. Even so, each homeland belongs to its nation. In fact, every one of the Scotts, Irish and Welsh have been strongly reviving their cultures in recent times. Most of Ireland broke away in 1921 and created a separate Republic of Ireland, and the Scotts are now about to do the same. The smallest nationality, the Welsh, are now doing everything to revive their language, in order to make it the language of their own separate country which they hope to have soon.

    Like Nigeria, India is a British-created, third-world, country, consisting of hundreds of nationalities. Fortunately for India, after the northern provinces broke away soon after independence, India’s political leaders agreed that the best policy was to respect each nationality and encourage each culture. It has worked wonderfully. An eminent Indian scholar and statesmen, S.D. Muni, sums up its effect as follows: “The elaborate structure of power devolution has combined with the linguistic basis of federal unity (the use of the linguistic nations as the basis for the states of the federation) to facilitate the management of cultural diversity in India and to help mitigate pulls towards separatism and disintegration”. Muni adds that both at the federal and state levels, Indians are dedicated to “a consciously followed approach to preserve and promote the cultural specificities of diverse groups” – that is, the federal government respects and encourages every culture, and each state that consists of two or more nationalities carefully respects and encourages the culture of each nationality. He concludes that these approaches have helped every nationality to identify happily with India.

    Unfortunately, to worsen the Nigerian situation, some people are said to intend to propose that the National Conference should include in the constitution a provision granting any Nigerian the rights of an indigene anywhere he chooses to go and live in Nigeria. In one of Shakespeare’s plays, two ministers of a king are worried about something that their king is proposing to do. One shakes his head sadly and says, “This will drink deep”; the other answers, “No, it will drink cup and all”. A provision like this in the Nigerian constitution can become a major wrecker. All over Nigeria, our nationalities are most likely to begin to protect their homelands from take-over by new artificial indigenes. Whoever imagines that any people will easily let themselves be robbed of the emotional and mystical ownership of their homeland is thinking dangerous thoughts.This law will result in greatly increased difficulties for those who already live outside their own ethnic homelands and those who intend to.

    Such a provision is unnecessary any way. Already, any Nigerian can go and live and do business anywhere in Nigeria. And the electoral laws include residency qualifications. We should just leave things at that, and let the passage of time do whatever with the rest. What Nigeria needs is manifest dedication to the protection of each nationality and its culture, and the promotion of a consciousness whereby those who go to live in other people’s land respect their host nation, and desist from misinterpreting their land ownership rights for ethnic territorial ownership rights. The homeland of each of our nationalities is theirs. Nothing can change that.

  • Ethnic nationalities warm up for conference

    Ethnic nationalities are holding mini-conferences to brainstorm on modalities for selecting delegates to the proposed national conference, it was learnt yesterday.

    The groups and asociations, including the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Ohaneze Ndigbo, the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), the Yoruba Council of Elders, the Yoruba General Assembly, and other interest groups are holding underground meetings on how to actualise their agenda at the conference.

    The Federal Government has announced that the dialogue willhold this quarter, although the white paper on the Okurounmu Panel has not been released.

    Critics have objected to the report of the Presidential Advisory Council on the National Conference because it ommited the popular clamour for a referendum to decide the fate of the conference report.

    Also, a member of the panel, Chief Solomon Asemota (SAN) has claimed that he has forwarded a minority report to the President.

    Sources said that the Federal Government may consider the demand for representation based on ethnic nationalities, although how to determine the number and suitability of the ethnic groups is a big challenge.

    However, the ethnic groups have been meeting underground to package their response to the proposed dialogue in whatever form it may come.

    The YCE Secretary-General, Chief Idowu Sofola (SAN), told reporters in Lagos that the group will deliberate on the preparation for the conference during its annual conference this month.

    Sources said that other groups are thinking ahead and debating the type of representation for the conference from their ranks.

    A chieftain of the Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO), Mr. Wale Okunniyi, said that the quality of representation is important, if the goal of the conference is to produce a people’s conference.

    He urged the President to jettison the plan to send the resolutions of the conference to the National Assembly.

    Okunniyi told reporters in Lagos that the next constitution should evolve from the people, instead of the 1999 Constitution, which was foisted on the country by the military.

    He said the group has embarked on a nationwide consultation, on how to fashion out a legitimate constitution at the proposed conference.

    Okunniyi added: “PRONACO wants President Goodluck Jonathan to make the diverse ethnic nationalities in the country the core of the composition of the proposed National Conference as they are the original indigenous component units of Nigeria”.

  • ‘Pick delegates from ethnic nationalities’

    A group, the Oodua Nationalist Coalition (ONAC), has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that delegates to the proposed National Conference are drawn from various ethnic nationalities in the country.

    The group opined that in order to save time and tax payers’ money, each geo-political zone should hold its own conference and come up with their resolutions which will be taken to the National Conference for adoption.

    Besides, the group said the present 36-states structure in the country should be abolished. It also called for the structure and institutions of the government devolved into six regions.

    This was contained in the recommendation of ONAC to the National Conference and Dialogue Committee at the stakeholders’ interactive session held at Babafunke Ajasin Auditorium in Akure, the Ondo State capital on Friday.

    The recommendation was signed by 13 groups including the Oodua Nationalist Coalition, Oodua Self-determination Committee (OSDC), O’odua Liberation Movement (OLM), The Covenant Group (CG), Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), O’odua Students Alliance (OSA), Itsekiri Nationalist Coalition (INC), Yoruba Human Rights Research Centre (YHRRC), Yoruba Federalist Coalition (YFC), Apapo Oodua Koya (AOKOYA) and others.

    ONAC said each region should be empowered to create states or countries on its own, stressing that the South- West region be made up of Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara and Yoruba speaking parts of Kogi, Edo and Itsekiri part of Delta State.