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Tag: Republic

  • The men who ruined a republic

    The men who ruined a republic

    •Sam Omatseye’s review of Ayo Opadokun’s Gun Hegemony

    A context is necessary to review a book like Ayo Opadokun’s. First, the use  of the phrase gun hegemony may be problematic. The word hegemony was popularized by the Italian activist and theorist Antonia Gramsci. He was not referring to things but humans. He was talking about how segments of society try to lord it over others.

    Human societies have always been about hegemony, whether it is the hegemony of ethnic superiority, or the sway of certain set of ideas.

    Opadokun, in this book also wants Nigeria’s contemporary history to be written by the gun. That is a large claim for any writer. On the fictional level, writers tend to give narrative voices to anyone to tell the yarn of a society. They give it to children as in Abiku or Ogbanje in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, to a long-gone ancestor like Mofolo’s Chaka. In fact, the Nigerian novelist Chigozie Obioma gave the honours to a chi, the private god in Igbo mythology. It was in his second novel and Booker Prize finalist, the Orchestra of Minorities.

    On the nonfictional level, however, Opadokun seeks to raise the stakes. Is it a question of the gun or the man. The debate is hottest today in the United States. George Bernard Shaw suggests the conundrum in his play, Arms and the Man.

    In the U.S, those who say it is not the gun that kills but man have argued that guns are not to blame. Guns are innocent. Guns are sinned against. Man is the sinner. You can have a thousand guns on street, and not a murderer and not a shot fired. The reason? Guns cannot shoot themselves.

    Every year, the country laments a school massacre, a neighborhood bereavement, a church funeral, and old man fallen, or community leader pockmarked. But those who want their guns defend the guns. They do not accept any argument about a gun hegemony. We have to fix the people, not the guns.

    It is a very important part of Opadokun’s argument, although he does not probe the interstices of this issue.

    He does well to probe the origins of guns and how it changed forever the turn and tone of warfare over the ages. Man no longer had to refer to the great horse man of war wielding swords and slashing throats. No more the grand battle Caesar leading the troops against the Roman hordes trying to tear the empire apart. War became more clinic. Death was efficient.

    But the concern of our author is how the gun has changed the Nigerian narrative forever. He laments how we missed an opportunity in January 1966. In doing so, he has excavated some facts that were known to a few, and even those who knew did not insist on the veracity of their witnesses.

    It is a story of false heroes. January 1966 was the day we might have saved democracy for Nigeria. We might have demonstrated in the contagion of coups in the sub region that Nigeria’s democracy had a resilience of spirit, and the guns would not have dared any form of hegemony. Many have asked, when the coup failed, how come we had a military in charge? What happened to the parliament? According to records from men like Richard Akinjide and Shehu Shagari, after no one saw prime minister Tafawa Balewa, members of the parliament picked Dipcharima from the northeast to act as prime minister. It was the task of Nwafor Orizu to legalise it by swearing him in. He would not.

    Even though he had all the powers to do so, he dithered. He said he was only acting on Zik’s behalf. But he was told he was going to formalize it since Zik was on the high seas. Zik has reportedly been tipped off by Emmanuel Ifeajuna about the coup and the coward was not in air or land.

    If you read Opadokun’s earlier work, Aristocratic Rebel about M.D. Yusufu, Nigeria’s top spy and former inspector general of police, you would understand that all Nigeria’s coups were known ahead of time. The eminent powers did not act because they were like drones, fat and too bulky to roll. For instance, The Dimka coup was dismissed and they claimed they would not worry themselves about a drunkard.

    It turned out, back to 1966, that Nwafor Orizu knew he had power to swear in an acting prime minister. His eyes were set on his kinsman K. O. Mbadiwe. The rumble within the parliament was that it seemed Orizu was confirming the fears that the coup was dictated by ethnic designs. This is a very serious allegation. He obviously could not pull it through.

    That opened the window for a very cruel option. Individual ambition trumped national interest. General Ironsi, the man who moved about with a baby crocodile, had control of the army. He was even triumphal.

    According to the eyewitnesses, Ironsi summoned the lawmakers in one room and read them the riot act. It was either they surrendered the power to him as gentlemen or he would take it by force. That was not the language of a democrat but a despot.

    So the lawmakers wanted to make it clear that they did not give up power without resistance. The soldier had taken over with guns. Dialogue and constitution were out of the window. Some context is necessary for Ironsi. He was supposed to be one of the targets of the coupists. He was basking in the sun while his colleagues had expired like Maimalari and Sodeinde.

    Ifeajuna, who should have eliminated the general according to their plan, left him. Ifeajuna fled to Ghana. He and his rival colleague Kaduna Nzeogwu would eventually die in the civil war. Many believe that Ironsi was grateful to the young men for sparing his life. Was it to spare his own life that he took over power? Was he feeling guilty? Was he anticipating a sort of  institutional revenge from the army because he was breathing why they, his soldier colleagues, lay dead, some as yet undiscovered in bushes?

    Was he paranoid? If he survived, was that any reason for any parliament to come after him? to come after him would be to legitimize the coup. No lawmaker was going to do that. Opadokun is a writer with an attitude, and that gives him punk. What he has asserted are the facts . That is, that Ironsi and Orizu destroyed the First Republic. We must understand that it was not politicians that killed the republic. The coupists had failed. They were scrambling for their own lives. They had been arrested. What was the next step? Of course try them. Ironsi would not. The issue was raised in parts of the country, especially in the north and west that Ironsi’s reluctance to do the logical thing was because these men were his kinsmen and the “kinsman in trouble,” as Chinua Achebe asserts in No Longer At Ease, “must be saved, not blamed. Anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone. He is a fool who treats a brother worse than a stranger.”

    The claim that some of us took over from our classrooms in the 1980’s was that civilians were responsible for the demise of the republic.  That politicians failed democracy. Politicians can always be bumbling. Yet, as we have seen, they might have been running a flawed system. Yet they kept the faith. Part of the illusion was resonance of a speech. That was because of the soaring and self-serving rhetoric of the Nzeogwu coup speech about 10 percenters, etc.

    Ironsi swaggered to power as a messiah. He was just a soldier but suddenly, he was going to govern the country. There was a sore thumb in the tale. Obafemi Awolowo. According to Nzeogwu, he was being released from Calabar Prison to lead the country. The bars of Calabar did not rattle. Some of the coupists moved to eastern and midwestern regions at the time and probably had tea with the premiers while the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Samuel Ladoke Akintola were slaughtered in the presence of their families.

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    We have to keep returning to January 15. Shall we say the foolhardiness of Orizu and Ironsi led to the eventual slaughter of the Igbos in the pogrom that smeared parts of the north from Sokoto to Makurdi? If Dipcharima became acting prime minister, there might have been no Ironsi. We might not have heard of pogrom, Gowon or Murtala or some of the bloody chapters of the civil war.

    The promulgation of Decree 34 has become one of the contentious laws in our history. Some historians have tried to excuse Ironsi with the explanation that it might have been naïve. It was called unification degree, but it was a clarion call for ethnic domination. As Opadokun noted in his Aristocratic Rebel, Ojukwu had exploited the decree to ask all prefects to take charge across the civil service. The decree was bad enough, but Ojukwu’s cry poisoned the pool. The civil servants in the north were the first to feel alienated.

    If it was naïve, the resistance in the north should have restrained Ironsi. Yet he did not. Middle ranking officers in the north had written letters saying they would act if it was not reversed. Ironsi was deaf. The Igbo streets across the country became self-righteous. They burnt the Sardauna in effigy, and were singing triumphantly. In the barracks, the Igbo officers’ wives were mocking their northern counterparts. The tension was in the air. The Ironsi men knew a plot was afoot. He could not do anything to stop them. If he tried, it would be an open sesame of civil war. Yet, he would not reverse course. Historians do not say anything is inevitable. But something was going to happen. It was like King Oedipus of Sophocles’ play who saw tragedy and was careening towards it as though there no other course. A literary critic known as Killam described it as insistent fatality, and we see this in Okonkwo’s  Things Fall Apart. And it happened in what is known as the revenge coup of July 1966.

    The issue of death and destruction was all the January 15 night brought us. The revenge coup in July was blood roll. It might not have happened if Nzeogwu and his colleagues were tried. It is a story about how we must not allow our heroes to destroy our societies. Orizu has been memorialized today, but what of the millions of Igbo that were slaughtered in cold blood because he was trying to pursue the same ethnic agenda? It brings to mind the poem by Claude Mckay

    If we must die, let it not be like hogs

    Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

    While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

    Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

    If we must die, O let us nobly die,

    Another crucial part of this book is the person of Adekunle Fajuyi. He has been mythicise as a hero as a host. In July 1966, he and Ironsi were picked up, and the widespread belief was that the soldiers wanted to spare him, but he insisted on being shot. The eyewitness, including Theophilus Danjuma, say otherwise.

    Here are the words of Lieutenant Colonel William Walbe (rtd):

    “We arrested him as we arrested Aguiyi-Ironsi. We suspected him for being party to the January coup. You remember the Battle Group Course which was held in Abeokuta…Fajuyi was the commander of the Battle Group Course…All those who took part in the January coup were those who had taken part in the course… he had to suffer too. I am sorry about that but that is the nature of the life of a military man…”

    Danjuma said it was under Fajuyi the training on the raid of the Sardauna took place. After Fajuyi’s arrest, he said, “The chaps could not stomach Fajuyi such that if there was anybody who should die first, as far as they were concerned , it was Fajuyi, not even Aguiyi-Ironsi.”

    Opadokun’s Gun Hegemony is meditation on a nation’s dark moment, and he nudges to look back again on that day, this day, to understand how to treasure the beauty of democracy.

  • Ijaw oppose today’s Niger Delta Republic declaration

    The Ijaw have dissociated themselves from today’s planned declaration of a Niger Delta Republic by a group, the Adaka Boro Avengers (ABA).

    In a statement yesterday, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) said there was no plan by the Niger Delta to secede from Nigeria.

    The statement signed by its spokesman, Eric Omare, advised the public to disregard ABA’s threat and cautioned the armed forces against using that (the threat) to attack Ijaw communities.

    Last night, there was heavy security at Kaiama, the venue of the planned declaration.

    Soldiers, police and Department of State Service (DSS) operatives took strategic positions in the historic town.

    IYC also warned the Reformed Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) against attacking the Ijaw living in some parts of Lagos and Ogun states because that could lead to violence.

    It implored the security agents to do their jobs and get to the root of the attacks in some Southwest communities.

    The statement reads: “We call on residents of Kaiama town to be calm and go about their normal activities. There is no plan by the Ijaw people to declare a republic and the threat by the Adaka Boro Avengers should be completely disregarded.

    “We wish to warn groups and individuals not to further expose Ijaw and Niger Delta communities to unnecessary tension and danger. The growth in modern means of information technology should not be abused to the detriment of our communities by issuing unnecessary threats and ultimatums.

    “The IYC also call on security agencies to stop forthwith unnecessary threat and attacks on Ijaw and other Niger Delta communities because of threats by faceless groups. The Ijaw nation has a leadership and they should also check with the leadership on issues of security concern instead of threatening or attacking innocent communities and people.

    “On the ultimatum and threat by the Reformed Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), the IYC call OPC members and the leadership of the Yoruba nation to allow security agents do their constitutional duty of apprehending criminals responsible for the Ogun and Lagos attacks.

    “As at this morning, information at the disposal of the IYC indicates that some Ijaw people resident in Lagos and Ogun states for fear of attack are already relocating from their places of residence to the Southsouth.

    “The IYC seriously warn against attack on innocent Ijaw people in the south western part of the country as it would result in unnecessary reprisal attacks in parts of the south-south where Yoruba people are resident as well. An inter-ethnic clash between the Ijaw and Yoruba people is totally unnecessary. The Ogun and Lagos attacks are clear cases of criminality and should be treated as such instead of threatening to attack innocent Ijaw people and their businesses”.

    Last week, ABA threatened to declare a Niger Delta Republic today and asked indigenes of the region to return home for the exercise.

    In a statement by its spokesman, Gen. Edoms Ayayeibo, the group urged former President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Edwin Clark, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, Ankio Briggs, Joseph Eva, Patrick Fufein, past and present military personnel from the region, serving senators and House of Representative members to be present at the meeting.

    The statement reads: “We are also using this medium to call of the Niger Delta famous sons and daughters, the children of the late Pa Isaac Adaka Boro and all sons and daughters of Niger Delta Republic to come to Kaiama for the official declaration of the Niger Delta Republic on August 1.”

  • Skolombo republic

    any adherents of this column must have concluded that Hardball was conceived and birthed in mischief. My answer: it takes one to know one; an ardent patron of this page must have a bit of something as well. And that leads us to the day’s matter about a phenomenon known as Skolombo Boys. You must have heard about them.

    First, I love that name, Skolombo! Without caring about its odious antecedent, the sheer sound and cadence of it always trips me off. The name would lend itself to great literary adventures as you can already guess – for instance, apart from Skolombo Boys (I guess they have the copy rights to the name), we can have the Skolombo alternative, the Skolombo Papers, the Skolombo Initiative, the Skolombo Committee, Skolombo Governors and as you have in the title, Skolombo Country or Skolombo Republic.

    The Skolombo Boys are found in Cross River, that urbane southern Nigeria state that has nearly mastered the art of international tourism. Calabar is the state’s capital and it is reputed to be the neatest city in Nigeria while the Obudu heights and ranch is a world acclaimed tourism destination.

    But Calabar is getting more notorious today for the Skolombo Boys. They are gangs of homeless boys and girls who have been brought together by their common misery. These groups of teenage boys and girls are said to have been cast onto the streets on the guise that they are witches and of course, a good number of them have no parents or wards.

    So these young people (between the ages of 11-19), who have been rejected by the society seem determined not to reject themselves. They go in groups, they forage the dumpsites together for food; they engage in petty thieveries together with crude weapons dispossessing the people of their valuables.

    And recently, the governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, gave what Hardball would refer to as a Skolombo Response to the issue: he set up ‘Operation Skolombo’ (wow, sounds great). Its responsibility is to rid the state of criminals. Your guess is as good as mine: they would probably hunt down the small boys and girls, throw them into some dungeon where they would be incubated into hardened criminals.

    It is indeed a Skolombo country with Skolombo leaders and Skolombo mentality. Leadership is dull and dulled and hardly asks the right questions. Nobody has bothered to interrogate the reasons why we suddenly have Boko Haram, kidnapping gangs, neighbourhood cult gangs and the One Million Boys. What is the root of this festering of vice groups across the country? That is the question nobody wants to ask or answer.

    But the answer is simple: the failure of governance at the local government centres. Our local government councils are as good as moribund across the country. Since funding hardly gets down to these points of governance anymore, the requisite economic, social and security activities that ought to take place in these places are now nonexistent.

    Nature abhors vacuum. If we have vast ungoverned areas across the country, that is a Skolombo situation. Some people will have to fill the gap: like Boko Haram, One Million Boys and Skolombo Boys, to name a few.

  • Impunity republic?

    •Auditor-General’s report and its shocking can of worms

    Nigerians may have become number-numbed by the sheer amount involved in some of the on-going investigations of corruption cases; there is however a lot to be said of the latest report of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF) as underlying the extensive subversion and rot of which our public institutions have become renowned.

    In the 2014 audit report submitted to the National Assembly last week, the AGF, Samuel Ukura, gave a chilling detail of a string of irregular or fraudulent expenditures running into trillions of naira involving, notably, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), office of the former National Security Adviser, the National Assembly and the Nigeria Police.

    High point of these is an alleged non-remittance of N3. 2trillion by the NNPC into the Federation Account, although other findings are no less revealing of impunity and fiscal brigandage among the players across the board.

    Other highlights are the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) said to have transferred $235million being the accruals from the review of the NLNG Limited sales profile on gas to some undisclosed Escrow accounts rather than the Federation Account. There was a case of N36.4bn meant for the rehabilitation and construction of dams released to the office of the erstwhile National Security Adviser, retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki, instead of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources. Also cited was the curious N2.9bn spent on the procurement of hand sanitisers for schools and other public places in 2014; N31.3bn spent on subsidy on fertiliser and youth employment in agricultural programmes; the non accounting for the utilisation of N5.2bn direct deductions from Federal Government shares in respect of one percent Police Reward Fund; the N2.4bn on Group Life Assurance Premium for the Armed Forces; the non-disclosure of N180bn expenditure of Subsidy Re-investment Projects (Sure-P) in the consolidated development fund statement and the illegal withdrawals of N803m from the Ministry of Niger Delta account.

    There was also the case of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington said to have realised internally generated revenue of $3.7m dollars between 2012 and March 2015 but spent the entire sum on sundry expenses; the National Assembly said to have spent a whopping N10.6bn without raising payment vouchers in flagrant violation of financial regulation 601, among others.

    NNPC, the alleged chief culprit has, not surprisingly, rejected the report. It claims the reports were “erroneous”. While denying that the corporation owed the Federation Account N3.2 trillion, its group executive director and chief financial officer, Isiaka Abdulrazaq, claimed that “the declaration by the auditor-general may have been borne out of a misunderstanding of how revenues from crude oil and gas sales are remitted into the Federation Account”. He gave his own account of the figure owed as at January 2015 as N326,142,137,205.79 – a figure, he claimed is still being reconciled.

    The issues are certainly weighty. Some of them, we daresay, are as controversial as they are long-standing and hence require some final, definitive resolution. The audit is therefore important both for the purposes of establishing the alleged infractions while presenting the nation a final opportunity to correct the anomalies in the system. Although late, it is certainly better than never.

    As it is, the office of the auditor-general has done what it is required to do under the constitution. Next is for the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly to pick up the gauntlet, seek clarification on issues in contention where necessary, establish the infractions or infringement on procedures where they exist, and recommend appropriate sanctions as stipulated by extant rules and regulations. That done, it should be easier for the judiciary to do its part in bringing alleged offenders to justice.

    Given that some of the brazen, flagrant violations of financial regulations and procedures themselves derive from failure of legislative oversight duties, should it therefore not cause the National Assembly to ask itself if indeed it could not have done better to prevent the abuses in the first place?

  • Legal prossibility of the Federal Republic of Biafra

    “When we speak, the Zoo trembles. That is what happens when a cattle rearing terrorist and pedophile is your ruler. Message to every #Hardcore Biafran, if you find anybody in your village asking after Radio Biafra, kill the Baboon Awusa Foolani or Yorobber bast*ard. Let them keep searching as we keep tweeting for Biafra…. Lunatics.”

    –This was the exact (verbatim) message posted on Nnamdi Kanu’s Twitter handle on the 28th June 2015 at, approximately, 11:00 pm.

    The above excerpt was posted by Nnamdi Kanu, the London based director of the radio station, Radio Biafra, and a leading member of a movement agitating for Self-Determination from Nigeria to form the sovereign Nation of Biafra.

    Now, let me say this; before I had the sickening experience of going through all the hate-filled social media platforms owned by Mr Nnamdi Kanu and reading the dangerously frightening, chilling and venomous hate-filled rhetoric that this young man has been spewing, I was one of those who disagreed with the current measures taken against him. It reminded me of Mohammed Yusuf, who was a person that few knew about, until the government incarceration and murder of him turned him into a Martyr. A martyrdom, which triggered bloodletting lunatics we are petrified of today. I felt that, Mr. Kanu’s imprisonment was counterproductive. I believe he was playing a game, one, which the government took the bail! I feared that there were frightening parallels between the current tensions raised by his incarceration and the sectarian, religious and anti-government rage that preceded the current insurgent uprising in the base of Biafra. In the same way that I felt the government could have handled the situation and fallout of Mohammed Yusuf’s capture in a more cautious manner, I also felt that the present government should handle the capture of Mr. Nnamdi Kanu in a more cautious way.

    I simply feel that they should free him, with surveillance. I look at him as no more than a misguided, attention seeking biped with an over-inflated ego; looking for his 5 or 10 minutes of fame. I still feel, going forward, that the government needs to be a lot more careful, strategic and structured in the decisions it makes on Mr. Nnamdi Kanu. So that the tiny little anthill Mr Kanu’s issues present isn’t turned into humorous mountains.

    While doing some background on Mr. Nnamdi Kanu and reading his social media posts, I came across scores and scores of his hate-filled rhetoric online, some speaking on mass murder, torture, maiming, really, really unspeakable acts those he refers to as Awwusa, Foolani, Yooroober and every tribe not from the South East. To say I was flabbergasted is an understatement. It is unbelievable to me that a human being can harbor that level of hatred. Like the insurgents killing and bastardizing innocent people in the North Ease, I hope Mr. Kalu can come to the realization that there is very little in the way both he and insurgents think. He is a reflection of their leader and they are in the reflection of him! Wright or wrong, different ideology, they both legitimize violence.

    When researching and reading of Mr. Kanu, I experienced two emotions. The first was an anxious curiosity I felt about his home environment as a child. I wondered what kind of toxic setting he grew up in that shaped this misguided young man into the hate filled reprobate making the posts I read. The second was a deep compassion I felt for him. I felt sad to see another, amongst us, whose heart was so condemned, it perished in the deep, dark, lonely dungeon of such bigotry and loathing. Where was his family and his friends as he was growing into this dark, bigheaded nasty creature?

    Considering the basis for Nnamdi Kanu agitation, the starting point is the principal of self-determination. In discussing the legal ramifications for Self-Determination for Biafra, we should first examine the legal possibility of a declaration of political autonomy from Nigeria on the backdrop of the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This declaration is essential for any discussion on Self-determination.

    This is not the first time the issue of Self-Determination from Nigeria has come up. In the past, groups have attempted to make use of Art 1(2) of the United Nations Charter as well as other International Covenants to assert the third generation right for political autonomy, however, the position of International legal principles and set precedents established, in regards to Self-determination is not as simple and straightforward as one would assume! “…I’ll explain…”

    Under Art 1, [ICCPR/ICESCR, Art 1(2), UN Charter; Art 20(1), ACHPR; Art 2, AL], it is provided that:

    1. “All peoples have the right to self-determination…”
    2. “All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based on the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.”
    3. “The State Parties to the present Covenant, shall promote the realization of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.”

    As clearly evidenced in the provisions of the United Nations Charter, international law has always held the right to self-determination at a high standing because its recognition is vital for the effective guarantee and observance of individual human rights and for the promotion and strengthening of those rights. However, even with the importance attached to this right, in the wake of decolonization, the right to self-determination stands as one of the most debatable aspects of modern international human rights law we have today.

    The accepted view of self-determination is that, it is a right exercised primarily by people living under colonial regimes, which could be exercised once and once only, to remove the colonial regime in question. Essentially it was taken as referring to the right of a group of people, normally of one distinct territory, to decide collectively the manner in which they wish to be ruled or governed. However, even though the right to self-determination for all peoples is an apparently inalienable human right, it must be noted that it is not necessarily an absolute right! Most notably, its application to ‘peoples’ living under non-colonial domination is not so apparent.

    It must be established that the right to self-determination is ‘a group’ right, but one of its main problems lies with its beneficiaries; who are the ‘people’ to whom the rights ascribe? Due to the fact that the right is only exercisable by ‘peoples’, the law has to be satisfied that those who seek it meet the threshold of ‘peoples’ under international set principles. The meaning to be attributed to the concept of ‘peoples’ for the rights of people in international law in this regard includes, groups who enjoy a common historical tradition, racial or ethnic identity, cultural homogeneity, linguistic unity, religious or ideological affinity, territorial connection or common economic life. The group as a whole must have the will to be identified as ‘a people’ or the consciousness of being ‘a people.’ In view of this definition, it is presumed that Nnamdi Kanu’s definition of the Biafran people may satisfy the definition of ‘peoples’ for the purpose of securing their indigenous rights under the United Nations Convention…. If he has the complete and pure consensus of every single Nigerian Igbo!

    Conversely, in respect of self-determination of ‘peoples’, two other vital aspects have to be distinguished; the internal and external aspect of self-determination.

    The right has an internal aspect, that is to say, the rights of all peoples to pursue freely their economic, social and cultural development without outside interference. In that respect, there exists a link with the right of every citizen to take part in the conduct of public affairs at any level, as referred to in Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In consequence, governments are to represent the whole population without distinction as to race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin. On the other hand, the external aspect of self-determination implies that, all peoples have the right to determine freely their political status and their place in the international community based upon the principle of equal rights and exemplified by the liberation of peoples from colonialism and by the prohibition to subject peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation.

    Within the backdrop of establishing the internal and external aspect of self-determination follows the issue of territorial integrity. The main bone of contention for any group or peoples within a defined national boundary that wish to declare their right to self-determination is the fact that international law has developed within a framework of respect for the territorial integrity of a state. Cohabiting with the United Nations’ encouragement of self-determination is its very strict practice of respect for the territorial integrity of a State, a policy deeply against partial or total interference with the territorial integrity of a State. Territorial integrity and respect therefore is enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, Art 2. The General Assembly, in Declaration 1514 on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 1960 even went as far as purporting to exclude the exercise of self-determination by discernible groups: ‘Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purpose and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.’

    In a leading Canadian case with similar facts to the declaration that Nnamdi Kanu may eventually wish to rely on, the court was very clear on the position of United Nations Charter in regard to the right to self-determination of indigenous people within a defined state.

    On the question of whether international law principles recognize Quebecers right to self-determination, which could legally effect the unilateral secession of Quebec from Canada, the court concluded that; ‘Canada is a sovereign and independent State conducting itself in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, thus the Quebecers had no right to secede’. In the judgment, the Supreme Court had recognized the right of a people to self-determination and acknowledged that much of the Quebec population satisfied the criteria for determining the definition of a ‘people.’ However, the court then distinguished between internal and external self-determination; the former being the accepted political development of a State and the latter could only be invoked unilaterally in extreme situations. The Quebecers were accorded internal self-determination insofar as their linguistic rights are recognized; they have a fair representation in national legislative, executive and judicial bodies and their culture is not threatened.

    The court received many submissions on behalf of other indigenous Canadians who also argued for their own territory and autonomy. But this point was not even addressed by the court because no application of the principle of self-determination was found as justified vis-à-vis Quebec and therefore no other indigenous group or tribe could invoke that right.

    But even with these set principles, there are instances where international law applies a different criterion in cases it considers extreme. The scope of an extreme situation justifying external self-determination was addressed in the opinion of the African Commission of Human Rights in Katangese Peoples’ Congress V Zaire. It was suggested that where a State denies a group participation in the Government process and violates their fundamental rights, the territorial integrity of the State may not be such a paramount consideration.

    Furthermore, other instances where support for the extension of the principle of Self-determination to indigenous populations may be inferred have been recorded. If Nnamdi Kanu’s grievance and ambit falls within this argument, then he may have a case. One such example was from the powerful separate opinion laid down in the Western Sahara Case. The judge opined that; “It hardly seems necessary to make more explicit the cardinal restraints which the legal right of self-determination imposes… It is for the people to determine the destiny of the territory and not for the territory to determine the destiny of the people.” But even such a strong ‘obiter’ is not without its ambiguity. It could be inferred from this that the ‘people’ must be of a whole territory and hence the judgment conforms to the territorial view of the United Nations. On the other hand, the use of the term ‘territory’ could be taken to mean that the land could be part of an existing State. This still causes some problems for self-determination with the colonial framework where questions of succession arise.

    While unilateral secession is not specifically prohibited, it is clear that international law does not specifically grant component parts of sovereign states the legal right to secede unilaterally from their parent state. Self-determination is clearly acceptable for divesting States of colonial powers but the problems arise when groups, not, in solo occupation of a given defined State territory choose to exercise self-determination! Hoping Nnamdi Kanu is taking note…!

    Although the policy of self-determination has had some notable successes in the post-colonialist era; for example in Czechoslovakia where the population voted to separate and become two States, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, international law tends to lean towards territorial integrity in a clash with claims for ethnic, cultural and religious self-determination.

    As earlier stated, the right to self-determination as a group right applies to the people of a State wholly and not severally. The people that Nnamdi Kanu is referring to as Biafrans are the nationals of Nigeria as a whole. And even though Nigeria is a decolonized State that lacks cultural and ethnic homogeneity, the whole people of the territory achieved independence through the communal exercise of self-determination.

    So, based on the set precedence of the International legal provision that Nnamdi Kanu probably would need to seek to rely on, would such a quest for political autonomy of Biafra from Nigeria succeed under the United Nations Charter? Given the fact that it would be difficult to argue that Biafra meets the threshold of a colonial people or an oppressed people or that they have been denied meaningful access to government to pursue their political, economic, cultural and social development, any quest he may have for self-determination under the United Nations Charter would be unlikely to succeed. International law would expect any such agitation for self-determination to be sought within the framework of Nigeria.

    Now, let me briefly turn to Nigerian law. Based on Nigerian internal law, Nnamdi Kanu’s quest is also unlikely to succeed. Provided in the preamble to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria ,1999 (as Amended), the entire people of Nigeria agreed that the Country should be One Indivisible and Indissoluble Sovereign Nation. It proscribes that ;

    “We the People of the Federal Republic of Nigeria: Having firmly and solemnly resolved: TO LIVE in unity and harmony as one indivisible, indissoluble, Sovereign Nation under God dedicated to the promotion of inter-African solidarity, world peace, international co-operation and understanding: AND TO PROVIDE  for a  Constitution for the purpose of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our  country on the principles of Freedom, Equity and Justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the Unity of our people: DO HEREBY MAKE, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THE following constitution…”

    The foregoing is a collective agreement by the Nigerian People and for this principle of indivisibility and indissolubility to be undermined by any part of Nigeria it will require the people of Nigeria coming together to agree that a part of the nation has a right to what that part considers as self determination. The Constitution is the Organic Law, governing the rights, duties, obligations, and privileges of the people of Nigeria and its supremacy must at all times be fundamentally observed. For any group of persons to seek to divide the Nation under any guise would amount to a brazen attack on the Constitution.

    Nnamdi Kanu has got the law, both international and internal, twisted! The second limb of the preamble to the Constitution makes provision aimed at engendering peaceful coexistence and unity of Nigeria. Perhaps, Nnamdi Kanu should be advised to concentrate his efforts on engaging the leadership of Nigeria for… better leadership rather than go on this ‘silly, billy, senseless, ‘Frolic of his own!”

    It is likely that the grievances Nnamdi Kanu has is hinged on the failure of past political leaders to promote good governance and welfare of all persons on the principles of Freedom, Equality, and Justice that has heightened his agitation for the Biafran State, which threatens the peace of the Nation.

    I suggest he channels his energies in order to bring better leadership in the places it is required. How about lifting his posterior off that potato couch, hence where he disgorges his vile venom in the comfort of this London station and comes to see what peaceful and productive change he can bring to Ngeria? Eeehhh? How about that for a suggestion Nnamdi Kanu …? Instead of breaking the law, calling for treason, committing conspiracy and expecting to b hailed as a hero and a marytry. *Sigh*

    In a nation like Ethiopia it was possible for Eritrea to exercise her right to self determination because the Ethiopian law has liberal provision that guarantees such right unlike Nigeria where the Constitution does not admit of the exercise of a right to self determination.

    Therefore, if Nnamdi Kanu wants to declare political autonomy from Nigeria in order to enforce the United Nations’ Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples for the self determination of Biafra, he must keep in mind that, in challenging the traditional anti-secessionist United Nations’ stand, the present United Nations’ practice dictates that only classic colonies, those Third-World nations under European domination can exercise the right to self-determination without any hitch. In light of this, rather than relying on international law and the UN Convention or internal law to enforce his quest for self-determination, an internal decision making framework, such as a Constitutional Convention, National Conference or Constituent Assembly may be a more informed, advisable and sensible way for Nnamdi Kanu to present his argument for breaking away from Nigeria.

    Based on this legal Analysis, there is no support for the concept of Self Determination and Political Autonomy On Biafa that Mr Nnamdi Kanu is trying to make noise on.

  • Republic of two thousand kings!

    The Constitution of Nigeria defines it as a republic and in a typical republic it is not expected that one will find kings. There is however a precarious coexistence between our imported republicanism and traditional institutions. During the British Raj in India, special status was accorded the maharajahs some of who were very powerful and rich and who also had the loyalty of their people. Rather than abolishing them, the British set up a parallel administration and also used these native potentates as agents of British imperial control. This system by which an imperial overlord controlled a native people has gone down into history as indirect rule. This system was imported into Nigeria by sir Fredrick Lugard who had a stint in India before coming to Nigeria after some time in Uganda where the British controlled that country through the Kabaka of Buganda and other native rulers in Bunyoro, Ankole and the Northern Territory constituting the protectorate of Uganda.

    On getting to Nigeria, especially to the northern part of it, Lugard embraced the emirate system already in place after removing what he called unsavoury excesses of the Fulani rulers. He then set up the Beit-el Mal ( Native Treasuries) into which taxes were paid by farmers and cattle owners and the money was divided with two-thirds going to the colonial government while the emirate administrations retained one-third from which the emirs and their officials were paid. This worked rather smoothly because the people were used to paying tribute in kind and the systemization of the tribute as taxes was welcome by the ordinary people as well as by the Masu sarauta. The whole thing was so profitable to the rulers that the most viable emirate of Kano paid its emir a salary that was at par with that of the Governor -General himself.

    Lugard seeing the hierarchical structure of native administration in Yorubaland tried to introduce the same northern system sometimes with disastrous consequences. He equated the Alaafin with the sultanate of Sokoto not knowing that below the apparent powers of Yoruba obas lie checks and balances preventing any of them becoming poobahs or tyrants like those that existed in India. Furthermore each oba enjoyed considerable amount of autonomy vis-à-vis neighbouring rulers including apparently powerful ruler like the Alaafin. There was also no urgency to raise taxes because large sums of money accrued to the colonial government from customs duties, levied on moral grounds and supported by the Christian missions, on so-called trade gin which was cheap alcohol largely produced in Holland and used as articles of trade by Europeans on the coast. Payment of tax was however considered salutary by the colonial government which forced the payment of taxes on the people through the chiefs whose powers were enlarged beyond what they were accustomed.

    In the South-eastern part of the country among the Igbo and Ibibio and other related people, the absence of native rulers controlling considerable number of people presented the colonial administration with problems of how to locate the centre of power. The republican nature of an acephalous society was overcome unsuccessfully through the creation of what were called warrant chiefs. The British simply gave warrants to whoever appeared to be assertive enough and prepared to work for the British colonial administration to become Eze. Of course these were not rulers in the sense of what largely prevailed in the north and the south-west.  Because there were no big towns and the people lived in clans, it was difficult to find or locate any foci of traditional power. This led in most places to direct administration by colonial officials occasioning many revolts against them. However by the time Lugard left Nigeria after the First World War in 1919, indirect rule was the system of government in the protectorate of Nigeria while direct British administration was the rule in Lagos. The position of traditional rulers in the north and south-west was codified in customary laws of Nigeria.

    When India became a republic after independence in 1947, it abolished the maharajahs although they were left with their considerable wealth which made them to continue to wield influence if not power. In Nigeria no such step was taken. The traditional rulers continued to retain their titles and some perquisites of office as well as respect and loyalty of their people. In any case, it was inconceivable for any government of Nigeria to abolish traditional rulership. No government of Nigeria since independence is strong enough to take such an explosive decision. Rather the civilian administrations of the regions created Houses of Chiefs as upper chambers in bicameral legislatures. Thus in Nigeria, we have a republic and several thousand kings of various and ranging power and importance. There is no hierarchy of importance nationally but all first class rulers like the Sultan of Sokoto, Emir of Kano, the Alaafin of Oyo, Shehu of Borno, Ooni of Ife, Oba of Benin belong to the first rank while others follow. There are no such rulers in the south-east. The Igbos have a saying that Igbos have no kings and everybody is king in his own house. Apart from areas like Onitsha and Nri and the western periphery of Igboland influenced by Benin and Igala cultures, there are no kings or kinglets in Igboland.

    The current phenomenon of Eze Ndigbo is not known to Igbo history.

    I had foreseen trouble a long time ago when people began to crown themselves Eze Ndigbo of Yorubaland, Eze Ndigbo of Lagos or Eze Ndigbo of Ibadanland etc; and addressing themselves either as royal majesties or royal highnesses and referring to their houses as palaces. Not only that, they also started conferring chieftaincies on others. I was not surprised that trouble reared its ugly head in Akure, one of the oldest kingdoms in Yorubaland when a so-called Eze Ndigbo of Akureland began parading himself around with a crown on his head and coral ornaments around his neck and hands and issuing orders and even disregarding the Deji, the king of Akure. This was a sure cause for trouble. But for quick intervention of elders of the town, there would have been a break down of law and order. A situation where a mere trader in the morning becomes king in the evening cannot be acceptable to the local people who still see their kings as vice regal of God on earth. These parvenu settler kings or ezes have become an irritant and a source of worry to an ordinarily tolerant people.

    Unless a holistic approach is made to solve the problem, it will reoccur again if not in Akure,  certainly in other Yoruba kingdoms where the phenomena of Eze Ndigbo is beginning to challenge traditional order of a people who feel threatened by the encroachment of the Nigerian state. Since there is no legislation backing titles not approved by tradition, legislations should be passed making it an offence for people to go about bearing titles not rooted in the culture of an area. It is generally known that two rams can not peacefully drink from the same calabash; neither can an oba and eze rule over the same territory.

    I know this phenomenon is also found in the north of our country. Yorubas and Igbos living in Hausaland should desist from having Eze Ndigbo and oba Yoruba. Northerners should desist from such titles as Sarkin Hausa or Sarkin Fulani, Shehu Kanuri of Lagos or any other Yoruba town. Respect begets respect; we must in the words of Sir Ahmadu Bello not forget our differences but understand them. We must respect each other’s culture in order to live amicably together. If there is a need to have leaders of various ethnic groups, they can be called leaders and certainly not kings. A king must have a territory and being sold land to build houses does not confer suzerainty on outsiders living amongst other people. Certainly citizenship of Nigeria on all Nigerians should not lead to the derogation of the cultures of constituent peoples of our country.

    I am not suggesting ethnic hostility or antagonism of one people against the other but the way to prevent this is by mutual respect and protection of each other’s interest. In a rapidly modernizing world, people tend to hold on to their culture. The Yoruba obas represent that culture in Yorubaland and any undermining of that institution strikes at the heart of Yoruba culture. We are economically dependent on one another and it is doubtful if one group can survive without the other in present day Nigeria but as Yoruba people are wont to say, we cannot because we want to eat beef call a cow a brother!

  • Election cold feet: the dying gasp of a ruling party or of the Nigerian predators’ republic?

    Election cold feet: the dying gasp of a ruling party or of the Nigerian predators’ republic?

    Cold feet: (1) apprehension or doubt strong enough to prevent a planned course of action. (2) to have ‘cold feet’ is to be fearful to undertake or complete an action.
    Dictionary.com (online)

    One of the most interesting revelations made by the INEC Chairman, Professor Atahiru Jega, during his appearance at the Senate on February 18, 2015 was the fact that for the Ekiti State gubernatorial elections in June 2014, only about a third of the Permanent Voters’ Cards produced for the election was collected by registered voters. This, in effect, means that les than 35% of PVC’s produced were collected. Although this revelation is interesting for many reasons, I will mention only three of such reasons.

    First, it shows a depressing level of voter apathy in EkKiti state, an apathy so vast that it more or less constitutes a danger to the survival of democracy in that particular state, if not indeed in the whole of our country. Secondly, it shows that in Ekiti State as in many other states of Nigeria and many other countries of the world, voter apathy provides no justification for the postponement or cancellation of elections. It is not an inspiring thing to say, but voter apathy is an aspect of electoral politics in the world, including even the most stable bourgeois democracies on the planet. The antidote for it is not postponement or cancellation of scheduled elections; rather, it is the institution of policies and actions that expand popular participation of all segments of the population in democratic governance, most especially in economic and social affairs. If the benefits of democracy reach the most marginalized, if the gap between the haves and the have-nots are significantly decreased, if people across the board feel satisfied that they have rulers who listen to them, voter apathy substantially decreases. The third and perhaps the most important reason why Jega’s revelation about the low collection rate of PVC’s in the Ekiti State gubernatorial elections of June 2014 is of great interest today is the fact that the PDP at that time was quite satisfied to go ahead with the elections despite the extremely low rate of PVC collection. Today, the story is very different and that is the thing that I wish to reflect upon in this piece.

    Of all the registered parties in the country, the PDP is the only party at the present time making noises about the collection of PVC’s. Two weeks before the formerly scheduled date of February 14 for the presidential elections, collection of PVC’s had already reached 65%, a figure more than twice the figure for the June 2014 Ekiti State governorship elections. At the present time and as revealed during Jega’s appearance before the Senate on February 18, collection of PVC’s countrywide has reached 75.9%. And yet, the PDP is shouting to the high heavens that presumably unless collection of PVC’s reaches 100%, the elections cannot and must not be held. If, dear reader, you wish to know why it was okay with the PDP to go ahead with the Ekiti State elections in June 2014 with less than 35% of PVC’s collected and why it is not okay now for the same party to go ahead with elections with 75.9% PVC collection rate, look no further than what in the title of this piece I am calling “election cold feet”. Permit me to give a few other indications beside PVC collection rate of this malaise of “election cold feet’ that, in our own symbolic Ides of March, has suddenly stricken the ruling party.

    The most dramatic dates in the etiology of this malaise that now afflicts the ruling party are February 2 and 5, 2015. As I have previously written in this column, on February 2 in Abuja and before a world press conference, the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh, the Chief of Army Staff, General Kenneth Minimah and the Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshall Adesola Amosu all affirmed that the Nigerian armed forces were in a state of complete readiness for February 14, the scheduled date for the 2015 presidential election. They made this assertion in response to then growing rumours that the elections were going to be postponed. However, three days later, on February 5, these same men, together with the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin, completely reversed themselves and wrote the infamous letter to Jega saying that the armed forces were not ready for the scheduled February 14 date and needed six weeks in which to bring the Boko Haram insurgency to the minimum level of containment that could free the armed forces to assure countrywide security during the elections. To date, these Service Chiefs have given no reason, no justification whatsoever for why they reversed themselves. The reason for this is not difficult to discern for in what language, in what rational codes of military strategy and tactics can they explain the “election cold feet” of their Commander-in-Chief, Goodluck Jonathan. For this is what explains the gap between those fateful dates, February 2 and 5, 2015: about slightly more than a week to February 14, the President realized that the collection rate of PVC’s was not enough as an excuse to postpone or scuttle the elections and assuage his growing election cold feet; something more “weighty” and more inscrutable was needed. And for that the Service Chiefs willingly reversed the assurances they had given on February 2.

    I may be wrong, but I don’t think we have ever encountered “election cold feet” in the history of electoral politics in our country. Massive, messy and violent rigging of elections, yes. Election returns in which the figure recorded for actual voters is higher than the figure of registered voters, yes. Elections in which a declared or eventual victor happened not to have been on the ballot, yes. But never, never “election cold feet”. Thus, as the new or postponed dates of March 28 and April 11 draw nearer, the “cold feet” of the PDP, as a unique and special kind of electoral malaise, has risen to the level of a raging, feverish inferno of total unwillingness to have elections or to have elections only on terms completely controlled by the ruling party. Thus, this very week, Ayo Fayose, the Ekiti State Governor, the antihero of Ekiti-Gate, a man for whom the level of impunity in obscenity and bad faith is bottomless, Ayo Fayose has this week been screaming “sack Atahiru Jega and the skies will not fall!”

    For obvious reasons, for most people in our country and among interested forces in the larger international community, “election cold feet” is all too transparent as the disease of a ruling party that is so terrified of a resounding electoral defeat that it will do everything possible not to face the electorate. For this reason, there have been speculations as to just what it is that makes the PDP so terrified of going before the Nigerian electorate. Some talk of a power lust that is fueled by the money lust of an administration that has overtaken all previous records in the looting and mismanagement of the nation’s wealth and the public purse. Others talk of the terror of what a new administration will do to the kingpins of the PDP, the revelations, the exposures with which, for months and years, we will be inundated after May 29, 2015, the inauguration date for the new administration. Others talk of the fear, the certitude even of the bosses of the PDP that once the party loses its hold on federal or central power in Abuja, it will simply wither away as a national party since it has never forged any organic or viable links to hold it together as a party beyond the sharing of loot, the spoils of office and the actual and symbolic uses of power. All this is true and especially of characters like the Ekiti State Governor, Fayose. Where in the world can he run to after May 29, 2015?

    I suggest that we need to look well beyond the anxieties and fears of the ruling party as we ponder the ramifications of the PDP’s election cold feet. There are many reasons for this. In the first place, in the intensity of the current fierce struggles to defeat the PDP’s desperate efforts to scuttle the elections, many people are beginning to slide ever so slightly into a terribly complacent presupposition that because we are all determined to have the elections against the PDP’s calculations, we are all APC diehards. I speak for myself but I hope that I speak for many others in asserting most vigorously that my total commitment against the PDP’s efforts to deprive the Nigerian electorate of the civic and constitutional right to exercise their choice directly through the ballot box and not at the behest of the Service Chiefs is a value in itself and is not attached to the electoral fortunes of the APC or any other party. Let me express this idea in a more concrete form: I wish, oh how I wish that the PDP’s election fever is the last, dying gasp, not just of the ruling party, the PDP, but of the entire Nigerian predators’ republic that has been at the helm of affairs in our country at the center in Abuja and in the states since 1999. But I know that this is not the case. The road to that will be long and hard. This brings to my mind the Chinese adage which states that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Defeating the PDP’s election cold feet is, in the light of this Chinese adage, the first step in a long, long journey. Let that first step commence, firmly and resolutely.

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Nigeria seeks Niger Republic’s support to battle Boko Haram

    Nigeria seeks Niger Republic’s support to battle Boko Haram

    Nigeria is seeking the support of Niger Republic to halt cross border movement by Boko Haram men being dislodged from Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states where a military operation is ongoing.

    Niger, along with Chad and Cameroun border the three states which are under a state of emergency.

    Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Nurudeen Muhammed on Monday night delivered the request for help from President Goodluck Jonathan to his Nigerien counterpart, Mahamadou Issoufou, in Niamey.

    “We currently have military operations under way in Nigeria in three federal states to combat terrorism and we would like to have Niger’s support in the common fight against these terrorists,” Muhammed told Nigerien television.

    Nigeria and Niger signed a bilateral defence pact in October 2012 that includes sharing intelligence on Islamist groups and joint military exercises.

    The deal stipulates that a request for military aid by one nation cannot be refused by the other.

    Nigeria and Niger share a porous frontier of more than 1,500 km (940 miles). The fighting in the northeast has pushed more than a thousand refugees across the border into Niger in the past few weeks, according to United Nations (UN) estimates.

    Soldiers from Niger and Chad participated with Nigerian forces in a joint assault on Boko Haram fighters last month in Baga, a fishing settlement on the shores of Lake Chad.