Until the fall of United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), it was common to see skirmishes in Africa, Asia and Latin America, were people furiously killed their neighbours over meaningless ideology, not knowing that they were puppets in the hands of either USSR or the United States of America. In that era, it was common for an incompetent USA or USSR head of government to order invasion of a harmless country to cover domestic challenges, create new conflict zones, and then sell arms.
The superpowers built their economy and influence around war-making and reconstruction, with third-world countries as laboratories. With the fall of USSR, wars dimmed, and surviving super power, USA, and its capitalist allies, turned to democracy as the influencer, with liberal and free market economy as tonic. Within the emergent democracies long used to military governments and other autocracies often controlled by the dominant tribe, with winner takes all mentality, intra-national crisis is now the bane.
The situation in Africa is made more precarious by corruption and poverty, the two-cyclic disease that exacerbate the already precarious situation. What is playing out in the South-east, is a proxy war between the unemployed, under-employed, and poverty-pulverised masses, belonging to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) against the malignantly oppressive Nigerian state, conceived as represented by the federal government, whose face is the dominant tribe – the Hausa-Fulani.
The crisis of confidence is compounded by President Muhammadu Buhari’s messianic style, particularly his avowal to punish those who did not vote for him. Like an old headmaster, Buhari has a religious perception of right and wrong, with no middle ground. He sees those who did not vote for him, as the unconverted and so he pushes the consequences to their face. It is the same underlining philosophical reasoning that makes him a champion of anti-corruption, with the determination to fight past wrong-doers, as he deems fit, even when his followers are also sinning.
The IPOB, particularly its leadership, foolishly baits crisis, in the hands of a non-philosopher king. They also wrongly conceive the ordinary Hausa-Fulani, as the bane of their underdevelopment, poverty and insecurity in a failing Nigeria. As I have challenged those I know, sympathetic to the braggadocio of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu – how many history books on Biafra or similar ethnic conflagration have they read, to fully grasp the cause, rise and fall of Biafra?
They misconceive the Igbo, relying on stereotype and propaganda as a secessionist race. Nothing can be farther from the truth, at least not in the first Biafra from which the new agitators claim inspiration. Not even now, as neither the philosophy nor psychology of the Igbo man show the predilection to separatism. So, while the ongoing uprising, led by IPOB is touting a separate country, the malignant tumour is ensconced in the contention for survival, equity and fairness in the oppressive Nigerian environment.
The only reason eastern Nigerians fought the first Biafra war, was to stop the ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Igbo and their related races. That was why the war caught them unawares, as pushing a separate country was not thinkable, less than a year, before the war started. Despite the dominant propaganda, war became the option after peace efforts to stop the genocide failed. So, what would Nnamdi Kanu and company give as their reason, for giving the failing Nigerian state an opportunity to turn their homeland once again to wasteland?
Perhaps their reason would be that PMB’s government is acting out his much advertised 97/5 percent sharing of resources and opportunities between those who voted for him and those who didn’t? That in my opinion is not enough reason to give the federal government the opportunity to visit the East with war. Considering that this is a democracy, not a military government, the solution rather lies in politics, even agitation, but certainly not in war.
After all, the resources and opportunity that PMB controls, even though enormous, is not the entire national resources. There are resources in the hands of governors, legislators, local government authorities and several agencies of government which are beyond the immediate control of the federal government. Again, even with PMB’s ethnic hubris, the constitution provides several platforms to tamper an ethnocentric presidency. Furthermore, I do not agree that the President intrinsically hates Igbos as touted. No. What is at stake is a challenged president, who is unable to stop himself and his followers, from promoting excessive ethnic preferential treatment.
With two out of the four years gone or even eight years of PMB’s tenure, is there enough provocation to put the eastern Nigeria in a war footing? Not at all. A mobilization of the people by IPOB against marginalisation of the Igbos and other parts of Nigeria without the meaningless cant, like, Biafra Secret Service, and other silliness will be supported by any fair minded person. Of course, there are those who will remain deaf and dumb to the glaring acts of marginalization. Unfortunately, the Nigeria military, whose leadership is unconstitutionally rigged against the Igbo, hastily declared IPOB a terrorist organisation.
I do not know under what laws, the Defence Headquarters is empowered to determine a terrorist organisation. The procedure to declare an organisation a terrorist organisation is provided in the Terrorism (Prevention) Act of 2011, as amended in 2013 and the military has no role in the process. So, the Defence Headquarters, instead of regurgitating the cants of the so-called Northern Youths, should investigate the disturbing videos showing incredible violation of human rights by the Army, against members of IPOB, in the operation Python Dance 11. Even the governors can only proscribe illegal actions.
But the political leadership in the South-east and indeed across the country must take note that the youths of this country are warming-up to self-help, as the solution to the flagrant and criminal aggrandizement of the resources of the country, by bandit-leaders, who are supposed to administer same in thrust for the entire citizens. IPOB is borne out of deprivations and neglect, but they are yet to locate the entire enemies. They conceive the enemy as their fellow poverty stricken, Hausa-Fulani talakawas. They are yet to connect the dots that most of their governors, legislators, board members, top civil servants, and other executives are in the same binge with the elites from other ethnic groups.
The irony of the Buhari presidency is that while he has the best anti-corruption credential to fight the greatest threat to our nation – corruption, his war machine, is bogged down by the vice of ethnic chauvinism. If our youths, can use compass to properly determine the biggest threat, and if Buhari could undress his ethnic regalia, then there is a chance that Nigeria can start the match to national consciousness and development. But as a General, PMB must first stop the proxy war against IPOB, and face the challenges of governance.
