As I read the essay, The Misrepresentation of Nigeria: The
Facts and The Figures and its twin sister, Ignorance, Knowledge and Democratic
Politics in Nigeria, both written by Professor Yusufu Bala Usman, I developed a
sense of curiosity for the elite of Northern Nigeria that the learned author no
doubt represents. My curiosity is derived in part from a weighty postulate that
man has the innate desire to work for self interest which according to
Jawaharlal Nehru, not only blinds one to justice and fair play but also to the
simplest applications of logic and reason.
These essays were supposedly prepared for the Centre for
Democratic Development Research and Training (CEDDERT) which according to the
professor exists to promote, advance and conduct research for the purpose of
finding solutions to the problems of Nigeria. Yet, the Center, fully funded by
the Federal Government of Nigeria, is being diverted from its stated mission
and is now used from its base at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, to serve the
selfish interests of some elements in Northern Nigeria. The essays seem to
reveal a deep sense of desperation, on the part of the Northern elite, to hold
on to a faulty system of governance, one that is being used to meddle
needlessly in the affairs of others and to wreck havoc on the lives of so many
in Nigeria.
I doubt if there is any political observer out there, who is
not aware that Nigeria’s myriad of problems, stem from years of inattention to
the structural defects in the country polity, which has allowed power to be
concentrated in a few hands. Nigerians, who express concern about the future of
their country, are calling for a forum, a Sovereign National Conference, to
discuss how to remove the defects in order to pave way for a better system of
governance. Professor Bala Usman, as indicated in his various utterances
including the recent presentations, objects to this approach and regards these
concerned citizens as agent provocateurs who are engaged in a campaign to
misrepresent facts about their country with the intention of generating fears
about its security and viability as a nation-state.
In order to expose what he considers as fabrications or lies
invented by Nigeria’s doomsayers, the professor and his sponsors seemed to have
developed a line of attack designed to forestall any meaningful effort to
reshape the country in ways that can guarantee an equitable distribution of
power. The task before the professor and his group ought to be a formidable
one, given the fact that more and more citizens are becoming increasingly
unhappy with the quality of life they live. Even then, it is still worthwhile
to examine and expose the methods that Professor Bala Usman and his team now
use in executing their plan.
Bala’s Rules of Engagement
The strategy that is being used, appears to follow some set
of rules that are designed to divert attention from a real discussion of
Nigeria’s problems, including the perennial issue of resource control. The
rules become apparent as one begins to observe how Professor Bala Usman and his
fellow members of the Northern elite try to justify among other things, the
Nigerian government’s claim of ownership of resources located in the various
Nigerian communities. The amount of distortions has become so pervasive to be
ignored if one is not going to allow the Northern establishment the opportunity
to create confusion and mischief among people who are genuinely looking for
peaceful solutions to Nigeria’s problems. How successful they will be with
their rules of engagement is anybody’s
guess but by the very nature of their campaign of disinformation, the rules
call for a number of bold and mischievous actions as one can observe from the
following:
Rule One. Pretend
that one is a democrat and a patriot when discussing Nigerian issues, and never
mind even if one’s actions indicate otherwise.
This rule provides the justification for Bala Usman and his
group to cast themselves as the only true lovers of Nigeria and every other
person as an enemy of the state. Early in the essay, “The Misrepresentation of
Nigeria: Facts and Figures”, the professor proclaimed himself an advocate for
democracy when he declares provocatively that
“This [his essay] is to enhance the capacity of the millions
of Nigerian citizens committed to democracy and national integration, to more
effectively come together to counter this campaign and build the country
[Nigeria] as a leading member of the African community of nations and of the
world comity of nations, whose people, excel in all spheres of human endeavor”.
Yet, nowhere in the essay did Bala Usman offer any proposal
on how he would get his fellow Nigerians to work together for the good of the
country. He has, however chosen to oppose the convening of a conference, the
very idea that could help to achieve his stated desire of getting Nigerians to
unite for the common good.
Instead of endorsing
a pan-Nigerian conference, he went on the offensive to brand those who welcome
the need for such a forum as unpatriotic and willing instruments in the hands
of those who want to see Nigeria destroyed. In an interview he granted Mr. Tom
Chiahemen, and published in Post Express of August 26, 1998, he even touted the
national sovereign conference formula as the kind of political tool that was
used by the French to block the democratic process in Francophone Africa where
the people were demanding an end to one-party dictatorships and military
governments!
Assuming that the formula was not properly applied in
Francophone Africa, a professor of History, could not have been ignorant of the
examples of Canada, South Africa and Venezuela, three countries that have
successfully used these types of extra-parliamentary forums to determine the
will of their people on national and constitutional issues. Canada held a referendum
to seek mandate from the people on whether to give or not to give more power to
its French-speaking province of Quebec while South Africa and Venezuela used
conferences with de-facto sovereignty to arrive at new constitutions for their
countries.
A closer look at the case of Venezuela may suggest an
example of what could be applied to Nigeria. Venezuela like Nigeria, is a poor
country in spite of its oil wealth. Its president, Hugo Chavez like Olusegun
Obasanjo was a former military officer and like Nigeria, Venezuela has a
sitting National Assembly at the time when it convened a National Constituent
Assembly to write an equitable constitution for that country. The new
constitution was the centerpiece of Chavez’s “peaceful revolution”. President Chavez
like President Olusegun Obasanjo, had been elected a year earlier on a pledge
to rebuild the country after decades of corruption and mismanagement.
The people of Venezuela from the villages in the Amazon rain
forests to slums in its capital city of Caracas, were given wide latitude to
debate the issues. Grass-root groups, unions and professional organizations
were all involved in nominating candidates for election into the constituent
assembly, plotting campaign strategies and writing proposals. The 34 indigenous
ethnic groups, often ignored in national matters, were also given the
opportunity to organize a National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples to elect its
own representatives to the National Constituent Assembly.
Thus the new constitution approved in a national referendum
by 72 percent of voters, was the result of a democratic process that allowed
the people to participate directly in fashioning a constitution for themselves.
If this process can be made possible in Venezuela, what prevents it from taking
place in Nigeria? It is the fact that many Nigerian politicians, for selfish
reasons are not interested in any reform that will bring any measure of
fairness and social justice to the masses. Those in power tend to take for
granted whatever privileges they have and they do not entertain any notion of
giving the privileges up. This show of ingratitude means they hardly recognize
the need for change. If constitutional reforms depend on democracy, and
democracy calls for dialogue and trust, why is Bala Usman, a self-professed
democrat, so afraid of any form of open discussions about the future of
Nigeria?
Rule Two: Undermine or downplay the Role of Ethnicity in
Nigeria’s Politics
With this rule, Bala Usman will be able to attack ethnicity,
arguing that it weakens democracy. To do this, he will have to deny that
Nigeria is not a monolithic society but a collection of people of different
cultures, religion and economic patterns. In other words, the complexity and
diversity of the Nigerian situation will not matter and neither will it be
necessary, to accommodate the interests of the various groups that make up the
country, when making government policies. The professor claims he based his
disdain for ethnicity on a supposed observation that:
“In any electoral constituency in which there are different
ethnic and sub-ethnic groups, or clans and lineages, and these are seen as the
basic units of political representation, it is very difficult for the voters in
that constituency to call a corrupt or incompetent official to order because he
was elected because of his origin and affinity and not because of what he can
do to promote the security and welfare of all citizens in his constituency”
Just to be sure that I hear him right, is Bala Usman saying
that corrupt politicians escape punishment because of the affinity they share
with the people who elected them into office? If this is true, he owes it to
humanity to tell his audience who else can better understand the problems,
interests and aspirations of a group of people well enough to represent them
than one of their own. Bala Usman is right to indicate that corrupt politicians
do exist among the people but he does not seem to have enough courage to say
what prevents the voters from being able to sanction politicians who fall out
of order.
Except he wants to fake ignorance of Nigerian politics, Bala
Usman knows all too well that many of the corrupt representatives he refers to,
were not chosen by the people. They were in fact imposed on the people by the
machinery of the Federal Government taking advantage of easier access to
resources to intimidate or to interfere in local politics. These
representatives, selected through the patronage of corrupt government
functionaries cannot be expected to be accountable to their people but to those
who put them in office.
Neither will the ideal duty-bound representative of Bala
Usman’s creation who would have no ethnic affinity, be seen as a better choice.
The chances are slim today for the people of Enugu, to again consider the
candidacy let alone the election of Alhaji Umaru Atline, a Fulani cattle
dealer, as a Mayor of their city as they did in 1956 and in 1958. It will also
be unthinkable, today, to expect the people of Oshogbo to elect another Fulani
trader instead of their own son, Kola Balogun to serve as their representative
in a local ward.
These examples of ethnic-blind elections in Enugu and
Oshogbo are in fact among many others in the southern part of Nigeria. In contrast, one is yet to know when last, a
non-northern Nigerian who has not adopted the Fulani/Hausa name of Abubakar or assumed some other
politically correct cultural identity, was allowed to hold an elected office in
the North. While it may not be necessary to contest Bala Usman on this, he and
his friends need no persuasion to recognize that people are no longer in the
mood to trust the nation-state of Nigeria and are relying more and more on
their kith and kin for security and survival. No one, I believe, wants to be
told that the near monopoly during the military era by people of northern
origin, of all senior positions in the federal civil service, parastals and
other government agencies including the armed services, was an act of God and
had nothing to do with regional or ethnic consideration in the appointments.
Ethnicity does matter and no one knows this better than Bala
Usman and those he represents. Otherwise, they would not have resisted as much
as they did in 1966 when Ironsi’s military government attempted to abolish the
regions and set up a unitary system of government. A unitary government would
have removed all the regional or ethnic considerations that Bala Usman has come
to hate to see used in political representation and in government transactions.
It is therefore ironic to watch how the northerners who had interpreted Ironsi’s policies as a conspiracy “to
colonize the North”, now try to capture the nation-state for themselves.
Rule Three: Suggest or Create Fallacies and Use Them to
Justify Self-serving Policies
Bala Usman and his group must have realized early in the
game that they needed some base to anchor their reasoning or course of action
in order to gain psuedo-legitimacy if not public support. Such a base, no matter how fallacious it may
appear initially, could end up being accepted as a fact if it is allowed to be
propagated long enough and unchallenged. Already, there are a sizable number of
Nigerians who are so disillusioned with the way their country is run that they
no longer care or bother to determine the source of their woes. Added to this
mix is a horde of corrupt politicians and traditional rulers who are ever
willing to sell their conscience and people for personal gains. If Bala Usman
and his group could somehow capture these undiscerning minds by clogging their
heads with fallacies about “the true nature of affairs”, they might, they must
reason, hold on to power and continue to rule.
Of the many fallacies put forward to confuse issues, none is
as outrageous as Bala Usman’s theory of the geological process, which Bala
Usman touts as resulting in the formation of the Niger Delta and the presence
of oil in its terrain. This theory that has no credible scientific basis, of
course, is intended for one purpose: to justify the Nigerian government’s
right, to control, on behalf of the core North, the oil resources in the Niger
Delta. Bala Usman wants the people to
believe that:
“The geological process of the formation of the Niger Delta
and of the crude oil and natural gas formed in some of its sedimentary formations,
actually goes back much further than ten thousand years. But the reality, which
those who are using the issue of the federal control of the petroleum reserves
found in all parts of Nigeria, including the Niger Delta, to attack the basis
of the corporate existence of Nigeria, do not want to accept, is that these
sediments with which, and in which, this petroleum deposits are found, did not
drop from the sky. These sediments are made up of soil containing vegetable,
and other organic materials, including human, and remains which were washed
away from farmland, pasture and forests all over Nigeria and outside and
carried by the Niger to form its delta and all minerals in it”.
Here Bala Usman is overtly simplistic with the clear
intention of misleading and misinforming his audience. As any one can infer
from any basic text in petroleum geology, the analysis of the birth and
evolution of oil and gas goes beyond the mere information about accumulation of
sediments. Bala Usman‘s theory ignores the value of a suitable geological
environment for the compression of accumulated solid materials under the proper
pressure and temperature to produce petroleum. The places or regions that have
petroleum reserves or any type of minerals are the areas that have the proper
hydrological structures to generate them. This is why all rivers do not form
deltas, and why only a few number of deltas have petroleum reserves.
Certainly as far as potential source materials are concerned,
lake sediments can just be as promising as sea-floor sediments. But this is not
to say that the source materials like the kind of sediments that Bala Usman
talked about, need to be deposited in a marine environment to manifest. Neither
is it in order for anyone to assume that all accumulations of oil and gas in
continental reservoirs migrated from marine source rocks. Oil, Bala Usman must
know, can be found in various areas of different hydrological variations from
the deep sea of North Sea to the desert areas of Saudi Arabia and in dry
regions of Texas in the United States of America.
While one must therefore dismiss Bala’s theory of geological
formation as an absurdity, one should not forgo the opportunity to learn about
how manipulative the Northern elite has become. The theory seems formulated to
encourage the Northerners to intensify the belief that they are the primary
owners of Nigerian oil. The ultimate goal is apply this fallacy to help
influence policy on the distribution of oil revenue. After all, the northern
states, according to Bala Usman, account for all 60 percent of Nigerian
landmass drained by River Niger and its major tributary, the Benue. Should
these states not be entitled to 60 percent of the revenue generated from oil
formed with the debris derived from their area? Sounds great!
Yes. But this claim is as ridiculous as it is self-serving
because the theory on which it is based has not been applied anywhere in the
world. It is also selfish because it undermines the contributions of other
countries traversed by River Niger and Benue River. River Niger for example,
rises from Fouta Djallon Highlands in Guinea and flows through Republic of
Mali, the boundary between the Republics of Niger and Benin into Nigeria before
it empties itself through a great delta into the Gulf of Guinea. If Bala Usman
and his group are to be taken seriously, the Republics of Guinea, Mali, Niger
and Benin, too can lay claim to the oil and gas located in the delta which they
can argue, is also being inundated with
debris carried from their territories.
Rule Four: Distort Historical Facts and Use Them to Promote
the Supremacy and Absolutism of the Nigerian Nation-State.
Bala Usman and his circle of Northern elite threatened by
the loss of absolute power in a democratic Nigeria, have resorted to this rule
as a means to retain ultimate control of government powers. Nigeria had been
transformed from a federal system through successive military dictatorships
into a unitary system that concentrated power at the center. The northerners that had benefited greatly
from military rule are determined to prevent any devolution of power to the
states, especially if such balance of power will enable the states to resume
control and management of territorial resources.
The goal of Rule Four is therefore to find ways to diminish
the legitimacy of the states as self-governing units and to establish that the
states exist as a result of the center. An editorial based on this rule and run
on New Nigerian of April 25, 2001 puts the Northern argument this way:
One of the most basic of the truths about the Nigerian
federation is that the center came first, and that the regions and the states
were actually constituted and established by the center. It was the center that
created and devolved power to the regions and states. It was not the regions and the states that
came together to establish the center. This is the incontrovertible truth which
those who are challenging the national sovereignty of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria over the land and the national resources of Nigeria, are trying to
cover up, for selfish reasons.
………………………. They are opposed to
this national sovereignty over our land and mineral resources because, it does
not allow them to own the land and mineral resources of Nigeria as private
property on a freehold basis.
This argument is riddled with distortions in ways that
obscure the facts about how the federation of Nigeria came to be. It is
therefore necessary to set straight, the record regarding the issues mentioned,
namely the primacy of the center and the ownership of land and mineral
resources.
First, the Center, is the product of the unification process
of the British colonial administration, which brought together the different
nationalities, or communities that occupied the landmass now known as Nigeria.
The British through different arrangements, some by conquest, others through
treaties of cession and some others through treaties of protection brought in
the various nationalities.
The British later ignored the treaty-based relationships
with the nationalities and imposed a colonial arrangement that terminated their
indigenous governments. In other words, the Yoruba city-states, Benin empire,
and the western Niger Delta communities of the west; the clan communities of
the east and the emirate of the north among others which were autonomous
political and economic entities before the advent of colonialism, were
reorganized into artificial political units.
The communities in Niger Delta, for example, existed first
as autonomous political entities, and later the Niger Coast Protectorate and
finally as part of Southern Nigeria Protectorate before the idea of Nigeria as
a unified country came up in 1900. Thus the various nationalities were
gradually brought together, fairly or unfairly to form the center and not the
reverse as the New Nigeria editorial wanted us to believe.
The subsequent rearrangement of the 1950s resulted in a
federal structure with three regions. In this system, the regions ceded some
measure of authority to the center while retaining major economic means and
political authority for themselves. More importantly, each region, as well as
the Midwest Region that was created in 1963, operated as a self-governing unit.
Each region had its own constitution in addition to the federal constitution
that defined how the center should be run. If therefore, there are people out
there who feel that Nigeria owns them, it is within their prerogative to do so.
But they should not expect others to accept that notion, more so, when they
want to dictate the conditions for belonging to that corporate body.
Second, the issue of Ownership of Land and Mineral Resources
can be better understood by going over one more time, how the various
nationalities were coerced into the colonial arrangement that became Nigeria.
The British for example, claimed to have “acquired” ownership of land around
the present day Lagos by virtue of the Treaty of Cession signed between Oba
Dosumu of Lagos and the British Government in 1861. In the emirate North and
other parts of Northern Nigeria conquered by Lord Lugard, the British took over
all lands including those belonging to Hausa communities that were seized earlier during the Islamic jihad of
1804.
While both examples provide evidence of alienation of lands
from communities, the British were unable to implement that policy in much of
the south including the Niger Delta. When the British Colonial Administration
needed land, they obtained it through leases which were transacted under the
Public Lands Acquisition Ordinance of 1903, Clause 6 of which states:
Where lands required for public purposes were the property
of a native community, the Head Chief of such community may sell and convey the
same for an estate in fee simple, notwithstanding any native law and custom to
the contrary.
The leases were respected by the Nigerian and British courts
as demonstrated in a series of litigation brought to challenge the ownership of
the lands so leased, by individuals or communities who were not satisfied with
terms of the leases.
Besides, the British signed treaties of protection with
various communities in the Niger Delta to protect the people and their lands
from hostile forces. Nowhere in the various treaties did the British ask for
land in exchange for imperial protection as it was in the case of Northern
Nigeria and the Colony of Lagos.
However, Bala Usman and his team have chosen to ignore these
facts about the acquisition of land in southern Nigeria. Instead, they prefer
to rely on one-sided proclamations that supposedly invested “the entire
property and control of all mineral resources on land, and waterways on the
British Crown”. What Bala Usman failed to tell his audience is that these
proclamations which formed part of Lugard amalgamation exercises were resisted
in the south and had to be abandoned. Professor Ekeh, in an earlier essay cited
one example of when and how Lord Lugard reversed himself on the issue of land
ownership during the creation of a Department of Forestry for the South. The
ordinance of 1917 that authorized the setting up of the department, had
provisions that protected communal rights, thus effectively nullified the
earlier proclamations.
The land practices in Northern and Southern Nigeria,
remained essentially different until the Obasanjo military regime came up with
its obnoxious Land Use Decree of 1978. The decree imposed land practices that
had been in use in the North, on the South where such practices were resisted
and kept out of use. The decree which was later entrenched in the 1979
Constitution of Federal Government of Nigeria, vested the ownership of communal
lands in the state government. As devastating as the policy is to the
oil-producing communities, the states involved have very much complied with it.
Neither the states nor the individuals are demanding private ownership of
community land and mineral rights as alleged in the New Nigeria editorial.
Yet for obvious reasons, Bala Usman and his cohorts want to
move the goal post beyond that dictated by the Land Use Decree. They are
determined to capture the control and management of community land and its
mineral resources for the center. Now we are being bombarded with different
versions of the same sermon delivered from the pulpit of CEDDERT in Kano,
Nigeria, around world capitals and other places, about the supremacy and
absolutism of the Nigerian State. The Almighty Nigerian State that owns
everybody and everything has come to mean a few northerners that Bala Usman speaks
for, and their southern collaborators. In all these efforts to grab oil wealth,
the least thing Bala Usman and his friends care about is the welfare of the
people in the oil-producing communities, whose lives and properties have
forever been wrecked by oil exploration.
Concluding Remarks
If there is no difference among the various parts of Nigeria
in terms of people, climate, geography and geology, as Bala Usman likes to
preach, no one would care about who controls the affairs of the country. The system
would be assumed to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of basic amenities
and opportunities for all citizens to excel in their chosen areas of endeavor.
But it is not so and could not possibly be, given the strife among the
different interest groups represented in the system.
John Calhoun who published his work nearly a century ago,
observed the same kind of tension among the various interest groups in the
United States. He realized that the central problem of American politics was
how to find ways of holding the conflicting groups together without the use of
force. Calhoun reasoned that any essential decision that would affect the life
of the people, would have to be adopted by a “concurrent majority” – by which
he meant a unanimous agreement of all parties involved.
However, a government by concurrent majority is possible
when no one party is powerful enough to dominate completely and only when all
the parties, recognize and agree to abide by the rules of the game. The rules
will be such that they will compel each group to tolerate the interests and
opinions of every other group. No group will be in position to impose its views on others, nor will it press
its special interests to the detriment of others.
Nigeria is far off but not out of reach of the ideal
proposed by Cahoun. I believe many Nigerians want to live in a unified country
but demand that the various interest groups come together to renegotiate the
terms of co-existence. No one says the task will be an easy one but it certainly
will not be helped by the arrogance and acts of intimidation by people like
Bala Usman and his cohorts. We now know that when Alhaji Gambo Jimeta, former Inspector General
of Police and also a one-time Minister of Agriculture made threats on the floor
of constitutional conference, he was not acting alone. The ex-police officer
threatened during the debate on resource control that the north will go to war
with any one who tries to deprive the north of its control of Nigeria’s oil
wealth.
In spite of these mounting threats, the call for changes to
how the Nigerian nation-state is run, is real and will not fizzle away. There
comes a time in every nation, a moment of decision, when the nation must come
to terms with the truth about its viability as a state. For Nigeria, that time
has come to make the tough decisions on its continued existence and we can only delay it at our own peril.
There is a need for a fundamental restructuring of the polity to provide for a
citizenry based on justice, equity and fairness for all the nationalities
involved.
The changes desired call for serious consideration of all
the issues that constitute the terms for staying together as citizens or parts
of one country. The issues that guarantee meaningful citizenship for the people
of Nigeria include rule of law and fundamental human rights, distribution of
power and revenue, goals and management of the economy and other matters
dealing with the national question and the relation of the center to the
federating units.
Bala Usman and his team may, for selfish reasons, not see
these changes as necessary. For those of us who hail from the Niger Delta, they
are a matter of survival. We are in the kitchen and we feel the heat of oppression and persecution. Bala Usman is an
aristocrat, perhaps too high a class to understand the pains of those in the
kitchen. Besides he has access to very powerful people both in and outside
government circles. Because he probably does not appreciate the problems of the
oppressed, he may be in need of education. But no, Bala Usman has shown his
hands. He is no democrat and has no interests in the welfare of the poor or the
oppressed. He is working to preserve the lot of those like himself who believe
they have “God-given rights” to exploit and live on others.
