IT must have happened to you at some time. You are enjoying
a meal, hand, mouth and swallowing all well co-ordinated. You roll a ball of
eba or iyan, immerse it in the draw-draw, okro soup laden with chunks of goat
meat, stock-fish and dry fish, scoop some vegetables onto the ball, everything
firm in your grasp. You then swirl and swirl the ball a few times to 'cut'
threads of okro threatening your immaculate white shirt. Somewhere along the
way, between hand and mouth, something goes wrong! Just as you steady your hold
to deliver the bolus into its gaping destination, the whole thing mindlessly
slips off your fingers on to the floor. While all this is going on, however,
the hungry mouth, believing it has wolfed down the iyan now delectably shuts
its gates. But alas! there is really nothing there, no satisfaction. You feel
empty. This is something akin to how the inhabitants of the Niger Delta must
feel. The oil in their backyard just slips off their fingers into the greedy
federal account. Do the rest of us really care how the people of the Niger
Delta feel? Are we not laughing all the way to Abuja, there to share the booty
from oil? After all, the rest of us are in a majority and when we cast lots,
the majority carries the day (or is it the oil), is that not democracy?
I recall one evening at the Staff Club, University of
Ibadan, just after Gen. Babangida had announced the creation of Delta State
with the capital at Asaba. Professors David Okpako and Peter Ekeh were
extremely bitter and wailed and wailed over Asaba being the capital instead of
Warri. They, like other Urhobo-Itsekiri-Ijaw Deltans felt this was clearly a
'bedroom' decision influenced by the President's beguiling spouse, Miriam, who
is from Anioma. The people of Anioma had urged the government for a state,
instead they got the capital of Delta State. That same evening, another friend
from Anioma was ecstatic though not before Peter and David. "We'll use the
oil money to develop Asaba," he exulted. I felt very sorry for my friends,
the real Deltans. Nothing, no argument however well constructed, no reason, no
appeal would assuage their gross disaffection. They saw this as one more case
of the 'majors' imposing their will and their way on the 'minors.' As Godfrey
Ekikerentse wondered, in The Guardian of June 29, "what difference would
the form of a federal/state structure make to the people of an oil producing
area of a state, if the revenue from their oil became controlled by the state
but ended up being squandered or used in developing places other than their
areas within the state?"
Nigeria is blessed with great minds, more so with patient,
longsuffering and self-giving mothers and with ingenious technicians and artisans call them 'mechanics.' No one talks about
controlling these priceless resources or how best to put them to use. Perhaps
the only control one would hear would be how husbands should control their
wives and get them to do their bidding (or is it the other way round?) And yet
the most vital resource we have is our human capacity our people
and we just let this waste away or run off to foreign lands. Peter Ekeh,
one such illuminating resource now lights up the intellectual landscape of New
York University at Buffalo. He is someone to listen to, absorb and digest. His
recent writings in The Guardian on the absence of a national consciousness as
especially illustrated by the internecine fights over resource control are a
masterpiece. We have such opinions expressed frequently in diverse ways in our
dailies but none has set the problem precisely within the context of personal
animosities emanating from our blind devotion or loyalty to our respective
ethnic nationalities. Put differently, Peter Ekeh clarifies that our belonging
to different ethnic groups need not cloud our sense of fairness and national
consciousness.
The issue of fairness is not easy to adjudicate on. The
Federal Government in its hasty and insatiable appetite for the 'black gold'
has asked the Supreme Court to rule on the ownership of the littoral areas of
Nigeria. However you look at it, the issue is not so much a matter of legal
systems or judicial rulings. It is much more a matter of simple fairness.
'Justice as fairness' has been discussed by the 1998 Nobel Laureate in
Economics, Amartya Sen who, in a brilliant series of lectures at the World
Bank, showed that the issue of a theory of justice is very much at the heart of
the concerns of economic development. He also appropriately showed just how
complex the issues become when we know more and more about them. Indeed the
problems of fairness have been troubling philosophers for centuries. The
dilemma is summed up in a beautiful story told by Amartya Sen in which he
suggests that we meet three children, and between them, they have but one
flute. The children ask us to arbitrate who should get the flute.
Child A says: "I have no toys at all, and these other
two children, B and C, have enormous amounts of toys, and surely I should be
entitled to have the flute." The facts are correct, and not contested by
children B and C. If that is all of the information we have, we would probably
say yes, Child A should get the flute. But let us hold off and go back to the
same three children with the flute. Child B. says: "In fact, I am the only
one who has any musical talent. I can play the flute, these other two children
cannot. I have to express myself as a musician. They enjoy listening to me.
Both of them only blow on it as a whistle. They have no capacity to use it
whatsoever. I should really get the flute." Once again, this is not
contested by A and C and if this was all the information we had, we would say B
should get the flute. But let us go back. We come to the three children and
Child C says to us: "Look, I am the one who made the flute, and it is
mine, why should somebody take it from me after I have made it?" Again,
the argument is very compelling, and it not disputed by the others. And again,
if that is the only information we have, we would say Child C should get the
flute." Now, what we have here are three perceptions of the issue of
fairness that touch upon principles that we technically refer to as equity,
utility, and entitlement, within certain capability domains. But whatever the
case, whether or not we can come up with a definitive answer is not as
important as recognising that we must engage these problems, that we cannot
turn our backs on them.
Let us follow the analogy of the three children, A, B and C.
In our context, Child C would be represented by the states of the Niger Delta:
the oil is in their waters and, therefore, should belong to them. Ah, but wait,
the rest of us query, is the oil really theirs? Does not section 44(3) of the
constitution unquestionably give the right of ownership to the Federal
Government? Is this not why the Federal Government has gone to court, seeking a
legal pronouncement on the ownership of oil reserves offshore? The Supreme
Court is already handling this case. My contention is that the foundations of
Nigeria are not built on oil, or on the wealth of any given area, that if our
unity were based on our natural resources then we would continuously be
involved in one type of conflict or another, ethnic and otherwise, all in the
quest for control of those resources. If oil is a resource for unity it will
inexorably also become a source of divisiveness of incalculable proportions.
I DO not subscribe to the statement of Bala Usman quoted by
Prof. Ekeh that "The Nigerian state is superior to the ethnic groups and
therefore has a superior claim to the land and the resources there in".
The whole notion of the 'Nigerian state' has been called to question not so
much because we do not feel we belong to Nigeria but mainly because what is
known as 'Nigerian state' does not involve the inhabitants of that state. Tell
me, is Obetiti, Nguru, my home town 'in' this country? Do the people of Obetiti
believe the Nigerian state cares about them? Does the Nigerian state come to
their assistance? The people of Odi, do they feel they 'are' Nigerians? It
would appear this insidious state has been foisted upon us! You might point to
the Nigerian constitution as the embodiment of this state defining the tenets
and very essence of the Nigerian people. It is not a document given by the
people to themselves. Someone else gave it to them and decreed that they accept
it as a binding force.
This is a constitution that is better described by a series
of negatives, of what it is not, than by what it is. I do not know what to make
of it. So many sections contradict one another, what it gives in one place, it
takes in another. The Sharia and Local Governments issues are just two extant
examples with which we now contend with no apparent resolution in sight. What
we have is a constitution made by the military, for a brutalized civilian
population. It seems a document formulated by thieves detailing how they would
share any booty they happened to loot. I would like to see a state where the
people actually took their lives in their own hands and gave themselves the
type of life they would like to live, not one prescribed for them by an
insufferable group of military brigands. It took a popular revolution to
establish the doctrine that it is not nation, not country but the people that
are supreme. Eugene Delacriox captured the will of the French people ñ and
indeed of all peoples to determine their
lives in his breathtaking painting, Liberty guiding the people (translated),
which remains for all time a penetrating symbol of the rise against oppression.
The people are supreme, but this does not immediately translate to mean the
ethnic groups are supreme. But here I must tread carefully because the Yoruba
nation fighting for its 'life' might not agree. Can you explain why we have
OPC? Or why do we have the cry for a sovereign national conference? If the
Nigerian state as we know it is supreme why is a large number of groups
clamouring for a reordering of our national life, giving to each what he or she
most longs for?
Stanley Macebuh in a brilliant, scholarly piece reminds
those amongst us who are clamouring for a sovereign national conference based
on the supremacy of the people that "The most enduring bequest of American
democracy to the world is not so much its national insistence on the sovereignty
of the people, but rather its conviction that this sovereignty can most
efficiently be expressed through elective representative government".
Sure. To Macebuh, it seems disingenuous to distinguish between the supremacy of
the people's representatives (read the National Assembly) to make the
constitution and their supremacy to make 'ordinary' laws. As he sees it, the
clamour is for the substitution of the sovereignty of the people with the
sovereignty of ethnic nationalities. Macebuh's arguments are quite persuasive ñ
why all the hue and cry about the sovereignty of the people when the people
themselves have expressed their sovereign rights in the election of their
representatives who should now be trusted to do everything else the people want
them to do? Could it not be that the people now want to express their
sovereignty in some other way, that there are things they do not want to
entrust to the National Assembly?
Could it not be that the people see a different between
their elected representatives as politicians and another category of
representatives, trusted and non-partisan, who would now negotiate the kind of
country they want to live in and who would fashion for them a constitution that
reflects their distinct ethnic and cultural aspirations? An Igbo, for example,
might not vote for Prof. Nwabueze as her representative in the National
Assembly but she would readily vote that he represent her at the sovereign national
conference. In fact, Prof. Nwabueze has never been voted for in a national
election and one could conclude that he is not interested in partisan politics.
And the same can be said of Dr. Shetima Mustapha, Chief F.R.A. Williams, Alhaji
Lal Kaita, Mr. Felix Ohiwerei, Prof. N.M. Gadzama, Prof. Idris Mohammed, and
others.
To me there is a big difference between these types of
representatives: the first were elected on the platform of the various
political parties, the latter would be elected by the ethnic nationalities - no
political parties recognized. I recognize the difficulties this would raise,
such as, how do we determine which nationalities would make up this conference,
what would be the nature of representation, would it be based on population,
etc. Charles Njoku provides some clues in his piece on Sovereign National
Conference in The Guardian of August 15. Already the Ooni and other national
kings are negotiating these with the apparent blessing of the Federal
Government. Chief Frederick Rotimi Williams (amiably referred to as 'Timi the
Law' by the late President Nnamdi Azikiwe), a man not given to public political
statements, has given us words of wisdom. At the recent Soyinka Yearly Lecture,
Williams firmly insisted that for "effective resolution of Nigeria's
nationhood problems, a conference of ethnic nationalities is inevitable because
it is through such a platform that sovereignty could rightly be devolved to the
people". Prof. Nwabueze also canvasses the view that a conference of ethnic
nationalities is a necessity. We should listen to them: such minds are rare.
As far as our president is concerned, the unity of Nigeria
is not a matter for argument: it is a given. Others question why we should be
talking of a national conference to discuss the terms of our togetherness when
we have been living as a sovereign nation for over 40 odd years, and have long
had strong interactive cultural and commercial links. The question is not
whether or not we should be united; rather it is what type of union should this
be? The origins of this question go far, far into our history. We can recognize
seven phases of this history (surely there are several themes and sub-themes of
these): a pre-colonial past of nations and kingdoms; colonial formulation of
Nigeria; post-colonial democracy (Tafawa Balewa; Shagari); post-colonial
misguided military (Ironsi, Gowon); post-colonial purposeful military
(Mohammed-Obasanjo, Abubakar); post-colonial zealously and ruthlessly military
(Buhari, Abacha); post-colonial insidious military (Babangida) and what we now
have, which could be described as a transitional democracy in search of ideals.
You will immediately recognize that I am somewhat careless of time in arriving
at these periods putting, for example, Shagari alongside Tafawa Balewa and
Abubakar together with Gowon and Mohammed-Obasanjo. This is to draw attention
more to the characteristics of these periods as they relate to our national
cohesion or lack of it. With what we now hear about General Abubakar, I am not
sure that he qualifies to be placed with Mohammed-Obasanjo. I have done so only
because he conducted the 1999 elections and successfully transferred power to
civilians. We may now pose the question, in which of these periods was our
cohesion as a people highest? What held us together? Is this cohesion
increasing in tenacity? And when this cohesion was threatened what were the
causes? Have these causes now disappeared or simply festering?
To attempt this question we first must ask, what is Nigeria,
a nation or a mere 'geographical expression?' This has been addressed by
several renowned authors, Profs. Billy Dudley, Tekema Tamuno, Peter Ekeh, Obaro
Ikime, Emmanuel Ayandele (these are the ones I know from the University of
Ibadan). Amongst others, including the unforgettable Awo who, in fact, first
described Nigeria in those uncomplimentary terms. The balance of argument
suggests that there was a 'Nigeria' before British Nigeria: that before the
colonial period peoples in what became Nigeria co-existed, practised good
neighbourliness, engaged in inter-ethnic trade and did cultural borrowing.
Within this context, however, we learn from our history books of the inter-and
intra-tribal wars of conquest as illustrated by the Oyo and Bini empires, the
Islamic wars of conquest in the North, the wars of expansion of the Aro and
Abonema Kingdoms. It would appear that this level of interaction did little, if
any to promote multi-ethnic, participatory arrangements for a unified social
structure.
We may therefore conclude that the pre-colonial period was
not characterized by strong cohesive forces of nationhood. It is my contention
that it was only in the colonial period, arising from a stubborn, relentless
and unstoppable will to dismantle imperialism and win independence that there
was some semblance of a national cohesion. The entire country was agog with the
excitement of national independence. We all felt one, behaved like one, and
believed in Nigeria. As Bola Ige put it in The Discovery of Nigeria, "When
I came up to the University College, Ibadan in October
1949, I came into what I honestly believed to be a thoroughly Nigerian
community... Until I left this place in 1955, young men and women from
different parts of this great country found the University College, Ibadan a melting
pot of a country we dearly loved and which we looked forward to serving so that
Nigeria could be the greatest black nation in the world".
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