IS IT TIME FOR NIGERIA TO DISINTEGRATE? yes!

Hope For Nigeria

Joseph Ebimone

it was Frantz Fanon who said that “every generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it”. In the aftermath of the Kano terrorist attacks and the seven decades of routine ethno-religious mass killings in the North, our generation must as Frantz Fanon said confront the unique mission of our time which must be fulfilled through the choice of freedom over slavery and of self determination over internal colonialism. 

It should be clear to all and sundry that the freak contraption known as Nigeria is not sacred, it is purely and simply a British creation designed first and foremost to service her imperial interests and not for the benefit of those who inhabit the geographical space. Given the history of Europe, which not surprisingly is the bloodiest continent in human history with the 1st and 2nd world wars originating from Europe, the later ending as recently as 1945 and the many nationalist battles fought across many generations on ethnic lines including the recent ethnic conflicts in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia etc, the British knew they were creating in Nigeria, a tinderbox of contradictions and endless conflicts, but never bothered because the servicing of her imperial interests was more important than the cohesion or unity of their colonial subjects. To date the European Union has refused to let Muslim Turkey join the EU because they want to avoid creating religious contradictions within the European club.

Mental laziness which manifests in a fear to try something new or take on daunting challenges is a phenomenon that has kept the black race in perpetual retrogression and slavery. While the white race and other races are willing to take on daunting challenges, going to the moon and overcoming all kinds of formidable situations, the black race is content to sing, dance and give all kinds of silly excuses why nothing can be done. Paralysed by a fear of every challenge, the black race has remained to date the most unprogressive of all human species. It is this same mindset of a fear of something new, a fear of challenges that those who argue to keep a failed Nigeria exhibit. They prefer to remain in a nation that is a hopeless jungle of failure rather than take on challenges to chart their own destiny, they prefer to remain in slavery rather than try freedom, they prefer to live under oppression rather than fight for their rights and dignity. Dr James David Manning once said that the black race was found to be the most suitable for slavery because then as now are always willing to accept any situation without a fight. This is the exactly the mindset that those who argue for one Nigeria exhibit.

There is no sane argument to keep Nigeria. It is a nation consumed by injustice, hatred, self destruction, it is also the most failed nation on earth incapable of providing the most fundamental right, which is the right to life without which any other right cannot exist and of providing the basic essentials such as electricity, pipe borne water etc. These are basic amenities that are taken for granted in the poorest African countries. In spite of being the 6th largest oil producer in the world and the largest in Africa, Nigeria imports fuel. There is no other nation on the face of the earth with this level of failure. It is a nation that dehumanises her citizens and strips them of every human dignity. A nation that makes animals out of men. A nation that is at best a human zoo. There is a reason why Nigeria has failed so exceptionally and it is her irreconcilable contradictions.

Any careful observer will realise that “one Nigeria” has always been a scam which even the loudest advocates do not believe in. It’s only been a convenient ploy to loot the nation. The so called one Nigeria leaders have contributed more to the destruction of Nigeria than anyone else. In anticipation of the nation’s eventual collapse, all of them are busy building their future outside Nigeria. These leaders send all their children abroad, buy houses abroad and stash their wealth abroad, yet these are the same leaders that sing “one Nigeria”. How long can we be fooled? Indeed is Nigeria not an already disintegrated nation? What is left of a nation where ethnic groups are returning to their enclaves because of ethno-religious crises or where a section of the country introduces sharia laws in violation of the constitution, or where terrorists bomb and kill innocents in churches and other locations on account of their religion and ethnicity? Must we wait for everyone to be killed before we realise that Nigeria cannot work? 

Nigeria is a nightmare. We need to finally confront the reality of it’s impossibility as a viable nation and break-it up. The Scottish have just scheduled an independence referendum for September 2014 after centuries of union with Britain. In 1991, the Soviet Union, a nuclear world power disintegrated. In 1947, Pakistan seeking a separate nation for Muslims seceded from India. In 1993, following a referendum, Eritrea seceded from Sudan. In 1992 Yugoslavia disintegrated leading to more than 8 new nations. In 1993, Czechoslovakia disintegrated. In 1971, Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan. In 2002, East Timor seceded from Indonesia and in 2011 South Sudan seceded from Sudan. There is thus a long precedent of self determination by many nations around the world. Most importantly, none of the new nations have ever regretted their decisions to separate from their former nations in spite of whatever challenges they might be facing. There is no reason why the aftermath of Nigeria’s breakup scenario will be different.

The French live in France, the Irish in Ireland, the Germans in Germany amongst others, so why should so called Nigerians be forced to live with a myriad of disparate ethnic nations that is further divided along religious lines? Amongst former British colonies, three nations namely, Nigeria, Sudan and India were created with contradictions that made them impossible to function by particularly lumping significant Muslim populations with other ethno-religious groups. Out of the three, India and Sudan has disintegrated, only Nigeria remains. There is no nation in the world where significant populations of fundamentalist Muslims cohabit peacefully with other religions and this reality has been vindicated in Nigeria with the endless ethno-religious mass killings in the North. No matter how much we try to pretend, empirical evidence suggests that there will never be peace, harmony nor progress until there is a separation between the fundamentalist Muslims in the Sharia North and the rest. The route of disintegration travelled by India and Sudan must therefore, inevitably include Nigeria and the time is now.....