Take a fresh look at your lifestyle.

Buratai, Biafra & Guardians Of Empire Nigeria – By Femi Fani Kayode

0 434

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.

 

In the last two years the quest for self-determination amongst the numerous ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria has reached a crescendo.

This is especially so with many from the younger generation.

Millions of young people are infuriated, disgusted and fed up with the injustice and evil that they have been subjected to by the Nigerian state for virtually all of their lives.

They are energised and propelled by their passion and desire for a fairer deal and a better future.

Consequently they have keyed into that quest and are agitating for, at the very least, a total constitutional overhaul and restructuring of the federation and, at the very best, outright and complete secession and the establishment of a new country.

The agitation is particularly strong in the areas that are known as the Middle Belt, the Niger Delta, the south-east and the south-west and, in all cases, such calls have been backed by the elders of those zones.

Members of the detained and deeply courageous Nnamdi Kanu’s Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) together with the Movement For The Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and other Igbo nationalist and self-determination groups have been the trail blazers in this respect and have taken the lead.

Such has been the potency of their agitation and campaign that they are getting solid and increasing backing from the new and exceptionally dynamic Chief John Nnia Nwodo-led Ohanaeze, the leading Igbo socio-cultural organisation which represents and speaks for the elders and leaders of the Igbo nation.

Self-determination groups in the Middle Belt such as the Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU) are also on the rise and they are demanding for the emancipation of the people of Southern Kaduna and the northern minorities generally from the clutches of the hegemonists and internal colonial masters.

Similar groups are dotted all over the Middle Belt and the north central zone and they have the full backing and endorsement of the Northern Christians Elders Forum, the Middle Belt Forum, the Core Middle Belt Forum and the Middle Belt Dialogue Forum.

In the south-west Afenifere has recently offered similar support for the traditional Yoruba nationalist groups like the Dr. Frederick Fasheun-led and Gani Adams-led Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM).

As a glaring testimony to this just a few days ago, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the number two man in Afenifere and one of the most revered and respected voices in the country, said that if Nigeria was not restructured soon the Yoruba people would have no choice but to go their own way and establish Oduduwa Republic.

The Niger Deltans and the people of the south-south zone have refused to be left out.

They have consistently voiced their desire for a better deal for their people and their insistence on resource control and self-determination through groups like the Ijaw Youth Congress, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and relatively new and even more militant groups like the hard-hitting and elusive Niger Delta Avengers.

Finally one cannot but mention the Shiite Muslims of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria who have suffered relentless persecution at the hands of the Nigerian state, who have been slaughtered in their thousands by officers of the Sunni Muslim-controlled Nigerian Army and whose leader Sheik El Zakzaky remains in unlawful detention up until today.

For many years the Shiites have been treated with brutality, disdain and contempt by the traditional institutions in the north and the Sunni-Muslim ruling elite and they are yearning for their freedom from bondage and religious persecution and agitating for a safer space under the sun.

From the foregoing it is clear that all is not well in the artificial mega-nation and super-state that was christened “Nigeria” (meaning “area of darkness” in Latin) by the British just over one hundred years ago.

As each day passes more and more people from all over the country are doubting the continued viability of our forced union.

They are also questioning the wisdom and expediency of the 1914 amalgamation and “arranged marriage” of what were originally the northern and southern protectorates of Nigeria by Lord Frederick Lugard and our erstwhile British colonial masters.

Unfortunately the response of the traditional defenders and apologists of the Nigerian state, rather than calm frayed nerves, has only compounded the problems and hardened hearts.

Instead of coming to terms with this new thinking and attempting to appeal to those that feel aggrieved they have opted to be confrontational, uncompromising, unreasonable, unrepentant and aggressive.

Instead of attempting to convince others that things can still get better and that there is still some hope for a united, indivisible and unrestructured Nigeria, the powers that be, our internal colonial masters and those that believe that the status quo must be maintained and that say that any talk of restructuring or a break up is not only criminal but also blasphemous and heretic, have continued to threaten, insult and attempt to intimidate those that do not share their narrow and retrogressive views.

It is in this context and from this prism that I view the intervention of Lt. General Tukur Buratai, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, to the debate. On the 6th March 2017 he said as follows:

“I want to call on all the agitators for separation that they better forget it: not in this era, not in this millennium. Agitators for Nigeria’s separation will wait for another four millennia”.

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.