At last the country is set on a historical journey to rescue itself from a tortured past, and if all goes well, to save the present and future generations from a lurking but predictable cataclysm. Last week, President Goodluck Jonathan set this enterprise on the move by announcing the institution of a Presidential National Dialogue Advisory Committee to produce a roadmap for convoking a national conference. Even when it fell short of the expectations of those who had called for a Sovereign National Conference(SNC) capable of taking far reaching decisions to resolve once and for all the nagging question of nationhood and relationship between the ethnic nationalities, the expected conference is still been hailed as an auspicious beginning.
According to the President, the committee has six weeks to submit its report, and if accepted it would guide the deliberations of the conference delegates. As expected, different opinions and camps have started emerging on the proposed conference. Proponents are of the view that the present political architecture has not only been gruesomely skewed to favour a few to the detriment of many other nationalities, the super-structure if allowed to stand would in no distant time come crashing to smithereens. The cracks are already showing and it would take the foolhardiness of those bent on maintaining the status quo to ignore it.
Of course, there are many who like the biblical Pharaoh Ramses 11 have become inured to signs and warnings of catastrophe until they come to pass. For such people, the political arrangement serves to perpetuate their hegemonic hold on the country and any process to alter such suzerainty would be vehemently resisted. That is why the present staccato of noises is now renting the air, especially from those bitter with the Jonathan administration for having the temerity to admit that the country has for long been living a lie. Expectedly, politics is now getting in the way of what should in a normal and decent clime be received with all conscionable sobriety and warm appreciation.
But not in Nigeria which has turned a huge jungle of snarling and prowling animals menacingly seeking for whom to devour. Admittedly, the present state of affairs does not institute justice and equity, but those pleased with it have no iota of qualms. For them, justice is for the strong, and therefore survival should be for the fittest. Probably, to douse the enthusiasm for the conference, some die hard opponents have been going to town with the propaganda that the timing is meant to coincide with the start of the 2015 presidential campaign and had been primed to rack up enough political capital for President Jonathan to the detriment of the opposition.
Even when the President's altruism and self abnegation point to the contrary, it seems that those ill at ease with the conference are not resting till they scuttle it. It is here that all true meaning Nigerians should stand up and resist such absurdity. Probably, the little emperors have refused to learn from history. It is imperative to assert that the geographical entity known as Nigeria is a historical accident engineered by British colonialism. Before 1900, northern and southern Nigeria, and even Lagos were administered as separate entities. It was the glaring educational and economic inequalities between them and the fact that colonial Britain was bent on reducing the cost of administration that made it come up with what is now known as amalgamation in 1914.
Since then, the colonially designed country has lurched from one crisis to another, culminating in a devastating civil war from 1967-1970. One can safely hazard that the 1922 Clifford Constitution, the 1946 Richard Constitution , the Macpherson Constitution of 1951 and Lyttleton Constitution of 1954, were all designed to ameliorate the potential conflicts then rearing up their heads among the different ethnic nationalities, even when they were enacted to perpetuate political mischief between the regions. Much of Nigeria's problems are traceable to infamous colonial legacy that sowed the destructive seeds of political contestation for domination along ethnic lines till this day.
All over Africa, the story is the same and those countries able to mitigate such fault lines are making progress, while those including Nigeria that refuse to acknowledge the precarious nature of their existence are bound to discover the folly of their intransigence in no distant time. That is why the committee must not listen to those advocating a no-go area as part of their remit. Everything must come up for discussion, including the right to secession. History has recorded that the most successful democratic countries are those where different groups and geographical zones are in voluntary union. Even autocracies and dictatorships still in existence know they are living on borrowed times.
The former Soviet Union had secession clause in its constitution after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and other republics relied on it to go their separate ways in 1990. Austria seceded from Nazi Germany in 1945. Belgium seceded from the Netherlands in 1830. There have been consistent stirrings from French speaking Quebec of Canada to leave the union. Pakistan did just that from India in 1947, while Scotland would be holding a referendum in September 2014 to sever ties with the United Kingdom. South Sudan's recent example shows that the boundaries of states are not inviolable when the relationship is not working, and Nigeria cannot be an exception.
Source: A mission to salvage Nigeria (http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/a-mission-to-salvage-nigeria/)