Biafra and Other Troubling Ghosts
By
I came of age in the refugee camps of Biafra. As a child of four I saw playmates of mine die, cut down in the morning of their lives by
Kwashiokor and other starvation-induced maladies. I grew up learning to distinguish the deep drone of a jet bomber from the bee-like buzz of a jet fighter
so as to know whether to get out of the camp and flee into the bush (less you go down with the bombed flimsy structure) or stay put under the bed, less you dash out into the street and get cut down by withering fire from a diving fighter. Soon we'd
acquired dexterity in this game of survival, my siblings and I. There was also one other skill I acquired in Biafra: hunting down rats and lizards. Food
was scarce; we were always hungry, and these denizens of the bush were a rare delicacy when you ensnared them. And then, after it all, when the soldiers
stopped killing each
other and we were allowed to return home to Asaba in January 1970, I learnt a new song. It was a big hit on the radio waves at the time. Its name was
'Happy Survival.' It is still one of my favourite songs. Dear reader, I survived.
President Obasanjo has reacted to Emeka Ojukwu's threat a couple of weeks that the Igbo might consider reviving the Biafra option again if a national
conference was not convened to address the 'marginalisation' of the people in a meaningful way. Obasanjo said Biafra was one war too many, and that the
appalling loss of lives in that bloody drama ought to be enough reason for Nigeria's leaders never to walk the secessionist path ever again. I agree with
Obasanjo that war is a messy business that we don't need. But I disagree with
his bellicose language. I also disagree with his method of dealing with what he perceives to be the forces undermining the unity of the country. Unity,
like a happy marriage, cannot be enforced. You don't point a gun to someone's head and say to him or her, 'Oya, let's marry.' You may liken unity to a
beautiful woman (or man for that matter) you desire to make your life's partner. You woo her; you 'sell' yourself; you convince her through words and deeds why it will be beneficial for her that both of you get together. People love with their
hearts, it is true. But they love with their heads too. As the witty but wise Nigerian would say: 'He handsome; he handsome, but na handsomeness I go
chop?'
Sometimes I have a feeling that President Obasanjo is playing the ostrich and pretending that Nigeria is one happy and united family when all there really
to it is a riotous crowd of irate children pummelling at each other and threatening to bring the house down on their heads. The truth of the matter is
that huge swathes of Nigeria have seceded. For secession is not only when a social group
mark out a distinct political space, hoist a brand new flag over it, and declare it the sovereign republic of whatever. There is also what I call
'secession of the mind.' When a state and its leadership does not look out for your interest; when it does not exert itself to ensure you have a decent
job and that your children attend decent schools and see a qualified doctor when they are ill, then you are on your way to seceding from this polity. If,
worse, this same state takes it upon itself it aid outsiders to rape its own people and plunder their resources, then secession no longer become a
possibility but a serious option. The alternative, after all, is extinction. One may still be a 'Nigerian.' But one's mental map has drastically shifted.
Nigeria, a country of pain, is no longer 'home.' Secession has occurred, albeit in the mind.
I repeat: a large number of Nigerians have taken 'leave of absence' from the country. Let us not forget that the Ogoni, under Ken Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP,
designed an Ogoni flag and wrote an Ogoni national anthem in 1993. These were not just empty gestures. Saro-Wiwa was not making 'shakara.' His argument,
brilliantly and persuasively put in the Ogoni Bill of Rights, was that the Nigerian state had reduced the Ogoni to subject status, was taking away their oil in collaboration with Shell, and that justice and equity demanded that the basis of Nigerian unity be renegotiated so the Ogoni could have direct
representation in all key Nigerian institutions by right. Saro-Wiwa's vision of Nigeria is a country of equal citizens; a country where all worked for the
food they put into their mouths; a country where you don't get to be president just because you are from one of the big three ethnic groups, but because
all ethnic groups, no matter how small, and all interest groups, no matter how weak their lobbying or financial muscle, have agreed that you are indeed
presidential 'material' and will advance their collective interests when you get there.
Saro-Wiwa's political model is one founded on consensual democracy and a social citizenship that works to ensure that poverty, that blight that cripples
meaningful political participation, is banished from the land.
While it is true that he ruled out secession as an option, preferring a con-federal arrangement in which the Ogoni would have a place in the sun,
Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP mentally took a leave of absence from Nigeria until such a time it proved itself worthy of their love. Ijo youth, in their Kaiama
Declaration, the Egi, in the Aklaka Declaration, and the resolutions of the First Urhobo Economic Summit, make the same point. Nigeria as presently
constituted is a political arrangement in which all power and strategic resources are centralised in Abuja. It is not working. There is need for power to
devolve to its constituent communities. These communities want to sew their own coat, not given one that does not fit by the tailors in Aso Rock; they
want to fashion their own fishing hook and catch their own fish, not wait for Obasanjo to order 'iced' fish from England to feed them. They are not saying
that they are opting out of Nigeria; as a matter of fact what they are saying is that Nigeria will be stronger, wealthier, and more united when its
constituent parts have a measure of control over their own social and economic space. Thus would the oft-quoted Nigerian slogan, 'unity in diversity,'
truly come into its own.
It would be naive, even dangerous, to assume that the political and economic problems that sired Biafra have disappeared or have been addressed. To
paper over a problem is not the same thing as addressing it. Biafra, lest we forget, was a struggle for self-determination; it was also a struggle to
redefine the character of the Nigerian state, who exercised power over the whole, to what extent, and for what purpose. Are the Ijo, Ikwerre, Ogoni and
several other communities in the Niger Delta not continuing that struggle today? Are the Tiv, Jukun, Fulani, and Hausa presently slugging out in the Middle Belt not
struggling to redefine the very basis of citizenship in the Nigerian state? Are not the millions who trudge the streets of Lagos and the nation's other
urban sprawls in search of food not fighting for self-determination and demanding the right to work and a decent wage?
There is a worrying intellectual deficit at the heart of the Obasanjo presidency. There are no properly-thought through policies. What passes for
government policy are verbal pronouncements, delivered in the most threatening of tones, as though Nigerians were a conquered people who must obey
instructions or else. The American and British governments quietly attempted to cut the ground from under Obasanjo last month when they sought to convene
a meeting with the governors of the oil-producing states - the area where the angry tinder is now glowing. The American ambassador and the British High
Commissioner were active participants in the events that eventually culminated in civil war in July 1967. They read the signs correctly then and quietly
moved to manoeuvre actors and events to serve their strategic interests in the sub-region. The present American ambassador and the British High
Commissioner know that Obasanjo's speeches about forcing 'unity' down the throats of would be secessionists is so much hot air. Secession may not yet be a
reality; but it is certainly in the air. Pretending that there are no sections of country so seriously aggrieved today that tomorrow's events may push
them down that tragic road is like saying that ordinarily, a rational man would stay in a burning house and go down with it because he loved it so much.
No, a thinking man would do his utmost to douse the flames. Failing, he would jump ship and save his skin. Let us rethink Nigeria and save her.
December 2001