The Center cannot hold!!

By

Ben Lawrence

The unresolved matters of the 1966/67 era have resurfaced, rising like eddies of mist from a valley to form a pall of ominous smoke hanging over Nigeria. We have failed to answer the questions of who we are, where we are as peoples down the Sahel. How can we see through the smoke with rose-tinted glasses as the then Murtala Muhammed/Olusegun Obasanjo 1975–79 school would like us to do? That school meant well, but it was not pragmatic. We are people of varying cultures, each deep-rooted and native. We were not torn from other continents and planted here, as were the conquerors of North and South America and their black slaves.

British rule hardly made a dent in our cultures, aspirations and attitudes in its more than 100 years of operation in the Gulf of Guinea. Bini medical doctors and lawyers, who shaved their hair when a past Oba departed, were not ready for the preachments of the so-called 20th century human rights doctrines. The people of the south-west, who generically could be addressed as the Yoruba nowadays, have more confidence in their native “Osugbo” and “Ogboni” systems for keeping the peace and good governance than in any imported ones. Even the east-central Igbo have their republican system in many areas. Those near the Efiks and Ibibios of the south-east adopt the “Ekpe” system. Nigerians are not all republicans. So the real name of this country ought to be Federation of Nigeria; not in mutual respect for peace and order.

Let us tell the new breed what happened between 1950 and 1960. Perhaps they need that education, because when Nigeria was being forged for nationhood there was no talk of living like the Britons or the Americans or the French or the Russians. The talk was about how to live together as Nigerians in our peculiar circumstances, recognising that we have our own systems that are older than the so-called executive presidential and parliamentary democracies. The inferiority complex of the new breed is shocking. So ours never can be like America’s or Russia’s. Some zones in Nigeria recognised modern learning, especially science and technology, more than others. But science and technology to them were merely to be instruments of speeding the growth of their cultures and never their gods nor their modes of government.

“The best document ever made for Nigerians to co-exist was the 1960 independence constitution. What we now have is neither a hybrid nor a pretender. It is fraudulent”

So, there was no talk about any central dictator either as president or monarch for Nigeria because the regions were autonomous and some realised the essential need for monarchs as guides and symbols. It was the Action Group crisis in 1962 that gave birth to the republic. It was expedient. The republic was created to kill the AG, which had won its case at the Privy Council. That was after the very first assault on the region by a state of emergency in the west and directly governing the region.

It gave rise to the first military coup because of the resultant succession events. The Eastern Region was to suffer the same fate as the west because the centre had instigated Adaka Boro, to declare a Niger Delta Republic, an event, but for the first coup, which would have led to a state of emergency being declared there and of course, the ouster of Dr Michael I Okpara, a man who in every sense was like his bosom friend and elder, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

The best document ever made for Nigerians to co-exist was the 1960 independence constitution. It improved on the earlier one of 1954. But what we now have is neither a hybrid nor a pretender. It is an abortion of what Nigeria should not be if wise heads had met to pattern for us a mode for peaceful co-existence. It is fraudulent.

All the zonal and tribal groupings are right in their agitation. The centre has marginalised the spirit of peaceful co-existence, especially since 1984 when we started to breed unrepentant military dictators. The truth is that nothing has changed. The truth is that we have not met freely in the past 40 years to examine the covenant we made in 1960 to either update it or decide whether the marriage is worth the candle. There have been many militarily declared “no go” areas and dubious inclusions to corner the oil wealth of the coast.

Johnson Thomas Umunuakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi and Yakubu Gowon are to blame for our present crisis of confidence. Both wanted and kept power at the centre with the help of greedy, self-serving civil servants and their political cronies. So their boys followed suit and castrated peaceful co-existence. In 1966 it was clear that the regional components either wanted to break up or to live loosely together. When Shettima Kashim Ibrahim led the north to that August conference, his people were asking to leave Nigeria and stuck to “Araba”. The west, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, wanted either a loose federation or to quit. The East, led by Professor Eni Njoku, merely asked whether they were still wanted in Nigeria. The young Midwest, led by Chief Anthony Enahoro, was delegated to ask for a loose federation, but that team changed the mandate, espousing that a weak centre would lead to disintegration of Nigeria. That decision should now haunt Enahoro and those who were trying to be more Nigerian than the beneficiaries of the system. Gowon unilaterally stopped the proceedings of that conference on seeing that power would slip from his hand after the west had told him that he held the reins and could use the military to his advantage.

Thirty-four years after, the questions still recur without answers. There is continued blood-letting and a break-up beckons. Many parts of Nigeria have had their aspirations thwarted or curbed because of the unresolved matters of 1966. The centre has had no superior philosophy or ideal to arrest everybody. Based on the plan of the Midwest under David Ejoor in 1967, for example, if Aburi had materialised or if the old order had stayed, the people of that region would not have been paying capitalisation taxes today. The Anukpe, Amadi-Eminas, Chukwujekwes, Olu Akpatas and others had attracted many investors to the state to continue with the industrial development started by Dennis Osadebay. But with Gowon seizing sources of financing such development, it was handicapped. When Samuel Ogbemudia became governor, it was the sheer enterprise of the restless mortar expert that registered the successes still credited to his name today, with the central government adding not a dime. One should tell the story by Ken Saro Wiwa that absolved Awolowo of all allegations of changing course on the issue of revenue allocation according to sources of derivation.

Finance commissioners of the federation had met; the majority of them supporting the old revenue/principle of sharing according to sources of derivation. In fact, the commissioners from the Midwest, Kano, Rivers, Benue/Plateau were more vocal in support of this policy. Awo, being an advocate of the same policy, after the conclusion of their meeting, led them to Gowon at Dodan Barracks and tendered the agreement they reached. Saro-Wiwa, then Rivers commissioner for finance, said when they got there, Gowon told them he would uphold the principle. That man never had any mind. After seeing his oracles – Attah, Ayida, Asiodu, Ebong and others – who coveted Nigerian’s crude oil wealth from the Niger Delta, and who schooled him on the subject, he took a completely different policy to the Supreme Military Council, at which a former council member and governor of Kano Audu Bako and a few others vehemently opposed him. Gowon overruled them and destroyed that principle that was agreed on at independence, just like his reneging on Aburi. Today we are back to square one.

“It is not accidental that groups now have their militias. It is a loss of faith in the ability of the centre to be fair in the protection of life and property”

First of all, Gowon compelled Shell, Gulf and others to transfer their headquarters from Port Harcourt and Warri to Lagos. Instead of Shell developing Port Harcourt, it concentrated on building high-rise office blocks and other staff development facilities in Lagos. The same thing happened to Gulf, now Chevron. Mobil, Elf, Agip and others followed when they started prospecting for oil.

The policy of seizing others’ resources and sharing with kin and friends made Nigerians unenterprising and stymied progressive and creative thinking in the states. Most of the so-called states are glorified local councils, not up to the status and stature of the erstwhile Kano, Egba and Benin native authorities. They are not viable and so not fit to exist in a true federation. This robbing Peter to pay Paul is the cause of our differences today. And so there is need for a national conference.

If we live largely on the revenues derived from our states the creation of wealth will be easier because rulers will become more innovative. Now, they are dumb. They look into Abuja to allocate funds for them to pay their workers and for general development. Abuja itself is lazy and not industrious. It dreams only of oil even though practical thinkers like Lateef Jakande had preached against it. Since 1972, Jakande has been advocating other sources of revenue. This is a fraudulent federation.

The argument for a conference and regrouping goes deeper than that. It is not accidental that groups now have their militias. It is a loss of faith in the ability of the centre to be fair in the protection of life and property. It will be time-wasting to attempt to obliterate the militias because they enjoy the support of their communities more than agencies of the state and federal government.

This greedy attempt to control the oil wealth by groups which are worlds away from where it is mined could lead to the end of Nigeria. One agrees with Alhaji Mohammed Dikko Yusufu that the worst problem of Nigeria and the cause of the present ethnic disquiet is economic. An idle mind, they say, is the devil’s workshop. Unemployed school-leavers are ready recruits for any rabble rouser.

We keep on talking of a private sector-engineered economy. What has the organised private sector done in the past 20 years to create wealth? We must beware of being led astray by neo-colonialists and their local agents, many of whom were discredited in office in this country and who now bestride political terrain. Chief Philip Asiodu condemned corruption in his interview with the BBC. He should read Terisa Turner’s chapter on ‘Soldiers and Oil Politics’ and the uncomplimentary things said about him. He has not cleared his name. Should we then entrust the direction at our economy to him? This excerpt from a speech by Chief Osayande O Apata, Ogieseoba of Benin, to Nigerian students at the University of Ibadan in 1965 is worth repeating here because it is relevant: “The defeat of the French by the heroic forces of Ho Chi Minh in Dien Bien Phu in 1954 saw the withdrawal of colonialism from Asia. Nevertheless, the imperialist powers have devised new methods by which they seek to maintain the old relationships with the ex-colonial countries. These constitute genuine obstacles to the social and economic development of the Afro-Asian nations.

“In this sense, the national liberation movement still continues. In Vietnam and Congo, the imperialist powers have enthroned mediocre and puppet regimes. In other places, the Afro-Asian countries are being drawn into the orbit of cold war politics through the granting of the so-called economic aids and military pacts.

“In addition, some of the economic aids are given in order to ensure that the capitalist system of development obtains in the countries concerned. It is not unusual to find indigeneous Afro-Asian peoples in business partnerships with the foreign capitalists. Experience has shown, however, that the capitalist system of development in the emerging nations spells misery for the masses whilst a handful of those on top take all the benefits. To perpetuate this system, imperialist powers enter into military pacts. In many cases, the foreign military personnel stationed in these countries are engaged in suppressing nationalist rising, forming a buffer between the oppressed and the oppressors.”

Will Chief Bola Ige disagree with this view more so now that Nigeria has a conscienceless, uninformed, unideological and unpatriotic national bourgeoisie? One wonders whether present-day Nigerian Labour understands this plot and the dynamics of struggle. The solution to imperialist manipulation in Nigeria is to develop power for pragmatic, people-oriented development. Nigeria at the centre, as she has stood for the past 34 years, is ill-suited for any growth. Except between 1975 and 1979, the imperialist powers have been riding the Nigerian horse through their greedy and unpatriotic agents.

May we now tell Nigerians that the new craze, privatisation, has been thoroughly discredited in Britain. The Conservative Party, on whose platform Margaret Thatcher unleashed the scourge on Britain, has now shifted to the centre to recover its electoral losses. The policy made Britain and its people poorer. Transportation, manufacturing and social welfare took a severe beating from the inefficiency of the policy. Bill Clinton made government engineer social and economic growth in the US and took 12 million out of the unemployment queue.

Well, Ken Livingstone made the point recently in London’s mayoral contest, when the reds took over the largest city in the world. Yet, the imperialist powers are still riding the Nigerian horse. Before 1987 there was hardly poverty in the former Eastern bloc. Today, six out of 10 in Ukraine Russia, Georgia and others live under poverty line.

Do you wish this for Nigeria with SAP?

First published in 1989