THE Yoruba are talking secession. Trouble would like to caution the Yoruba that if they cannot walk it, they should please not talk it. Because, when your bluff is called, iku a wa ya j’esin! (death rather than dishonour!) One of our Nigerian collective mistakes and missteps of the past is the Biafran secession with the consequent 30-month civil war and the, perhaps, one million dead. It was a mistake to respond to what happened in the North with secession, a me-alone solution, that embroiled everybody in blood-shed and recrimination, world without end. The greatest weakness of the Biafran secession is the absence of superior argument. It was just another bia afufu, according to Ken Saro Wiwa. Whatever problems, challenges, difficulties are encountered within this country must be resolved within this country. This is the first argument, superior argument against secession. The first argument is that the people are safe, even safer within their own borders. In fact you are not. You are not safe within your-self defined borders because those borders are already in dispute and so it can be breached and it will be breached for the convenient of those you are running away from.
In a country of many ethnicities, many languages, many cultures and many religions, togetherness comes from the variety of beings. India comes to mind immediately. A huge continent of a country and greed and personal ambition led to its being broken into two – India and Pakistan. Not without bloodshed. Then Pakistan broke into two. Not without bloodshed. Then the break off then broke into two, still with bloodshed. India remains, matches on becoming the biggest or largest democracy on earth. Elections take months and cover millions of miles. Even when you can walk it, it is better to stalk it!
The latest reason for wanting out of the Nigerian federation is the recent kidnapping of a personable gentlemen, former secretary to the government of the federation, former minister of finance and former presidential candidate of the country, Chief Olu Falae. He was seized on his farm and taken away for days until a ransom was paid. The instruments of the kidnap are some young Fulani herdsmen. Some organisation claiming to represent the herdsmen across the country denied that they were Fulani herdsmen. The five or so young men paraded by the police and identified by Chief Falae are definitely Fulani and they have herded their cattle onto the farms of Chief Falae before. The people of the Southwest are so peeved by these dangerous actions of these Fulani herdsmen that they are prepared to leave the federation if the federal government does not do something to stop the activities of these herdsmen.
For decades, the conflict between the Fulani herdsmen and the farming communities in the country have led to atrocious incidents in the Plateau. In the South East and the Niger Delta there are reports that men and women can no longer go to their farms because of these herdsmen. The people of Birom have not threatened to leave the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The people of the South East have not threatened to leave the country. And the people of the Niger Delta have not packed out of Nigeria. The menace of Fulani herdsmen should be confronted head on before it leads to further greater communal distresses across the country.
There was some movement at one time to make a law forcing every local government of this country to allocate grazing land to these herdsmen throughout the country. In addition there was to be some law that would confer the status of indigene on a herdsman who has lived and grazed his cattle in any area of Nigeria for ten years. This is the kind of law making that breaks countries and it is a good thing that nobody pursued the passing into law of these two bills. But that it was thought up at all is scary. A stop must be put to this kind of thinking. A stop must be put to this type of cattle ranching immediately.
Femi Falana (SAN) pointed out in a piece in one of the newspapers that the National Conference of last year did mention the issue and sought to deal with it. As we all know, the present political party refused to participate in that national conference and so, has expressed no interest in implementing any of its six hundred or so resolutions. Yet, Nigeria building wisdom in the process of implementing those resolutions. Those resolutions take Nigeria back from the mistakes and missteps that it has made and taken. The trajectory of a unified state has led Nigeria further and further into the abyss where everybody around the world and inside our country makes free predicting the date of the dissolution of the federal republic of Nigeria.
There is no doubt that the present political alliance that the South West is into is the least alliance to serve its political purpose in any run, short, medium or long. The South West has consistently cried for a federal system since the foundation of Nigeria. The early political leadership of the South West have written books and more books about the advantages of a true federal system. The tripod of North East and West finally agreed at the time of independence and opted for a federal system of government for the country. But it was a crooked amunkun federation in which one of the federating units was superior to the remaining two. The mistakes of military rule introduce incurable polio into the system and in no time at all the federation was crawling and getting nowhere.
Nigeria is a born-country. If the British had not seen it, others would have seen it, either from here on earth or from outer space and made a case for a federation that would wrap the two wonderful rivers of Niger and Benue in a knit clean country called Niger Benue or Beni or Benuger, any name but wrapping the beautiful lands around the Niger and the Benue. Let us accept this birth-right. Let’s make it better. Let’s resolve out difficulties within its borders, not without.
This article appeared originally in Omotoso’s column in The Guardian with the title Don’t Talk It If You Cannot Walk It
