THE ILLUSION OF SECTIONAL ASPIRATIONS IN THE NIGERIAN POLITY

Each time I go through the various campaign write ups geographical political considerations abound. I have been thinking about it. It has not made any sense at all. It has become an unproductive prison baring progress from enduring here and now. Hear them everywhere: People are “fighting” for their geographical landmass or what they call the North, South, East and West. They are dagger drawn for Moslem,Christian religious divisions. But I keep asking my self do they understand that Nigeria could no longer be reducible to its early 20th century constituents. I mean we are now far away from the city states status and more than 50 years of evolution separates us from these autonomous near independent entities. Is this the sense in not recognizing that Western Education helped make Nigeria come to be by providing the then “impossible”  formula via constitutional reforms that ushered in a united Nigeria from a collection of hostile city states. Well this election process will be a big benefit in redirecting thinkers to the futility of not taking education as seriously as we should have done for so much unnecessary arguments have come to the fore as to why a Northerner or a Southerner, Moslem or Christian should be President.

It is indeed sad. Much of our problems arise from refusal to understand that there is no more North and South or West after 1960 and 1963 constitutions brought nationhood into focus. Your frustrations in the perceived marginalization or injustice of a part of Nigeria you cling to identifying as “North” is a self inflicted pain which only western education will cure. Unfortunately you also deny this cure. So you have no help in sight for there will never be a North or South or West or East Nigeria unless Nigeria independence is dissolved and that cannot happen while Nigeria is in existences!! If you try to dissolve Nigeria in order to achieve your aim,you only risk becoming a unified target of all the other parts put together. It happened to Biafra remember,so what makes you think it will not happen to a separatist so called “North”? Why because all the parts of Nigeria have strong stakes in the unity of Nigeria and no part is a minority or majority. Is it not stupidity to think that a people with Hausa or Fulani or other tribal name is of the North? What about integration and intermarriages over the decades? Where in Nigeria do you not see Christians and Moslems living side by side? Or where have you seen any homogeneous set of people in Nigeria today ? So when I hear people say they are fighting an Igbo cause or Yoruba vision ,it's marks of pure ignorance and refusal of the proverbial Ostrich to withdraw its head from the hot sands of time! Of course you can have retrogressive laws in certain portions of Nigeria which refuse to recorganize the great diversity and integration that is modern Nigeria,you can have someone looking to take Nigeria back to the city states status in an age of the evolving regional integration such as EU,AU etc but these organizations can only happen at local levels by majority referenda but it must deal with the reality of the international reality or be forcibly shaped by it in its evolution. So my friends wake up and set your selves free from your fight for your so called North,South,East and West for these fights cannot be realized outside the undue pressure it places on our fragile polity which like the todays phantom fuel scarcity leading to the Presidential Elections in Nigeria will only translate to hardship equally shared by both the so called North and the South alike as always it has been through history.

It is easier to integrate by whatever formular than disintegrate and all those who base their political philosophy on separate existence may unfortunately be  banking on no existence at all. Nigeria is an investment not just of Nigerians but of the world. It took us 50 years to evolve out of colonialism into an independent state with a vision to evolve into a viable nation with time. It may well mean that separatists may need to do a commensurate work to to achieve their goal and no ones period on this plane is likely to be extended arbitrarily. So why should you wait for 50 years just to be free from the Nigerian Nation and achieve the desired global respect and recognition as Nigeria did. Why not we join hands and accept that it was not a mistake that we are made to face our problems together in order to overcome them together!

Written by Nwokedi Nworisara.