The IPOB and Odua separatists believe they invented the wheel. This Nigerian nationstate is a failure, let’s try another nationstate in our name!
Yes, it is agreed that a certain region has established hegemonic powers over others. Corruption, nepotism, marginalization, rigged elections, economic and political parambulation… Name it, if it’s bad, it’s Nigeria!
We agree. Let’s seperate into another country of our tribe and we would excel like… Well none of the 66 Black nations under the Sun is successful. None from Haiti, the first Black nationstate created in 1804. Haiti like the 60 Black nations that came after it, won independence and started off great, building public infrastructure. Then boof downhill. Every single one fails including South Sudan, the newest African nationstate fought for over 30yrs.
Let’s even put aside the military and political considerations necessary to breakaway Nigerian territory. Like Chinese films, let’s make believe we can achieve the seemingly impossible feat of 2 regions winning 4 regions militarily or politically, since the smaller groups of Northcentral and South South regions are not keen in separatists adventures that will lead them into permanent subjugation to bigger hegemons in near monolithic tribal nations, which is why they have opted for a South and Middlbelt alliance ONLY to restructure.
Yes we want to do away with those we believe are retarding our progress but does it have to be another nationstate with the same post colonial structures? If you keep doing the same thing and failing, it gets to a point to ask yourself what is really happening. If you change the people and names without success, isn’t it really high time we examine the concept and desirability of nationstates and see whether there is another way to achieve our collective aspirations of peace, prosperity and equity.
The first incidence of a modern nationstate was the slave traders that left slave trading Portugal to reclaim Netherlands, and in other to protect their slave trading activities from the hegemony of the French and Roman Empire themselves declared a nationstate.
The second stage of nationstate was inspired when Africans revolted and declared their freedom, and they were isolated and contained in one side of the Hispaniola island named Haiti. The loss of France top earner led to the Napoleaonic wars, whereby the French wanted to compensate their loss of Haiti and Louisiana by taking over Portugal and hopefully her Brazilian colonies, eventually leading to the defeat of the French and the clear demarcation of American and European territories in the Treaty of Paris and Vienna. This grew into the demarcation of territories in the balkanization of Africa, legitimized at the Berlin Conference on Africa.
So the question is why are we fixated on the concept of nationstate which was essentially about African slavery, exploitation and deprivation. It was a move from plantation slavery in the Americas to political plantations in Africa. Despite our independence, we still remained tied to the master servant relationship with the colonial masters, who handles most of our trade and economy, while African countries do less than 15% trade within themselves. Despite their independence, the political leadership is teleguided from the power corridors of Washington DC, Paris and London.
The call for cessation is not essentially against the White colonists who divided the Original African civilization made up of citystates, but against fellow Africans. It’s a fight for Oyinbo attention and delegation. Massa, the neighboring slaves are the ones always leading us to your doorstep, please separate us so we can lead ourselves to your doorstep. That’s it. Those in the front of our slavery chain gang are tugging on the chain to hard and peeling our ankles, please give us our own chains to make our own chain gang.
Our slavery was not only physical, but also cultural, economical and political, and we are yet to remove the cultural, economic and political chains. If anything an Original African shouldn’t be asking for more restricted space when his passport, which evolved from plantation slave passes for slaves to move around, makes him restricted to the political plantation and a few others. While Oyinbo passports can travel to 80% of the world without hassle, African passports are restricted to Africa and a few countries. We were enslaved solely for economic exploitation should our freedom based on further economic isolation and deprivation of smaller nationstates?
No African nation is industrialized because of the simple fact that heavy manufacturing is based on iron and steel, and to cover the overheads you need to make arms and war in what is known as military industrial complex. Therefore for Black Africa to become industrialized we need to come together to fight European barriers, as well as have a huge market base to bring the overheads and unit cost down. Enough local demand to buy the cars, use the railways and other uses of steel to make industrialization viable before considering making armored tanks.
At the top end of the military industrial complex is the aircraft industry that covers its overheads with the production of commercial airlines with fighter Jets. Initially only USA had the large enough market to make it commercially viable which made the European Union come together to build the Airbus. The only other nations that could set it up and at a commercial loss were China and Russia.
Only Nigeria has the large enough population in Africa, both consumer and labor markets, to be able to break the economic barriers into industrialization, and once that is broken up, the Black Race can forget about a single Black nation ever becoming fully industrialized. So cessation into smaller nationstates is not a viable option out of the status quo which is equally bad. Yes, the status quo MUST change, no doubt. Since we can not go forward and be successful with this notion of nationstate, why can’t we go back to what it was before colonization and modernize it into what it would probably have been if we weren’t enslaved and colonized.
The best idea on the political negotiation table is restructuring which is to retrieve power of the people taken by foreign colonists and invested in faraway capitals and powerbases. It seeks ethnic self determination over their economy and culture. Just like the economic argument against creating smaller nationstates, there is an economic argument in favor of restructuring to true federalism. Take out the tribal coloration, there are always different regional interests in whatever country.
The needs of Northern USA is different from those of Southern USA, which is usually dictated by climate, vegetation and other environmental issues. Initially, the Northern USA with a climate similar to Europe couldn’t produce tropical crops like sugar, cotton and tobacco which were in high demand, and produced by the South. The North wanted to process and manufacture things so it wanted to restrict imports, while the South wanted an open market. More over since there are always limited resources, the regions competed for both favorable policies and budgetary allocations to help their regions, which has nothing to do with ethnicity.
Restructuring to federal units is not only about political or tribal issues but basic management and economics issues of whether it is more productive for decisions to be made at the local level where the resources and Labour are being used for better accountability or from faraway corrupt decision makers with no local knowledge of the production functions.
Corruption will be reduced since the local and federal government will make the states more accountable. While some restructuring activists want decision making to be brought to the regional level, which conforms to the three giant groups of Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Niger Deltans and Middlebelters, others pushed for restructuring down to the state levels in order to bring self determination to the small ethnicities and just don’t wish them away to regional hegemons.
The 2014 Confab Report agreed on federalism on the states level and gave the option of either states to come together for better economies of scale, or for ethnicities to vote to leave their present state to an adjoining state. This brings not only economics to the local people, but also empowers them with the political freedom to decide where they want to be in a loose confederation. Just like the political movement for independence across Africa started with Azikwe coming together with Herbert Macauley, this movement must be empowered by Yoruba and Igbo unity, and spread across Africa to break the final shackles of European nationstates into a loose continentwide confederacy of self determined citystates and ethnicities.
There is a need to spread it across Africa to enable ethnicities cut across European defined nationstates to unify. For the Yoruba to be free to trade with their cousins in Benin, Togo and across West Africa, the Igbos free to trade with family in Cameron, Gabon, Congo and all the way to South Africa, and the Hausas and other Afroasians to freely trade across the Sahel.
A loose confederate that only comes together for joint economic and security infrastructure. The nationstate concept was first sold to us as protectorates by those who had dumped 400,000 guns on our coast to create an arms for slaves race and anarchy. Over 100 yrs and we are still awaiting the protection from the same arms race within nations and armed herdsmen across the grasslands.
The Original African civilization must protect the billion strong 2240 Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family across Africa. From Nigeria, the two most populous and oldest Niger Congo groups must be united in defence of a policy of touch, one touch all. If they remain self centered, Abrahamic civilizations of the Northern Afroasians and Western Powers will insidiously derail and annihilate their cultural identity and that of a billion people. As we stray they they will use the same trick to overwhelm all different groups.
Then again some believe the separatists are unserious and just want to politically cash in on the support they can gather based on frivolous xenophobic claims, especially towards the 2023 presidential election. They claim they want to break territory through dialogue and not weapons they obviously don’t have or electoral victories. This takes the political space and muddles up the negotiations of the Southbelt alliance within themselves and with the federal government.
This raises the suspicion of the possibility of a deep conspiracy of divide and rule through miseducation and propaganda that promotes Pan-Tribalism and divisions between Yoruba, Igbo and other Original African groups. Why did they have to come out when the South and Middlebelt alliance was making headway to restructuring. Is it a case of ‘Keep them bickering like slaves’ to stop their uniting plans to create their own powerbase. The calls for separatism promotes cultural distrust that prevents a cultural alliance between South and Middlebelt. The lure of a short fix demotivates the collective from doing the tough task of building a South and Middlebelt alliance.
Whatever the separatists do, we the majority should shout loudly not in our name. We won’t support another Oyinbo leaning nationstate that we further shrinking our economic and political space. We will not support the destabilization of West Africa like they did 500yrs ago. The moment Biafra is declared, millions of Igbos will be chased from other regions by the lower classes that want to take over their markets. Lagos, the Yoruba jewel citystates will end up like Beirut, as we have war in deciding our Northern and Eastern boundaries. The War in the Middlebelt will lead to the Northwest going back to its old slave route using Cotonou Freeport, which will develop to counter Lagos. The Northeast will also return to its slave route in Cameroon ports. Ultimately, we will all be losers.
So let the youth shout loudly Biafra oo, Odua oo or whatever, NOT IN MY NAME. Let the separatists use their sponsors name, especially Britain that has sent some Blacks Conservatives to push us into destabilization, so they can come again like in 1890s in the name of protecting us from the war they cause, all in order to recolonize us. The British call the ploy to recolonize us through destabilization caused by separatists – Empire 2.0. Others are using the separatists towards 2023 presidency. But whatever the case, not in our name or for the betterment of the majority.
