Was Nigeria in its geographic sense created to last or was it a convenient contraption for extractive purposes? Since the birth of this republic, ethnic discontent and violence have been one of its characteristic markers. Before and after the Civil War, there was never a national consolidation based on the principle of federalism within the structure of a liberal, democratic and secular state. The unfortunate military interregnum exaggerated the fissures. Nigerian nationalism never fully developed. For over 60 years, no one leader has been able to channel the public to its raison d’être. This republic with its vast multiculture was never sufficiently inclusive. It never cared to fulfill the aspirations of several ethnic groups constituting it. Tensions and violence became endemic, because the state was insensitive to the depth of ethnonational identities and the emotions surrounding it, on the basis of injustice and hegemonic arrogance.
We all know that justice and peace have positive correlation, and both move in tandem. When there is no justice, there is no peace. In the Republic, Plato asserted that: “Our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class (or ethnic group), but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a state, which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole be most likely to find justice and the ill-ordered state, injustice.” Through actions and deliberate inactions, President Buhari has polarised the country further, and deepened the chasm of distrust among the ethnic nationalities. In various ways, from the RUGA policy to lopsided appointments and many other norm-shattering behaviours, he has stirred ethnonationalist and group identity feelings in people.
He has made many question their Nigerianess in the face of anarchy, insecurity and insensitivity. Who is a Nigerian? A Nigerian cannot just be someone who is a citizen of Nigeria. That is as shallow, as it is it is unstable. There has to be a deeper meaning and character to citizenship. There has to be at least an ideal to citizenship. One cannot claim citizenship and still feel like an alien. Nigeria was not created by the consent of the governed. It is a post-colonial state. No post-colonial state in Africa can evolve and develop, if the elite refuses to take a modernist view of nation and nationalism, without addressing the weighty influence of ethnic identities and primordial loyalties. In every facet of national life, Nigeria has never taken the long view of anything. Instead, it has been a classic example of state capture, as described by the World Bank; a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage.
The rise of ethnonationalism in Nigeria is not a fluke. It is not driven by the elite. It is a bottom-up thing, fed by the disempowered. It is real and furious in fervor. The emergence of Sunday Igboho and the growing strength of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) are indicators of budding political movements based around a more exclusive form of ethnonational identity that may be violent. Throughout modern history, ethnonationalism has been present within every society. It deepens and galvanises people when they feel threatened, marginalised or unjustly deprived. Whoever thinks this is all smoke should remember that several strong political movements have been birthed by ethnonationalist discontent, as seen in the Tea Party movement, which was a precursor to the election of Donald Trump; the alienation that contributed to the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom; the rise of naked populists in Brazil, Hungary and Poland. In the long run, it is defeatist to respond to the aspirations of marginalised groups by relying on force, leading to greater alienation of these groups.
Walker Connors brought clarity to ethnonationalism by describing it as loyalty to a nation deprived of its own state and the loyalty to an ethnic group embodied in a specific state, particularly where the latter is conceived as a nation state. Of course, the inherent dual allegiance will generate considerable tension by design. For a nation to emerge, its leaders must seek to blunt duality. Ethnonationalism is powerful because of the sense of identity it creates and the close linkages it forges. Yet again, Buhari has proven that the politics of ethnicity is his mission. Leadership is everything in governance. A people cannot be different from their leader. When a President invokes primordial, religious and ethnic identities to subvert the democratic principles of equal and fair representation, he promotes ethnic nationalism and identity politics in the political domain.
Time is running out to make Nigeria work as a unified entity. The truth is that Nigeria has learnt no lesson from its Civil War. The forces of self-determination are too strong to be tamed. They have grown bigger through many years defined by frustration. Nigeria will not work until there is justice and every region is allowed to “eat what they kill” and decide how to develop at their own pace. The options of unity are thinning. Nigeria can restructure transparently or become a loose confederacy but these two options are fading everyday. As time wear on and insensitivity to others heighten, a violent breakup becomes the only option available. To avoid this disarticulation, Nigeria needs leadership. Both the leaders and the led must believe that politics is a variable sum game, there must be a reckoning and acceptance that respect for rights of one people does not supercede the rights of others, that national interests transcend individual, religious, provincial and regional interests, and political parties must represent national interests, not just partisan interests. Can Nigeria survive the next 24 months of Buhari at this rate?
Credit: Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, PT