By Amanze
Obi
It is sometimes said in certain circles that the Yoruba is the only
ethnic bloc, among the major ones in Nigeria, that has not called for
the dismemberment of the country. Individual Yoruba may have, at various times,
wished and called for a divided Nigeria.
But the people as a group have never done so publicly. Rather, the Yoruba have
been advocating for a regional arrangement that will whittle down the powers
of the centre. This is a middle ground position.
However, you can hardly say the same thing of the other
ethno-political blocs. Those who have a sense of history will readily recall
that the North was the first to call for the dismemberment of Nigeria. The
bloody coups of January and July 1966 ignited feelings of secession in most
northerners. Even though the counter coup of July 1966 and the pogroms that
followed were supposed to calm the frayed nerves of the North, they did not.
Rather, the region bayed for more blood. It was in that fit of bitterness that
the idea of secession crept into their imagination. Consequently, the less
restrained among them began to advocate for a divided Nigeria. It was
in response to the prevailing mood in the North at the time that the Yakubu
Gowon government, in August 1966, declared that the basis for one Nigeria no longer
existed. Even though the North later went to war to enforce the idea of one Nigeria, it is
a historical fact that the region was the first to nurse and propagate
secessionist sentiments in the country.
If the North was the author of a divided Nigeria, the
East was its finisher. The counter coup of 1966 and the pogroms had taken a
heavy toll on the people of East. The situation was made worse by the fact that
the people of the region had nobody to appeal to. The Federal Government led
by Yakubu Gowon, a northern army officer, was complicit in the bloodletting.
The situation, regrettably, drove the Eastern region into a precipice. That was
how it came to declare its own republic. Strangely, however, the Gowon that
had, a few months earlier, held that the basis for a united Nigeria no
longer existed was the one that took up arms against the secessionists. That
was hypocrisy in action.
The war has since been lost and won but the Igbo, who were at the
receiving end during the war years are still perceived, rightly or wrongly, as
a group that is ever ready to quit the Nigerian setting once an opportunity
presents itself.
Given the fact that it is always the prerogative of the victor to
rewrite history, events took an unexpected turn in post-Civil War Nigeria. The
ruling military junta, which was dominated by the North gradually but steadily
bastardised the country’s federal set-up. The principles of federalism were not
only eroded, the country’s republican status was yoked together with strange
systems, which ended up corrupting the original idea. The result is that Nigeria, as we
have it today, is neither a federation nor a republic.
This incongruous set-up has been fueling agitations for either a
divided or restructured Nigeria.
While the North is holding tenaciously to the present order, apparently
because it is benefitting unduly from the incongruity, the other blocs of Nigeria are
differently persuaded.