FEMI Kayode’s online appraisal of 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria, in an article, entitled A Time To Ponder on September 12, 2013 caught my attention with exhilaration and hope that a prominent Nigerian can remove the toga of pretence and face facts.

The call for convocation of sovereign national conference, meant for all the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria to converge for discussion and decision on how to restructure the political and economic imbalances has become more flurry.

The call is now coming from several strata of our society spanning from people of immense integrity and international influence, the calibre of Prof. Wole Soyinka, Prof. Pat.Utomi, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, the one-time secretary general of Commonwealth of Nations, Emeka  Anyoku, the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) of which Alex.

Ekweme and Edwin Clark are members, to Boko-Haram, who through reverberation of bombs and AK 47 rifles, demand for tearing into shreds the amalgamation document in quest of re-establishment of Islamic sovereign land in the north which it has been before 1914. Also, Niger Delta militants threw down the gauntlet for resource control, with the attendant reduction of petroleum production to an abysmal level few years back.

Isolated incident

Interestingly, all these groups and other happening from day one of the amalgamation, such as pogrom of 1966 which was neither an isolated incident nor was it just a reaction to the coup of January1966 but an escalation of what had been a continuous tension, conscious and systematic dislike, discrimination, non acceptance of fellow Nigerians as citizens.

The Maitatsine Kano riot, the beauty queen riot, the Demark cartoon riot, Kaduna sharia riot of 1999/2000, annulment of June 12 presidential election believed to be the freest and fairest election in Nigeria won by M.K.O.Abiola, the riot inspired by Luna eclipse, the 30 months civil war, registration of Nigeria as a member of Organization of Islamic Countries, OIC, in 1986, without the consent or due regard for others who are not Muslim, who also claim to be majority, the recent resurrection of demand for sovereign state for Biafra by Bilie Human Rights Initiative, which has filed Suit No. FHC/OW/CS/102/2012 in Federal High Court, Owerri Judicial Division against the Federal Government of Nigeria, seeking self-determination and independent sovereign state of Biafra. Others are the emergency of the movement for actualization of sovereign state of Biafra, MASSOB, the political instability, the Major Gideon Orkar coup of 1990. Every indication from every side strengthens the fact that the ethnic nationalities making up Nigeria are held together against their will and that the nation we have presently is foisted on us with so many questions begging for answers about the much touted one Nigeria, always brandished by the thieving elite.

Femi Kayode’s article raised the following pertinent questions: •Is our interest better served by remaining as one nation or is it time for those nationalities that wish to leave the federation in a peaceful and orderly way, as a result of a legitimate and honest referendum, be allowed to go?

•If the breaking up of larger countries into smaller and more viable ones is good enough for India (which broke into three), the Sudan (which broke into two), Czechoslovakia (which broke into two), Yugoslavia (which broke into five), the Soviet Union (which broke into 15) and numerous other countries over the years why is it not good enough for us?

In my attempt to answer the above questions, I will like us to cast our minds back to the situations those countries were before the break up and were they are now: India, prior to 1947 found herself in similar situation like the present Nigeria, where she was enmeshed in poverty, unemployment, corruption, religious violence, occasioned by Hindus and  Muslims struggle for supremacy. The Pakis who were mostly Muslims wanted Sharia law to be more visible in India legal system, which was opposed by the Hindus, the result was a waste of human and material resources leading to poverty and underdevelopment.

In 1947, Ali Jinnah established a sovereign state for Muslims and called it Pakistan. This bold action led to tremendous economic and technological breakthrough for India, as today India produces aircraft and one of the major exporters of computers as well as a leading nation in the field of Mathematics. On the other hand Pakistan cohesively practices her legal system and religion in accordance with her faith and ideology peacefully and unfettered

The dwindling economy, insecurity, inflation, unemployment and the raising of people’s legitimacy, peoples Wright, peoples will over and above unintelligible and incoherent argument of the few elites which never favour the masses anywhere, forced Czechoslovakia into serious appraisal of the state of their nation in the 1990,s. They removed the toga of pretence and faced reality.  They met in Bratislava and interestingly agreed to dissolve Czechoslovakia peacefully, in 1991 and the southern part became Slovakia. Today all the economic indices coming from the resultant countries, show that they are far better off as neighboures than as one nation.

Also when the legitimacy of Maxims/ Leninism out lived its usefulness and relevance as our amalgamation appears to have out stayed it welcome, the long decades of cold war expressed in suspicion between the NATO and the then USSR  ended on the 25th December 1991, when the Soviet union was dissolved amicably too. The 15 nations cramped together in that union became sovereign states and can now unleash their full potentials. This reduced the threat to world peace and increased economic activities and the subsequent GDP growth of the world. Before the breaking up of Sudan into Sudan and southern Sudan, the per capital income of the old Sudan was $1,450 in 2008 and immediately after the break up, the per capital income of Sudan rose to $1,580 and that of southern Sudan was $862 in 2012, if one totals the two it amount to $2,312, a total they have never achieved nor any African country.

Nigerian elites obstinately or pretentiously, because of their personal pecuniary considerations, complacently or arrogantly say that Nigeria unity is settled and that what held us together is more than that which divide us.  Others will arguer that our beauty is in our size. This writer considers these points facile ones as they lack deep thought backed up by preponderance ideas.

(1)  Is it social values that held us together, where one believes that western education is evil  (haram) and the other believes that western education is life.?

(2) Is it ancestry, where one is a descendant of Ishmael, which the Bible recorded clearly as separated from descendant of Jacob.

(3) Is it geography? Where naturally one zone is a desert and the other a rain forest.

(4) Is elephant the best of animals?

(5) Others further opined that allowing Nigeria to break will lead to many villages asking for a sovereign nation, also this argument does not hold waters because Sudan is a recent working example and the Igbos existed as a sovereign nation cohesively for 30 month.

Pretence is very costly and the worst ruinous thing to engage in.

Now that the president in his independence broadcast of 1st October 2013 appears to be caving in for a national disuse, by constituting a committee to work out the modalities, it is said that anything worth doing is worth doing well, referendum that will give every Nigerian an opportunity to decide about his nation along the following alternatives is recommended.

(A) One tight federation with a strong centre (yes) or (no)

(B A true federalism with weak centre and state police (yes) or (no)

(C) Dissolution into 5 or 6 sovereign nations with ethnic groups alignments   (yes) or (no)

The voting should be supervised by UN and financed by the present executive No cost will be too much to build a nation.

By Onyebuchi Nwalugwu