WATCHING the Scotland debate:On Thursday September 18, 2014, Scottish group in the United Kingdom will be forming single files to the ballot box, to cast one-person one-vote in an historic referendum.

The purpose of the referendum is for the Scottish people to decide, whether or not to remain part of United Kingdom or move on to form a separate (independent) nation.

Despite the fact that Britain disliked the idea, yet there is no threat of violence. That means no blood will be spilled, irrespective of the outcome of the referendum. In fact, UK’s only way of discouraging Scotland from this move is the threat of depriving them of ‘British Pound’.

Ordinarily, one would think that Britain will fight dirty to keep their union intact. But for them to now follow a peaceful means in settling their internal differences seems a difficult lesson that others should learn. The proponents of UK have come to realise that maintaining internal unity under force is a waste of not only human life, resources, and energy but also time. You wonder why Nigeria should not apply similar methods in advancing peace in that part of the world!

Applying the Scotland-UK method will lessen not only the major ethnic differences, but will also reduce the intractable violence. But then, should that be the case, Britain would be the first to discourage it and might go to any length to sabotage it or encourage unity even under brutality.

Let’s face the fact that majority of the violence in Nigeria is created by ethnic divergence. In Nigeria, blazing ethnic differences created stiffer internal strife. Internal strife in turn, breeds not just stark corruption, gross impunity and underdevelopment but continuous chaos and further chaos in the broader view.

Nigeria, as always, is soaked with blood; with crisis rocking from coast to coast. In essence, Nigerians are slaughtering Nigerians. While the country’s military in its normal reaction (with the help of foreign power) is unleashing terror on the crisis-torn zone to maintain the difficult task of keeping the country together. Perhaps the blazing truth is that the crisis in Nigeria exists with Nigeria.

If the crisis is not rooted in religious ideology, it will be political and economic in nature. Or if it is not, it will be inter-ethnic crisis with unimaginable bloodshed as product of one Nigeria.

The continuous violence calls into question the legitimacy of the Nigeria project. Despite the unwavering violence, Nigerian rulers are feasting on conferences behaving as if everything is normal, thereby repeating old mistakes.

Another conference referred to as economic forum on Africa took place in Abuja amidst bombs going off; traders, marketers, and other dwellers set ablaze by an Islamic sect. Is that the normalcy of Nigeria going forward? The recent abduction of school girls has once again brought the Boko Haram’s menace on international radar.

The level of craziness in Nigeria must have confirmed the idea that the country is a gigantic, modern day prison, where everyone appears to be on death row awaiting execution. An execution they said manifests in different forms. Yet most of the peoples knowingly or unknowingly are in denial of this problem of self-imprisonment.

The country is so dysfunctional that comparably, animal life is more important and highly valued in stable countries than is human life in Nigeria. The reality, however, is that no society had ever succeeded with violence as a way of life. Nigerians, more than ever, deserve to be free from what is now self-imprisonment based on misguided expectations.

If there’s any group seeking to form a United States type of country out of Nigeria, it will require they relocate the country to a neutral land away from their origins at the minimum. But until then, the country will only spare itself the carnage and destructions that defined the Nigeria project by embracing what’s true and just.

Nigerians should not wait until the country degenerates once more to Ukraine or Syria types of crises, or another civil war before applying the common sense approach. This is the time to act decisively. Now is the time to use Scotland-UK approach in resolving the irreconcilable differences and intractable violence that define one Nigeria.

Sina Odewale wrote from Westminister in London .