In the real history of the nation-state, the configuration of Nigeria is a dire nightmare. Full of fury, lacking action and goodwill for the common good, but where tribesmen tussle among themselves for the national cake. In more than a century since its creation and 62 years after independence, Nigeria has known no peace and stability. It has been a struggle for power and criminal accumulation, such that a sincere and altruistic diagnosis of Nigeria, leaves her nowhere than a distance not too far from a criminal state. A state where citizens are perpetually at the mercy of the ruling elite. Where the basic idea of politics and governance is not geared towards bettering the lots of the masses but to further the deep state and partake in the lucre of a criminal enterprise – called a nation.
These nation-state contradictions remain the bane of Nigeria’s democracy. And because the making of Nigeria is primarily situated within the sphere of political power; not development and nation-building, the fight for power either during autocratic military juntas or pseudo-electoral democracy is often intense, fierce, coercive, brutal and even a do or die political combat. Thus, as it stands, the political battle with long knives since inception has been between a neo-feudal North and a neo-patrimony South. Through the help of the British, the North was given an upper hand to the detriment of the South. A basic factor that has ignited this ceaseless political fight.
In contradiction, the South has not helped herself. They often act like Buccaneers; uncaring and unperturbed by the shameful degradation in the midst of plenty. Despite quantum deposit of petrochemicals and hydrocarbons and other rich resources, the South is a ravaged land made in hell with the assistance of several Lucifers in the political arena and even within the private space. In the 1960s, the Zik of Africa, Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Premier of Eastern Region rather teamed up with the North than go with the sage, Obafemi Awolowo, in forming the government at the centre. Sadly, the North has continued to perceive Igbo as outsiders and outliers politically. With the Yoruba in the South-West, Igbo in the South-East and minorities made up of Ijaw, Efiks, Ibiobios, Urhobo, Isehkiri, Igbo, Benin, Esan, Boki in the centre – South-South, the Southern region is left to gasp for breath following unending squabbles mainly among the Yoruba and Igbo and the fringes of minority tribes in the Niger-Delta. This division and acrimonious relationship among Southerners could also be blamed for the colossal failure the Nigerian nation-state has encountered since 1960. For this piece, the focus is on how Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State can rejuvenate and resurrect that bond across the South.
As 2023 beckons, this disjointed division is up again over the forthcoming presidential elections. Ordinarily, without any doubt, after eight years of retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s regime, power ought to automatically return to the South. And in the South, Igbo of the South-East supposedly deserve to produce the president in 2023. But because of a lack of political and logical foresight, wisdom, and planning in the old Eastern region comprising Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo in the South-East; Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers and part of Delta, there is every chance that that opportunity is about to be derailed.
Derail in the sense that aspirants from the South-East, Peter Obi, Anyim Pius Anyim, Sam Ohuabunwan under the Peoples Democratic Party; then Ken Nnamani, Dave Umahi, Emeka Nwajiuba, Rochas Okorocha, Chris Ngige among others are running for president under the All Progressives Congress. Similarly, we have Wike and now Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State under PDP; Rotimi Ameachi (APC) all from the South-South gunning for the 2023 presidential election. This pattern of contest between the two zones obviously is a recipe for disaster and complete failure stares at the two zones at the PDP and APC primaries in the coming weeks.
Sensing the imperative of a united force, the leader of the Pan Niger-Delta Forum, Chief Edwin Clark has spoken on the urgency of the South-East producing the president in 2023. He has minced no words right from the start. Earlier, he had even cautioned Igbo located in the South-South not to run for the 2023 presidential election and that it should be exclusively given to the Igbo of the five states of South-East (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo).
But with Wike in the presidential race, some are of the opinion that he holds the ace to the 2023 presidency of Igbo extraction. And that should Wike today rise up and say let our brothers across the Niger in the South-East be given the chance for full reintegration after the civil war with Nigeria allowing them to produce the president in 2023, Nigeria will follow suit and applaud.
Without any equivocation, Wike is eminently qualified to be Nigeria’s president. In this fourth republic, no politician has expanded the frontiers of democracy and federalism as compared to Wike. By standing up to the suffocating Federal Government and obstructing the vagaries of feeding bottle democracy Nigeria practices through several judicial interventions and interpretations on tax collection, value-added taxes, and unconstitutional tempering of federation accounts, among others, make Wike a pathfinder and behemoth in the unbundling of Nigeria’s fraudulent federalism. In fact, his foresight and ability to sustain the opposition PDP to date is a remarkable achievement in Nigeria’s political history. Even as a presidential aspirant, he has run a better campaign, focusing on security, welfare and consolidating state institutions.
The trove of history is already on the side of Wike. Some are even making conjectures that should the Igbo fail to produce the 2023 presidency, Wike should be held responsible. But the Rivers governor can still turn the tide and rise to a phenomenal historical podium. A timeless history that no evil can erase or vitiate. How then can Wike rewrite history for good? Most Northern aspirants are arguing that power cannot shift to the South within the PDP and that if there’s zoning, it can only be to the South-East. Considering that the South-West has had eight years under former President Olusegun Obasanjo; eight years of Vice Presidency of Prof Yemi Osinbajo and five years of former President Goodluck Jonathan from the South-South, Nigeria is under compulsion to allow the South-East a shot at the presidency in 2023. It will be somehow if the other two zones in the South still deprive the South-East in 2023. Many also believe that had all the Southern aspirants in both PDP and APC had insisted on the 2023 presidency going to the South-East, many Northern aspirants would have withdrawn from the race.
Categorically, the transformation that Nigeria currently long for is not just about railroading state institutions to efficient and effective monuments but for men of conscience, equity and justice to rise to the occasion and point where the national dislocation and fracture lies for purposes of mending and reviving national integration. Part of what ails Nigeria is the lack of national integration in its true sense. Harris Mylonas in his cerebral work, The Politics of National Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees and Minorities, outlined the material benefits of national integration to nation-states. Mylonas asked that “what explains the variations in state policies to manage social diversity and sustain order?” He went on to provide incisive answers by arguing that national integration is a byproduct of economic development, industrialisation, urbanisation and political development. The Igbo who are capable of injecting the above byproducts of national integration have been pushed aside for so long, depriving Nigeria of robust economic development, industrialisation and the position of a key global player. Will Wike be the handmaid of history or rigger of history? Methinks, the former is more plausible and suitable to Wike’s legacies and place in history. Let the Igbo of South-East extraction be fully integrated; Wike holds the master key to that aspiration. The time is now!
Obi, a Fellow at The Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, writes from Abuja
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All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.
Contact: [email protected]
