In the last post, “NO TO ALLIANCE FOR MEDIOCRITY” we sought to identify the reason why some sections of Nigerians feel uncomfortable with the state of common nationhood in Nigeria. We identified two factors, which are the absence of a mutual agreement to nationhood by ethnic communities in Nigeria, and the second factor which is an absence of personal commitment to the Nigerian unity. Yet as the question of complete separation of the country along regional or ethnic lines continues to fester, another question becomes necessary: after separation, what happens next? Would the constituent ethnic communities fare better on their own as individual nations? How much division has been planted in the hearts of the ethnic communities through national experiment and alliances? Would separation for the whole erase the spirit of internal division even among the regions?
After decades of brutal civil war that left two and a half million dead in Sudan, the devastated and vastly underdeveloped southern part of Sudan secured independence in 2011. Secession from Sudan marked a major milestone and a fresh opportunity for South Sudanese. But massive state-corroding corruption, political instability within the ruling party, and persistent tensions with Sudan over the sharing of oil revenues left South Sudan deeply vulnerable to renewed conflict.1 The arm conflict did not die off even within the new nation, nor has there been a significant national progress.
If the call for separation in Nigeria is answered and Nigeria disintegrates along ethnic or regional divides, there are several possible outcomes for the ethnic-related regions and constituent communities.
Firstly, there is a possibility that the ruling class (traditional leaders and civil leaders elected under Nigerian constitution) in the present Nigeria will lead their ethnic people to progress and development in selflessness and dedication. Each unit formed from the division which comprises of ethnic-related regions may feel the need to compete for development of their regions against other regions, in order to retain bragging rights among the constituent parts. For instance, the northern region will feel the need to prove to the south that they will be more developed without the help of the southeastern or southwestern people. With this competition in mind, the leaders in the south will compete for development among one another, prompting a massive development of all sides and regions of Nigeria.
On another look, it may be naïve to think that the present crop of leaders, who may have adopted the desperate consumerism and greedy disposition that is obtainable in the chaotic unitary system of Nigerian governance could miraculously overcome both the fear of lack and the desire for plenty that pushes public servants to acquire more for themselves and their family members. As it is observed in the continued chaos of South Sudan, where massive state-corroding corruption, political instability and persistent tensions over the sharing of oil revenues, the conditions for political instability abound even among the regions that could align to form new smaller nations under Nigeria.
The present southeastern part of Nigeria rarely unite under one voice for internal leadership, except in opposition of a common enemy. Leadership figures in southeast hardly concede for one another, as they continuously tussle for supremacy. The south-south, just like Nigeria itself, is a haphazard creation of the civil-war victors, who seek to cut the excesses of the ‘stubborn’ southeast by alienating the easterners from possible allies in the lower Niger. The civil war victors, like the colonial masters merged the Ogonis, the Ijaws, Efik, Oron, Ibibio, Itsekiris, Urhobo, Esan, some Igbos in River and Delta states, and even the Makeke in the northern Edo state, all as south-south. The southwest enjoys a relative cultural homogeneity like the North while the middle belt remains in the same cultural confusion as the south-south between the Tivs, Idomas, Ebira, Igala and other tribes.
The casual misunderstandings among the different ethnic communities that are bound together as regions by military decrees form backgrounds for the type of political instability that has kept South Sudan distracted from development even after their independence from Sudan. The focus on oil revenue in Nigeria remains high and the mutual suspicion against inter-tribal domination among the regions has not melted away.
Hence, a disintegration of the Nigerian entity may most probably spell doom for the ethnic communities that comprise the nation as they may continue to conflict and disintegrate further to their own detriment. Unless the ethnic communities, tribes and eventually, the regions agree on the form of alliances that could ensure their development, both options of dogmatically staying together or separating along ethnic or regional lines remain unprogressive.