#BreakUpNigeria: The threats are real, Nigeria might prove US right under Buhari

Signs that the Nigerian state may cave in have become too ominous to ignore.

The growing demand by South-East groups to have a separate state, Biafra, and the ultimatum issued by Northern youths on Ndigbo to vacate the North on or before October 1, 2017, has left many discerning minds asking if the United States’ prediction of imminent break up of Nigeria will come to pass under President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

Presently, a number of Nigerians, following the situation in the country, have argued that except and unless the country is restructured there may be nothing stopping it from heading to doom.
These prominent Nigerians and groups which include Chief Kalu Idika Kalu, Edwin Clark, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, among several others, have continued to call for true federalism as panacea to the likely doom looming over the continued existence of the country.

According to Musa, Nigeria’s continued existence depends largely on the grace of God as the country is fast moving towards a failed state.

In 2006, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was reported to have predicted that Nigeria would no longer be in existence by 2015.

However, 2015 came and passed and Nigeria failed to break up as allegedly predicted by the US. But as many believed, the timely conceding of defeat by then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan to President Buhari before official announcement of the election results, did much to avert the dooms day prediction.
Nonetheless, two years after surviving the 2015 prediction of a possible break up, Nigeria is at the moment faced with a serious threat which if not properly handled, will eventually lead to the fulfillment of the prediction it escaped in 2015.

Biafra, a real threat

Since the emergence of Buhari, a Muslim from the North two years ago, the demand for the restoration of Biafra, which though preceded his administration, by different groups and people from the South-Eastern part of Nigeria has continued to gather momentum at an alarming level, both locally and internationally.

Biafra separated from Nigeria and existed for three years between 1967 and 1970 before it was reintegrated into the country following defeat in the civil war that ensued as a result of the separation.
Except as witnessed in 1967, the agitation for the separation of Biafra from Nigeria has taken on a more vociferous nature by South easterners, who are now hinging the reasons for the agitation on marginalization, neglect, underdevelopment and short change of the region.

While the arrest and detention of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, for about a year and six months may have contributed in fueling the agitation, the perceived ill-treatment of the region by President Buhari’s administration seems to have contributed much as well.
The Igbo ethnic stock during the 2015 election had massively voted for Jonathan from South-South and Buhari had in his response in an interview with an international media said that he should not be expected to treat those who gave him 97 per cent vote the same way he will treat the regions that gave him five per cent votes (referring to the South-East and South-South).

Buhari’s subsequent failure to appoint a single person from the five eastern states in his kitchen cabinet, and also not having any easterner as head of any security agency, among others, have been heavily criticised by the leaders of the region leading to many of them appearing to be in support of Biafra and those who do not, insisting on the restructuring of the country.

The full weight and threat the agitation for Biafra now poses to the country became manifest in the May 30, stay-at-home order by the agitators. The order recorded a near total compliance in the five eastern states of Imo, Anambra, Enugu, Abia and Ebonyi, and partial compliance in some neighboring South-South states.
The order for sit-at home and its compliance appeared to have infuriated the northern youths who, in total neglect of the country’s constitution, ordered all Igbo living in any part of the North to vacate the region on or before October 1, 2017.

The Arewa Youths mean business too

Some analysts argue that the quit notice order, now referred to as Kaduna Declaration, by Arewa youths may be the highest threat to the continuous existence of Nigeria as a country since the Biafra War of 1967-1970.
A coalition of northern youths had, while giving Ndigbo a three-month quit notice order during a press conference held at Arewa House Kaduna on Tuesday, June 6, and read by Alhaji Abdulaziz Suleiman of the Northern Emancipation Network, called on all northern civil society and pressure groups to, by the declaration, mobilise for sustained and coordinated campaigns at their respective states.

“We are hereby placing the Nigerian authorities and the entire nation on notice, that as from the 1st October, 2017, we shall commence the implementation of visible actions to prove to the whole world that we are no longer part of any federal union that should do with the Igbos.

“From that date, effective, peaceful and safe mop-up of all the remnants of the stubborn Igbos that neglect to heed this quit notice shall commence to finally eject them from every part of the North.

“And finally, all authorities, individuals or groups are hereby advised against attempting to undermine this declaration by insisting on this union with the Igbos who have thus far proved to be an unnecessary baggage carried too far and for too long,” the group partly stated in the statement.”

Professor Ango Abdullahi, Northern Elders’ Forum spokesman, openly supported the position of the youths and lambasted northern leaders who condemned the demands by the youths.

According to some closer watchers of the polity, no other signal could tell of an impending danger than the failure of all security departments of the country to arrest the youth leaders behind the quit notice order, especially when Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, in whose state the quit notice was issued, had ordered their arrest.
Though many prominent Nigerians across the country have branded the quit notice order as heinous offense, both the youths and their backers such as Abdullahi, have stuck to their guns insisting that Igbo must go with Nigerian security operatives seemingly issuing empty threats.

Further complexities have been thrown into #breakupnigeria move with corresponding quit notice dished out by some Niger Delta militants directing that all northerners should vacate the oil region, coupled with demand for a Niger Delta Republic. With the Yorubas demanding Oodua Republic, Nigeria appears all set to prove the American intelligence right.

Will Afenifere, Ohanaeze romance last?

The Department of State (DSS) in a statement released through its spokesman 10 days after Arewa youths’ quit notice, merely cautioned those fanning the embers of discord in the country to desist from such activities.
Meanwhile, while the DSS and other security operatives continue to grandstand over the situation, more divide appears to have been created with other southern leaders counseling the South-East not to honour any meeting called by Acting President Osinbajo without the inclusion of the entire southern regions.

In a communiqué issued at the end a meeting in Lagos and signed by Ayo Adebanjo (South – West), retired Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (South – East) and Chief Albert Horsfall (South-South ) and read to newsmen by the spokesperson for the Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, southern leaders asked Arewa youths to withdraw their October 1, quit notice order to Ndigbo living in the North insisting that attack on the ethnic group will be considered as an attack on the entire southern region of the country.

They also insisted on the implementation of the report of the 2014 National Conference, which they say aims at a complete transformation and restructuring of the country and to build and consolidate Nigeria’s unity through national solidarity, peaceful and harmonious coexistence, progress and genuine developments.
With apparent lack of wilingness by the Federal Government to implement the Confab report, there is fear of imminent trouble that could arise from those insisting on restructuring.

The Nigerian wound goes deeper than imagined

What seems to be more worrisome in the possible end of a country called Nigeria under Buhari’s administration is the resolve with which those fanning embers of disunity have kept and maintained their grounds despite Acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s consultative meetings with the North and South-East.

Despite threats of arrest and accusation of breaking the laws of the land, the Arewa youths and their supporters have insisted that Ndigbo must leave and have taken a step further to write a detailed letter to Osinbajo on why Ndigbo must be allowed to have their age-long desired country, Biafra.

The Arewa youths had told Osinbajo in their letter, “Though we do not doubt Your Excellency’s bona fide concerns for the peaceful resolution of the crises, we nevertheless have reservations as to the efficacy of this approach in ensuring lasting solutions.

“Our doubts are informed by the following historical antecedents that have characterized the behavior and conduct of the Igbo in Nigeria and previous efforts at containing them.
“And since evidently the Igbo have not been sufficiently humbled by their self-imposed bloody civil violence of 1966, we are strongly concerned that nothing short of granting their Biafran dream will suffice.”

On the other hand, the agitators for Biafra from South-East, who also have been accused of breaking the country’s law by their demands, have continued to urge their people in the North to obey the vacation order, insisting that it is either ‘Biafra or death’.

While it is possible that the Federal Government still has the chance of addressing the problems, some political analysts contend that with the level of love lost between the aggrieved youths who are tomorrow’s leaders, any achievable peace could only be temporal.

Rumours of coup, and will history repeat itself?

The alert of a possible coup raised by the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai (COAS), and its consequent tension seems to have fizzled out but the fears that came with it remains.
There are Nigerians who have argued that there could be more to the coup alert than meets the eyes. They allege that the coup rumour could be a plot by those who are not happy with the present state of affairs of the leadership of the country, where history seems to be repeating itself.

According to these Nigerians, those who would not want a repeat of former presidents Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan’s saga, may not give a damn if a coup is what it takes to stop a southern takeover of power again in an event that ailing President Buhari could not continue as president.

Already, the position of the North on the issue seems to have been expressed by some of the leaders including Junaid Mohammed, a member of the House of Representatives during the Second Republic, who expressly warned that Osinbajo should not nurture any ambition of becoming president in 2019, should Buhari not be in position to continue.

According to him, the North will resist such attempt.
There is this argument by some keen observers of the country polity that the recent allegations of nepotism levelled against Osinbajo by one Dr. Ismaila Farouk, could be an effort to give a dog a bad name and then hang it.
Farouk in his accusation, which the Presidency rubbished as a mere smear campaign, alleged among other things that all aides of the Acting President are either Yoruba or members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
However, a detailed list of aides to Osinbajo released by the Presidency may have proved the accuser wrong as there were mixture of Muslims and Christians on the list.

Playing the Ostrich

All said, the tense atmosphere in the country at the moment, occasioned by agitation for Biafra, quit notice to Ndigbo living in the North as well as the possibility of Buhari not continuing in 2019 and the politics that seems to have ensued as a result of that, call for concerns.

The Federal Government appears to want paper over the issues without much push to execute calls for total restructuring of the country.

Will Nigeria overcome all these like it has always done in the past and continue to exist as one nation? That can only be told in a matter of time.

But until then, the possibility of the US prediction of the country’s break up happening under Buhari’s administration seems to be staring every Nigeria in the face.

 

 

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