Nigeria is Africa's most population nation and by extension the most population black nation on the planet. About 50 years ago, it was projected that we were going to be one of the most advanced nations along with Brazil and India. These two have gone ahead and we are worse than the smallest nations around us. Today, the leader of Africa's economy is South Africa. What advantage do we have for our population? Our huge population is suffering while a few are getting richer. Our leaders do not have the capacity to lead a huge population. They don't think well enough to plan and lead a great nation. So our first problem is a leadership challenge.
The next is our polarized ethnic diversity that is so loose to form a nation-state. We regionalize everything. Indigene or this state or indigene of the other state. These are divisive tendencies. Next to tribal regimentation is our sharply divided regions on religious basis.
During the Constituent Assembly of 1995, the people came up with six (6) geo-political zones of North West, North East, North Central, South West, South South and South East. These regional groupings have served the nation well in the case of proper delineation and identification.
Over the years, there has been tension in the land over where a leader should come from. The issue of rotational presidency came up but only parties talked about it. It wasn't embedded in the constitution. But because of the lopsided educational divide where the South is more educationally aware than the North, it is difficult to interact without creating conflict because there seem to be no proper communication. The North appears to have a fixed position and the majority of its people are not educated. So, they are at the whims and caprices of their leaders who use them to their advantage. They are used to the political advantage of the leaders' since they do not have the capacity to reason out stuff by themselves. The average southern citizen queries everything and does not follow leaders hook, line and sinker. The same cannot be said of the northerner.
The leaders of the states up north have not done much to fast track the education of its people. They have used religion to cause the people to remain ignorant. Islam is good as a religion, but its adherent must live in a multi-religious society where they must engage in commerce and do general business. Life is not about staying up all day reciting the Quran. If you must eat and be able to mix well with people, then you must learn how to relate by getting knowledge in schools where the world's most acceptable language for transactions are taught. It is that education that Boko Haram says is sin...
Before Boko Haram, there is this intolerant attitude of the average northern moslem. Then they feel they cannot be ruled by a Christian President. I saw how they reacted when President Goodluck Jonathan won the election. They were deluded to believe that General Buhari, a Moslem Northerner won. It ignited protests in violent formats and the targets were Churches and Christians...
Now as I write, Boko Haram has gone totally wild and I believe it would have been different if we had a Moslem Northerner in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa. So besides the bombing across the country, Boko Haram says they want to install an Islamic Style Government. They don't seem to have visible support from Moslem leaders but it is not a hidden that they have the sympathy of the big guys in the North. Recently, a Senator was implicated by one of their spokesperson. He is in court. The evidence against him is daunting. So we cannot rule out fifth columnist in the corridors of power who share the sentiment of the north that a Moslem President should have been our leader.
The bombings have been incessant and sustained. Targets have been more of Churches. They seem faceless but they really are not. They have succeeded in making the country ungovernable. If indeed they operate a guerilla style warfare, then the security agencies will find it difficult nipping them in the bud especially if they have insiders in the security agencies and I guess that is what it seems.
This is my honest proposal before the entire country goes up in flames. I had suggested this in a subtle way during the post election violence earlier in the year and I did intimate that Goodluck Jonathan may be the last President of a United Nigeria. This is what all these may come down to. It is better to have peace and have people's lives safe in a restructured-nation-states than to have a bogus country without security of lives and properties. I deliberately didn't talk about the economic problems insecurity can cause because I assume we all know that.
Let us not kill ourselves in a bid to live together by force. We have different ways of life, different destinies, different belief systems. We can't simply live as a nation... we may fight until we finish ourselves. Politicians who profit from this arrangement may not like it but we can't carry on for too long. I therefore call on the National Assembly to summon a summit of the different nationalities... let every region take their destinies in their hands and my proposal for the nations to come of Nigeria is as follows:
North West Region (Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara &
Northern Kaduna) COUNTRY NAME: Bahauria CAPITAL: Katsina
North East Region (Borno, Yobe, Gombe, Adamawa & Bauchi States)
COUNTRY NAME: Gombiana CAPITAL: Gombe
North Central Region (Southern Kaduna, Niger, Kogi, Abuja, Nassarawa,
Plateau Benue & Taraba) COUNTRY NAME: Nigeria CAPITAL: Abuja
South West Region (Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti & Ondo States)
COUNTRY NAME: Oduduwa CAPITAL: Lagos
South South Region (Rivers, Cross River, Delta, Edo & Akwa Ibom)
COUNTRY NAME: Niger Delta CAPITAL: Oghara
South East Region (Enugu, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi & Anambra)
COUNTRY NAME: Biafra CAPITAL: Awka
This is my humble submission. The time to start is now. The lives and the economy of the people is dependent on this.
More on this in my next blog.
GOD SAVE NIGERIA and its PROPOSED NATION-STATES.
