Britain created a society that
would fight against itself – Ofeimun
By
Charles Kumolu & Japhet Alakam
How do you assess Nigeria at 51?
May be I could start by saying that something has happened to this nation in the past two years to provide an environment for something different, not necessarily something better but something different to happen. The story we have had to tell up till this moment is the story of great dreams that were dashed.
I feel like going back to that great day when all of us as children, I was ten years old when Nigeria became an independent country, we were giving that Naipol cup, every child got one, we got flag, we were given rice, we all ate well.
It was genuine feast, it doesn't matter where you went to Nigeria, all the children were fed that is to say the State fed all of us gave us things to help our sense of self assertion as a people, we were not a hungry people, we were people who hadto enjoy ourselves.
Any time I remember that and I look at the type of system that exists today, I feel really pained by one thing, if you have to do that kind of feast today, two thirds of the school children will not get the cup, one third will not get the flag and majority will go home hungry.
Where as when Nigeria became an independent society all of us got what was due to us, I mean they killed cows and we just generally had a good time. With that we were looking to what we will be in future, it is true as I pointed out in the Nigeria The Beautiful that the NIAPOL cup got broken before the sun got over but at least we all got . The breaking of the cup was like a promise of what was coming.
We didn't know it then that this independence will crack in the way those cups cracked. There wasa sense you could dream, at 10 you could say that when I am 20 I am going to be this or that , the school system was sure, we knew that holiday will come at a particular time and that when you got to school this and this , I mean there was a certain stability to the way we could look at the future.
But that was precisely what began to be smashed almost immediately and the reason it happened was because the generation that fought for the independence never managed to agree on what kind of country they will create after independence.
They were struggling to describe and re describe the future into which they were going, some did not even believe in describing the future they just wanted power and if any body stood in the way of power, they will smash the person.
And if you cast your back to those early years , you will understand that the British had created deliberately a society that would live in division, a society that will always be against itself and our leaders could not resolve their differences enough to see this.
The British had managed to get many Nigerians to their side who were prepared to carry out British dictates or at least a resemblance of the dictates from the imperial power and so based on the malstructuring of the country that already existed we could only have a struggle between Nigerians that would be irresolvable on the day of independence.
Nigeria was a society to be made to be ruled as two countries, but the British made it three countries literally, each working against the other, the North was large, big and backwardly educated almost as a deliberate policy which the British wanted and which the traditional class in the north wanted, they were frightened that education will move the north too fast away from their control. Both the British and the traditional rulers in the north feared that and they needed the coalition that they had to survive long enough for it to become a culture
What are your thoughts on President Goodluck Jonathan?
Goodluck becoming President today was not based on a minority plan, it was based on a Nigerian plan. The struggle between the so called majority group to have Nigeria divided into ethnic groups and to have their own ethnic group dominant, actually created the basis for a minority person to become the head of state. The Arewa struggle is based on pretending that there are no minorities in the north.
Until the Adaka Boros emerged, many people thought it was impossible to create a new Nigeria. If you add all the minority groups together, you will discover that they are actually the majority group in Nigeria. The truth is that no set of human beings can be governed if they don't want to be governed, unless you wipe them out. completely.
As it turned out hook or crook, Goodluck Jonathan became president of Nigeria. I keep telling all my friends that he does not have be a good man, he does not have to be a tough leader or a weak one, the fact the unexpected has happened inNigeria, ensures that there are possibilities of exerting new ways of thinking in Nigeria. Goodluck does not have to have an agenda, just being in power is already an agenda in the sense that it creates a possibility of new ways of looking at the country emerging.
I like telling and preaching to some of my friends that I campaigned and voted for Gooodluck Jonathan because he was a minority. The reason is that I campaigned for the possibility of destablising the whole structure. Once that structure was ruffled, there was now the possibility of new ideas.
Jonathan does not have to do it as a General, he just have to be very calm like over a period of two years, which will make him to find the handle for the real change to take place. No Nigerian should be allowed to be very powerful that he creates a system that we Nigerians will be following.
The only way to allow it is to ensure that rules will be followed. People who will become so big that they can not follow rule should never be allowed to take government positions. When they take government positions, all of us should fight for them to be removed.
I used to find it a little difficult about talking about these divisions in Nigeria, because people will say that I am refreshing old wounds. No! They are not old wounds but fresh wounds, because people are still acting with the destructive principles which they had set out with. When you live in a state where some people feel that they are marginalised, they will want to catch up with their neigbours, when they cant catch up, they will want to destroy their neigbours.
Then they get to the stage that they want to destroy the advantages of their neighbours. The north got to that stage in 1967 when they set out not just to catch up with the other side, but to destroy the advantages of the other side. Philosophers of destruction grew up in the north and they theorized how to do it.
How do you react to the growing insecurity problem in the country?
I believe that the insecurity problem everybody is talking about is not is also being over played because we do not know enough about our country and how the rest of the world, especially our neighbours place us. It is being overplayed because we are seeing it as a problem of leadership. It is not a problem of leadership because the problems have always been there. Very many African leaders have always been worried about Nigeria.
They have always been like this country is so big and appears immovable, even though it is not a particularly self builder. We have had the insecurity problem since the problems in Niger, Chad, Mauritania and Sudan. Nigeria had been involved in all those crisis situations. And therefore we have had the opportunity to build a security system that would tackle this kind of problem.
Gadaffi and terrorism in Nigeria
Ghaddafi never hid his wish to have Nigeria split. The way he was going about the need for Nigeria to split between the Moslem North and Christian South, shows that he does not know Nigeria at all. It was in Venezuela that I met a Libyan, who first made me realise that Gaddafi was doing something about Nigeria. When I say in Venezuela, that was early in this millennium. We went for a poetry reading. The man was the first person, who made me see it as a very dangerous situation we were in. Gaddafi did not have to send an army to Nigeria, all he needed was to train guerillas, who will infiltrate Nigeria and cause mayhem.
What many Nigerians forget about the period of slavery is that the period of slavery in African history prepared the ground for colonialism, because what it did was to create distrust among neighbours and make it impossible for people to plan into the future. Gadaffi was working for a greater Arab takeover of Africa. He would speak one language in the Arab League and speak another language in the African Union.
We need to civilsie Africans because we are not civilsed. We fight each other for stupid reasons. Now all they do is to train each other to throw bombs. The day they throw bombs outside Arewa, the basis of a civil war would have been created.
Do you think the government is properly responding to challenges posed by this growing insecurity, if they are not handling it well, could you suggest ways to curb it?
In all those theaters that I have mentioned in which Nigeria was involved, we have people in government, who were part of it. That is to say either they themselves or people they trained are still in government. Nigerians talk about security as if its something that one big man will carry one big gun and smash it.
No! Modern warfare is not like the old warfare. In the old warfare all you need is to have a big gun and you will win. In the new warfare, they destroy your school system, destroy your housing system, they poison your water system, they destroy all the little things that make life possible for you, so that by the time they take you, you are finished.
We need look to take a second look at it. Frankly, the fact that Jonathan did not act in ignorance is probably the best thing to have happened to us. And the first good thing to have come out, was building this security coalition between Nigeria, Chad and Niger.
It was the kind of thing we should have started since 1960, all our neighbours irrespective of how far they are, ought to be brought into a common security system, a common agricultural arrangement, a common technological push, and a transportation network that make all the areas accessible. We should have started doing it.
We did not do it because our leaders were too busy fighting small battles. All the leaders of the north have private armies, now they are telling us that they will disband those armies. How can a proper army and police exist in a country, then you allow politicians to have private armies to destroy their opponents.
That is where attempts to solve this problem will begin. The fact that a governor will go against the constitution of the country and will remain in power, is not something that should be allowed to happen. If a governor should have a private army, the Nigerian army should move into the state and takeover. It is not a matter for debate. The fact that all the northern governors have a private army and could hold a meeting to say that they will give away is rubbish.
VANGUARD
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