By Christopher Okonkwo
A few days ago in Utako market, Abuja I witnessed a group of Igbo traders ridicule a little boy. The Utako market lies in the heart of the nation’s capital, at the beginning of a boisterous street where transport companies, churches, plazas, practically elbow each other for space. There had been a downpour earlier and the ground was wet and dirty. The boy wore tattered clothes and his small, dirty feet were encased in a pair of makeshift flip-flops – two flattened plastic bottles each with bands of fabrics knotted in a V-shape from the necks to the two sides. As the boy made his way through the sea of shoppers, looking wearied from another punishing day of hawking while observing Ramadan, somebody unwittingly bumped into him, knocking down the sachet water-laden bowl nestled on his head. The boy automatically crouched down to salvage his wares, but this didn’t deter the traders from making snide remarks about how stupid he was for getting in the way of people, how stupid people from the region he hailed from were. The hapless boy was likely one of the numerous Almajiris – bereft, northern kids sent out by their families to cities to acquire Islamic education – we see swarming our streets, mostly begging for survival and usually scrimping and saving to start a little trade.
The incident I just described tells the story of the Nigeria of today. It tells the story of Nigeria since the British amalgamated the Southern and Northern protectorates in 1914. That the Igbo traders had shown no empathy toward the little boy wasn’t a validation of their inhumanity. Another boy from a region other than the north – a Christian – in a similar situation, would most likely have elicited, at the very least, a twinge of compassion from the seemingly heartless traders. But the traders saw the northern Muslim boy as a threat, one who could easily be manipulated during conflicts to take up arms and unleash mayhem and destroy lives and properties.
It’s been 47 years since Nigeria came out of a ravaging civil war but the country is still reeling from its aftermath. The events leading to the war started when a group of mid-level soldiers, many of them of eastern origin – in connivance with non-easterner soldiers – embarked on a coup that led to the killings of the country’s leading politicians. The highest fatalities came from the north, and this raised fears among northerners that the Igbos had deliberately eliminated their leaders in order to dominate the other ethnic groups. Beginning with a systematic pogrom that claimed tens of thousands of lives of north-based Igbo, a counter-coup was staged by northern soldiers that culminated in the assassination of the head of state, also an Igbo.
Nigeria had been historically riven by ethnic differences, the Biafran war amplified the problem. The decision by then head of state to divide the country’s four regions into twelve states had followed the script of ethnic minorities agitating for the creation of new states as a way of breaking free from the oppressive hold of more dominant groups. The patronage system had created an army of disenfranchised Nigerians and the war killed off any hope of having issues of national discourse addressed dispassionately and from ideological standpoints.
The years immediately after the war offered the country an opportunity to recalibrate its system, evolve a culture that rewards excellence and promote equal opportunities, without the usual recourse to ethnicity and religion. Instead, the country’s constitutional structure that concentrates power at the centre continues to threaten its very existence. The low literacy levels in the country and pervasive poverty are testament to a system that feels no sense of obligation to its people. The widening inequality continues to polarise the haves and have-nots and ethnic and religious rivalries are deeply entrenched. The country has never been more divided.
The average Igbo from the Southeast is seen as moneygrubbing, forceful and cannot be trusted to occupy sensitive positions. The northerner Muslim is seen as benighted, fanatical and easily incited to violence. The Yoruba from the Southwest is weak and conniving. The Ijaw from the South-South is a militant who only understands the tradecraft of using violence to agitate for the controlling share of revenue generated from oil buried in their region. No genuine efforts are in place at fostering a culture of tolerance, at engendering a feeling of belonging and togetherness amongst Nigerians regardless of where they find themselves. No efforts are in place to clamp down on hate speeches, on the negative stereotyping, just as progressive societies are doing.
Nnamdi Kanu – the bile-spewing, hate-mongering, founder of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) – and his posse of pretend freedom fighters have stepped into the breach, drumming up support for their nihilistic aims. They whip up sentiments, further heating up an already frayed polity and propagating fantasies of a secessionist state that does nothing to address the problems of unemployment and poverty in the land. Any right-thinking Igbo – and this includes me – would do well to denounce Kanu and his incoherent agitations.
The Biafra that Kanu envisages can be gauged in the context of politicians who have been openly courting him since his release, seeking his endorsement as gubernatorial elections in the Southeastern state of Anambra fast approaches. This reflects the low Nigerian politicians are willing to sink when seeking electoral relevance; the fluid networks of rabble-rousing radicals swirling our space are magnets for politicians because of their large followers.
The recent notice to Igbos to quit the nineteen northern states before October 1 by a northern interest group is pushing the country to the edge, to that tipping point when an overwhelming demand for reform may finally surge through the clotted arteries of the divisive Nigerian system. When it reaches that point, hopefully, the country may begin to take issues that divide it seriously.
Christopher Okonkwo is the author of Concentric Circles. His articles have featured in several Nigerian newspapers. Follow him on twitter @obumchris
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