NIGERIA'S ON THE BRINK OF DISINTEGRATION

               NIGERIA’S ON THE BRINK OF DISINTEGRATION?  

       ‘Any nation that can not boast of social justice will never be stable’ is a long time statement of Fredrick Fasheun, the leader of OPC.The spate of violence and civil unrest has reached an uncontrollable stage that has made some human right activists as well as oppositions to call for sovereign national conference once again. The reason being that the problem is sky rocketing everyday as much attacks on non-Hausas especially the Ibo are now moving out of The North en masse.

   The position of Nigeria as an entity is seriously shaken. The Boko Haram issue is not the only problem facing this country, the system itself  is showing every sign of failure and ,as a political philosopher said, ‘when the system fails, then the people have failed’. The political elders are short of what we can call role model because few of them can really come out to boast of being a corrupt free leader.

     Youth militancy is not a direct result of agitation for change but a political note. Boko Haram, Odua People Congress,  Movement for Emacipation of Niger Delta,  Movement for Actualization of Sovereign State Of Biafra are not product of agitation for societal change but a political interest group who care more for their individual interest than the societal one at large. There are no true Balewas, Awolowos, Saro Wiwas or Ojukwus today to fight for the interest of their people in non-violent form.

     Nigeria is now in the crisis position. The international observers are now predicting a possible disintegration that may not blow anybody good. It may be worse than India that splitted into three [India, Pakistan and Bangladesh], Sudan [Sudan and South Sudan]. This is because of internal rancor among Northern themselves as well as Southern. The language of the street now remains; what happens to Uche Adebayo, Elo Abubakar, Obong Gowon and other product of inter tribal marriages whose parents married long time ago when Nigeria was united?

    A lot of politicians and right activist have been canvassing for true federalism is the only solution to the persistent political cum ethnic problems in Nigeria. Chief Femi Falana made reference to state governor who spent one billion naira to send pilgrims to Mecca and Israel’s record of 20000 Nigerian pilgrims where only 7% of the country’s population  are Christian. Such stories like these are wastage on irrelevant things. Anybody is charged with murder or corruption should not be politicized.

  The American true federalism allows each state to decide her jurisprudence without federal government interference as long as it does not conflict with federal law. For example, a conservative state like Texas apply death sentence to capital criminal offence while New York does not. There is a limit to federal intervention to state’s generation of funds in a true federal system. Baba Awolowo could be able to achieve what he achieved in the old Western Region because there was a true federalism then.

   Engineering a Nigeria of our own is the only solution to the country’s problem as put by former Akwa Ibom state governor. This may take a long time because the crop of old politicians should decide to leave the political stage before that could be done. Disintegration is not as easy as people think. We need to think of former Soviet Union!