FUTURE MUSHROOM "NATIONS" OF "FORMER" NIGERIA
Some So Poor They'll Locate Their "Embassy" On Facebook
--Attorney Patryk Utulu**

Despite Imperial British cartographic diktat Nigeria has NEVER had ONE "North." Soon, post-May 29, 2015, it would be President Muhammadu Buhari’s responsibility to decide whether or not to implement a key political recommendation of Nigeria's National Conference 2014: the creation of 18 new and mostly bankrupt states that would bring Nigeria to a total of 54 poorer, and mostly beggar states.

It is inevitable that near the end we all start thinking about the beginnings. Call it human or national retrospection. Call it the collective eureka. Call it the end of innocence if you like. (Or feel free to supply your own choice of metaphors). Here's the long story short: Nigeria’s Presidential election 2015 was the terminal beginning of the end of Nigeria. The long frustrated and embittered partners have finally seen the futility of pretending that the relationship will ever improve beyond the grade of “tragic.” The politics of hate and targeted violence has paid great dividends and is now firmly institutionalized. Besides the fact that no occupant of Presidential Aso Villa will ever again be president of ALL Nigeria, the 2015 election laid naked Nigeria’s unbridgeable regional, religious and tribal divide.

You may dispute it but truth can be pitiless. As pitiless as that it doesn't matter whether a person naively, religiously or habitually “believes" it to be so, the sun does NOT rise in the East nor set in the West. THE SUN SITS IN A FIXED POSITION. It doesn't move at all. It is our earth that revolves (rotates) around the sun creating the ancient "truth" of a "rising" sun and the reality of day and night. That's an example of pitiless truth. This solar metaphor applies to the partnership of the constituent units of Nigeria --a relationship now irreversibly damaged. Personal and tribal insecurity, mutually-belligerent contempt of "northerners" and "southerners," and Christians and Muslims for one another coupled with the total loss of faith in any possibility of equitable distribution of national wealth or division of political power between North and South would only accelerate the centrifugal forces.

Please feel free to grumble loudly if it makes dealing with the bitter truth a little less toxic for your personal sanity. Our national demise is already politically constructed. I merely write the scenes of the tragedy that is coming.

Unlike humans, nations seldom die on a day certain nor are their corpus visibly buried on a particular day. Thus, Nigeria will wobble on for another decade or two until ascendant centrifugal "forces" within the increasingly conservative "Sharia" North; the defensively re-Christianizing South; the resentful erstwhile dominant Christian Yoruba leaders; the triumphalist ascendant Muslim Yoruba leadership; terrorist Boko Haram's intensifying attacks on large Christian majorities in Plateau, Adamawa and other "northern" minorities; the justified oil grievances of South South and the rising sophistication of pro-Biafra messaging PUSHES NIGERIA'S FISSURE BEYOND THE POINT OF CONTAINMENT.

Nigerians have a tendency to ignore reality and no self-delusion is greater than the lazy arrogance of so-called "educated" Southerners who think themselves superior to "Northerners" but are in reality politically primitive compared to the "Northerners" they like to look down on. But let’s for a moment sustain the illusion that Nigerians will not descend into Sudan/South Sudan-style civil war of national partitioning but would instead behave like citizen-leaders of former Czechoslovakia that negotiated, shook hands and peacefully divided their nation into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Under this magical scenario Nigerians would negotiate, shake hands and split up along the lines of the original four (Eastern, Western, Midwestern and Northern) regions of Nigeria.

Yes? No! Why?

Because like every magic show reality returns when the lights are turned back on. FIRST, despite British colonial fiat and perception reinforced by ignorance and hype, there has never been ONE "North." Thus, when Nigeria's inevitable split comes, Kanem-Borno of the NorthEast will be an independent "nation." Arewa Sokoto Caliphate of the NorthWest will be a separate "nation." The Christianity Cove of "Plateau/Langtang" (Generals Domkat Bali, Jeremiah Useni, Musa Gambo, Joshua Dogonyaro, Air Marshall Jonan D. Wuyep, John Shagaya, Ishaku Pennap, Jonathan Temlong, Air Commander Bernard Banfa, and Chief Solomon Lar’s home turf) would want their own independent "nation" and they won't be asking politely; The original "Habe" Hausa "kingdoms" of Zazzau who escaped Fulani assimilation (and are now in Suleija/Abuja FCT region) would want their own "nation" too. And the fiercely Christian Tiv/Idoma Middle Belt will enforce their own independent "nation" within the Middle Belt Christianity corridor.

So even under the best of scenarios, "North" will produce at least 5 "nations."

SECOND, Midwest region, which became BENDEL State (BENin-DELta) that is today's Edo State and Delta State. Could Bendel be reconstituted? To make a long story short: there is no God anywhere in the universe that can compel the Ibos of DELta State and the Edos (BENin) to form a union or “one nation.”

Thus, "Midwest" will produce at least 2 "nations."

THIRD, Western region. Interesting boiling pot, isn't it? I suppose the only way to analyze the West is to ask a simple question: Is there any politically literate adult Nigerian alive today who thinks the West will ever return to one united "nation" in a post-Nigeria partitioning? Under whose unified leadership?

So it isn'r unimaginable that the "West" would probably produce 3-4 "nations."

FOURTH, Eastern region.Only three things are certaina) Biafra would be the name of at least one "nation" arising from post-Nigeria Eastern region; (b) Delta Ibos will be part of Biafra; and (c) the East is the only region with experience at nationhood. But these three core factors do NOT guarantee that only one nation will emerge from old Eastern region. Why? This is not the 1960's and the East is ethnically dynamic as well. Biafra may also be influenced by forces outside of Biafra itself. For example, would cultural affinity compel the Urhobo of “Central” Delta State to join the Edos to form a common "nation?" Or would maritime and economic imperative compel the Urhobo and the Isoko of Delta to seek a confederated "Niger Delta nation" with tribes of today's South-South Bayelsa/Rivers? Would Governor Godwill Akpabio's Efik-Ibibio-Annang-Oron-Biase-Uruan-Eket ethnic collective have "nation"-al aspiration of their own? HERE'S AN EVEN MORE “DANGEROUS” QUESTION: Would nationalist Biafrans tolerate anything short of "Biafra" led by Delta/Eastern Igbos? That is, would we see an "Eastern"war waged to save the dream of One Republic of Biafra?

How many "nations" would emerge from "Eastern" region? Well, ask Jesus!

Imagine the diplomatic and legal fights over "ownership" of Nigerian national assets (embassies, buildings, etc.) abroad? What happens if a tiny left-out tribe wants to retain the name "Nigeria" for its own "nation?" Have you ever seen a war of attrition where none of the combatants want a particular object but are equally determined to ensure that no one else gets the object? Have you? No? Talk to a divorce attorney!!

BUT WHEN NIGERIA FALLS TWO THINGS ARE GUARANTEED:
(i): Next to former Soviet Union, Nigeria will set a global record for number of "nations" ever to emerge from one defunct entity.
(ii): Religion and oil will be the core motivating factors for foreign intervention for or against many of the emerging "nations."

Oh, there's one more: Many of the new "nations" will be so inconsequential, so resource-poor and so financially bankrupt that some will locate their "Embassy" on Facebook!!!

****
Attorney Patryk A. Utulu**
U.S.-based Attorney & Strategic Communications Specialist
Global Defense Analyst and Global Events Commentator
Executive Vice President, Nigerian Diaspora-North America
Executive Director, The Center 4 Community Empowerment & Lifeskills, Inc
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