The British have a saying: “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” However, when it comes to Nigeria, what is normal and natural for the UK citizens and government to do in UK cannot be allowed—by the UK—for the peoples suffering and dying in Nigeria to do in Nigeria.

The UK’s insistence on one-Nigeria and its fanatical support for that unworkable and lethal-to-Nigerians structure is a case in point. UK’s is an irrational stance that is empowering and prolonging the foisted so-called leaders and government of Nigeria to foreclose on any debate by the peoples residing in Nigeria on real effective solutions and to criminalize movements for such solutions. Meanwhile, UK citizens are free to, and do freely and openly debate and rework their own union and relationships as they see fit.


So, as one can see, the Scots of UK can seek for and debate their Independence from UK, and the UK can accommodate that—and the results of such. No UK government agents and institutions are arresting and killing Scottish leaders for suggesting such, or for planning it, or for carrying it out. There is no cry of “Treason, treason!” directed against the Scots and their leaders and no threat of prosecution—or persecution, for that matter; there are no emotional outbursts or sham pseudo-nationalist conniving vows of “one indivisible UK, ” Even the BBC, ever the willing UK government mouthpiece, propagandist and co-actor when it comes to Nigeria’s issues, reports accurately and objectively and analyzes dispassionately the goings-on regarding this Scotland versus UK matter and like-subjects.

For the benefit of those unaware of it, the Scots, belonging to one of the nations that make up Britain / UK, already have a large measure of national autonomy in UK, having their own parliament and government, following earlier referendums. The UK government never contested this. Earlier this year (2011), the Welsh, constituting another British / UK nation, much smaller than Scotland in size and population, successfully voted in a referendum in favor of some measure of Welsh national autonomy. The Welsh are currently in the process of disengaging from the central UK government to the extent of the letter and spirit of their successful referendum. The UK government has not sent in its army to sack and raze Wales nor threatened to do so: such in fact could never cross its mind. The prediction is that the next step for Wales will be seeking Independence from UK eventually.

In each case, these socio-political emancipatory steps among the peoples of UK might have failed at first pose, first presentation and first effort; but conditions prompting them in the first place must have persisted, compelling the peoples to return to the issues again and again, revisit them and continue the debate, and change their mind accordingly, in the face of evident realities, until ultimate consummation. The UK peoples and their governments allowed this process to play out among them and accepted the outcomes. The debates might have been loud and sometimes even rancorous, maybe with name-calling, but the process proceeded with civility, definitiveness and conclusiveness. One would think that the UK, rather than meddlesomely suppress and oppose the same type of debate and process in Nigeria, would have the decency to accord the same respect to the peoples living in Nigeria as it does to her own citizens with whom Self Determination is encouraged, supported and allowed to come to fruition.

One would think that the peoples suffering, pining and dying under the smothering burden of one- Nigeria would have the good sense to oppose the hypocritical UK Foreign Policy and meddlings in its support of one-Nigeria. One would think that the bruised peoples residing in Nigeria and battered by the perniciousness of one-Nigeria would have some human dignity left, enough to challenge the double standard being practiced by the UK wherein UK citizens may exercise and enjoy Self-deterministic rights and privileges in UK but the peoples living in the Nigeria geospace may not. Are Africans living in Nigeria really lesser humans in the eyes and the practices of UK, unqualified to be accorded the very basic natural human courtesies, human privileges and human rights, individual or group? Are Africans unworthy of the exercise of Self Determination? UK’s posture in Nigeria begs these questions.

Of course, one should not blame UK alone in this matter. Many persons in Nigeria possessing Western education and accompanying degrees, awards and accolades still come up with the stupidest of reasons why the peoples barely eking out an existence in Nigeria should continue to cling to the malevolent one-Nigeria arrangement. These persons have lost all sensitivity to the plight of the masses grating themselves to unnecessary harm and premature death in Nigeria; else, they lack common reasoning sense—or both.

Those who use the “global village” argument state that the world is becoming a place of fading borders, replaced by overarching unions and super-unions, reducing the world to one large village; therefore, splitting up (which is what will be required to solve the Nigeria problem definitively) is a negative and counter-trend. Yet, ask them to point out where any sovereign country in this world has ever given up its sovereignty, Independence and or nationhood in order to join such a union, or while being a member of such a union: they won’t be able to come up with a single example. Since these persons often cite European Union (EU) as one of such unions (of which UK is a strong member), does that then not defeat their argument completely, seeing now that Scotland in UK is wanting to split from UK of EU, that Wales in UK of EU may soon follow suit, and that at the very least, each is strengthening her own nationhood and sovereignty and not dissolving or dismantling them? And, what about the case of the total breakup of the super Soviet Union, yielding multiple individual Independent and sovereign nations, in this the era of “global village preferred citizenship”? It is rather too obvious to cite this case in order to counter this uninformed argument. Indeed, the continued use of that argument smacks of intellectual dishonesty and or just plain ignorance.

Then, there are those who will argue that Nigeria has too many tribes—over three hundred, they would quote—and therefore to split Nigeria is impossible. First, where is the evidence of such teeming numbers, especially given that in Nigeria, anything involving numbers is routinely and proudly fudged for advantage? Second, there are already a few real “tribal nations” in Nigeria where a particular tribe is large, unique and comfortable enough to be a nation of its own and naturally functions as such: for example, the Igbo, the Yoruba, the Hausa separately, and the Fulani separately, and others. Most of the time, though, many “smaller” tribes already willingly and consensually get together to make up a functional nation. For example, the Hausa-Fulani is a nation where the Hausa and Fulani tribes have joined to form one nation. Many other tribes have joined up to make a religion-based nation of Islam in Northern Nigeria, to the extent that the vast region and their tribes in the North have functionally been reduced to just two nations—a Muslim nation and a Christian nation.




Therefore, three hundred tribes or five hundred tribes, even when Nigeria can with honesty count that high, does not equate to three hundred or five hundred nations. Before the advent of colonialism, the same tribes existed in the Nigeria geospace; they did not function as three to five hundred-odd nations. (By the way, the Roman conquerors of Britain recorded 27 major tribes on the British Isle proper, according to historical sources; today, these tribes have not become 27 different nations, but have coalesced into only the 3 nations of Scotland, England and Wales on the Isle; the fourth—Northern Ireland—is on a nearby island. For context, England alone is as large as or larger in size than all the other three combined, looking at the maps.)

A few may pretend that one major and valid reason to oppose the split-up of Nigeria is that the Oil boom in the Niger Delta area is a motivating factor, where the few nations subtending that natural resource greedily want to keep the proceeds all to themselves. UK uses this argument, too. No reason can be more idiotic or mischievous. Dividing social, religious, ethnic and political uniqueness among the peoples living in Nigeria have always been there from the start; the different peoples managed to manage such well, until colonialism forced them all together making the irreconcilable incompatibilities obvious, rendering the “plantation-country” so formed unworkable and ungovernable. As such, this has / had nothing to do with Oil, a much later find which did not become such a hot commodity until after WWII. The UK ought to know that! Yet, for that matter, no other reason for opposing the split-up of Nigeria can be more hypocritical on the part of UK:  did you read in the cited article above one of the reasons the Scots want their Independence from UK? Quote:
“"Even if we gained all these things, that would give the Scottish Parliament control over approximately 20% of the revenue base of Scotland.
“"Independence would give the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish people, control over almost 100% of the revenue base of Scotland."” –Mr Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister. Unquote.

There, “Howzat!” The goose and the gander again!

Finally, the reason that goes something like “Nigeria is the ‘giant’ of Africa” and ought to be preserved and supported as such, is often tendered by a few Nigerians, the UK and other ill-informed and or patronizing foreigners come romantic dreamers who have no clue as to what really passes as Nigeria. They are all too happy to ignore and deny the reality of the unfathomably negative and disastrous, life-sucking Nigerian experience. Their preferred romanticized notion of Nigeria has never been the experience and or reality for anyone and will never be. Africa, if it ever really needs a giant, does not need Nigeria because Nigeria is not a giant—not even a paper-giant—and has no way to become one, in any case. If not that Nigeria’s woes mirror Africa’s own woes (because of a shared root-cause), and in spite of that, Africa does not deserve this kind of a “country” called Nigeria. Africa only needs Nigeria like Africa needs a bullet in the head; sadly, Africa in fact functions just like that, anyway, because that’s exactly what Africa has got, unfortunately—Nigeria!

The peoples suffocating in Nigeria need to understand that what makes any country successful and or great in this world is the ability of its people to confront its problems with honesty, and with a determination to solve the problems effectively; the sole driving goal being the preservation of the people and their cherished way of life, the vision being a thriving and dignified human population in charge of its own destiny. If the pursuit of this goal means that the people have to change their relationship(s) within their own country or state, or between their country and others, so be it; a successful country and people will proceed to do so without apology or hesitation. If it means joining other(s) in a union, they will do it, wherein in fact, being true to their original goal dictates that they have to preserve and maintain their own sovereignty even while belonging to a new union. That’s what UK is doing with EU, and that’s what the Scots and the Welsh are doing with UK. Ironically, that’s exactly what UK says the peoples living in Nigeria should not and cannot do with Nigeria.

The conditions created by one-Nigeria, by contrast, do not allow for the preservation of the people—they rather incite and promote the destruction of the peoples. One-sided, insistent and incessant killing of peoples from other ethnic or religious groups by one particular one has now almost degenerated into predictable kill-with-reprisal-kill cycles after initial unilateral goodwill dried up. This wicked relationship called Nigeria has never been sustainable, despite force and pressure (and the UK can take a lot of the blame here); now it is just plain unbearable, anti-people, anti-human. Nigeria is not a place where the peoples are pursuing their cherished ways of life, never mind enjoying life. What in fact there is in Nigeria is a complete clash of different ways of life and incompatible life-views, with one particular one aggressive to impose theirs on others. In Nigeria, one people’s vision is to subjugate, prey on, dispossess and annihilate the others: how could there be “thriving and dignified humanity” therein? For sure, the reality of peoples killing one another forced together in Nigeria does not reflect or support a vision of being in control of each their own destiny. Nigeria therefore lacks every single ingredient necessary to build and maintain a successful country or a successful nation, talk less of a true union.

This is all the result of the peoples in Nigeria being forced into a “union” by UK whose own peoples are free to choose to rearrange and or opt out of their own non-forced union. Coupled with that, the peoples in Nigeria are passive enough in their suffering and are in such psychological denial that all they want to do is make excuses for why they are unable to exercise their own Self Determination rights, even if in order that they may at last and at least, live; rights taken for granted in the UK by the UK for the UK even as the UK suppresses such rights in Nigeria.

By Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
Nwa Biafra
A Biafran Citizen

Interesting article. Scotland isn't such a great example though right now. . . didn't the UK just spend billions bailing out failed Scottish banks?

^^^^^

not sure

but the article is pointing at something we need in nigeria certainly

Same old song.

Actually it is what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

SNC SCN SNC SNC

this what we need in nigeria and yet funs are equally distributed