Nigeria, 20 Years Hence

Tunde Fagbenle

September 26, 2011






As a columnist you are assailed by unceasing questioning by your fans, especially the younger ones who are ready to “swear” by your name. One such fan accosted me the other day and after the usual expression of joy at meeting you threw it at me:

“Sir,” she asked rather petulantly, “how do you see Nigeria in twenty years time?”

“Do you want an honest answer?” I retorted.

“Yes, sir,” Biola answered. And I gave it thus:

It is difficult to see Nigeria together as one country twenty years hence. Of course, I would love to be proved wrong, but the signs are ominous.

I love Nigeria. I was born in the north, I grew up in the north, and I should qualify to be one of them, but I dare not take that for granted in Nigeria of today. Or I do so at the peril of my life.

I am saddened by the nonsense going on under the banner of some so-called Boko Haram group. I have tried hard but I can’t make any sense out of their demand. They are a brazen and sheer terrorist formation out to cause fear and through violence and wanton destruction exert political control for their dubious cause.

This group have introduced a form and scale of violence to Nigeria that will not go away, possibly ever! The genie is out of the bottle and nothing would force it back. Indeed, the bottle is broken anyway in the sense that the fear and distrust already created are indelible and self-perpetuating. So if that’s what those behind it, within or without the country, set out to achieve they can pat themselves on the back.



The country is a fraud and fraudulently her leaders pursue her course. What do I mean?

Right, it is fraudulent to want to compare or equate this Boko Haram thing with militant groups such as OPC, MEND, MASSOB or any other such groups with clearly defined political and human rights objectives over their land and with no desire to expand to or control the rest of the country. On the other hand, they are even seeking excision or secession from what they perceive as continued fraud and injustice.

It is therefore fraudulent to talk about negotiating with this group. What negotiation? And the fraud in the thinking of the government is exposed in the manner it has set about such “negotiation”. Sending an Obasanjo or an Obasanjo sending himself is the most unreasonable thing to do. Obasanjo is neither a Muslim nor a northerner, regardless of his (I must admit, genuine) sense of “one-Nigerianness”. He is a “kafir”, talking to him itself is “haram”!.

Now, where in all of this are the northern leaders of note? Where is Shagari? Where is Buhari? Where is Babangida? Where is Abubakar? Other than self-conceit, what would make an Obasanjo think he is a more credible and acceptable face of “national leader” to these (call them what they are) terrorists than these past leaders who have ethnic and religious affinity with them? Even if the terrorists reject some of their past leaders who they may believe “sold” them into their present “plight” and also would not want to see any of their emirs, surely there are still some northern leaders they would consider credible enough. So why is none of them lending a hand? Is it out of fear, out of “convenience” or out of connivance?

The point I’m driving at is that you cannot conceivably send a ‘Yanmiri’ or ‘Malam’ to go talk to OPC or MEND to lay down their arms; or a ‘Malam’ or ‘Yoruba-Yoruba’ to tell MASSOB to sheathe sword. True, MEND picked on a Prof. Wole Soyinka to negotiate for them, but they see him as credible and having earned their trust through long years of identification with their cause. What is the cause of the northerner or Muslim that an Obasanjo could be said to have pursued honestly, selflessly, and consistently to earn him a place in the hearts of Boko Haram?

But I am not knocking Obasanjo entirely, doubtful as his real motives may be. Again I ask, where are the northern leaders? They know those behind the “masks”, they should “know “ how to bring them to order.

Now with the way the threats of Boko Haram is being stretched beyond the core northern borders, the implication and repercussion is likely to boomerang into total conflagration.

It is a shame because this country of great potential doesn’t have to come to this.

Another fraud that this country is set upon is the question of constitution amendment.

Of course nothing can be more fraudulent and deceitful than the approach that a totally wobbly foundation can be corrected through plastering and facelifting of the structure. A possible way to avert the apocalypse earlier pictured is to set on the course of restructuring the country through a National Conference. It is imperative and it is urgent. Let the leaders of all the waring or militant groups and of all the ethnic nationalities table their grievances and their expectations and let us arrive at mutually agreeable terms for moving the country forward or going apart peacefully.

Yet another fraud is this belated trial of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (BT) over what even a primary school child would dismiss as inconsequential. The matter is in court and little can now be said on it. But while a friend of mine believes the government may not have the sinew to push him to jail, a la Awolowo in the First Republic, I am concerned that the “puppeteer” still lurks (nay, looms) large and is uncaring enough to ask to damn it all.

Of all possible grievous charges that can be brought up against a political opponent, I find this the most ludicrous more particularly because of the lack of substance than the fact. If BT has committed criminal acts that should send him to jail, by all means let justice prevail, but certainly not on some hogwash charge of something virtually all of them do. There is the letter of the law and there is the “spirit” of it.

The Boko Haram menace is heating up the polity enough, it is silly to heap some more on ourselves.

I carried on a bit further with Biola, my fan, dwelling on the hope that the new generation of Western states governors – Fashola to Fayemi, Aregbesola to Amosun, Ajimobi to Mimiko right up to Oshiomhole – ignite in me. The hope that, perhaps, through their pockets of sanity, a substituting regional paradigm may emerge to rescue us from impending Armageddon!

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