Secession threat as a tool of blackmail

Since at least the early 90s, and in reaction to the military’s apparent foot-dragging to restore democracy in Nigeria then, clamour for secession has always been used as a tool of political blackmail against the Northern Nigerian political establishment.

It’s widely assumed that Northern Nigeria’s particular commitment to a united Nigeria is purely for economic reasons, as it’s believed that the region is economically unviable without the regular statutory allocation from the proceeds of crude oil resources from the Southern part of the country. After all, given the tendency of the region’s political establishment to make any compromise, concession and even sacrifice for the sake of the country’s corporate survival, that commitment is even perceived as desperation.

In the geopolitics among the country’s primary regions i.e. North, West and East, the Northern Nigerian political establishment has always been blackmailed with a tacit threat against the survival of the federation. For instance, the region was blackmailed into conceding to the unconstitutional arrangement to rotate the presidency among the regions thereby effectively rendering its population advantage irrelevant. It’s also so with the disproportionate revenue distribution formula among the federating states, and many other policies.

Also, though the protests that ensued following the controversial annulment of June 12, 1993 presidentialelectionthatwasbelieved to have been won by late MKO Abiola were understandable, the South West political establishment and its press soon manipulated the situation by portraying it as a Northern conspiracy to prevent the emergence of a Yoruba man as president. Interestingly, that’s even though Abiola defeated his main contender, Bashir Tofa, even in Kano, his birthplace, and supposed political stronghold.

Anyway, with their sustained, systematic and well-oiled propaganda machinery, they even managed to portray the situation as a grand Northern plot against the emergence of any Southerner as president. Violent protests persisted across the South West in particular amid threats against the country’s corporate survival by the region’s political elite under their umbrella organisation, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) that somehow gained the sympathy of the influential Euro-American axis and its powerful media, which adopted and vigorously promoted the NADECO narrative of the events in the country.

Also, following the sudden death of the then Head of State, General Sani Abacha, and with the start of the democratic transition process under General AbdulSalami Abubakar, the Northern Nigerian political establishment had already been blackmailed into tacitly accepting the responsibility for the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election by the then military regime, the imprisonment of the supposed winner, Abiola, and his subsequent death in prison, simply because the heads of the military regimes i.e. Babangida and Abacha respectively were Northerners.

That paved the way and indeed made it easier to further blackmail the “guilty” North into conceding the presidency to the “wronged” South West on a silver platter to pacify it in the interest of “national cohesion”. That was how the convicted Obasanjo was released from prison, rehabilitated and literally imposed on Nigeria.

Since then, the apparent desperation of the Northern Nigerian political establishment for the country’s corporate survival has grown, which explains the growing trend of blackmailing the region with secession and other threats against the country’s continued corporate existence.

It’s now quite common, for instance, to learn that Northerners living in the South have been rounded up and deported back to the North. This, in addition to other discriminatory actions, is becoming more systematic following the establishment of well-armed regional security outfits in the South East and South West while the South South is equally considering its own, all in a blatant disregard to relevant constitutional provisions.

Interestingly, those secession threats aren’t actually genuine after all; the only genuine secession attempt was the Odumegwu-Ojukwu-led session attempt that triggered the Nigerian civil war more than half a century ago. Since then, secession threats have always been mere tactics for political blackmail against the North, as the individual and collective interests of the Nigerian elite as a whole have over the decades grown too interdependently to survive the secession of any region in the country.

That explains why no incumbent political office-holder, civil servant or any beneficiary of the status quo even from the regions particularly notorious for secession threats has ever been openly involved in the clamour for secession knowing that their involvement in it and their stay in government are mutually exclusive. Instead, only opportunists, desperate for relevance, broke and frustrated public figures with hardly anything to lose get involved in it.

Besides, though Nigeria as a corporate entity has always been fragile, its peculiar circumstances make it too fragile to disintegrate. Yet, Northern Nigeria will continue to be politically blackmailed until it addresses its self-inflicted socioeconomic disadvantage, which the other regions capitalise upon to blackmail it with a secession threat.

Until it develops its massive economic potential into real and instantly exploitable resources and turns its huge population into the 21st century-standard economically productive population, the region will continue to be blackmailed into making further concessions until it gets to a point where it may have to literally beg to be kept in the federation.

Good governance is urgently required to reduce abject poverty, corruption and fraud, political influence, joblessness, lack of capital punishment and reverse the changing value system aka quick-money syndrome. Others are public enlightenment and empowerment programmes, Sim cards registration, stopping ransom payments, introduction of community policing and reduction of small and light arms proliferation in the country

Of course, we all know it is one of the first trades to evolve in all human societies, probably after farming and before the proverbial prostitution because bandits are trousers-down the biggest customers of prostitutes and drugpeddlers. Politicians, with the exception of a few uncompromised souls, are also the prominent patrons of both bandits and prostitutes. Together, these three professionals can totally take over any shanty, state, country or even an entire subcontinent.

Citizens across the classes and divides need to seriously calm down when facing such a combo. Panic is absolutely counter-productive to a rapid evolution of any panacea. The angrier we get at the horrendous killings and destruction taking place across the country, the more confused we will become and confusion is exactly what bandits and their paymasters need to succeed. Remember what the combination of angst and misunderstanding led to in Rwanda of 1994 and you realise that we do not want to travel the Kigali Road.

Calming down does not need dismissing or even diminishing the facts and figures. Indeed, it requires facing them. Between January and March 2021, Kaduna State alone recorded over 320 deaths and almost 1000 incidents of kidnapping. Over 200 other persons including infants and women were wounded and thousands of cows rustled in what appears as a free reign for the terrorists. The toll in terms of internally displaced persons is even untold. Dozens of whole towns and villages have been pillaged and razed, thousands of lives mowed down in the nearly decade-long rampage by the bandits elsewhere in Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Nasarawa, Niger, Taraba, Benue and Plateau states.

More ominously, farms and ranches including those located in the Kaduna International Airport general area are now totally no-go areas. Without the food, everyone, except the bandits who stole all the cattle and grains and their sponsors who’ve stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in the UAE, UK, US and elsewhere, should naturally starve to death. Presumably, the survivors will then inherit all the land and repopulate it using the abducted Chibok school-girls and thousands of other women still in their captivity. Foreign vultures are also waiting in the wings to devour the priceless carbons, precious stones and other countless natural resources. This is the veritable nightmare unfolding.

The fundamental question, however, is why are bandits from Borno to Lagos and from Sokoto to Rivers suddenly enjoying such a sensational rise and reign especially since the reinstatement of democracy in 1999?

Primarily, it is because politicians arm, brainwash, drug, use and then dump them. For instance, Boko Haram began with the unholy alliance with some politicians. The confrontation that engulfed nearly all the country came when members demanded exemption from a state law requiring the use of safety helmets by motorcyclists. Heavyhanded response by law enforcement agents leading to the death of 17 of these violators, the arrest and extra-judicial liquidation of Yusuf in 2009 started the killing spree that is yet to be stopped.

Today, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states remain shells (pun intended) of what they were just a decade ago. The ragtag terrorists have so far bombed around 80 percent of public infrastructure in the zone and sent successful suicide bombers that hit the Nigeria Police Headquarters and the UN office in Abuja.

Even though Boko Haram’s days of brazen bombings that kill hundreds in Abuja garages, Jos markets and Kano mosques seem over, we remain under threats from the ruthless beasts for the foreseeable future. This is just one brand of bandits set off by the selfish and illiterate antics of a single egomaniac.

Similar scenarios in most states account for the viral ascension of the outlaws everywhere.

Stopping the proliferation of banditry should begin by ending the demand pronto. Politicians must accept that polls, not thugs, ought to determine the outcome of elections. Winding up the supply chain of bandits requires disarming, disbanding, engaging, reorienting and rehabilitating the outlaws scattered in hundreds of camps located in remote forests and other ungoverned spaces nationwide.

Good governance is urgently required to reduce abject poverty, corruption and fraud, political influence, joblessness, lack of capital punishment and reverse the changing value system, aka quick-money syndrome. Others are public enlightenment and empowerment programmes, Sim cards registration, stopping ransom payments, introduction of community policing and reduction of small and light arms proliferation in the country.

Ending the demand and supply in a sustainable manner also requires members of the general public to be more law-abiding. There are so many bandits because we have all learned to bend the rules – divine and secular. Fraudulent artisans, bankers, businessmen, civil servants, clerics, journalists, jurists, parents, medics, teachers, security agents and even common traffic law violators among others cause more death and destruction than all the bandits combined.

Citizens are the recruitment arena and breeding ground for all felons. Injustice and not irreligiosity is the fertilizer. As Mahatma Ghandi put it, “Wealth without work, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice and politics without principle lead to violence.”

Above all, we must realise that the hordes of bandits in the dark jungles will not substantially disappear until the crooks in power do. Corruption and conspicuous consumption, especially among political and public office holders, must be brought down to the barest minimum. Criminals become seemingly stronger than the state and utterly unstoppable whenever leaders at all levels lack the moral gumption to deter them.