Nigeria:Between Ghadafi and America

Last week saw a big progress made in global attempts to help Nigeria resolve her crises. From Africa came the seasoned voice of the founding Father of the African Union while America voiced its position on Nigeria supporting efforts by the acting President Jonathan to reform electoral processes for the coming elections in 2011.The progress is in the fact that we now have models for consideration and for once Nigerian leaders will be called upon to face the truth and address salient issues of internal and global concern.

The former Chairman of the African Union Libya's long serving President M. Ghadafi had called for 'Pakistani' solution to the Nigerian problem. He wanted Nigeria broken peacefully into two states-Northern and Southern Nigeria with Capitals in Abuja and Lagos. As if in response to the uproar generated by this position, The United States spoke up also throwing its weight behind PDP's Internal Party arrangement known as 'rotation' of the Office of President between the North and the South of Nigeria. The USA wants Nigeria's stability in the sub region to continue.

Nigerians should not be overly worried by these suggestions which we prompted them to give. Rather we should be grateful that they spoke at all. This is a crucial stage of the Nigerian revolution, the stage of choices. We have just left the stage of ideals behind. At this stage solutions are put forward on the table and what follows is a time of practical test of these solutions to see how feasible they will be. We are approaching the moment of definitions. Others should feel free to scrutinize these good willed suggestions and come forth with changes or alternatives. It is wrong to be paranoid about a help offered by a third party. It is even more naïve of a country to recall envoy over such a thing. We should thank President Ghadafi and President Obama for finding time to offer help to Nigeria and then we can put it to examination to decide how useful their suggestions are. Of course coming from the past Chairman of the African Union and from the Most Powerful Nation on earth these positions carry weight and deserve our respect but they are not binding on Nigeria.

I will attempt in this article to look into the two positions as they are with a view to bringing about greater insight and clarity of the underlying issues. First let us look at the Libyan Leaders position. He should know because he has been up there for long. Any one looking at Nigeria from outside seeing the repetition of interreligious and tribal killings since 1967 will conclude that the internal mechanism for conflict resolution is faulty. He will ask himself why this mechanism has not been repaired for so long. The obvious answer is that the mechanism is permanently faulty and cannot be repaired. Why is it un-repairable? The answer is that the people cannot agree as to how to go about the repair. Why is this disagreement possible? Well because, the people are governed by irreconcilable values. They cannot agree to the need or otherwise of taking certain actions, when to do so and by whom in order to attain a laid down goal. They are not even agreed as to whether this goal is necessary at the very outset. So for a man whose baby was the African union today functional with Nigeria as member, such a situation calls for division along homogenous value systems. To make this change peaceful is what people should worry about because even the Pakistani model was not as peaceful as one would want. For him, Nigeria could be split into a predominantly Christian South and a Moslem majority North. So what is wrong in his suggestion? We shall examine it further.

As for the position of the United States that rotation of President would guarantee Stability of Nigeria, the same applies. We must be grateful that the USA has found it expedient to take a stand and also we must respect all such stands which invariable emanates from intensive research. Aside from the recent classification of Nigeria as a country of interest in the State sponsors of terrorism watch list, America's last but one controversial stand on Nigeria was in 2005 when her agency predicted that Nigeria may expire in 15 years time -that is about 2020. So it is a thing of joy that Nigeria is seen to have been and could be stable with rotation of the President between the North and South. In 2005 when the Failed State prophesy came on stream, President Obasanjo reacted exactly the way the Present Government reacted to President Ghadafi's Split Nigeria suggestion. It was all wrong. Thereafter came serious efforts to counter this ominous date by planning a Nigeria that would emerge the top 20 nation globally and so was the birth of Vision 2020. But we had first of all tried to deny the reality and condemn those who came to help us for their effrontery to intrude into our internal affairs-whatever that means in a globalized world.

Now that you know these positions in context we can proceed to look at them closely here. For me there is no difference between the two suggestions aside from the method. Each position understands the irreconcilable differences between the North and the South Nigeria which requires a measure of autonomy for the two sides. While Ghadafi calls for outright split into two distinct States or countries, the United States position supports devolution into one country with a formula of governance that carries both sides along. What is unsaid about Ghadafi's two State Solution is also the post split relationship between the two States which may well look like a confederacy. So what does America's support for PDP/s rotation mean? For some it is merely an endorsement of the present 'carry go' politics of Pseudo-democratic unaccountability under the dark shadows of rotation. This is far away from the truth because I don't see America getting involved in a process that cannot be written down or ex-rayed transparently. If my haunch is true, then we would have to put this shadowy concept into Nigeria's constitution. And that to me is the hard part, the dreaded point of definition. Oh Yea we are back to the nitty gritty which some people think could be wished away in the scheme of things.

Talking about definitions, yes there is so much really to define. We now must really define where the North Ends and where the South begins. Okay you may say we should go back to the Lord Luggard's Amalgamation map of 1914. Fine We are getting somewhere. What we may not entirely say is whether these people are immediately Moslems or whether the Christians would prefer to stay. Then we may also decide to take a census before the divide. Ah that is another complication because you cannot count some people with out identifying them something which may be an abomination. So we can never really know how much we are as a country with acceptable degree of certainty. Definitely the American supported Rotation will make a transparent census by maybe the United Nations necessary because we need to put a tab at who is North or South. With that arises the issue of citizenship and welfare for those who would be called upon to vote in elections or for whom selected people represent.

With census and constitutional revision to formally inscribe rotation in the Nigerian constitution comes the next step of boundary adjustments and constituency delineations. Here we can test our 'grammar' on the ground to know how the people take it. We can also see how other political parties take the idea. The most important thing to note is that at least the south will have to decide differently how to pick its Presidential nominee. Does it have to be uniform? I suppose not. The North may opt for Emirs to nominate candidates while the South may prefer the classical democratic representational system. All these necessitates that different constitutions be made to guide the selection of President for each side. Was it not the way Lord Luggard ran things for colonial Britain? So why is it different today? Shouldn't we just swallow our pride and borrow a leaf from 1914 since we cannot offer anything better a century after? It is because we do not like to face the truth without fighting it but anyway we always try to work in a round about way to the same truth thereafter even if we always fail to get there because we had earlier profusely denied it. So what the Leaders of Libya and the United States are telling us is the same: Nigeria it is time you faced the truth to stop history from repeating itself; it is time you awoke to the realization that you are not alone on this earth and that others will always demand some accountability and responsibility over your actions and inaction; it is high time you moved to your next level, towards your manifest destiny.

Mr. Nworisara aspired to be President of Nigeria in 1992