2015: Leave Nigeria Alone

By Msonter Anzaa 

I often marvel at the attitudes of some Nigerians to issues of national importance. Many people in this country do not yet feel that this country belongs to them and whatever affects her affects them also. They erroneously believe they can go on with their lives independent of whatever becomes of the country. They therefore think the issues that fill the newspapers and the television are the business of the politicians and those in government. When they make comments on national issues using social media, most Nigerians are irrational, reckless and betray a disturbing degree of ignorance concerning very basic issues.

 One issue that seems to haunt this nation from its very formation is the question of unity. Typical Nigerian behavior is to look for somewhere to put the blame. It is the fault of the British. It is the fault of the first post-independent government. It is the fault of the military. It is the fault of the elite. It is the fault of the constitution. For the past fifty years, all we have succeeded in doing as a people is to argue over whose fault it is that Nigeria today is not what she ought to be. Pretending to address the nagging issues of mistrust, ethnicity and dangerous competition for political power among the various components of the nation, many people often talk about breaking up Nigeria: let the North and the South, each go its way.

Probably because we do not realize the full weight of such development or because it benefits some of its loudest proponents, we talk about breaking up Nigeria as lightly as if it were nothing important. Each time an election year draws closer, one hears this agitation often. Some politicians have found it a veritable tool constantly harassing the rest of us with the threat of disintegration and making their way to power. They say if they don’t win the election or if somebody from their side of the country does not win, they cannot guarantee the continued existence of Nigeria as a single entity. More recently, the disintegration card has been dangled more dangerously and quite arrogantly at the on-going National Conference. Some delegates – obviously spoilt by the fat allowance paid by the federal government and desperate to appear to the people at home as doing something – threaten the unity of the country almost every time an important decision is to be made. If the Conference does not accept their view on the matter, they threaten to walk out.

Even under the best circumstances, there will still be people across Nigeria who will express absolute dissatisfaction over the unity of the country and call for a break-up. This is to be expected in every country. Even in the United States of America, some people in some states still talk about leaving the Union. However, when this agitation is done at such a high level, it is something to worry about. Recently, a medical consultant in my school asked me, “What is the meaning of the ‘Education for one Nigeria’ that you have inscribed on your laboratory coat?” I answered, “I believe the greatest goal of education in Nigeria is to preserve national unity.” The time has come in this country when we must stand up – everyone of us – and make it clear that we would not sit down and watch some people constantly harass this country left and right with the threat of disintegration.

A few questions will drive home the reasons Nigeria has little alternative than to continue as one nation. When people talk about breaking up the country, what will they break her up into? Often they say, let the North break from the South, or the Christians from the Moslems. Then I ask, “Where is the boundary between Moslems and Christians in this country?” Again, you cannot break up a country peacefully and you are never certain of the outcome – how many pieces for instance will result from the break up? 

I want to submit – and I do on behalf of myself and the citizens who will be my children – that these people talking about breaking up Nigeria should leave her alone. We are a people who do not have the ability to agree on anything. We do not want to spend the next fifty years arguing, holding conferences, sponsoring insurgencies and killing innocent people over the formula for breaking up, or over where the boundary between the Republic of Northern Nigeria and the resulting Republics of Biafra or Oduduwa should lie. People who have lost ideas on how this beautiful land can go on together in the future should quietly retire from the national scene and pave way for some of us who can see the great future of peace and prosperity beckoning our dear nation. Just leave Nigeria alone.

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