VOICE OF DISSONANCE AND THE NIGERIAN POLITY (1999-2016)

To keep Nigeria as one is a must, how had Nigeria been kept as one? How and what method had/has been used to keep Nigeria as one? Why are Nigerians living as sisters in discord since her existence? What can we do to re-write the ugly story that had taken and is still taking place aiming at keeping Nigeria one at all cost?

Answers to these questions above are multi-facets depending one’s focusing angle.  But to me, the greatest disservice done to Nigeria has always been from those who want to keep her one at all cost. Those that propounded the above aphorism rather from those who want her to be Balkanized! ‘At all cost’ to them means to silence any dissenting voice that questions the ‘fraudulent unity’ in diversity of the (gi)ant of Africa, called Nigeria; no matter where the voice is coming from. 

These people are the political elite. They are ‘united’ in diversity to perpetuating the fraudulent Nigerian unity. They called themselves ‘patriots’ and are ready to clamp down on any dissenting voice from any angle of the nation. They own the media house and had made their wealth through the fraudulent Nigerian structure, therefore they have turned Nigeria as their estate meant to be exploited and can ‘kill’ and annihilate to keep the ‘must’ in the Nigerian unity.

Because of the questionable structure of Nigeria, any power shift from one region to another always results in ethno-religious voice of dissonance from her independence to the present day. However, from 1999 to the present, the voice of dissonance that these elites thought the civil war had silenced kept on rearing its ugly head to impede the development of Nigeria. 

The power shift from North in 1999 to South created ‘Sharia’ crisis in the North as its voice of dissonance. The idea was to frustrate a southern president. Religion was used as a tool of this dissonance. Despite OBJ being a southerner, within the South-South geopolitical zone, another voice dissonance ranging from civil agitation of resource control to militancy which gave birth to 13% derivation was also in vogue. To assuage the North and South-South, OBJ brought a Northerner and a Niger-Delta as President and Vice to assuage the feelings of these voices.

However, death struck and jeopardized that marriage of convenience. The dissenting voice via Kanuri nationalism (Karnem-Bornu Empire) resurrected in the North East using religion also as its tool but now much more violent than the former one.  Thunder, fire and brimstone were words of this voice and this quaked the ‘united’ elite interest of the ‘patriots.’ They gathered together and shifted power back to the north so as to guarantee the wealth generation of their estate.

However, they did not apply OBJ methodology. While the North Eastern dissenting voice was going down, the Eastern counterpart catches fire and rains fire and brimstone on the oil facilities. From these evidences, one could infer that power shift from North to South or vice versa is not the problem of Nigeria.

 Next time, we will discuss the disservice done to Nigeria by the “must unity group”

Ndeewonu!