OPINION: Nigeria And The East: Pursuit Of Peace Or Equity? By Aloy Uzoekwe

The subject matter of this piece may appear belated or sound over-flogged but there is still great substance in its theme. Yet it is left for the reader to deduce any impression(s) therein.

Dateline: May 30th, 2017. Place; Nigeria, West Africa. Time; 06.00hours to 18.00hours.

Eastern Nigeria against all projections, against all peddled fallacies and propaganda, indeed against all odds; the people proved to the world that they are a different stock. The events of that historic day and the outcome have been well recorded and narrated by better writers.

Suffice it to add that it is a day the Easterners proved, to the consternation of the other Nigerians, that when it comes to matters affecting their collective destiny; individualism is cast aside and common purpose takes over. It laid to rest the fiction of hatred and disunity among the Easterners.

We, by we I mean all Nigerians, should thank God for the gift that is Nnamdi Kanu (NK). The expression of gratitude should be  by two groups;(a)  all Nigerians –for providing everybody the opportunity to come out of our cocoon. To shed our self denial toga and speak out for truth without fear of persecution (though one of the sad fallouts is one of our revered uncles (a Hercules in the Nigeria mythology) denouncing his tax collector’s name).

We will thank NK for being the vehicle through which the deep seated but sealed hatred of the Northerners for the Easterners was revealed. Since the Southern and Northern Protectorates were unilaterally joined together by the cunning whites, the people of the North had always seized the slightest chance to display their acute intolerance of the people of the Union from the East. But for inexplicable reasons the open loathsomeness was always patched up to the detriment of the East. This display of hatred was manifested in 1945, 1953, 1966 (perhaps the biggest and the worst), 1984, 1991 etc.

And since the advent of the present dispensation in 1999, we have continually witnessed flashes of it. Nnamdi Kanu came and laid bare the lies we have been living all along. (b) The Easterners should thank him for giving them their voice and pride again in a positive way. For helping to unfurl the snakes in their midst, who because the system favours them prefer to sell their clan for a pot of porridge.

The greatest outcome of May 30th, 2017 is the positive flip it has given the agitation by the Easterners to have a separate country of their own – Biafra. A push which hitherto was thought to be a past time game of idle and publicity seeking  ‘no - gooders’ of Eastern extraction led by Nnamdi Kanu whom the powers that be consider an ant in an oil jar. His sometime irrelevant team has metamorphosed to a mass movement engulfing a whole region, about a third of the country, and drawing global attention to its cause.

Another outcome of that date is the amazing double speak in the name of searching for solutions it has engendered among our so called elites. Restructuring, Constitutional Amendment, National Assembly should decide, Convoke a Conference of Ethnic Nationalities, give Peace a chance, Nigeria is indivisible, bla bla bla!!! Some even had to remind us of the “price they paid” to procure the present inequitable ‘One Nigeria’. In the cacophony of suggestions and advices nobody has paused to ask; Why did it happen? What fuels the current agitation?

What gives rise to the sudden disenchantment with the current state of the Nation? Why have the Youths majority of whom are post war off-springs fallen for IPOB and lost faith in Nigeria? The peace we clamour for, the indivisibility of the Union we harp on, will be anchored on what base – injustice or equity? Lord-servant relationship or equality of the citizens?

The late Reggae maestro and founding member of the legendary Reggae group - the Wailers - Peter Tosh, it was who sang  ….”everybody is talking about peace, none is talking about justice; I don’t need no peace…. All I need is; Equal Rights and Justice”. While we choose to play the Ostrich and gloss over the gross inequities in the country, what should bother every well meaning citizen of Nigeria are the questions: Why are the Easterners still  disenchanted and uncomfortable in Nigeria? Why does it appear  they are still persecuted by the system five decades after the first gunshot at Nsukka? Does the solution we seek solely lie on procuring peace? What about seeking to enthrone justice?

Truth be told; the Nigerian system is reeking of injustice and favouritism in all sectors. Nigeria is tilted against the Easterners to the extent that achieving a balance is a mirage. The Easterners are second class citizens in the country, they are treated as slaves in all public engagements. I will use what  obtains in one critical sector to buttress my assertion; the Education sector.

About four years ago, my daughter sat for the Joint Admission Matriculation Board Examination (UTME). She scored over 200 marks but she could not gain an admission yet her mate and friend, a Northerner, scored 170 marks and gained instant admission. I have a second daughter, she will be in basic six by September this year and is required to sit for the National Common Entrance Examination to proceed to secondary school.

Now I have been informed through a publication circulating within the social media that the National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) Board has published the entrance examination cut-off marks of each state for the 2017/2018 academic session. In the circulated publication, while my daughter (who has the curse of sectional misfortune foisted on her by me) is required to score a minimum mark of 66 to qualify for entrance into secondary school because she is from Anambra State, her contemporary from Sokoto State is to score 7 marks.

Wherein is the logic of equity here? Where is the one Nigeria spirit we  sing? In the publication by the NCEE Board, the Eastern State with the least cut off marks for the 2017/2018 common entrance examination is Bayelsa State with a cut-off mark of 51. Still it is almost at par with the highest marks allotted to a state in the North – Kaduna/Plateau- with 52 marks each. It is disheartening to point out that this case is replicated in almost all the sectors of the Nigerian State, employment et al.

So where is the justice? How can I now convince a child who experienced such brazen segregation to love Nigeria? How do you expect her  to believe and uphold the One Nigeria mantra? Of course the beneficiaries of any unjust system will always die hard to change the status quo. One needs to emphasize here that peace achieved at the expense of another party’s justice and freedom is no peace; it is a time bomb. And that is what is ticking now.

The other bitter truth is that the stigma the Easterners especially Ndigbo bear in Nigeria cannot change. It is impossible to wash it off and will continue to rear its head everytime. The other tribes see them as irritants and barely tolerate them. None can really accept Ndigbo for who they are and how they are. The exposition of this trend is what led the Arewa Youths to issue the infamous threat with the October 1st dead line. In desperation to douse the tension, many are advocating and supporting what they call the Restructuring  of the country. But that beggars the issue. It is a cosmetic approach to the problem. It is a mere wound dressing,  like applying only Iodine and GV to a deep cut that requiring suturing. We can restructure from here to the Pearly Gates and even make an Igbo man the President of Nigeria yet it will not change anything.

So what is to be done?
The average Easterner knows that he can never find true justice or enjoy full citizenship in a united Nigeria. He knows the country reserves two sets of statutes and procedures on how to run the affairs of the country – one set for the Easterner and a different set for the rest. He knows, like the sage late Prof Chinua Achebe pointed out in his 1983 treatise  “The Trouble with Nigeria”, that it is only on issues concerning the Easterners the rest Nigerians always have a uniformity of purpose. So like the cockroach, he ( the Easterner) can never be innocent in the midst of fowls. To him, the way out of the Nigerian quagmire lies solely on either of two options – a total break out of the forced marriage or a confederation.

Anything to the contrary is dubious and he knows that. Even the Easterners playing good boys to the powers that be, masquerading as nationalists know this is the only way. But of course they have to pander to tunes from their masters’ flute lest the lucre stops flowing.

Some will be wondering, if the Easterners feel this hard about Nigeria why then do they expend their  energies and resources to develop the same areas they are apprehensive about? They do so because as part of their peripatetic nature they are natural risk takers, fool-hardiness is in their genes. They do so because at every year end when kinsmen gather at their respective village squares, each man will thump his chest among his kinsmen to proclaim that despite all the obstacles and hatred he subdued his enemies. He will then dip inside his goatskin bag and bring forth part of the proceeds of his conquests for his kinsmen to partake.

The Easterners know that the Referendum they are asking for does not guarantee immediate divorce from the marriage. Yet they see it as the best option as it is the only way a separation can be obtained in a peaceful and neighbourly manner without much bad blood. They are willing to sacrifice a further three or four years that will follow a positive Referendum, and they want their partners in the forced Union that is Nigeria to understand this and help facilitate a swift Referendum.

This is a hard pill to swallow for all the involved parties but it is obvious that there can never be fairness in Nigeria, no matter how much we restructure. It is more honourable for all to part and live in peace as neighbours than to co-habit in eternal suspicion and animosity.

Aloy  Uzoekwe
08038503174
uzoekweao@yahoo.com