+A Report
After series of consultations over the situation in today’s Nigeria, and detailed analyses, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo is presenting the following recommendations to our fellow countrymen and women, embodying both legitimate Igbo aspirations and what we consider to also be equally good and fair to all our countrymen, and as a significant step in solving the national crises in a fairly restructured new, just, civilized, and balanced new Nigeria:
*OHANAEZE NDIGBO POSITION on:*
*CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW,*
*RESTRUCTURING, REGIONALISM, and REFERENDUM*
~ A win-win template for peace and stability in Nigeria.
————————————————–
IGBO RESTRUCTURING GOALS
1.*END TO THE PORTS AND ECONOMIC BLOCKADE AGAINST THE IGBO/EAST, AND RESTORATION OF THE IGBO AND OTHER EASTERN COASTAL PORTS.*
Apart from occasional outbreaks of tokenism, almost all coastal ports in Nigeria outside Lagos are for no clear universal economic benefits or sound strategic rationale under practical lock and key, except that the famous Port Harcourt, Bonny, Opobo and other Igbo/Eastern ports were specifically blockaded against the Igbo/East in 1967. The ports/economic blockade, cruelly but practically subsisting till today, aside leading to millions of deaths and still counting, continues to be reason for the unhealthy massive Eastern and other diversions to Lagos for maritime and related business and livelihood and, therefore, main cause of the de-industrializations, impoverishment, frustrations, unemployment, youth restiveness, westwards-route long-travel and other costs, risks, accidents and kidnappings, not to speak of unnecessary inter-ethnic issues around Lagos/West. War ended more than half a century ago, and ought also end in our hearts. Hence, the Igbo are once again requesting the official relaunching, dredging and modernization of these precious ancient coastal ports for the Igbo and other Nigerians. Nigeria is more efficiently developed multi-regionally from different mutually emulating competitive angles than perpendicularly from a single 90° Lagos corner. While appreciative of the gesture, the South East Development Commission, SEDC, is almost of no utility without the reopening of these coastal ports, for industrialists with preexisting coastal ports in their areas cannot manufacture in the East only to haul their products back to Lagos to export. Nor are many really interested in the endless deceits connected to “Onitsha River port” or its “Orashi/Oguta” 250-kilometre or so “dredging to the Atlantic” analogue, via same Rivers state, both kites regularly flown merely to either taunt the Igbo or divert them away from their age-long coastal ports. The Igbo therefore appeal for the reactivation of those great Igbo and other Eastern coastal ports; they pre-existed Nigeria, and their renewed use would herald prosperity first for the Rivers peoples, then the hinterland Igbo in general, and for Eastern, Southern and other Nigerians, to prepare everybody for the AfCFTA. Igbo, Easterners, are tired of poverty amidst their humongous natural potentials, and humbly demand that these coastal ports be retriggered to return them to maritime prosperity and generations-long blue economy.
2.*RESTORATION OF THE EASTERN POLE OF DEVELOPMENT,* AND ESTABLISHMENT OF MIDDLE BELT, NORTHCENTRAL, NORTHEASTERN, and NORTHWESTERN POLES OF DEVELOPMENT.
This is directly linked to the number one request. By poles of development we mean autonomous import-export zones in the coastal South organically linked to those in the riparian North. For all intents and purposes, Lagos and part-West, because of the Lagos ports, is the only really functioning pole of development in today’s Nigeria; the rest of the states are more or less mere glamorous poles of well-dressed white collar political administration over de-industrializing and impoverished citizens, with caps in hand to maritime Lagos and allocative Abuja to make a living. Whereas Lagos/Western ports can more efficiently serve the western half of Nigeria up to Sokoto or so, the Igbo/Eastern ports hold much of the keys to the development not only of the East, but also the entire eastern half of Nigeria across the Benue and down to Lake Chad. So, opening up Igboland/East equally spills over and triggers development across the eastern Middle Belt and beyond, while the continual lockdowns of the Igbo/Eastern ports are also having cumulative negative tolls on the entire eastern half of the country down to Maiduguri.
*The simple solution to the underdevelopment and poverty of the eastern half of the country therefore starts with the retriggering of the Igbo/Eastern coastal ports, consistent with federal exclusive responsibility. The traditional Igbo Azumini-Opobo Imo River basin is very short for dredging and modernization, and the centuries-long very busy Port Harcourt-Ubani broad sea-lane equally so.* Both were in use since pre-Nigerian times, and their operations could be handed over to competent Rivers entrepreneurs, so to eliminate poverty first in the Rivers state, then to the hinterland and entire eastern half of Nigeria. Lifting the blockades against the Igbo/Eastern ports would also greatly reduce the gridlock, overhead costs and “ethnic” tensions around Lagos/West, and enable them develop more efficiently, together with all other districts of Nigeria, especially with an additional prospect of modernized roads, railways, air and cyber corridors, and the eventual dredging of the Niger and Benue, for the good of everyone.
3.*A PERMANENT END TO THE CONDONATION OF TERRORISM IN NIGERIA and the VARIOUSLY ORCHESTRATED “WARS” AGAINST “INSURGENCY” IN THE EAST, “FARMERS-HERDERS CLASHES” IN THE MIDDLE BELT, and “BANDITRY” IN THE FAR NORTH.*
By mid-2015 there was not a single “insurgency” or war to overthrow the federal government or procure a Biafra anywhere in Igbo society and none today, except the one manufactured by the last administration that made sure that such a “war” existed to enable them punish and kill as many Igbo as possible for being Igbo, for their strategic location, resources and sundry sins; there were hardly any “farmers-herders clashes” in the Middle Belt except as a decoy to legitimize ethno religious terrorism and suspected attempts to use the military help terrorist invaders wipe out indigenous peoples, seize their vast resources, and rename their lands; and almost little else in the so-called “war against banditry” except a _taquiyya_ coordinating a suspected Boko Haram and other terrorist-military alliances to totally subjugate a remnant Hausa people reawakened into anti-caliphate self-realisations. And, then, the Yoruba “allies” also needed occasional terrorist attacks as warning lessons in good behaviour. Until the 2023 APC National Convention to choose a candidate there was no thought that a Yoruba should or ought be successor regardless of “agreements” signed with weeping pens. Your Excellency, it is no more news that the last administration may have killed millions of innocent Nigerians (the Emancipator-led Hausa Tsantsa Development Association alone is claiming 7 million Hausa), stole so much money, carted away so much of Nigerian wealth, and committed so much other unimaginable crimes against humanity and against peace, in perpetration of various phoney wars against various sections of Nigeria. The only real wars that existed and continue to exist are by the Boko Haram and other locally nurtured terrorists, the ruler’s “my people” and their imported allies, who he claimed were “Libyans,” occupying forests, farms and highways, recruiting vulnerable locals, and kidnapping and killing peoples everywhere, while he displayed open reluctance to fight them, but instigating and diverting the fights elsewhere to give room for unlawful living space for “your brothers.” For eight terrible years of savage man’s inhumanity to man it was war everywhere and citizens’ innocent bloods spilt on all azimuths. Mid-2015, inaugurated a designer war against everyone, each victim group corresponding to their righteously calculated misbehaviour. If no other Nigerians knew or cared, an average Easterner knows what they went through in the hands of a man and his murderous clique that consciously transformed a priority peaceful business part of the country into a violent war zone of “unknown gunmen”-military operations. At a point Igbo abroad would not dare return home lest they are killed by “unknown gunmen,” who are hardly arrested or brought to justice. The background is why if nothing else the Igbo are most grateful to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for bringing that “life” of general fear, those terrible “wars” and nationwide reign of terror to an end from day one, and we plead the orchestrations never return.
4.*UNCONDITIONAL RELEASE OF ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN NIGERIA,* ABOVE ALL, MAZI Nnamdi KANU AND HIS COLLEAGUES, TOGETHER WITH IMMEDIATE END TO ALL MANNER OF UNLAWFUL, HOODED, NIGHT AND SECRET ARRESTS AND EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS.
President Tinubu owes nothing to the ungrateful one that didn’t want him come to power, and should break totally from the caveman ‘s cruel methodologies. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been tortured, victimized and dehumanized beyond measure, and it confers to a nation no value to continue to keep an innocent citizen in jail. No one except the Boko Haram and associated terrorists, is waging war to dismember Nigeria, and it serves no civilized logic to pamper terrorists and be unforgiving to some other citizens for not belonging to the favoured race. Therefore, all those unjustly detained over anything since 2015, whether Anti-SARS, IMN, IPOB, Yoruba Nation, EndBadGovernance, or other agitations should be set free unconditionally, the prisons decongested, more industries built and more prisons closed, with government dialoguing with their youths. Our President Tinubu should not wait for another President to release or kill Nnamdi Kanu and others in 2031. Government should persevere not to permit the eight-year reign of terror, visibly discontinued in May 2023, be resumed or elongated under whatever guises. Many Igbo/Eastern families and friends are still searching in vain for their loved ones, as thousands of “IPOB”/”ESN” suspects that survived initial shoot-at-sight orders are rumoured to be in various dungeons held incommunicado all over Nigeria, allegedly subjected to regular secret “trials” and occasionally disposed of. Only a President Tinubu can direct an impartial investigation into these issues and order an immediate release of these children of lamenting parents. Many other Nigerian youths and adults have been forced into exile because of cruel policies and conditions at home, a lot frustrated into reluctant criminality in efforts to limit wastage of their disappearing youth, and in the mediocre “crime” learning process falling into merciless jails outside Nigeria for execution, while others are holed up somewhere incommunicado as illegal migrants, sex and child slaves, unwilling soldiers, and so on. If a Nigeria can pamper, forgive, rehabilitate, employ, pay and reward murderous terrorists, the Igbo appeal to the federal government to immediately engage with foreign governments for the repatriation and peaceful rehabilitation of all Nigerians in foreign countries who are there against their mature consent. No more Nigerians should be allowed to be criminalized, gaoled or executed abroad or within.
5.*RESTRUCTURING ON THE BASIS OF UNI-ETHNIC, side-by-side MULTI-ETHNIC NATIONALITY REGIONS.*
No economic policy or “blueprint,” however brilliantly worked out, can work beyond a marginal neocolonial glass ceiling without a correct political economy or foundation, otherwise a basis on which the superstructure is mounted. It is in vain that people build castles in the air. Ndigbo look forward to four basic elements of any honest restructuring, namely, new units of the polity on the basis of nationalities; resource control by constitutive units of what are above and below their lands – as partly anticipated by the Land Use Act; military-security reorganization to reform, equalize, re-orientate, and democratize the military and related institutions; and, civilized new national ethos of a modern democratic secular state of same and equal laws and equal applications nationwide, based on UN-endorsed common law traditions.
*Igbo proposals aim at simultaneously addressing the national question of relations between ethnic nationalities and the class question of distribution of power between the elites and other formations.* Some of the Igbo and related demands are elaborated below. The Igbo believe that every Nigerian group or individual has something positive to offer to the collectivity, and that the above five demands are of benefit to all.
—————————————————
I. TRENDING
MISCELLANY OF
PROPOSALS.
Igbo are keenly aware of several Restructuring and/or Constitutional proposals by other Nigerians, for example:
1.*Yoruba* have mostly been consistent with restructuring based on ethnic nationalities or groups of same, and to that extent substantially consistent with Igbo proposals. The Igbo and Yoruba share a lot in common, and both should be helped by the present federal government to correct any Zik and Awo “mistakes of the past” or whatever sort of misunderstandings, so that with mutual empathy help Nigeria into a higher order of peace and development. Yoruba and Igbo need harmony, not disharmony. No one knows tomorrow, so, President Tinubu should not miss the golden opportunity to achieve the long-desired Yoruba-Igbo _rapprochement_, or permit those whose progress depends on suspect motives to guide or determine his policy towards the Igbo.
2.Some *Fulani* elites have been definite that restructuring “means different things to different peoples,” with some observers suspecting this to be a euphemism for opposition to territorially related restructuring, because they “own” Hausaland and also “own” or aspire to own the entire Nigeria. But, it appears it would benefit the Fulani and other Nigerians to finally have a specifically agreed Fulani state or region, different from the Hausa, so that they uphold their unique traditions, and both can live side-by-side in harmony. There are other solutions – see below.
3.Many educated *Hausa* see restructuring as meaningless without freeing them and their lands from a more than 200-year Fulani occupation and subjugation; they demand a re-assumption of Hausa paramountcy in Hausaland. It’s not clear how they intend to achieve this: by negotiations or by elections; expulsion of the Fulani back to wherever; restoration of previous Hausa dynasties with abolition of the Fulani caliphate/emirate/village head system subjugating the Hausa; creation of a special Fulani homeland on volunteered patch of Hausaland; subsuming the Fulani under a Hausa democratic majority rule inside Hausaland; or a Hausa and Fulani equal or unequal condominium or parallel dynasties under the flagship, Hausa-Fulani, etc?
4.AkwaCross peoples appear desiring unity among their *Annang-Efik-general Ibibio-Oro* peoples, practically of similar language and culture, in coordination with the *Ekoi/Ogoja* areas. They are making a legitimate demand as well.
5.The *Ijaw* have long been associated with the unity of Ijaw peoples in the Ijaw central Delta, probably without prejudice to Ijaw enclaves, exclaves, living peacefully elsewhere, and the traditional coastal access or contiguity of vicinal nationalities.
6.While the Kanuri seem silent or aligning with the Fulani, the *Gbagyi, Idoma, Igala, Jukun, Mumuye, Nupe, Ogoni, Tiv, Urhobo, sundry Middle Beltans,* etc have variously spoken of individual homogeneities, past historical ties like in the Kwararafa and Benin empires, and need for their internal unity and self-determination within a united Nigeria; and such too are a legitimate aspiration.
7.*Sundry elitist groups,* individuals, etc, separately and in occasional combinations, including the “Patriots,” and so on, many of them famous or infamous for the utter incoherence of their ideas and proposals, except that they have a free pass to the Presidency and can drag the intelligence of Nigerians.
Some of them seem to be splitting hairs arguing for a “retrieval” of or return to the 1963 “we the people” Parliamentary Constitution of a poor ceremonial President (would Tinubu want to become one even in an “assured” 2nd term?), executive Prime Minister (Akpabio?), and 4 Regional Premiers (which Governors would stand down in any former Region for one to “temporarily” become Premier, even for a minute?); from where they go backwards to a priority condemned 1999 “military/unitary” Constitution; then mount the “existing reality” of the formerly rejected military ‘s 36 states as the “we the people” units of a “new” Nigeria; afterwards resume another process of sections of states changing positions by plebiscite to join or rejoin their ethnic kith and kin in any other states; and after this back-and-forth chaos lasting any indeterminate number of years, decades, centuries or millennia, with its unanticipated balance in the number of post-merger or post-rearranged states, they finally arrive at their “new Nigeria!”
And, imagine: it is our President and National Assembly that would abandon rich 2nd term prospects to indulge the “constitution-makers” in this rigmarole! What of say the Hausa and caliphate system; invaded, occupied and renamed Middle Belt lands; settlement for wandering Fulani and end to their righteous wars for land; Igbo concerns; Yoruba concerns; others’ concerns; military-security issues, national ethos . . . none of them is addressed. And, is it an ineluctable law to first recover a sunken ship before building a new and better one, or “retrieve” 1963 before directly adopting 1999 with any amendments, quite apart from its not addressing any vital issues of restructuring? Several unaddressed contradictions and subterfuges.
Simply put, except those benefitting from the system unjustly imposed on others, every Nigerian individual or group wants to be free to optimize their potentials in the modern world, an opportunity denied them in Nigeria as constituted today. The Igbo believe that peoples’ demands can be justly and peacefully addressed in a genuine restructuring to achieve a new Nigeria, if there is a balanced and honest political will to do so.
*Igbo are after true nation-building, the consensual unity of component ethnic nationalities of Nigeria; and not mere constitutions,* which can be achieved by simply arranging for some clever draughtsmen to produce an “indivisibility” document as usual “uniting all Nigerians,” with an almost zero regard to the wishes and actual unity of all Nigerians. A constitution, written or unwritten is ultimately unavoidable but comes last; it is a set of principles defining relations between elements of an organism in structural-functional relationships. The elements first agree to relate or are determined, followed by the rules governing their conduct.
—————————————————-
PREAMBLE TO DETAILS
The Igbo and many other Easterners once again appreciate the distinguished President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for the gradual improvements in security in the East, due to the apparent discontinuation of the Unknown Gunmen policy, “farmers-herders clashes,” terrorist kidnappings and farm seizures, what appears to be a phoney “war” to decimate the Eastern economy and populations in guise of fighting a largely orchestrated “insurgency,” and other violent policies undertaken by his predecessor to purposefully destroy the Igbo/Eastern and other peoples of Nigeria in pursuit of primitive ethno religious objectives widely condemned by civilized Nigerians.
We humbly call the attentions of His Excellency Mr. President that there still appears to be groups or individuals in official and non-official circles not comfortable with any peace Eastwards, circles nostalgic of the eight years of free mayhem, and bent on continuing from where Your Excellency apparently stopped them mid-2023, to export disaster to the Region on any pretexts. Many Nigerians hosting them know that the Igbo are a very peace-loving trading and only defensive people, and had at no time since 1970 declared war on the federal government, although it is well-known that not every Igbo child had been comfortable with armed terrorists invading and destroying farms, seizing the highways and footpaths, kidnapping and killing their parents and other innocent citizens sometimes even after collecting ransoms, managing to enlist some unemployed and hungry Igbo youths into their ranks, and with none of them since mid-2015, ever brought to justice when by “mistake” they get arrested.
In one of countless other occasions the terrorists, with N100, 000, 000.00 ransom already pocketed, had to boast to a captured Archbishop Kanu Uche and his humiliated colleagues that they had come to forcefully settle in Igboland and that any community that dares oppose them would receive the full wrath of “the armed forces.”
The Igbo, largely a trading community, have never lifted a sword against any Nigerians, and would not in the future do so, but, particularly since mid-2015 have witnessed war, bloodshed and mayhem systematically brought to their doorsteps, farms and highways, with hardly anyone having an effective answer to the calamity. Hence the cheering regard by us in the APC of His Excellency President Ahmed Tinubu’s emergence as a saving grace, at least because he comes from a group that values life and progress, with whom the Igbo can partner to correct whatever mistakes made by Zik, Awo, and others. No one knows tomorrow; so, let not the Yoruba, Igbo and other Nigerians continue to bemoan anything, and miss this golden opportunity to correct any mistakes of the past, and unite to reset Nigeria upon new civilizational foundations. The unconditional and immediate release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his colleagues would go a long way not only in cementing this perspective, but also eliminating one of the several pretexts for insecurity in the East.
Since his seminal _Path_ _to_ _Nigerian_ _freedom_ (1947), the sage, Baba Obafemi Awolowo and other great Yoruba compatriots, have been in the forefront of the advocacy for the restructuring of Nigeria on ethno-linguistic and related cultural principles. It is therefore no surprise that it is from our Yoruba brothers that the discourse has this 2024 acquired a new momentum under a Yoruba-led Presidency of Nigeria. If the restructuring is undertaken with a genuine honesty of purpose for a nation-building that benefits everybody, there could be no worthier legacy for our President and party. Hence, almost every group has joined the moving train, each one making their positions known, in the hope that a truly new and just Nigeria is in the offing for the benefit of everybody. Nigerians are therefore eagerly awaiting a redress from their unwarranted sufferings in a true restructuring.
*”Igbo Problems With Their Neighbours.”*
Partly due to the “balancing” position of the Igbo, unlike elsewhere in Nigeria, since antiquity not a single Eastern ethnic nationality has ever levied war against the other. Over the almost 600 years of modernity, each used her coastal ports without let or hindrance in maritime relations with Western powers, often in mutual cooperation. But, once Nigeria happened to everybody and the boundless riches of the East were discovered, some outsiders needed Igbo and their neighbours to have “problems” to enable a malign access to these resources. Since then, nothing is as sweet to some ears than that the Igbo and their neighbours are “bitter enemies,” when indeed it is they that are bitterest enemies to their own neighbours. There is not a single Nigerian ethnic group outside the East that is not a “bitter enemy” to their neighbours, not that this divide-and-rule generated situation is acceptable or normal!
The Igbo-neighbour “enmity” is an imported cancer and self-chosen false _weltanschauung_ on which the merchants build their castles in the divide-and-rule misgovernance of Nigeria, including on restructuring. This enables its propagators to mischievously separate the Annang-Efik-main Ibibio, Bini, Ekoi, Idoma, Igala, Ijaw, Ishan, Isoko, Itsekiri, Ogojas, Ogoni, Urhobo, and others from their almost harmless Igbo near kith and kin; to seize the oil and other resources of these “helpless” peoples; to destroy their environments and continually impoverish their communities; to militarily occupy and victimize their unhappy peoples; to render their port cities, forests, vast lands in the Middle Belt, rivers and coastal ports redundant instead of modernizing and preparing them for the AfCFTA; to encourage them to lay falsified claims on Igbo coastal ports, lands and properties as “abandoned” and, therefore, reward for playing the game of Igbophobist ethnic-cleansing, Igbo dismemberments and “landlocking;” to incite that their survival lies in an Igbo and their own destructions, their prosperity in their impoverishment, and their security in orchestrated insecurity; all to ensure an everlasting disharmony, enmity and volatility East, South and Middle Belt of Nigeria.
Particularly since 1967, this “Igbo problem with their neighbours” has become an industry determining the prosperity, rise and rise of sundry individuals, while their masses suffer in unhygienic life, hunger and penury. They talk condescendingly on these ethnic groups, pretending to be re-educating highly educated groups on who they ought to be; inducing or encouraging Igbo communities of the “advantage” of rather being miniature and weak “independent” ethnic nationalities or “Igboids,” and so on, than parts of a larger and stronger Igbo nation, while assembling their own hardly mutually intelligible units into a single whole. Plus many other insulting lexicons or policies necessary at any point against these “minorities.”
Let it be declared umpteenth time to the world that the Igbo have no problem with any neighbours, except a choice refrain ever since destroying these good brothers and sisters. Unlike elsewhere the Igbo never at any time targeted neighbours for eradication, at no time exploited their resources that never existed in the first place until a 1961 to 1965 spread oil trinkles after thousands of years of relationships. The Igbo were all along actually using Igbo resources to accommodate all, because we are all one. But, till today the Igbo are deprived of the reciprocity from a great oil wealth that was in vain pleaded to help develop any part of Igbo society. This lack of reciprocity the Igbo blame not on neighbours, since they too are in no control of what was freely given them by God, and rightly theirs.
Igbo substantially built America with the forced export of manpower, and powered the British and part-European industrial revolutions with palm oil and kernels, coal, antiquities and foods exports mainly through their own coastal ports of Igweocha, Ubani, and Opobo. The UNN was built with a combined AkwaCross, Obolo, Ogoni, Igbo, Ijaw, and West Camerounian resources, and till date reflected in their elements.
The Igbo are happy with the great wealth embedded beneath and above their neighbours, but, unfortunately realize that only through the swords of disharmony sown between the Igbo and others do some people imagine they can endlessly be snatching these resources instead of the peace and justice that the Igbo offer.
Therefore, the first choice for the Igbo in any restructuring remains an enlarged Eastern unity up to the great Benin Empire/Edo state, and embracing the Bassa, Idoma, and Igala, all on mutually agreed terms. The Igbo bear no grudges, regard whatever happened from 3rd parties as lesson for a better future, value the help and assistance extended by many families in dire moments, and believe that restructuring offers an opportunity for laying the foundations for a return in modern times to the mutualities of yore. Hence, despite the seeds of evil already sown and the “benefits” accruing thereof, this offer for extended regional unity is on the table, for each group to decide what to do.
*On Internal Restructuring and Inter-Ethnic or Regional Mergers.*
There is no ethnic nationality without own internal issues, necessitating agreement on how to live peacefully together – hence, internal restructuring. The Igbo republican tradition appreciates that internal freedom and diversity from child to family to society are a source of strength, same way that though “tribe and tongue” may differ, they nevertheless constitute a potential source of power, unity and prosperity in Nigeria. To translate these diversities into advantage, all that is required is for each Region, whether homogenous or multi-ethnic, to have its own internal restructuring expressed in a Regional constitution to address its domestic issues, either before or after the national restructuring.
DIVERSE OPINIONS EVERYWHERE.
Like many other Nigerians most Igbo progressives are keenly aware that nothing may at this point rescue the country and put it on the right track than a total and comprehensive ideologically driven socioeconomic and political revolution. But, with guns recklessly pointed at all azimuths by the exploiting classes, and divide-and-rule ethno religious manipulations to complement, the progressive elites and masses deny themselves the organizational capacity for this historical necessity. Therefore the only other means of peacefully liberating the country and people is a form of restructuring able to grant to each group a reasonable capacity for the full expression of their individual and collective potentials. Peoples have been oppressed beyond measure and now divided into four broad categories:
~ Nationalities or groups of nationalities seeking independent statehood outside Nigeria, preferably through a UN-conducted referendum. At the forefront of this absolute or external self-determination are those Igbo and allies for Biafra; those for a Yoruba nation or Oduduwa Republic; and other nationalities mostly in the South but gradually embracing the Middle Belt contemplating the main direction of the wind before making up their minds. With no reliable blueprint, but distrustful of each others motives and so unable to unite for mutual assistance, none has made any headway beyond raising some consciousness.
~ The elites of some nationalities who, while acknowledging the legitimate rights to self-determination both in natural, domestic and international laws, are equally aware of the severe domestic and external limitations for their exercise, especially the susceptibility of Nigerians to a divide-and-rule transfer of animosity and vengeance, are ready to unite for an honest restructuring of the polity to grant a level of internal or relative self-determination to the various nationalities or groupings thereof to peacefully stabilize the polity.
~ The corrupt and compromised system beneficiaries of sundry characterizations who are opposed to any genuine restructuring or fundamental change, and propagating that they destroying the country are the patriots while dishonestly accusing those recommending restructuring as either seeking a confederation or disintegration of Nigeria. This group has malign linkages both within themselves and with external entities bent on the continuing destruction of Nigeria.
~ The politically nonchalant or ignorant, mostly within the poorest classes and generally unable to help themselves except mobilized to do so.
The Igbo in the second group desire nothing different from what most other Nigerians are asking for: a restructured new arrangement based on ethnic nationalities or groups thereof, with a degree of relative self-determination to unleash the potentials of every citizen and nationality. A fair restructuring would create conditions favourable to consensual unity without the necessity of using brute force to bludgeon everyone to “love” One Nigeria, and prove that the peoples in the space called Nigeria are not domiciled in perpetuity to evil, but capable of building a modern democratic society favourable to all her citizens.
IGBO and REGIONALISM.
Like colonised peoples everywhere, since colonial and Nigerian times every divide-and-rule tactic has been applied to selectively separate Nigerian, especially Eastern tribes into mutually antagonistic entities, but, despite the cruel policy promoting animosity to ensure unimpeded exploitation of the boundless prosperity of the East, the Igbo have largely managed to sustain their common identity as Igbo. We appeal that the divide-and-rule policy is no longer necessary, since a peaceful formula now exists for the exploitation of the resources of the East, nevertheless.
Given centuries-long mutually beneficial sanguinary and historical ties and advantages of the economies of scale, restoring and enlarging the original Regions is always the first choice for the Igbo in matters of restructuring the Nigerian polity, but being apprehensive of largely unsubstantiated issues of “exploitation” under the old Eastern Region, and aware of the democratic traditions of the peoples, the Igbo would prefer any prospective mergers to now be voluntary, to ensure their longevity.
*Nature a Great Balancer*
Nature had already structured peoples into territories, and only requires an honest political-administrative imprint for harmonious nation-building – hence, organic restructuring.
With good leadership and honesty of purpose political restructuring is neither rocket science nor reinvention of the wheel, for it has been successfully accomplished in several other countries. The general formula is for the relatively big or “special” ethnic nationalities or cultural entities like the English, Fulani, Hausa, Hindu, Igbo, Scotts, Sikhs, Yoruba, Welsh, etc to each stand alone as a uni-ethnic homogenous unit, while the rest are variously joined together into competitive multi-ethnic regions, provided that the following (Willink’s Commission report, page 47) are observed:
a. “the principle of self-determination:” the group must desire to be separate and united;
b. “the principle of ethnic relationship:” the people should be “as nearly as possible homogenous;”
c. “the principle of geographical contiguity:” the people should be indigenous within a piece of “continuous and compact piece of territory;” and
d. “the principle of viability:” the unit should constitute “a self-contained economic unit” – this enjoins relatively smaller ethnic nationalities to federate into single regions.
In the special circumstances of Nigeria, the four general principles would be supplemented by three special provisions, as follows:
e. A formal commitment, embodied in a binding resolution to seek a consensual solution to Nigeria’s problems.
f. An initial equality of regions between the original North and original South, without prejudice to the possibility of voluntary mergers on civilizational or other grounds.
g. In the South a retention of each region’s traditional contiguity to their coastal ports; and, in the North, to either the Niger or Benue Rivers or Lake Chad, in anticipation of their ultimate dredging to the coast.
CHOICE BETWEEN *2* and *12* BALANCED and EFFICIENT REGIONS.
Taking into account the general principles applicable to restructuring and the supplementary provisions special to Nigeria, in addition to saving the costs of governance and triggering a development revolution, Nigeria might need to choose between 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 Regions, as follows:
. . . *Two regions* comprising the original North and original South.
. . . *Four regions* comprising an adjusted Eastern and Western regions in the South; a Middle Belt and far North regions in the North.
. . . *Six regions* with the Igbo, Yoruba in the South each down to the coast, plus a truncated “South South” region whose contiguity has been breached by the Igbo Port Harcourt to Bonny and Azumini to Opobo contiguities to the coast; and, in the North, a Middle Belt region split longitudinally into two, plus a mostly islamic Hausa-Fulani-Kanuri region. Because of contradictions between ethnic homogeneity, contiguity, and independent coastal access in the South, and necessity of restoring a Hausa region independent of the Fulani caliphate, a just six regional structure would be nearly impossible without voluntary mergers by other Southern ethnic nationalities with the Igbo and Yoruba on one hand, and continued Hausa and Kanuri acquiescence to servitude under the Fulani, on the other.
. . . *Eight regions* would be expressed by an Akwa/Cross or original South Eastern state, an Igbo-Obollo/Andony-Ogoni federation, a Bini/Edo-Ijaw-Ishan-Isoko-Itsekiri-Urhobo federation, and a Yoruba region, all in the South; plus two Middle Belt and two far North regions on agreed terms.
. . . *Ten Regions* would mean five in the South: Igbo or Eastern Region; Yoruba or Western Region; Akwa/Cross, the original South Eastern State as Southeast Region; Obollo/Andony with Ogoni as Southern Region; and a federated Bini/Edo-Ijaw-Ishan-Isoko-Itsekiri-Urhobo as Southwest Region. In the North two Middle Belt Regions would be complemented with three separate Regions for the Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri and their various cultural affiliates. The ten Regions seem most ideal for Nigerian unity, essentially meeting all the general principles and supplementary provisions for a properly restructured polity.
. . . *Twelve Regions* would mean extracting the Ijaw from the Southwest federated region to constitute a Niger Delta Region contiguous between Burutu/Escravos and New Calabar River with multiple developable ports, and respecting the Bini (Ughoton, Gelegele), Itsekiri (Ogidigben, Koko, part-Warri), Urhobo (Sapele, part-Warri), Igbo (Port Harcourt, Bonny, Opobo), and AkwaCross (Ibaka/Akwa, Oron, Calabar, Bakassi, etc) contiguities to the coast. In the North a third Middle Belt would complement the separate Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri, regions.
NIGERIANS ARE INVITED TO MORE CLOSELY EXAMINE THE *FOUR-,* *TEN-,* AND *TWELVE*-REGIONAL ARRANGEMENTS.
Except if what they want is for each of the country’s 250 to 300 or so ethno-linguistic groups to constitute her own Region. A FOUR, TEN, or TWELVE regional Nigeria should pursue a militarily non-aligned Afrocentric policy, promoting peaceful coexistence abroad as she does within.
*Listening to Forebears for Civilizational Preservation*
Those who speak the same language, or ethnic nationalities in Nigeria seeking to control their destiny is a part response to an existential emergency, occasioned by attempts by others to eliminate or subordinate them, and their survival promotes rather than detracts from national unity. On the other hand, identity politics is discrimination or policy based mostly on natural attributes like tribe or race beyond the victim’s control, and it stands condemned by civilized mankind. Restructuring to ensure the survival of nationalities, preserve their civilizations, and solve the national question is, therefore, not identity politics, or merely about the institutions of government, but more about the structures of governance and polity, the basis upon which the superstructures are erected.
Once a foundation is faulty the building, however lofty in other parametres and decorations would be sinking every moment until it finally collapses by its own weight. And, repositioning the kitchens, parlours and dining rooms, transferring the library upstairs to the corners below, or imposing new “rules of engagement” on life in the crumbling edifice, otherwise called devolution of powers, far from improving the solidity of a house erected on false foundations might merely hasten its collapse. Hence, regardless of the ideals of class or classless society, peoples nevertheless continue to derive meaning from the civilizations they inherited, and appreciate their recognition as units of political administration.
That was probably why Chief Awolowo, in recognition of the individuality of Nigeria’s ethnic civilizations had earlier declared that “In a . . . federation, each ethnic group, no matter how small, is entitled to the same treatment as any other ethnic group, no matter how large.” Nnamdi Azikiwe in a 1949 Aba gathering would address the uncertainties of the time thus: “The Ibo people have reached a crossroad . . . with routes leading to diverse goals, but . . . I can safely recommend . . . (the) road to self-determination . . . within the framework of a federated Nigeria and the Cameroons . . . an Ibo state, based on linguistic and ethnic factors . . . side by side with other linguistic and ethnic groups . . . each as separate as the fingers, but united with others as a part of the same hand.”
Before them, two illustrious Africans who happened to be Igbo had declared their people to the world as a nation fit for independent statehood. “From the time I left my own nation,” narrated Olaudah Equiano in the 18th century, “I always found somebody that understood me till I came to the sea coast.” Little doubt then that in the 19th another nation-builder followed, whose political struggles, writings and “philosophies became the basis for future African independence,” starting with his “Empire of the Eboes . . . between the Rivers Niger and Old Calabar, and bounded on the north by the left or Benue branch of the first river, on the south by the Atlantic, on the East by Old Calabar . . . and on the west by the River Niger” – Dr. James Africanus Beale Horton.
Yes, careless references to tribe and tongue could be a starting point for discrimination, but that was not so for those illustrious forebears for whom they signified nations and civilizations, and might also be an acknowledgement of the positive influence of diversity in advancing progress.
It’s not possible for the United Kingdom to have achieved that global renown if the special talents of the Scots had been suppressed in condemnation of “identity politics.” Therefore, restructuring based on ethnic nationalities, where patriotically applied, far from identity politics, can be a stable civilizational approach to nation-building.
Ethnic nationalities or cultural groups are civilizational integers which in every civilized society promote unity by exciting the interdependence and mutual emulation that inheres in their diversity. Above all, once existential fears envelop society the way happening in Nigeria, there is no honest solution or restructuring than taking those fears into account and encourage the preordained spiritual and other unity between peoples and their lands. Hence, the Land Use Act, a part expression of Organic Restructuring, according to both of which the peoples and their lands are organically linked together and, in effect, far from obstructing, actually promotes national unity.
IGBO and REFERENDUM.
The Igbo like other Nigerian compatriots are fully aware that any important political change in a country would certainly be re-constitutive in nature, with some attributes of a state treaty inherent thereof and, therefore, subject to a single question referendum or a multi-choice plebiscite. What the Igbo are opposed to is either a factional expulsion of any nationality from the federation as happened in April 1990, or threats to impose a purported “referendum” or “plebiscite” on any group or extracted portions thereof, sometimes using some treacherous corrupt elites who would be complicit in creating a disastrous “Southern Sudan” somewhere under their dominion, without the prior democratic consent of the generality of the peoples. This divide-and-oppress policy is not what the Igbo would wish against any fellow Nigerians.
If and when necessary, let there be a referendum or plebiscite on any existential or other vital issues, but, on agreed consensual terms for all Nigerians at the same time, preferably under the supervision of the United Nations, for some credibility. No Nigerian leader of whatever status should purport to be speaking for his ethnic nationality without a confirmed prior popular consent of those he speaks for, because restructuring is in part to save the peoples both from their local as well as national oppressors.
ELEMENTS of TRUE RESTRUCTURING.
In summary, the Igbo greatly commend all those who have dared make inputs into the debates on new governance model, constitutional review, restructuring, regionalism, and referendum, for the considerable intellectual exertions involved in doing so. Injustices and sufferings in Nigeria have reached monumental proportions and other than a total mass revolution, Nigeria should be restructured based on four elements:
~ New constitutive units based on ethnic nationalities or groupings thereof.
~ Resource ownership and control, otherwise “true federalism,” a component of which is fiscal federalism.
~ Military-security reorganization. In particular, Nigeria should change from what appears to be a neocolonial to a national army friendly to and part of the people, instead of seeming to be a class apart at war with them. This can be achieved in many ways, including regionalization, a massive doctrinal re-orientation, a post-secondary compulsory military service, and so on.
~ National ethos or ideology. A restructured new Nigeria must be a modern democratic secular state of equal laws and equal applications based on universal, civilized common law principles covering everybody, so as to promote law and order, ease of doing business, marriage, harmonious social life, intra-youth convivialities, etc. All great powers fought to eliminate caliphates from the societies of civilized man, and Nigeria cannot be its dumping ground. The caliphate, its sharia and their cuttings, amputations, stonings, beheadings, and so on applied to whomsoever should therefore be abolished with instant effect. Islam, like other religions of peace, should in Nigeria not be a religion of war and violence against any citizens. Same applies to other faiths.
*The Igbo earnestly appeal to all Nigerians to examine this presentation thoroughly, so as to enable us prove to the world that the black man is capable of building an equitable and stable modern society that can stand the test of time. Restructuring is a golden opportunity to build an egalitarian new Nigeria devoid of the injustices, fears and anxieties of today.*
SIGNED:
~Prince. Dr .Richard Ozobu
Chairman, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Elders Council
~ Prof. Obasi Igwe
Chairman, Drafting Committee on Restructuring, Ohanaeze Ndigbo
~ Dimm Barrister Uche
Okwukwu
Deputy President General
Ohanaeze Ndigbo
~ Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro.
Secretary General
Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
Wed. Aug. 21st, 2024.