(Posted as received from an anonymous writer)
Big brother, greetings! Long time no see. When are you returning? It’s been a long time since you checked out to Atlanta with Andrew in 1980. Come and see for yourselves how Nigeria has gotten with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Don’t stay there and inspire me to go fight! Come and join in the fight to make Nigeria better, not to destroy her. Nigeria helped you with her passport to travel and you still call her zoo. But your siblings are surviving and thriving in the zoo, and we learnt you’re still struggling in the paradise of Atlanta. Come help us mend the leaking thatch roof you left behind please.
Big brother, more importantly, I don’t pray for Nigeria to “split into four nations,” as many agitated Nigerian people reasonably imagine and desire. If it must happen, most likely it’s through the instrumentality of a bloody war because those guys won’t relinquish power and allow secession in a peaceful manner. Though our parents are dead, our brothers and sisters with their children and grandchildren will be affected.
The new nations over time won’t be largely better than the Nigerian nation we are so eager to separate into parts, because of the African man’s greedy mentality and selfishness plus the complications within the configurations of the new nation states. For example, the minor ethnic groups at the periphery of the mainstream Igboland comprising some Ijaw, Isoko and Edo communities with some Igbo affinity will be seriously marginalized in the course of power tussle and survival of the fittest. Same with Yoruba and the Middle Belt nations.
Big brother, I know your support for IPOB. I also support them, but secession won’t be possible without war. Some of you should relocate and see the realities here, not only writing and inciting us to rebel against the dictators who don’t care about our blood spilling on the street. Do you still remember the ENDSARS peaceful protests and how those democrazy military men camouflaging in Agbada sent their autocratic Khaki boys to Lekki gate and wasted the lives of many youths? Now think more about full blown movement for secession not ENDSARS peaceful protests. You know what I mean?
It will be bloody! Verily, verily I say unto you, very bloody will the secession and succession attempts become! Best of all, you with our brothers and sisters in the diaspora who are pushing the unarmed youths can only remain in Atlanta and cry for us in Ajaokuta. Perhaps, this might be my last letter to you, if everything speeds up with Nnnamdi Kanu mobilizing our youths without weapons to go and waste their lives in the hands of those crocodile guys.
Yet secession didn’t solve the political and developmental problems of those who did it in the past in Nigeria and elsewhere around the globe. Some claim we will get better as one nation, when we are mono-ethnic, that’s one language, one culture and one historical origin, and so one destiny. Just utopian thought, that is! Think about several mono-ethnic or non-multi ethnic nations of the world today in Eastern Europe, Asia and even Africa! Though they have one language, one culture, and one religion, they suffer the same fate as (if not worse than) the Nigerian state with corrupt and inept leadership. You have stable NEPA electric light and WiFi: so Google and you will find these ancient or long standing truths.
The problem of Nigeria is everywhere and not specific to Nigeria. The only difference is the alarming rate of Nigeria’s leadership and socio-cultural problems. They have to do with our mindset and value systems: our culture and lifestyles. You’re by far my senior and ought to know our history better than I do. Anyways, tracing the history of this problem will take me to Genesis of creation. It started at the garden of Eden after the fall of man.
That’s the adamic nature of greed, indiscipline, moral ineptitude, and corruption, and corruption that will never go away or get better soon. It’s also the culmination of the ancient cruelty of Cain against Abel. Much more, think about the ancient tussle between Esau and Jacob fighting in their mother’s womb or the enmity of Ishmaelites against Israelites. Yet they were from the same parents with one common heritage.
The enmity of man against man and man against himself just got worse. Period! I bet with the last drop of blood in me that all these will continue to the end of time as the Scriptures forecast and they’re fulfilling here and now. Therefore, it’s not about multiplicity of the ethnic nations of the Nigerian state, but about the state of our mind.
It’s not strictly about the Fulani taking everything without anything for us in the South. Go to the North, for example, and you will find millions of Hausas and Fulanis littering the street begging for food and pure water, yet their national leaders are accused of plundering our wealth. But the truth is that the Northern leaders can’t even do anything without their brothers in the East and South signing on that. It’s teamwork, so stop blaming only one group. Same in Nigeria’s Southeast and Southwest. As it is in the North, so it is in the South with minor differences here and there!
So big brother, stop supporting IPOB for secession, especially if they have no other agenda to make Nigeria better. Restructuring and constitutional conferences to respectively realign (reengineer) the geopolitical structure and amend the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria are the better alternatives. Nevertheless, those options, too, are already festered with imbalances before the actual processes will begin. Yet they are better devils than the civil-war driven secession which could eventually culminate in both genocidal war and class wars all together very bloody and prolonged once they start. But what’s the way forward?
Let’s forgive one another and come together in sincerity of purpose. For all have sinned and come short of the expectation of God for us. There’s none whose hands are totally clean, except the child in the womb of the mother. Hence Christ said let’s have the mindset of a baby and renew our mind as well.
Also, though we shout “crucify him, crucify him!” And the noise continues, “stone her stone her!” Who crucifies who? Again, Christ said let the man without sin be the first to cast a stone against the adulterous woman. This doesn’t mean we should continue doing what’s wrong for grace or development to begin. But it’s god to begin by acknowledging that we are all accomplices, from North to South, and from East to the West at whatever level and whichever measure! Yet the decadent journey that brought us this far didn’t begin with this present generation of leaders. It even started before Nigeria’s independence in 1960, but got worse after our political independence without economic self-reliance and viability; and then we grew much worse after Nigeria became a Republic in 1963.
Though our founding did great, they had shares in this national blame we are still distributing and trading. The overthrow of the elected government in 1966 and the accompanying coup d’etat led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogu were proof of the corrupt and faulty system back then. Google and read the coup statement by Major Nzeogu.
Most importantly, we can still have one united progressive Nigeria, if and when we all work towards it. But for secession, it’s not going to work without spilling an ocean of precious blood; and it will cost us without any choice allowing the Western nations to open their pipes from the Atlantic ocean to drill Niger Delta oil, with their ships simultaneously taking the mineral wealth in the North.
So big brother, rethink your support and funding of IPOB if you’re doing so. Rather, think of us here in the homeland, not just you who checked out with Andrew since 1980 and refused to see how much insecurity and hunger have made us helpless. Least I forget, I’m still waiting for the money you promised me last Chrstmas of 2019. I wish you the best, big brother. Bye for now.
Sincerely Yours:
Unemployed Nigerian Youth
