A Dilemma Called Nigeria

Adeola Aderounmu.

In recent weeks, in recent months actually, I have not been keen on blogging. It is not for lack of ideas. It is not that there are no more biting issues to discuss. There is still a lot to tackle. In our world, for all time, there will never be a shortage of what to write about, what to discuss and what to engage with.  The difference between writing 20 years ago and writing nowadays are the impacts of social media and AI. I digress no more.

Nigeria has been the central issue in my over 2 decades of blogging. In some articles, I have completely lost hope on what my generation and the generation before mine can do to restore dignity and hope to that region which the British criminals called Nigeria. So, I started to address the generation after mine.

There is a very loud outcry to the ongoing genocidal attacks in Benue State, Nigeria. The outcry and the lamentations are in order. But this is not an isolated occurrence. This was not an unexpected attack. That the terrorists in Northern Nigeria plan to overrun the entire country is not news. There have been coordinated attacks in almost all the Nigeria States. There are settlements of foreign “people” across the Nigerian region or country. I do not think it would be impossible to unleash mayhem on the entire country.

The visit of Bola Tinubu to Benue is cosmetic. The killers are on ground, and they will continue with their conquests of land and regions in Benue and in other places. Majority of people do not understand the kind of existence they were born into in Nigeria. Majority are ignorant of the meaning of Nigeria. They do not know how Nigeria came into existence and that Nigeria was never created as a country but as a business enterprise for the orgy of the British empire.

So, the shout about the genocide in Benue will probably mellow but the fundamental problems with the existence of Nigeria would be ignored because the level of ignorance and lack of knowledge among the people is overwhelming and stinking.

There are final and permanent solutions to the problems of genocide in Benue and other places across Nigeria. But these solutions do not exist as long as Nigeria remains one country. The people need to be educated that they are not Nigerians by nature and ancestry. For example, I am Yoruba. Some of you are Igbo, Hausa and so on. The people need to know that the British colonized the regions and formed Nigeria as a business enterprise and that regardless of what may be good about the union, the things that are bad about it are far enormous and damaging like the killing in Benue.

In our best years, we prospered most under a regional government in our respective ancestral land. It was not to last as the things that divided us came to fore and we killed one another for power because it is human to want to dominate over other tribes/nationalities, and that is what make sporting activities great human endeavours.

Now, how do you define dominance in a Nigerian context when the British brought unrelated nationalities together and called them Nigerians? The kind of dominance that each nationality in Nigeria seek and the lack of it for the other groups would continue to breed the kind of massacre in Benue. The fact that Fulani would even invade from far beyond the useless boundaries created by the foolish British colonialists has complicated the matter.

We have seen this over the decades and to think that VDM or a Tinubu visit are antidotes is the beginning of a new phase of collective amnesia and uncured madness. The “wars” we fight every 4 years during our stupid elections are the greatest indicators of our differences, the kind of differences that will NEVER be healed for as long as Nigeria exist.

I mean, the Nigeria of today has come to play into the hands of the colonial masters. The criminal colonial masters can see how their plans to destabilize the west African region have been a great success. They can see how the rising kingdoms of Oyo, Nupe, Igbo, for example, have all crashed believing they are Nigerians. It is again the question of intellectualism, it is the question of race superiority, and it is the question of common sense and the absence of it. The “white man” said you are Nigerian, and you accepted it. The while man said, you are not Igbo, you are not Hausa, you are not Yoruba, and you all accepted it.

This is the problem with us, not identifying and reclaiming our nationalities. We need to reclaim our ancestry and our original nationalities. How would I accept a foreigner invading the Yoruba country without declaring the action a war? The people of Benue would defend their land and their ancestral possessions if we stop telling them that they are Nigerians. By waiting on Nigeria and Nigerians, Benue may become lost to the invaders and their existence will be reduced to slavery or second-class citizens in their ancestral land. This is where many nationalities in Nigeria are heading, losing their identities and ancestral possessions.

The most we can do if we want to live “together” is to revert back to regional government and decide our destinies, our future and the extent of our prosperity in our different regions. The best we can do is to revert back to our kingdoms as they were before the colonial thieves glued us together for the business purpose of the Queen of England and a mistress of Lugard gave us the name “the people of the Niger area”.

There will not be immediate gain from our dissociation. However, in about 50 to 100 years, your children, grandchildren and unborn generations will bless your graves. The longer we wait to start the process, the more Nigerian slip into oblivion, the more the massacres, the more the genocide, the more the useless politics that breed poverty, hopelessness and penury for more than 100 million people. Nigeria is not just the poverty capital of the world, the country is the biggest laughingstock in the world. It will not change until all the nationalities entrapped in Nigeria emerged and claim their rightful places among strong nations across the world.

In our lifetime, we have the task to challenge the status quo, we have the tasks to write the true stories of our lives. We must not be afraid, and we must do all we can to leave the world a better place than we met it. We owe our children a lot and we must disappoint them more than we already did.

One thing is certain; the west and the powers that rule this world are afraid of the re-emergence of powerful kingdoms like The Yoruba Kingdom, The Igbo Nation/Biafra, and so on. They knew where we were before they disrupted and stole our civilizations.

Benue is not an isolated occurrence; we must all fight to be free. There is no other way.