Professor Akinyemi Onigbinde
Snr Research Fellow
Institute of African Studies
University of Ghana
Accra, Ghana

'Nigeria cannot defeat the Igbo and Yoruba at the same time'

The greatest thing Nigerians accomplished in the last thirty years was electing Muhammadu Buhari as president. If he had lived and died without being president, no one would push back when politicians fall over themselves to deliver tributes and call him the greatest president that Nigeria never had.

After six years of Buhari’s administration and with only two more years to go, all is settled about the rhymes and stanzas of Buhari’s elegy. Some thirty years from now, people will stone anyone who attaches “greatest ” to any tribute at Buhari’s funeral.

You may ask if anything is worth the cost of having Buhari as president?

Before you do, there is another reason why his election was the greatest accomplishment of the Nigerian electorate in the last 30 years. If Buhari had not been president, if his incompetence had not been exposed to the uninitiated, Nigeria would have continued its zigzag path. The one-step-forward, two-steps-backwards trajectory would have continued unabated.

Thus, Buhari helped the unrestructured Nigeria to confront its foreseeable future. That is Buhari’s first legacy.

Here is Buhari’s second legacy: It may not be clear yet to the Fulani people, but Buhari’s presidency has damaged them more than any other group in Nigeria. Buhari’s inability to have an objective view of what leadership entails in a diverse country like Nigeria and his propensity to side with his Fulani people even when every donkey could see the bias undermined the Fulani deeply. He diminished whatever legitimate claim they have in what is clearly a fast-moving degenerative Nigeria’s structural carnage. The Fulani were better off in Nigeria six years ago than they are today. That is Muhammadu Buhari’s second legacy.

In the context of Nigeria’s nationhood, Buhari’s second coming was a necessary evil: He came, he saw, and he hastened its ruination for everyone.

If Buhari had not been president, Nigeria would have been ‘managing.’ The Peoples Democratic Party of Goodluck Jonathan and Sambo Dasuki and Diezani Allison-Madueke would have been paying Dangote to rob Otedola, even as the country continued the slide down the valley of death. Buhari accelerated the collapse by taking the country on a bungee jump down the deepest part of the valley using a frayed rope.

The rope is breaking. Anyone with functioning ears can hear the splitting threads from miles away. High above the deepest part of the valley, Nigeria barely holds on to Buhari’s back. Two things will happen: Either Nigeria loses its grip on Buhari’s back and falls into the valley of death, or the rope rips and both Nigeria and Buhari plunge down the valley. Either way, death is the expected end.
The only miracle on the horizon is to get Nigeria to a place where it cannot fight the Igbo and the Yoruba nations simultaneously.

In a one-on-one fight, Nigeria may defeat any of its components. Nigeria may defeat the Igbo. Nigeria may run over the Yoruba. Nigeria may crush the Ijaw, the Ibibio, the Tiv, the Ijaw, the Kanuri, the Fulani, the Bachama, the Idoma, the Urhobo, etc. Nigeria cannot defeat the Igbo and the Yoruba at the same time. In a fight between Nigeria on one side and an Igbo-Yoruba alliance on the other, many ethnic minority groups will take the side of the alliance.

Whether the fight is in the physical or spiritual realm, whether it is in the democratic realm or the ideological realm, Nigeria has no chance of winning a fight against the combined forces of the Igbo and the Yoruba. For a table with three legs, one leg has no chance of keeping the table standing when the other two legs take a knee. The Igbo and Yoruba need to take a combined knee. That is the ultimate way to shake the table called Nigeria.

Nigeria needs to get to a point where it faces the prospect of fighting a united Igbo and Yoruba power. It needs to happen now. That reality needs to be clear, concrete, and ironclad. It is the only magic wand that can save Nigeria.

Is it easy to achieve? No. Is it possible? Yes.

What will it take to get Nigeria to that place where it risks fighting the Igbo and the Yoruba simultaneously?

The way to achieve this is for the Igbo and the Yoruba to embrace Thomas Jefferson’s greatest philosophy. The man who drafted the U.S. Declaration of Independence said, “I admire the dreams of the future more than the history of the past.”

The Igbo and the Yoruba must admire the dreams of the future more than the history of the past. They must do it not just for their children’s children but also for all those children from East to West, North to South, trapped in prisons of mediocrity and death, which are the only gift of an unfair, unjust, and dysfunctional Nigeria.

The Igbo and the Yoruba owe this to future generations of the people currently trapped in Nigeria. It is their responsibility. Posterity will blame the Igbo and the Yoruba in Nigeria if they fail to catch the wave. Thanks to Buhari’s misadventures, the awareness of today is total and overwhelming. Severe penalties await the Igbo and the Yoruba if they fail to act now and free unborn generations from the manacles of Muhammadu Buhari’s.

Professor Akinyemi Onigbinde
Snr Research Fellow
Institute of African Studies
University of Ghana
Accra, Ghana

The Igbo and the Yoruba must admire the dreams of the future more than the history of the past. They must do it not just for their children’s children but also for all those children from East to West, North to South, trapped in prisons of mediocrity and death, which are the only gift of an unfair, unjust, and dysfunctional Nigeria.

Abdul05:
Professor from Ghana telling us about Nigeria

Professor Akinyemi Onigbinde
Snr Research Fellow

sulaak:



Think before you respond.

kingsways:
It's obvious

That's why North's best strategy is always to instigate the West against the East and vice versa.

If SW and SE ever manage to find a common ground, they would whip illiterate but violent North to line

On Thursday, 28 July, 1960, less than three months to Nigeria’s independence, the British government triumphantly informed the parliament in London that “the constitutional framework” for Nigeria  “is a Federal Constitution, in which each region is self-governing in its own field.” It added that “the Federal centre, of course, is responsible for defence, security, external affairs and other matters which concern the whole of the country” while “each region has a separate judiciary.”  The official who briefed the parliament was full of confidence that the structure that had been worked out for Nigeria would guarantee its unity and stability. He said “The Constitution, as we have worked it out with the Nigerians, has seemed to us to be workmanlike and fair, and to be a structure which will give confidence both in the regions and to all the races in the country of Nigeria, and will contribute to that political stability which is so necessary if the economic development of the country is to proceed as we should wish to see it. The Constitutions, both Federal and Regional, will be made in an Order in Council and Independence Day will be on October 1.”

The Federation of Nigeria was born on October 1, 1960; it soon abandoned the pact that welded disparate parts and thus wrecked its destiny. The centre, as it does today, became interested in what was not its business. Those who kidnapped the Federal Government thought they would not enjoy their prize unless they enlarged their coast and overran the south, particularly the West. They forgot all the years of toil and travel, the negotiations and the agreements that kept Nigeria as a federation of equals. Nigeria became an evil tree bearing fruits fit only for its like. There was a civil war; today there are wars everywhere you turn. An adherence to the rules of federalism would have built wealth and prosperity according to efforts and fate. It would have energised the security system to take care of the deviants and their sponsors who today appear resolved to sink the ship with their criminality. If criminals have effectively taken over the whole of northern Nigeria’s 660,000 square kilometers land mass and the south trembles in the frenzy of insecurity, it is because there is an Abuja that is not supposed to have the powers it wields. When everything is spiraling out of control as it is happening to Nigeria, my people would look into space and intone: Aye ti ba je (the world has gone awful, grim, parlous and bad).

The medicine man told his patient: use this as prescribed so that it will work as it works. The Nigerian Abiku would probably have lived as a normal child if we had not fed it the poison of unitarism. We turned the system upside down and still think things would function normally. We were given a federation; today it is the opposite of what that concept means. The daily deadly threats to peace and security; the pangs of hunger, starvation and the drought of good life are all products of Nigeria’s structural defects. What will kill Nigeria is right inside its being; it is its pig-headed obsession with what is not good for its health. We either restructure this house, rebuild it on the wisdom of its original design or it falls on all of us. The earth around it is sinking already.
https://tribuneonlineng.com/the-norths-misguided-anger-towards-southern-governors/