Guest Writer

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— A backroom view of the state of the struggle for a True Federalism Constitution

|  By Chinweizu  |

 Why rebrand as the New South Liberation Movement, NSLM?

Another issue that the CSC session should take up is the rebranding of the struggle and turning it into the Nigerian Liberation Movement, NLM, or better still into the New South Liberation Movement, NSLM? So, why rebrand? Why NLM or NSLM?

A crucial step in ending our “mumu” is for us to recognize that the issue for us all in the New South is liberty or slavery.

One consequence of our “mumu” has been our comparatively laid back approach to the struggle. Instead of meeting the militancy of Arewa with our own counter militancy, we have been making gentleman, negotiating rather than fighting. In December 2013, on the way to the National Conference, one of the Caliphate militants, Junaid Mohammed, even warned us “‘Supporters of SNC asking for civil war’” and that “‘There’ll be bloodshed, if Jonathan runs’”. And, like mumu, we failed to take the hint, failed to realize that they were already in war mode going into the National Conference. And we went to the same conference in gentlemanly negotiations mode. The other side has been fighting with the vigilance and courage of desperation, the desperation of a hungry lion who won’t let his prey escape and deny him his dinner.

Now a prey under attack by a predator needs to fight with even greater desperation from fear of losing its life. But we have not been doing so because we have not realized that we are in a fight for our lives and liberty. They have an empire to lose; we have our liberty to regain, but have not been keen to pay the inevitable price for our liberty. They have threatened war to defend the constitution by which they feed on us; are we determined to go to war to get the constitution that will protect us from becoming their dinner? We have everything going for us, except the most important: we are not desperate for freedom. The other side is desperate to deprive us of our freedom but we are not desperate for it—to keep even what little of it we haven’t lost in the last six decades of fake independence, let alone get the full liberty that we sought to regain by struggling for independence. If we continue in the laidback mood and negotiating mode exhibited at the confab, we will lose everything.

Now, rebranding our cause will do wonders for us. Here’s how.

By redefining the struggle as a struggle for liberation rather than a negotiation for more suitable terms for cohabitation, we gain several advantages:

1. We clarify that we have an enemy and identify him as the Caliphate colonialist who wants to conquer, dominate and enslave us. We stop seeing him as a negotiating partner for our common good in Lugard’s “One Nigeria.”
2. Knowing that we have this common enemy provides us with a basis for a fighting unity. The entire New South, the assorted victims of Caliphate Colonialism, will now see the reason to band together to fight and win our collective freedom from our common enemy. The Caliphate will then lose the advantages of its divide and dominate tactics of the past. In fact we should rebrand as the New South Liberation Movement.
3. This rebranding will push us out of a negotiating mode and into a fighting mode.
4. It will spark in us the militant enthusiasm of freedom fighters who are defending their people, culture and territory.
5. Fighting for our territory and people and culture will spark the enhanced energies, alertness and creativity that comes with fighting for life and liberty. A man chased by a killer can leap a wall of 7ft, or a ditch of 20ft.

Such are the decisive advantages that this proposed rebranding will bring to our side: clarity, unity, fighting spirit, enhanced energies and creativity, militant enthusiasm.

Let me sum up. In attempting to craft a True Federalism Constitution for a Nigeria that includes the Caliphate we have been like mice negotiating with a cat the terms of their cohabitation in a cage.  We have not recognized that the Caliphate cat is not our partner in the project of building a Nigerian nation but our colonial master and enslaver. Therefore we have been “mumu”–actually suicidal “mumu” negotiating the best terms for our own murder by the cat.  If we mean to stay alive, we should be organizing among ourselves for our liberation from the cage and the cat.  That’s what the TFC campaign should be turned into. Switching from one perception of our task to the other is the radical transformation we now need to effect. And rebranding the movement will help us redefine our task and produce a galvanizing change in our perspective and attitude to the struggle. Most importantly, it will help us recognize that we have an enemy from whom we need to liberate ourselves. When we start talking of liberation we will recognize that our struggle is a continuation of the aborted 1950s struggle for freedom and independence.

This rebranding would reconfigure our project and correct the radical error, our “mumu”, that has crippled us for the past 70 years. It will result in the militancy we have lacked, as well as bring us unity among ourselves. Recognizing that we all need liberation from the same enemy will end our susceptibility to the divide and rule tactics of the Caliphate cat. The new perspective will foster the unity we need to win our liberation struggle.

For a historical essay on the Caliphate Colonialism that we are up against, please Gooogle:

Chinweizu, Caliphate Colonialism, The Taproot of the trouble with Nigeria, Nigeria Village Square

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© Chinweizu 2015

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— Jan. 26, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT

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Tags: Caliphate Colonialism Chinweizu Nigeria Village Square The Taproot of the trouble with Nigeria

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