Since the Coalition of Northern Youths’ quit notice to Igbo to vacate the North on or before October 1, there has been a spate of hate speeches from some ethnic groups who fan the ember of disunity thereby causing tension across the country 

|  By Olu Ojewale  |  Jul 03, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT  |

WHEN it rains, it pours. That seems to be the situation in Nigeria as the country is battling with ethnic tension caused by the Coalition of Northern Youths, CNY, which on Tuesday, June 6, served a quit notice to Igbo people to vacate the northern parts of the country on or before October 1. The CNY said the quit was served to allow the Igbo to have their own country, known as Biafra. Besides, it noted that the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, successfully made South East to observe a sit-at-home protest on May 30.

As if that was not serious enough, the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, led Abdullahi Ango, a professor of Agriculture, expressed its support for the CYN, thereby causing outrage in some quarters.

Nevertheless, since the pronouncement, different parts of country have been aligning with their own choice or kind, while others also expressed their willingness to found their own ethnic nations.

Apart from Biafra, whose ambition led to the Nigerian civil war in the 1970s, it is now obvious that given the chance, some other ethnic nations would like to be on their own.

First to express such ambition was the South-South, which is also loosely referred to as Niger Delta. All the six states, namely Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River, Edo, and Rivers States, on Wednesday, June 7, demanded for a total cession from Nigeria to have their own country. The decision was made public by a group known as Rondel Solidarity Movement, RSM.

Apparently taking a cue from other ethnic nationalists, the O’odua Nationalist Coalition, ONAC, comprising 18 pan-Yoruba groups called for the declaration of the sovereign state of Oduduwa Republic on Monday, June 12.

Also, the Youths from the Middle Belt are also asking for self determination and distancing themselves from the call from the Arewa Youths for the Igbos to quit the North. The Youths acting on the Platform of All Middle Belt Youth Forum, AMBYF, said the entire Middle Belt region was not part of the quit notice which they strongly condemn..

The cry of injustice, it appears, is not limited to the South alone. On Wednesday, June 21,  the Fulani community in Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba State accused the Mambilla  tribe of  committing ethnic cleansing against them. The community, in a press statement issued in Jalingo, on Wednesday, June 21, alleged that more than 20 families were wiped out in attacks within the week. They said that as at Wednesday morning more than 100 people had been killed in the attacks, adding that the killings were still going on.

In the release signed by Ahmadu Adamu; Suleiman Musa; Hassan Ardo and Dauda Jae, the community elders lamented that more than 180 Fulani villages in the Mambilla Plateau were attacked. The Fulani elders said the killings had continued now for the past four days and nothing was done by relevant authorities to assuage the situation. The elders said more than 130 persons, including children and women were missing while more than 4,000 cows were either killed or taken away. The Fulani community, therefore, appealed to acting President Yemi Osibanjo to take all necessary measures to stop “the ethnic cleansing” being committed against them.

Indeed, Osinbajo has been busy in recent days, trying to douse the tension in the land. Already he has deployed the army in Taraba to contain the crisis. He has also made moves to douse the tension caused by threats of ethnic nationalists over the NYC’s quit notice to Igbo. In his efforts to find peace, cooperation and stability for the country, Osinbajo held meetings with the South East leaders, Northern leaders, including monarchies.

Interestingly, none of the groups which held meetings with the acting president would like to rock the boat. Indeed, they have been singing the same song of unity and the need for the nation to remain as one.

In the latest of such consultations, the acting president met with governors from all over the country on Wednesday, June 21.

At the end of a meeting, Osinbajo seemed to be repeating the same message which he made after his previous meetings with leaders of other parts of the country. He said that any Nigerian expecting the country to break was only wasting his time. “The message is for Nigerians to work more together and collaborate. We have more to gain when we are united.

“We cannot afford to break, and anybody that is thinking of that, is wasting his time, and we will not allow it, not in this country. All of us are unanimous about that,” he added.

He said the governors had also resolved that the unity of the country “is sacrosanct, non-negotiable and we have all agreed to work together to educate people.”

Osinbajo, who had earlier met separately with leaders of thought and traditional rulers from both the North and the South-East, said those who participated in the previous consultations agreed that Nigeria’s unity should not be taken for granted. He said nobody wanted the nation to witness bloodshed or war.

While describing the previous meetings as frank and open, Osinbajo said they were able to agree on most of the critical issues that were discussed, and in most cases, changed perceptions that might have been long embedded in their minds. He added that the participants also agreed that under no circumstances should hateful speeches be condoned and that government should take all steps necessary to bring to book all those who preached violence.

The acting president stated that they also agreed that government needed to do more to engage youths productively, create some jobs and multiply the economic opportunities available.

Also, Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, who spoke on behalf of the other governors, said the governors and other stakeholders had resolved that despite the agitations being witnessed in parts of the country, Nigeria must remain as one indivisible country. Ajimobi said: “Any time you have agitation, usually, there will be poverty; there will be unemployment; there will be hardship. So, we should address fundamentally these areas of poverty, unemployment and hardship. “Nigerians are by nature a united people; nobody cares whether you are from the north, south or the east.”

The governor also warned against the consequences of war, urging Nigerians to learn from Rwanda and Somalia.

On Tuesday, June 20, at his meeting with the monarchs from the North, Osinbajo also spoke on the need to avoid another civil war, saying that Nigeria had seen enough violence and bloodshed during its history. He recalled that the country paid the price for its unity with the lives of soldiers and civilians killed in the civil war of between 1967 and 1970, and that should not be allowed again.

Also disturbed by the issues of herdsmen and farmers crisis, Osinbajo promised that the matter would be resolved in partnership with the state governors. “Of course, the problems are multidimensional but the states have a very important role to play, especially because they are in control of land in their territories,” he said.

It was not clear how the issue concerning the Fulani herdsmen was tackled during Osinbajo’s parley with the governor, but what appears to have taken the centre stage is how to resolve the threats to the nation’s unity.

Since agitation started to gain momentum, a lot of Nigerians have been proffering different kinds of solutions to enable the country to stay as one.

David Adeniran, a public commentator, said in an interview: “The best the government can all do for the country is to immediately liaise with the National Assembly and speedily effect the process of restructuring of the nation. Nigeria can certainly not move forward with the present arrangement. Go back to regionalism or adopt a true federalism or confederation. You cannot just say Nigeria will not break and yet leave the country in the same lopsided system.”

That seems to be the position of Premium Times. In its editorial of Wednesday, June 21, the online publication, said the current tension was long in coming, but reasoned: “In the long run, lasting solutions should be devised to contain all the fears and agitations of the different groups in the country. It is time to dust up the various reports and recommendations made on how to address the seemingly intractable problems Nigeria face. There are several reports addressing the structural and governance challenges of our federation dating back to the 1994/95 Conference, the National Conference of 2005, with the most recent being the report of the 2014 National Conference.

“All these national dialogues have in one way or the other proposed ways of improving our federalism and deepening our democracy. Most critically, the calls for restructuring and improving our political system must go hand in hand with effective, accountable and representative governments at all levels, which abide by the rule of law and work for the interests of citizens. We are, however, not oblivious of the fact that this is not going to be easy without the unalloyed commitment and sincerity of our leaders and indeed all Nigerians.”

On his part, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto, wants another sort of dialogue as the solution to the agitation for the breakup of Nigeria. Abubakar made the call at his palace in Sokoto when he hosted leaders of resident communities, heads of security agencies, civil society groups and media practitioners to a dinner to break the Ramadan fast, on Wednesday, June 21

He stated: “No matter what anybody can say, no matter what is happening, we are still one big family. Let’s sit down, discuss these issues. So that together we can find out what really went wrong. Let us retrace our step and see where we started getting things wrong so that we can find the way of sorting things out.”

According to the monarch, God did not make a mistake by, “creating us as Nigerians,” and as people of faith, Nigerians should accept God’s decision and live in peace with one another.

Similarly, Fredrick Fasehun, a doctor and founder of the O’odua Peoples Congress, OPC, said in an interview that the northern youths were not the ones causing tension, but Nigerian politicians using them to foment trouble.

He said: “The youths of this country love their country. The Nigerian politicians and elders who are profiting from the campaign of disunity are the ones behind all the problem”. While agreeing that government should hold dialogues to resolve the crisis, Fasehun said: “Government should gather together lovers of this country and those making the threats for two or three weeks and let them talk frankly on the way to move the country forward.”