The Nigerian separatists' plague
5 July 2021 By Abiodun Giwa
Sunday Igboho, Nnamdi Kanu, and Shekau.
Sunday Adeyemo, alias Igboho, is a new political star in the Southwest area of Nigeria. Just as Nnamdi Kanu in the South Eastern part of the country. Both are roughing feathers with Nigeria's federal authority, demanding freedom for their people. Kanu says he is fighting to free the Igbo race. Igboho says he is battling at the forefront of a struggle for the emancipation of the Yoruba people.
Let us not forget that there is also the endless fight by the Boko Haram sect in the Northwest seeking to make Nigeria an Islamic enclave. So why has Nigeria been inundated with senseless battles and divisions instead of finding its way out of the logjam of leadership's inability to fashion programs to solve the myriad problems facing the country?
Nigerians sought and got a change in 2015 when they voted for Muhammed Buhari for that change, believing corruption and corrupt leadership are the causes of the nation's major headache. And four years later, Buhari won re-election against a collection of candidates that proved ineffective in their messaging, many of them forgetting they enabled Buhari's election and had either approved or described Buhari as an angel four years earlier.
Many people have said that this does not mean Buhari has proved to be an angel in handling the country's governance. They cite a fight against corruption that has left corrupt members of the ruling party free from investigation and welcoming and forgiving corrupt members of the opposition who cross over to the ruling party.
The double standard aside, the Boko Haram insurgency that Buhari inherited has bludgeoned into another crisis and worsens by kidnappings and a free-for-all type of crime situation around the country. The police in the country have never been saintly. There is a high rate of unemployment among all cadres of the population. A development that has pushed many of the youth in the country into using their brain to survive. The police make the kids their target. It calls their solution to the unemployment problem an internet scam, which has also turned into another mess.
Politicians only seek to butter their bread in the situation, in alarming proportion, rather than address the country's problems. Kanu has already traveled far in his assertion as a successor to Odumegwu Ojukwu, the late former secessionist leader in the East. Igboho fills a vacuum of relevant leadership in the West, apolitical leadership that cares about the majority's yearning.
However, there is no clarity Kanu is capable of Ojukwu's achievement. Ojukwu was a governor in the East when he decided to carve out the region for self-determination. He presented a manifest reason for his demand. Kanu does not have such a cause other than the continuity of the failed secession bid by Ojukwu. Igboho lacks enough command or clout, though he has a handful of following that has made his noise heard. Their reason is that cow grazers from the north are threats to life in Yorubaland rural areas, and they want the grazers stopped from doing business in that part of the country. In the opposite direction, Buhari says every Nigerian must be free to do business in all country areas.
It is uncertain if his government has done enough to address the threat the grazers constitute to people in Yorubaland. Therefore, observers expect that the Buhari's government should have summoned the same strength with which it has gone after Kanu and Igboho towards solving Nigeria's problems that have created the conundrum festering Kanu's audacity and enabling Igboho's agenda. They say that aside from the Separatists' serious threat to Nigeria's unity, the most significant problem is the availability of wealth that does not reach the majority. There is no social security program, no unemployment program, no healthcare program, and no food stamp program, to addressing the need of the poor. A typical survival of the fittest scenario, where the strong survive and the infirm trampled under feet.
The Nigerian government needs to confront numerous social problems facing the country to silent other emerging ills like the separatists' plague capable of tearing the country apart. Igboho is an addition to Buhari's inherited problems. Shekau is unconfirmed dead, Kanu in government's custody, and Igboho on the run. People expect the government to address the country's social problems with the same zeal it has gone after the separatists.
Let us not forget that there is also the endless fight by the Boko Haram sect in the Northwest seeking to make Nigeria an Islamic enclave. So why has Nigeria been inundated with senseless battles and divisions instead of finding its way out of the logjam of leadership's inability to fashion programs to solve the myriad problems facing the country?
Nigerians sought and got a change in 2015 when they voted for Muhammed Buhari for that change, believing corruption and corrupt leadership are the causes of the nation's major headache. And four years later, Buhari won re-election against a collection of candidates that proved ineffective in their messaging, many of them forgetting they enabled Buhari's election and had either approved or described Buhari as an angel four years earlier.
Many people have said that this does not mean Buhari has proved to be an angel in handling the country's governance. They cite a fight against corruption that has left corrupt members of the ruling party free from investigation and welcoming and forgiving corrupt members of the opposition who cross over to the ruling party.
The double standard aside, the Boko Haram insurgency that Buhari inherited has bludgeoned into another crisis and worsens by kidnappings and a free-for-all type of crime situation around the country. The police in the country have never been saintly. There is a high rate of unemployment among all cadres of the population. A development that has pushed many of the youth in the country into using their brain to survive. The police make the kids their target. It calls their solution to the unemployment problem an internet scam, which has also turned into another mess.
Politicians only seek to butter their bread in the situation, in alarming proportion, rather than address the country's problems. Kanu has already traveled far in his assertion as a successor to Odumegwu Ojukwu, the late former secessionist leader in the East. Igboho fills a vacuum of relevant leadership in the West, apolitical leadership that cares about the majority's yearning.
However, there is no clarity Kanu is capable of Ojukwu's achievement. Ojukwu was a governor in the East when he decided to carve out the region for self-determination. He presented a manifest reason for his demand. Kanu does not have such a cause other than the continuity of the failed secession bid by Ojukwu. Igboho lacks enough command or clout, though he has a handful of following that has made his noise heard. Their reason is that cow grazers from the north are threats to life in Yorubaland rural areas, and they want the grazers stopped from doing business in that part of the country. In the opposite direction, Buhari says every Nigerian must be free to do business in all country areas.
It is uncertain if his government has done enough to address the threat the grazers constitute to people in Yorubaland. Therefore, observers expect that the Buhari's government should have summoned the same strength with which it has gone after Kanu and Igboho towards solving Nigeria's problems that have created the conundrum festering Kanu's audacity and enabling Igboho's agenda. They say that aside from the Separatists' serious threat to Nigeria's unity, the most significant problem is the availability of wealth that does not reach the majority. There is no social security program, no unemployment program, no healthcare program, and no food stamp program, to addressing the need of the poor. A typical survival of the fittest scenario, where the strong survive and the infirm trampled under feet.
The Nigerian government needs to confront numerous social problems facing the country to silent other emerging ills like the separatists' plague capable of tearing the country apart. Igboho is an addition to Buhari's inherited problems. Shekau is unconfirmed dead, Kanu in government's custody, and Igboho on the run. People expect the government to address the country's social problems with the same zeal it has gone after the separatists.
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