EITHER TRANSFORMING NIGERIA OR BIAFRA

The real test is in leadership and actions that create a true spirit of nationality and the willingness of each stakeholder to build a unified, stable and cohesive nation.

Fifty years after Biafra, we are confronted with the imperative of defining a future for Nigeria that escapes the past of our country. The federal government of Nigeria and all our compatriots should take increasingly powerful agitation by various groups so that the Igbos of the South-East zone break away from Nigeria with the gravity that matter deserves.

The Nigerian state must engage agitation, address and reparation, its root causes that lie in decades of obvious marginalization that the Igbo have experienced in the post-civil war in Nigeria.

These hurt feelings and suspicions have not only hampered the progress of national construction in Nigeria.They create the basis for a certain failure of the state if they are still badly carried out, because the ties that form our country together in an imperfect union continue to fight.

The Neo-Biafra Movement

Why was the rise of the neo-Biafra movement, which mainly included men and women who were babies or even to be born during the 1967-70 civil war, was a fundamental strategic shift in the trajectory of our national history? Spirits unfamiliar with the greatest sweep of world history will laugh at the agitations and see the relative youth of the neo-Biafra militants as evidence of their naivete.

This prospect lacks good points. The first is that the historical evidence is that the geographical structures of the borders of nations are not thrown into stone. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a construction of the Cold War, separated into the Balkan conflicts in the early and mid-1990s in separate and sovereign countries.

Czechoslovakia broke up and became two nations , The Czech Republic and Slovakia. A closer house, a plebiscite administered in 1961 at the request of the United Nations to determine the wishes of the inhabitants of certain regions of Cameroon, resulted in the exodus of northern Cameroon into northern Nigeria, while southern Cameroon joined Republic of Cameroon.

Secondly, international law provides a legal basis for the notion of self-determination of peoples.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the agitation for Biafra was marginal, and would likely have evolved, if not for increased perception in the Southeast, that it has been globally and strategically marginalized more than ever Previously two years.

This change in feeling has important implications. On the one hand, if a referendum has taken place in the region today on the subject of staying or leaving the Nigerian federation, a majority will likely vote in favor of Nigeria's departure. The dramatic shift in pro-Biafra sentiment from the marginal to the mainstream in the region underscores the mismanagement of our national development challenge.

Greater involvement from a longer-term perspective is that struggles for the freedom of oppression or domination tend to have an inevitable historical logic that almost always succeeds. No matter how long it takes, and this historical truth is not affected by the reluctance of the dominant and powerful groups to recognize it.

Biblical Jews in slavery in Egypt for 430 years led to freedom by Moses and Joshua, the struggle for decolonization by many colonized and African nations, the ultimate end of apartheid in South Africa, Slavery and the civil rights movement The United States faced racism and the white privilege that thought it would last forever, are just a few examples.

The militants of Biafra believe that the long arc of history is on their side. Ridiculing them with references to their kinship relative to the situation does not miss the point. Their determination is sharp and their fervor is motivated precisely by their youth.

The danger now, which must be avoided, is that some in these groups may be increasingly radicalized and tempted to take up arms against their homeland. It would be an abject failure to learn the lessons of the original Biafra five decades ago.

Groups have also become increasingly intolerant of other approaches which argue that the Nigerian project is not necessarily beyond redemption and can be solved by a negotiated outcome that repairs and rebalances our failing federation by ensuring Equity for all its citizens. Moreover, the use of vitriolic and dehumanizing language in argumentation, whether for or against a new Biafra, is false and counterproductive.

Which brings us to the question: where do we go from here? For reasons that include the resurgence of agitation for Biafra, but go far beyond (because the interests of other groups in Nigeria are also important to the extent that these interests are legitimate), there is No alternative to the constitutional restructuring of the Nigerian federation. Specific to the Biafra issue, however, this is the only alternative to getting out of Biafra 2.0.

Several rational arguments for making the bull by the horns and re-engineering of Nigeria. All Nigerians should reflect and act on these arguments in our collective interest. Our country is not working. Many groups, not just the Southeast Igbo, feel marginalized or marginalized at different stages of our national history.

We can not reach a country without national unity, stability and cohesion. Many nations have achieved nationality and prosperity in diversity, which is the composition of most nations on earth. Only a few nations, such as Japan and Korea, are truly homogeneous. All that is needed is that we bury the win-take mentality, motivated by ethnic and religious irredenism, and design a structure that works for all. This is achievable with real leadership, political will and commitment.

The restructuring, if done well, will have a proactive effect of stabilizing Nigeria so that we can pursue real development. The presidential election won by MKO, the reactions of the fire brigade to the Yoruba after the Abiola of 12 June 1993 were canceled, the Niger Delta militancy on the "control of resources" of crude oil, the rebellion of Boko Haram and the neo-biafra uprising of today. In other words, 57 years after independence, we remain stuck at the level of fundamentals.

We can not take off unless we eliminate them.

To function properly, a restructuring exercise must make informed choices. We have to choose between the maintenance of a unitary state (which is Nigeria), in which the central government is very powerful, with the devolution of powers, more and more in the United Kingdom, a true federation in which the regions could the federative units and the central government The federal government and units are almost equal in status in the United States, Canada, Germany, India, Australia and Brazil, or in a confederation where federative units are superior To the central government, the first example.

The best arrangement for Nigeria is neither "unitary federalism" nor "federalism", imposed military leaders, nor a confederation, but a true federation with a balanced balance of powers and responsibilities between the central and federative. In this scenario, federative units can heal more effectively without the central government's "power bottle".

The center becomes less powerful, but not weak, as it will retain the main sovereign responsibilities as armed forces and security services, citizenship and immigration, foreign affairs and the central bank.

Federative units in Nigeria should be the six geopolitical zones and not the current state structure. Restructuring is also essential. The periodic rituals of the elections did not necessarily improve governance. There are two ways for this to happen. One, the restructuring will bring greater accountability and transparency to governance for power and responsibility will be closer to people.

This will help develop a better culture and quality of leadership and will also promote competitive development between regions. Nigeria today is much more integrated than in the 1960s, and the structure of the six zones will prevent the extreme ethnic chauvinism that afflicted the First Republic. The restructuring should lead to a reduction in the costs of governance in the center and in the regions.

Restructuring is also the best path to economic transformation. A six-zone federal structure will provide economies of scale in terms of a regional government's ability to raise adequate tax revenues and use these resources for development. It will do the same in the fields of manufacturing as well as intra-regional, interregional and international trade.

A restructuring based on the current structure of 36 states will not work. The fact that most states in Nigeria today are fiscally unsustainable has been demonstrated without a doubt. Paying wages to civil servants as they go, or in due time, has become a "success" of governance in our country! With the reign of crude oil regressing in historic memory, the future is bleak and unsustainable, according to our current tax structure, without a large oil exchange from the federal government being distributed to dependent states.

I believe that restructuring is necessary and inevitable. Some stakeholders may reject the prospect because of fear of losing perceived political advantage. But nobody has anything to fear in a smartly restructured Nigeria. There can be no peace without justice.

The question is not whether Nigeria will be redrawn but when, and who will lead the process of achieving this result in which all Nigerians, regardless of tribe, language and belief, could be a winner.