What is the Exit Strategy?
‘Only a peaceful solution must be found to arrest the
present worsening stalemate and restore normalcy. The
Eastern Region must be encouraged to remain part of the
Federation. If the Eastern Region is allowed by acts of
omission or commission to secede from or opt out of
Nigeria, then the Western Region and Lagos must also stay
out of the Federation… A war against the East in which
Northern soldiers are predominant, will only unite the
Easterners or the Ibos against their attackers, strengthen
them in their belief that they are not wanted by the majority
of their fellow-Nigerians, and finally push them out of the
Federation’.-Obafemi Awolowo, May 1st 1967
‘Those who advocate the use of force for the settlement of
our present problems should stop a little and reflect. If it is
claimed that an attack on the East is going to be launched
by the Federal Government and not by the North as such
and that it is designed to ensure the unity and integrity of
the Federation, two other insuperable points also become
obvious. First, if a war against the East becomes a
necessity it must be agreed to unanimously by the
remaining units of the Federation. In this connection, the
West, Mid- West and Lagos have declared their implacable
opposition to the use of force in solving the present
problem’.- Obafemi Awolowo, May 1st 1967
Those familiar with the James Hadley Chase novel series-
as my generation does-would remember the story of how
they catch monkeys in Brazil. Nuts are put inside an empty
bottle and the bottle is planted in any location frequented by
monkeys. Next to banana, nuts are the favourite delicacies
of monkeys. Upon sighting the bottle, the primate scurries
to the designation to retrieve the boon inside the bottle. He
dips his paws inside the container and grabs the nuts but
there is a snag..
Grabbing the nuts expands the paw into a fist and a size
that is larger than the neck of the bottle rendering the
expanded paw irretrievable. And so the animal is
confronted with two options-let go of the nuts, liberate your
paws and call it a day or hold on to them and remained
trapped in the bottle. In the kingdom of animals, monkeys
are supposed to rank high on intelligence quotient, IQ,
measure, but seductive greed like the biblical narrative of
Samson and the femme fatale (Delilah) can easily
compromise a man’s capacity to think rationally and render
him unto fool hardiness.
As it is with humans so it is with monkeys-after all they are
our ancestral cousins. Spell bound by greed-fostered
irrationality, the monkey refuses to let go of the nuts,
remain rooted to the spot, and thereby entraps itself in
fulfilment of the script laid out for its capture. This allegory
applies to all human situations of vulnerability to self-
destructive behavioural lapses. It is the story of how the
inability to successfully wage jihad on our carnal impulses
tends to becloud our sense of judgement. In a manner of
speaking it is the story of obdurate foolhardiness and
foreclosure of exit strategy. It is also the story of the recent
escalation of the Biafra secessionist dilemma.
Both sides to the spiralling conflict are boxing themselves
into a corner-more so the federal government or hopefully
maybe not. After all, speaking on behalf of Nnamidi Kanu,
Professor Ben Nwabueze has proffered the following caveat
“President Buhari will be looking for trouble if he tries to
usurp the constitutional powers of the people to ask for a
better Nigeria through a change in structure. The power to
restructure belongs to the people, not the National
Assembly, and the government must not toy with this for
the peace of the nation. Kanu has mandated me to declare
to Nigeria that he is ready to call off the struggle for Biafra if
progress is made in restructuring Nigeria.”
Well said Professor but the applicable Yoruba admonition
here is that you don’t go charging to confront the family
adversary who slain your father until you are sufficiently
equipped with the martial wherewithal. And according to
Irohin Oodua ‘No doubt, Mr Kanu has demonstrated
infantile radicalism, lack of tact, recklessness and complete
disrespect for revolutionary methods in his trade. He had
singled out the major ethnic groups, Yoruba and Hausa-
Fulani for conscious attacks foreclosing the prospect of
alliances in a terrain that requires lots of caution and
wisdom’.
Now to the federal government-in formulating a military
policy on Biafra, the fundamental mistake the crucify Biafra
warmongers can make is not to appreciate the significant
contextual difference between the power politics
configuration of the 1966-67 status quo ante and what
obtains now. The most significant obstacle would be the
inability to cobble together the federal alliance that
overpowered Biafra in the civil war, and I am not talking of
the military capability alone. To begin with ‘given its ethnic
configuration, the action of the Army has the potential of
polarizing its formations along primordial lines and putting
its entire martial spirit in mutiny mode’.
And given the political experience of the South West
between 1970 and the present, it is going to be next to
impossible to persuade the Yoruba and a substantial
segment of the national intelligentsia to see an embattled
Igbo as the worse of two evils. Indeed to the extent that the
Igbo views restructuring as acceptable middle ground they
are going to find unity of purpose with the South West. Thus
the potential military onslaught against the former is going
to be delegitimized before it even begins. This is partly a
cost of the instant preponderant perception of the Buhari
presidency as embodiment of Hausa-Fulani nepotism and
hegemony.
As a matter of historical fact, if Emeka Ojukwu were not so
overcome with hubris there was the real prospect that the
Western region would have found common purpose with
Biafra. What Ojukwu was proposing, in not too many words,
was the position that the Western region should substitute
the extant hegemony of the ‘North’ for the hegemony of the
South East. He proceeded to give effect to this vision by
launching an attack to capture Lagos with the stated
mission of ousting the government of General Yakubu
Gowon and decimate the Nigerian army. Since the route to
Lagos runs through the aorta of Yoruba land, the loaded
sub plot was that the Biafra liberation army would
temporarily remain as occupation force in the Western
region. Coupled with the charm offensive and the political
cunning of Yakubu Gowon, this was the immediate threat
that ultimately tipped Awolowo and the Yoruba into the
federal alliance camp.
Awolowo died a bitterly frustrated and disappointed man at
what post-civil Nigeria had become and the only inference
we can draw from his compulsion to choose a running mate
from the South East in the 1979 Presidential election is
(probably) that he backed a wrong horse in 1967-not that
he had a choice anyway. In tandem, nearly all the
combatant officers from the South who fought on the federal
side during the civil war have publicly and commonly
expressed remorse and regret at what they deem a similar
mistake.
No less the number one fan of the North from the South and
the civil war conqueror, former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, recently urged a most conciliatory de-escalation
of the situation created by the strong arm, might is right,
invasion of the South East by the Nigerian army. This is a
man who habitually incurs the hostility of his ethnic kith
and kin on his penchant for often been perceived as
catholic than the pope in rooting for a political status quo
that only one sub region of Nigeria seems comfortable with.
His hectoring opposition to the advocacy for restructuring
is one of the most damaging blows to this cause. And then
he counselled, like any Nigerian patriarch should do, that
President Buhari should deign to meet with Kanu and what
was the response from the Presidency and like-minded
regional chauvinists? Obasanjo should go stuff himself.
Remember, the same Obasanjo was the only former ruler of
Nigeria who travelled to Maiduguri to engage with the
Boko-Haram insurgents.
In foreclosing any other option than coercion, the point
should be made that neither the present occupant of the
turn by turn Nigerian presidency nor Nnamdi Kanu can hold
this country to ransom. If it is asking too much to suggest
that a Nigerian president should engage with the
personification of a whole region’s grievance-to which this
incumbent president substantially contributed, then Nigeria
may be living on borrowed time. No nation survives two
civil wars and howsoever it begins, it will be an unwinnable
war for the aggressor. Nigeria is more divided now than
ever before is a refrain that has gained popular currency in
contemporary Nigeria; and the political degeneration of
Nigeria since the civil war has become a retrospective
vindication of the Biafran argument then and now.
At the end of the day and in a very crucial perspective,
Biafra is just a stream from the steady flow of a trend that
localises grievances and externalises victimhood of
oppression and persecution. And the main culprit for this
perspective is the constitutional structure of the country. On
account of the hegemonic concentration of powers and
resources at the centre, Nigerians hardly hold the level of
government nearest to them accountable for their woes. I
will continue to argue that advocacy for restructuring is a
neutral agenda and unless the Nigerian government is
prepared to keep on confronting one Biafra after another
then restructuring is inevitable. If you want Nigerians to
stop complaining and harbouring grievances of
marginalisation then what you do is foster a sense of local
and regional autonomy not dependency on the centre
syndrome.
In the wisdom of the Guardian newspaper ‘the lack of
economic progress in the polity is a direct result of the
failure to address the main political issue that is
responsible for such retardation: over-centralisation of
powers… Since the military struck in 1966 and destroyed
the federal structure that triggered monumental growth of
all the regions of old, Nigeria has not recorded any tangible
development in any economic or political sense.
present worsening stalemate and restore normalcy. The
Eastern Region must be encouraged to remain part of the
Federation. If the Eastern Region is allowed by acts of
omission or commission to secede from or opt out of
Nigeria, then the Western Region and Lagos must also stay
out of the Federation… A war against the East in which
Northern soldiers are predominant, will only unite the
Easterners or the Ibos against their attackers, strengthen
them in their belief that they are not wanted by the majority
of their fellow-Nigerians, and finally push them out of the
Federation’.-Obafemi Awolowo, May 1st 1967
‘Those who advocate the use of force for the settlement of
our present problems should stop a little and reflect. If it is
claimed that an attack on the East is going to be launched
by the Federal Government and not by the North as such
and that it is designed to ensure the unity and integrity of
the Federation, two other insuperable points also become
obvious. First, if a war against the East becomes a
necessity it must be agreed to unanimously by the
remaining units of the Federation. In this connection, the
West, Mid- West and Lagos have declared their implacable
opposition to the use of force in solving the present
problem’.- Obafemi Awolowo, May 1st 1967
Those familiar with the James Hadley Chase novel series-
as my generation does-would remember the story of how
they catch monkeys in Brazil. Nuts are put inside an empty
bottle and the bottle is planted in any location frequented by
monkeys. Next to banana, nuts are the favourite delicacies
of monkeys. Upon sighting the bottle, the primate scurries
to the designation to retrieve the boon inside the bottle. He
dips his paws inside the container and grabs the nuts but
there is a snag..
Grabbing the nuts expands the paw into a fist and a size
that is larger than the neck of the bottle rendering the
expanded paw irretrievable. And so the animal is
confronted with two options-let go of the nuts, liberate your
paws and call it a day or hold on to them and remained
trapped in the bottle. In the kingdom of animals, monkeys
are supposed to rank high on intelligence quotient, IQ,
measure, but seductive greed like the biblical narrative of
Samson and the femme fatale (Delilah) can easily
compromise a man’s capacity to think rationally and render
him unto fool hardiness.
As it is with humans so it is with monkeys-after all they are
our ancestral cousins. Spell bound by greed-fostered
irrationality, the monkey refuses to let go of the nuts,
remain rooted to the spot, and thereby entraps itself in
fulfilment of the script laid out for its capture. This allegory
applies to all human situations of vulnerability to self-
destructive behavioural lapses. It is the story of how the
inability to successfully wage jihad on our carnal impulses
tends to becloud our sense of judgement. In a manner of
speaking it is the story of obdurate foolhardiness and
foreclosure of exit strategy. It is also the story of the recent
escalation of the Biafra secessionist dilemma.
Both sides to the spiralling conflict are boxing themselves
into a corner-more so the federal government or hopefully
maybe not. After all, speaking on behalf of Nnamidi Kanu,
Professor Ben Nwabueze has proffered the following caveat
“President Buhari will be looking for trouble if he tries to
usurp the constitutional powers of the people to ask for a
better Nigeria through a change in structure. The power to
restructure belongs to the people, not the National
Assembly, and the government must not toy with this for
the peace of the nation. Kanu has mandated me to declare
to Nigeria that he is ready to call off the struggle for Biafra if
progress is made in restructuring Nigeria.”
Well said Professor but the applicable Yoruba admonition
here is that you don’t go charging to confront the family
adversary who slain your father until you are sufficiently
equipped with the martial wherewithal. And according to
Irohin Oodua ‘No doubt, Mr Kanu has demonstrated
infantile radicalism, lack of tact, recklessness and complete
disrespect for revolutionary methods in his trade. He had
singled out the major ethnic groups, Yoruba and Hausa-
Fulani for conscious attacks foreclosing the prospect of
alliances in a terrain that requires lots of caution and
wisdom’.
Now to the federal government-in formulating a military
policy on Biafra, the fundamental mistake the crucify Biafra
warmongers can make is not to appreciate the significant
contextual difference between the power politics
configuration of the 1966-67 status quo ante and what
obtains now. The most significant obstacle would be the
inability to cobble together the federal alliance that
overpowered Biafra in the civil war, and I am not talking of
the military capability alone. To begin with ‘given its ethnic
configuration, the action of the Army has the potential of
polarizing its formations along primordial lines and putting
its entire martial spirit in mutiny mode’.
And given the political experience of the South West
between 1970 and the present, it is going to be next to
impossible to persuade the Yoruba and a substantial
segment of the national intelligentsia to see an embattled
Igbo as the worse of two evils. Indeed to the extent that the
Igbo views restructuring as acceptable middle ground they
are going to find unity of purpose with the South West. Thus
the potential military onslaught against the former is going
to be delegitimized before it even begins. This is partly a
cost of the instant preponderant perception of the Buhari
presidency as embodiment of Hausa-Fulani nepotism and
hegemony.
As a matter of historical fact, if Emeka Ojukwu were not so
overcome with hubris there was the real prospect that the
Western region would have found common purpose with
Biafra. What Ojukwu was proposing, in not too many words,
was the position that the Western region should substitute
the extant hegemony of the ‘North’ for the hegemony of the
South East. He proceeded to give effect to this vision by
launching an attack to capture Lagos with the stated
mission of ousting the government of General Yakubu
Gowon and decimate the Nigerian army. Since the route to
Lagos runs through the aorta of Yoruba land, the loaded
sub plot was that the Biafra liberation army would
temporarily remain as occupation force in the Western
region. Coupled with the charm offensive and the political
cunning of Yakubu Gowon, this was the immediate threat
that ultimately tipped Awolowo and the Yoruba into the
federal alliance camp.
Awolowo died a bitterly frustrated and disappointed man at
what post-civil Nigeria had become and the only inference
we can draw from his compulsion to choose a running mate
from the South East in the 1979 Presidential election is
(probably) that he backed a wrong horse in 1967-not that
he had a choice anyway. In tandem, nearly all the
combatant officers from the South who fought on the federal
side during the civil war have publicly and commonly
expressed remorse and regret at what they deem a similar
mistake.
No less the number one fan of the North from the South and
the civil war conqueror, former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, recently urged a most conciliatory de-escalation
of the situation created by the strong arm, might is right,
invasion of the South East by the Nigerian army. This is a
man who habitually incurs the hostility of his ethnic kith
and kin on his penchant for often been perceived as
catholic than the pope in rooting for a political status quo
that only one sub region of Nigeria seems comfortable with.
His hectoring opposition to the advocacy for restructuring
is one of the most damaging blows to this cause. And then
he counselled, like any Nigerian patriarch should do, that
President Buhari should deign to meet with Kanu and what
was the response from the Presidency and like-minded
regional chauvinists? Obasanjo should go stuff himself.
Remember, the same Obasanjo was the only former ruler of
Nigeria who travelled to Maiduguri to engage with the
Boko-Haram insurgents.
In foreclosing any other option than coercion, the point
should be made that neither the present occupant of the
turn by turn Nigerian presidency nor Nnamdi Kanu can hold
this country to ransom. If it is asking too much to suggest
that a Nigerian president should engage with the
personification of a whole region’s grievance-to which this
incumbent president substantially contributed, then Nigeria
may be living on borrowed time. No nation survives two
civil wars and howsoever it begins, it will be an unwinnable
war for the aggressor. Nigeria is more divided now than
ever before is a refrain that has gained popular currency in
contemporary Nigeria; and the political degeneration of
Nigeria since the civil war has become a retrospective
vindication of the Biafran argument then and now.
At the end of the day and in a very crucial perspective,
Biafra is just a stream from the steady flow of a trend that
localises grievances and externalises victimhood of
oppression and persecution. And the main culprit for this
perspective is the constitutional structure of the country. On
account of the hegemonic concentration of powers and
resources at the centre, Nigerians hardly hold the level of
government nearest to them accountable for their woes. I
will continue to argue that advocacy for restructuring is a
neutral agenda and unless the Nigerian government is
prepared to keep on confronting one Biafra after another
then restructuring is inevitable. If you want Nigerians to
stop complaining and harbouring grievances of
marginalisation then what you do is foster a sense of local
and regional autonomy not dependency on the centre
syndrome.
In the wisdom of the Guardian newspaper ‘the lack of
economic progress in the polity is a direct result of the
failure to address the main political issue that is
responsible for such retardation: over-centralisation of
powers… Since the military struck in 1966 and destroyed
the federal structure that triggered monumental growth of
all the regions of old, Nigeria has not recorded any tangible
development in any economic or political sense.
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