The Nigeria’s 2011

elections may have passed the litmus test in the eyes of many including the international observers, but they have thrown up for the country its endemic struggle with ethnic nationalism.

All over the world, as nations climb their growth and development ladder, they dissipate the various primordial allegiance, constraints, and ties of ethnic solidarity, religion, language, and other cultural encumbrances. But Nigeria has become a negation of the rest of the world as its challenge of ethnic nationalism has become a great puzzle – so difficult to tackle. The argument that the British colonial administration deliberately originated the challenge by creating three regional territories- Northern region occupied by the Hausa/Fulani, Eastern region peopled by the Ibo and Western region by the Yoruba – to further their selfish interest has become boring and nauseating.

Why? With its long history of chequered experiences, Nigeria ought to have extricated itself from that colonial matrix and risen above the malaise which has continued to have a deleterious effect on the country’s political and socio-economic developmental process.

With the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern parts of the country on January 1, 1914 by Lord Lugard, Nigeria had existed as one entity for years before its independence on October 1, 1960. But conflicts arising from the phenomenon of ethnicity or sub-nationalism including the problem of domination by the major ethnic groups precipitated a civil war which started on July 6, 1967, a few years after the country’s independence, and raged for about 30 months, ending on January 13, 1970 with a death toll of millions. Worse still, the armed forces that took over the government on January 16, 1966 following the ethnic conflicts, succession of crisis – the census crisis of 1964, the federal election crisis of the same year, and the Western regional election crisis of 1965 – and the iniquitous trend of bad governance, nepotism, and corruption refused to let go of power for donkey years.

The dispiriting experiences of Nigeria and the failure of the power elite to learn from the country’s history are not a curse or infliction by any entity or its colonial master. I think the failure of the power elite especially the champions of ethnic nationalism or competitive ethnicity to learn from the country’s past experiences and to obey the simple law of social change is deliberate, having elevated the phenomenon of ethnic nationalism to a social movement.

Otherwise, how does one explain the passion of the Mallam Adamu Ciroma’s Northern Political Leaders Forum to produce a Northern  consensus presidential candidate for the April 2011 presidential election and the mobilisation of some Northern Youth Organisations, students forum, and other groups to protest the victory of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan at the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) presidential primary election held at the Eagle Square, Abuja on January 13, 2011. And why the arson, mayhem rape, carnage, and killing of  young  people especially members of the NYSC, the old, the poor, and the rich from the South by some youths and disgruntled polticians in Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, and other parts of the North following the declaration of Dr. Jonathan as the winner of the Saturday April 16, 2011 Presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)?

Judging from the peaceful and successful conduct of the National Assembly elections and the Governorship and State Assembly polls across the country including the North, it is evident that the only driving spirit for the presidential post-election violence perpetrated by the Northern youths and their sponsors was ethnic nationalism. Not rigging, not irregularity, and not necessarily that the presidential election was won by the PDP. After all, when the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua won the 2007 election, which he, in his inaugural address acknowledged was not free and fair, on the platform of the PDP there were no bombing and destruction of churches, public institutions and property and killing of Southerners by Northern youths and their cohorts.

The fact is that the mayhem was unleashed upon the nation just because the presidential election was won by a Southerner, Dr. Jonathon. And it goes without saying that it is the tireless champions of ethnic nationalism that have sown the seed of the post-election violence that has delt a deadly blow on the unity, peace, and security of the country. I agree with Dr. Frederick Fasehun’s publication in the Guardian edition of April 22, 2011 which among other things states: “In the buildup to the elections, myopic politicians from a section of the country threatened fire and brimstone. Now fire and brimstone are falling from the skies. Innocent Nigerians are losing their lives, homes, and businesses. These self-seeking politicians originally laid the landmines now exploding in the country; and they must explain to the world why innocent Nigerians are paying with their lives for these inciting statements”.

Some of the statements as also noted in Dr. Fasehun’s publication include the one made in December 2010 by Mallam Abubakar Ibrahim (President) and Dr. Yakubu Ahmed (Secretary-General), Coalition of Atiku Northern Supporters (CANSU) which states: Nigerians do not want a peaceful change. We wish to state that we support the position of our mentor, Turaki Abubakar, that what Nigeria needs is not a peaceful change. This is no threat. Boko Haram will be a child’s play compared with the action our members can take. We have been patient enough. And enough they say is enough; and that of Mallam Adam Ciroma, Chairman of Northern Political Leaders Forum on September 17, 2010 in which he said: “Above all, we are extremely worried that our party’s failure to deliver justice in this matter (stop Jonathan’s candidacy) may ignite a series of events, the scope and magnitude of which we can neither proximate nor contain.”

President Jonathan’s administration must rise to the challenge of ethnic  nationlism in the country by bringing the perpetrators of this crisis of nationhood to book.

Ethnic nationalism has become a sturbborn obstacle to the socio-economic and political advancement of Nigeria and the realisation of national consciousness by its people. The Nigerian nation must therefore conquer it, or it will conquer the Nigeiran nation.