By Gbemiga Olakunle
The raging storm generated by the quit notice issued by a coalition of Arewa Youth Organizations to their Igbo brothers and sisters living in the Northern part of the country is getting more interesting by the day, especially when viewed against the background of a counter quit notice on the Northerners issued by another Youth Organization, precisely, the militants from the Southern part of the country.
The Arewa Youth Organizations made it clear that the Igbos have been blackmailing the whole country with secession tendencies and that they were fed up with such threats. And, this contentious issue has been trending in the social media for the past two weeks now until a comic side was added to it when the Ohaneze-the Igbo apex socio –cultural group replied to the open letter that the Arewa group wrote to the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo. In that letter, the Youths from the North who kindled the fire urged the Acting President to allow the Igbos have their own nation of Biafra which they had been clamouring for right from 1967 since they don’t believe in the geographical entity called Nigeria.
The Arewa groups even went ahead to detail several ‘sins’ of the Biafran agitators since the 1960s. And hence, they urged the Acting President to give his assent to the demands of the agitators to leave the union (Nigeria) peacefully instead of throwing the nation into another needless civil war or unnecessary hostilities among ethnic groups within the nation. But pronto, the Ohaneze quickly replied their Arewa detractors that nobody can force them out of Nigeria. And in the actual sense, nobody is forcing out any group out of Nigeria. The purported quit notice reportedly issued by the Arewa boys which they have refused to vacate is a response to the activities of the IPOB and its leaders which was made clear in the Kaduna Declaration. Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader, has refused to keep to the terms of his bail conditions.
But, is this writer trying to justify the Kaduna Declaration made by the Arewa Youths Organizations? No, and far from it. Rather, we want to proffer a lasting solution to the issue of bad blood being generated among the contending groups. And, the preferred option is for the nation to adopt the practice of true federalism. The first step, to achieve this objective, is to subject the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference which reportedly gulped almost N29 billion, to a referendum.
Specifically, the nation’s political system should be restructured in such a way that federal appointments will become less attractive to intending treasury – looters since there won’t be much loose money to loot. Let each of the federating states/units making the Federal Republic be allowed to retain as much as 50% of the resources generated within their respective territories. while they contribute only 50%. or even less, to the Federal Treasury for the purposes of running national security in terms of maintaining internal peace and the defence of the country against any form of external aggression.
We can continue to retain the same national currency, customs, immigration, etc. But let each of the federating units have some measures of control over their resources and develop at their own respective pace. If well developed, there is no single federating unit in the country that is not well endowed either with natural or human resources which can be exchanged with others for their mutual benefits.
In other words, when the federating states within the Republic are encouraged to look inwards and tap their own resources for the common good of their own people, there will be healthy competition and only genuine leaders who are nationalists will emerge to go to the Federal level and lead with a sense of direction driven by passion, vision and integrity and not by greed and avarice as seen in some of our leaders who have smuggled themselves into the corridors of power just to enrich their personal accounts at the expense of our national treasury.
In this respect, we admonish the Arewa Youth leaders to vacate their quit notice while the Ohaneze and the Elders from the South – East should talk to their boys to shelve their secessionist tendencies while we wait for the Federal Government to remove the 2014 National Conference Report from the upper sheif with a view to considering its recommendations. The Biafran agitators who are mostly in their 20s, 30s or 40s who did not witness the civil war should listen to the voice of reason of elder statesmen and leaders of thought like Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu and President – General of the Ohaneze, John Nwodo and allow peace to reign. The ultimate goal of all Nigerians is the proper restructuring of the country into a true Federal Republic.
If there is any war to be fought, the youths should encourage themselves, irrespective of their religious and ethnic differences, to fight against poverty and bad leadership that is denying them of their birth- rights as citizens of this country.
Olakunde writes from Abuja.