BY Femi Fani-Kayode

Other than the usual congratulations, platitudes, expressions of joy and offerings of thanks to God, I believe that as we celebrate our nation’s 53rd independence anniversary, it is time for us to bare our minds in a candid and frank manner and to really sit down and think. During her election campaign just a couple of weeks ago, Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany and the world’s most powerful woman, said ‘’multiculturalism is dead in Germany’’.

In 2011, David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, echoed the same sentiment when he asserted, in his first major speech as Prime Minister, that ‘’multiculturalism has failed in the United Kingdom’’. Can we learn anything from these assertions as Nigerians about the shortcomings and dangers of a multicultural state? What are the implications of these observations for Nigeria’s massive multi-cultural and multi-ethnic superstate? Are we really a nation or are we nothing more than a melting pot of sqaubbling and bickering ethnic and cultural incompatibles? Was Chief Obafemi Awolowo right when he described Nigeria as ‘’not being a nation’’ but a mere ‘’geographical expression’’? These questions surely need to be answered.

On September 11, 2013, 1.6 million people of the Catallan region in Spain staged a dramatic protest and expressed their desire for secession by forming a 400 km long human chain which stretched from one end of the region to the other. According to the polls, 52 per cent of the people from that region wish to break off from Spain and to establish a new European sovereign state. Similar agitations have emanated from other parts of Spain over the years some of which have degenerated into a bitter and protracted armed struggle such as that of the Basque people in the north who share their boarders with France.

Again the palpable tensions that exist between the French-speaking Waloon people of northern Belgium and the Flemish of the south are legendary and the call for a break-up of that nation into two separate entities is as old as the hills. Such aspirations and agitations for ethnic emancipation from unitary and quasi-unitary states is by no means limited to the European mainland.

For example the beautiful ‘’emeral island’’ of Ireland successfully broke off from Britain in 1921 after much agitation, conflict and bloodshed. Northern Ireland, which remains part of Britain till today, still experiences varying degrees of tensions between the protestant and the ‘’Finian’’ catholic communities, one of which wishes to remain in the UK whilst the other wishes to be part of mainland Ireland.

Over the last twenty years Britain itself has finally acknowledged the fact that the cry for regional autonomy, secession and ethnic nationalism cannot be resisted forever and she has gradually devolved power from Westminster in London to the various regions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each of whom now have their own parliaments.  As a matter of fact later this year the people of Scotland are having their own referendum to determine whether or not they wish to stay in the United Kingdom.

From the polls, it is very clear that the majority of Scots wish to have their own new sovereign state and that the Scottish Nationalist Party, which has championed the secessionist cause, enjoys massive support. Nobody in either Spain, Belgium, Ireland or the United Kingdom has insulted those people or labelled them as ‘’ethnic jingoists’’ or ‘’primitive tribalists’’ for wanting to break off from the greater whole and establish their own country.

This is because everyone respects the right of the various ethnic groups and nationalities within their wider nation to exercise their right of self-determination which is an integral and fundamental aspect of international law.

Exercising that right does not turn them into villains and does not make them any less patriotic than their compatriots who do not share their views. It just means that they have a different perspective and that they believe, as many believed before Malaysia and Singapore broke up and before Indonesia and East Timor broke up, that the interests of their various peoples are better served when and if they go their separate ways.
They opted to be friendly neighbours rather than to be compelled to remain within the same territory against their collective will.

As we in Nigeria approach the 100 year anniversary of our 1914 amalglamation and, as the 2015 elections are fast approaching with both the northern region and the south-south zone desperate to take or to hold on to power at any cost respectively, we need to begin to ask ourselves some basic and fundamental questions about our future. For example is our interest better served by remaining as one nation or is it time for those nationalities that wish to leave the federation in a peaceful and orderly way, as a result of a legitimate and honest referendum, be alllowed to go?

If the breaking up of larger countries into smaller and more viable ones is good enough for India (which broke into three), the Sudan (which broke into two), Czekhoslovakia (which broke into two), Yugoslavia (which broke into five), the Soviet Union (which broke into fifteen), United Arab Republic (which broke into two) and numerous other countries over the years why is it not good enough for us?

Again why should those that believe that Nigeria ought to break up be subjected to so much suspicion, ridicule, contempt and insults from those that do not share their views? Some of the questions that need to be answered are as follows- firstly is our union working? Secondly is our marriage a good one and if it is is it a happy one as well?

Are we satisfied with what has essentially become a country that has been turned into nothing more than (with apologies to Chief Bode George) ‘’Turn by Turn Nigeria?’’ where each ethnic group simply looks forward to enjoying its time to control the federation and all the nations resources from an all powerful centre? Are we not meant to be far more than this? Is this what the founding fathers of our nation envisaged?

More than anything else the recent Igbo/Yoruba debate over the issue of who owns Lagos State and the deportation of a handful of Igbo destitutes back to the East has proved to me that we as a people are very different from one another and that our interests may be better served if we are no longer bound together as one. I dare to voice this opinion even though many Yorubas share it but will not say so publiclly.

Continues tomorrow

■ Fani-Kayode writes from Lagos.

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