Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State thought he
had the solution to Nigeria’s security challenges. So he purportedly proposed
an identity pass regime similar to that in Apartheid South Africa, where
Nigerians in their own country would carry IDs to identify who belongs to what
state or region. The statement credited to Okorocha is a fantastic idea coming
from a state governor, only that the country’s full official nomenclature is
the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We
should be reminded that a federal system of government guarantees that any part
of Nigeria is home to every Nigerian.
Sadly, the Imo State governor is not alone in
this narrow-mindedness. In 2011, the Abia State governor, Theodore Orji,
directed all state ministries, departments and agencies to compile
a
list of
non-indigenes on the payroll of the state with the intention of sending them
back to their states of origin. Governor Orji said then that
he wasn’t sacking those people but transferring them to their various states so
that public service slots would be freed up for Abia citizens. Many of the
“redeployed” workers had lived all their lives in Abia. They had
contributed immensely to the development of the state, paid their taxes,
exercised their franchise during elections, carried out their civic
responsibilities in different sectors of the state, and
suddenly somebody remembered that
they were not from
Abia
after all.
Last year, it was Lagos State government, perceived
as one of our more “progressive governments”, which intended to clean up the
megacity by targeting purported misfits, rounding them up on the streets then
shipped and dumped them in their “states of origin”. That had to be the Eighth
Wonder of the Modern World! People who had committed no crime, because they
were poor had to be categorized and “deported” within their own country under
an obnoxious destitute transfer policy without respect for their fundamental
rights and privileges as citizens of a federation. Even within individuals, we
discriminate against one another. One of my staff who was searching for
accommodation was asked what tribe he was by a landlord. It is that
appalling.
How long shall we see ourselves first as the
state and ethnic group we come from, the religion we practice and the social
class we belong to? Where lies our loyalty to the nation and the unity that
such loyalty nurtures? We have some institutional policies put in place to
engender inclusiveness but which have turned out to be counter-productive. The
Federal Character, for instance, is a policy that has been hijacked and
converted to an instrument of mediocrity and incompetence. An unqualified and
incompetent citizen is awarded a position while those who merit it are rejected
because of where they come from. It is
this misjudgment that leads to dedicated columns for “state of origin”, “local
government”, “religion”, “tribe”, etc on documents and forms in Nigeria. Of
what productive value is asking about someone’s religion or local government
in, say, a recruitment exercise?
Our brand of apartheid takes its root in Nigeria’s
most perennial question: the indigene-settler policy. The indigene-settler
question has done nothing than further divide us along geo-ethnic lines. It is
a paradox that we live in a federation where an indigene-settler policy is
actually enshrined in our constitution. Nothing turns us against each other and
breeds suspicion amongst us worse than the issue of indigene-settler. We are concerned that each
time there is political distress or contestation for the national cake, people
recede to the cocoonery of tribe, geo-political zone and religion. These
reductionist tendencies cloak national integration and perpetuate underdevelopment
of the country. While Nigeria is one geo-political expression, centrifugal and
centripetal forces have coalesced to deny its residents their Nigerianess.
Forging national consensus has been Nigeria’s
most enduring issue since 1914 when Flora Shaw contrived the noun that depicts
the ‘land around the Niger River’. Early nationalists started the rat race that
institutionalized ethnicity in the build-up to independence and on issues of
regional governance. The military further polarized the people with the
creation of states at unusual intervals. Each of Nigeria’s over 250 ethnic
nationalities till today seek ‘self determination’, in what has become a
regular mantra for ethnic jingoists. This becomes a self-imposed limitation for
the country at a time when the world sees itself as a global village. Even
matters that should ordinarily evoke patriotism and collective bargain have
become mere expressions of ethno-religious pettiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment