WE ARE GREATER TOGETHER
THAN APART: BIAFRA: 50 YEARS AFTER
Introspection is probably
what separates us from beasts. That ability to learn from history is perhaps
the greatest defense from the avoidable pain of learning from experience, when
history is a much gentler and kinder teacher. Indeed, the saying experience is
the best teacher, is incomplete, the full statement of that Welsh adage is that
experience is the best teacher for a fool. History is a kinder and gentler
teacher.
I was ten years old when
my friend in primary school then, Emeka, left school one afternoon. He said his
parents said they had to go back to East, war was about to start. I never saw
Emeka again. My aunty Bunmi was married to a gentleman from Enugu, I cannot
recall his name. But I recall the evening when my parents tried to persuade her
and her husband not to leave for the East. She did, we never saw her again.
I recall distinctly how in
1967, passing in front of my home on Ikorodu road almost every hour were trucks
carrying passengers and furniture in an endless
stream heading east. Many Ibos who left various parts of Nigeria, left friends,
families and businesses, schools and jobs. Like my friend and aunty some never
returned! But many died. The reasons for this tragic separation of brothers and
sisters were deep and profound. So much has been said and written already about
the ``why’s and wherefores’’ and that analyses will probably never end.
This is why I would rather
not spend this few minutes on whether there was or was not sufficient
justification for secession and the war that followed. The issue is whether the
terrible suffering, massive loss of lives, of hopes and fortunes of so many can
ever be justified.
As we reflect on this
event today, we must ask ourselves the same question that many who have fought
or been victims in civil wars, wars between brothers and sisters ask in moments
of reflection….``what if we had spent all the resources, time and sacrifice we
put into the war, into trying to forge unity? What if we had decided not to
seek to avenge a wrong done to us? What if we had chosen to overcome evil with
good?’’
The truth is that the
spilling of blood in dispute is hardly ever worth the losses. Of the fallouts
of bitter wars is the anger that can so easily be rekindled by those who for
good or ill want to resuscitate the fire. Today some are suggesting that we
must go back to the ethnic nationalities from which Nigeria was formed. They
say that secession is the answer to the charges of marginalization. They argue
that separation from the Nigerian State will ultimately result in successful
smaller States. They argue eloquently, I might add that Nigeria is a colonial
contraption that cannot endure.
This is also the sum and
substance of the agitation for Biafra. The campaign is often bitter and vitriolic,
and has sometimes degenerated to fatal violence. Brothers and sisters permit me
to differ and to suggest that we’re greater together than apart.
No country is perfect;
around the world we have seen and continue to see expressions of intra-national
discontent. Indeed, not many Nigerians seem to know that the oft-quoted line
about Nigeria being a “mere geographical expression” originally applied to Italy.
It was the German statesman Klemens von Metternich who dismissively summed up
Italy as a mere geographical expression exactly a century before Nigeria came
into being as a country.
From Spain to Belgium to the United Kingdom and even
the United States of America, you will find many today who will venture to make
similar arguments about their countries. But they have remained together.
The truth is that many, if
not most nations of the world are made up of different peoples and cultures and
beliefs and religions, who find themselves thrown together by circumstance.
Nations are indeed made up of many nations. The most successful of the nations
of the world are those who do not fall into the lure of secession. But who
through thick and thin forge unity in diversity.
Nigeria is no different;
we are, not three, but more like three hundred or so ethnic groups within the
same geographical space, presented with a great opportunity to combine all our
strengths into a nation that is truly, to borrow an expression, more than the
sum of its parts.
Let me say that there is a
solid body of research that shows that groups that score high on diversity turn
out to be more innovative than less diverse ones. There’s also research showing
that companies that place a premium on creating diverse workplaces do better
financially than those who do not. This applies to countries just as much as it
does to companies. The United States is a great example, bringing together an
impressively diverse cast of people together to consistently accomplish
world-conquering economic, military and scientific feats.
It is possible in Nigeria
as well. Instead of trying to flee into the lazy comfort of homogeneity every
time we’re faced with the frustrations of living together as countrymen and women,
the more beneficial way for us individually and collectively is actually to
apply the effort and the patience to understand one another and to
progressively aspire to create one nation bound in freedom, in peace and in
unity.
That, in a sense, should be
the Nigerian Dream — the enthusiasm to create a country that provides reasons
for its citizens to believe in it, a country that does not discriminate, or
marginalize in any way. We are not there yet, but I believe we have a strong
chance to advance in that direction. But that will not happen if we allow our
frustrations and grievances to transmute into hatred. It will not happen if we
see the media — television and radio and print and especially social media — as
platforms for the propagation of hateful and divisive rhetoric. No one stands
to benefit from a stance like that; we will all emerge as losers.
Clearly our strength is in
our diversity, that we are greater together than apart. Imagine for a moment
that an enterprising young man from Aba had to apply for a visa to travel to
Kano to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams, or that a young woman from Abeokuta
had to fill immigration forms and await a verdict in order to attend her best
friend’s wedding in Umuahia. Nigeria would be a much less colourful, much less
interesting space, were that the case. Our frustrations with some who speak a
different dialect or belong to a different religion must not drive us to forget
many of the same tribe and faith of our adversaries who have shown true
affection for us.
My God-son is Somkele
Awakalu, his father Awa Kalu, SAN, and I taught at the University of Lagos. My
first book was dedicated to Somkele and my two other God-children. Chief
Emmanuel Dimike is almost 80, he was my father’s friend and business associate
in his sawmills in Lagos. Chief has been like a father. I see him most Sundays,
he worships with me at the chapel.
The individual affections
and friendships we forge some even deeper than family ties, must remind us that
unity is possible, that brotherhood across tribes and faiths is possible.
Let me make it clear that
I fully believe that Nigerians should exercise to the fullest extent the right
to discuss or debate the terms of our existence. Debate and disagreement are
fundamental aspects of democracy. We recognize and acknowledge that necessity.
And today’s event is along those lines — an opportunity not merely to
commemorate the past, but also to dissect and debate it. Let’s ask ourselves
tough questions about the path that has led us here, and how we might transform
yesterday’s actions into tomorrow’s wisdom.
Indeed our argument is not
and will never be that we should ‘forget the past’, or ‘let bygones be
bygones’, as some have suggested.
Chinua Achebe repeatedly reminded us of the
Igbo saying that a man who cannot tell where the rain began to beat him cannot
know where he dried his body. If we lose the past, we will inevitably lose the
opportunity to make the best of the present and the future.
In an interview years ago,
the late Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, explaining why he didn’t think a second
Biafran War should happen, said: “We should have learnt from that first one,
otherwise the deaths would have been to no avail; it would all have been in
vain.”
We should also be careful
that we do not focus exclusively on the narratives of division, at the expense
of the uplifting and inspiring ones. The same social media that has come under
much censure for its propensity to propagate division, has also allowed
multitudes of young Nigerians to see more of the sights and sounds of their
country than ever before.
And for every young
Nigerian who sees the Internet as an avenue for spewing ethnic hatred, there is
another young Nigerian who is falling in love or doing business across ethnic
and cultural lines; a young Nigerian who looks back on his or her NYSC year in
unfamiliar territory as one of the valued highlights of their lifetime. These
stories need to be told as well. They are the stories that remind us that the
journey to nationhood is not an event but a process, filled as with life itself
with experiences some bitter, some sweet. The most remarkable attribute of that
process is that a succeeding generation does not need to bear the prejudices
and failures of the past.
Every new generation can
take a different and more ennobling route than its predecessors. But the
greatest responsibility today lies on the leadership of our country. Especially
but not only political leadership.
The promise of our
constitution which we have sworn to uphold is that we would ensure a secure,
and safe environment for our people to live, and work in peace, that we would
provide just and fair institutions of justice. That we would not permit or
encourage discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, beliefs or other
parochial considerations. That we would build a nation where no one is
oppressed and none is left behind.
These are the standards to
which we must hold our leadership. We must not permit our leaders the easy but
dangerous rhetoric of blaming our social and economic conditions on our coming
together. It is their duty to give us a vision a pathway to make our unity in
diversity even more perfect.
Source: Office Of The Vice President
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