By IkeChukwu Unegbe Esq
The greatest obstacle to restructuring Nigeria may not be the Constitution, the boundaries, the regions or the distribution of political power. It may be the quality of consciousness with which we approach the task. A people cannot build a new nation with the prejudices, suspicions and antagonisms that damaged the old one. Before we restructure Nigeria politically, we must first restructure our thinking about one another.
Everyone is first a human being with a spiritual core, before he or she became a ‘native’ of this or that community. In other words, we were first natives of ONE HUMANITY, before we inherited the earth plane. Can we keep this in our thoughts always!
We are gathered in a forum because we recognise that Nigeria, in its present form, has not fulfilled the promise of the peoples who inhabit her. We seek a better arrangement; one founded upon justice, equity, security, prosperity and mutual respect. Mutual respect and love must be the twin pillars upon which the new relationship may blossom forth.
But as we deliberate, we must be careful not to reproduce, in our discussions, the very divisions we hope to cure through restructuring. Hate filled thoughts, and words would never birth a noble cause. Quote me anywhere; and this the key reason Nigeria has not evolved to higher fulfilments.
A nation is not merely a geographical territory. It is a relationship among human beings. And no enduring relationship can be founded upon suspicion, contempt or the perpetual assertion of superiority. The only evidence of superiority is in one’s contribution to human affairs. If it is positive, then you are superior. If negative, then you remain an inferior appendage.
History deserves truth, not manipulation. The histories of our peoples, including questions of migration, settlement, boundaries and political authority, should be studied honestly and objectively. But historical inquiry becomes destructive when it is transformed into a competition for perpetual ownership, superiority or exclusion. The fact that one people may have settled somewhere earlier does not, by itself, provide a complete answer to how millions of people who live there today should relate to one another. The human spirit (human being) must be inherently free to belong where he or she wishes, without external coercive actions. Freedom to own land and live freely in any part of Nigeria, without molestation of indigenship claims, is the first battle to fight and achieve in any serious talks about restructuring Nigeria. Let us have free citizens of Nigeria. By the time we place that side by side with those who only wish to secure their primordial space, then we shall see which would endure, and wish would collapse.
Our task is not to erase history, nor to manufacture a convenient version of it. Our task is to learn from history sufficiently to prevent its conflicts from becoming the inheritance of future generations.
Nigeria is a remarkable tapestry of peoples whose histories have crossed and intertwined for generations. People have migrated, settled, married, traded, built communities and made homes far from the places their ancestors once inhabited. The Nigeria of today therefore demands solutions capable of accommodating both historical realities and contemporary human relationships.
Let us ask a more profound question: What kind of Nigeria would permit every people to preserve their dignity without requiring another people to lose theirs?
That should be the centre of our conversation.
We can disagree without becoming enemies. We can defend legitimate interests without denying the humanity or historical presence of others. We can acknowledge grievances without allowing them to become permanent inheritances.
The restructuring of Nigeria must ultimately be more than constitutional engineering. It must represent a new philosophy of coexistence. Love must be the anchor upon which this new Nigeria has to be built!
And that philosophy must begin with us.
Let us therefore rise above the temptation to win arguments and seek instead to win the future.
Without inner sensing of mutual love, not much may come out of the efforts. Let history inform us, reason guide us, justice restrain us, and love enlarge our vision. The stranger of today, invariably is the friend of tomorrow.
For the Nigeria we seek to build tomorrow must first be born in the quality of our thoughts and the nobility of our relationships today.
I just felt to add my voice in the best way I know. I contend for no one’s homestead.