The Bicycle Man's Secession Theory

The Bicycle Mans Secession Theory Page 1 of 3 The Bicycle Man's Secession Theory By Max Amuchie In the last few years, the drums of secession have been beating in the land. The latest of course is that of a retired general of the Nigerian Army. David Ejoor is a man who belongs to the enviable corps of military officers who got trained in the finest tradition of apolitical military. Like many other soldiers who made up the officer corps of the Nigerian Army at independence and the few years following independence, he attended the best military schools in the United Kingdom, where they were taught the virtues of military aloofness from politics. But David Ejoor and some others found themselves in government. After the unfortunate events of 1966, Ejoor became Military Governor of the defunct Midwest Region, which later became known as Midwest State, later Bendel State and now has been split into Edo and Delta States. Ejoor will be best remembered as the man who was caught between secessionist Biafra and Federal Nigeria in the dark days of Nigeria. This is because the Midwestern Region was only separated from the then Biafra by a tiny strip of civil engineering called the Niger Bridge. Worse still, many people from the region were sympathetic to the Biafran cause and were seen as traitors. But he stood resolutely for one Nigeria. Even in his memoirs published in the 1980s entitled Reminiscences, he stated his opposition to the balkanisation of Nigeria. But now the man is singing a different tune. He has threatened that unless the government does something about resource control, the Niger Delta would consider seceding from the country. The threat of secession has an interesting history in Nigeria. In the last 50 to 60 years, it has been an instrument for negotiation and agitation by various groups in the country. The first region that actually set the ball rolling was the north. At a time when the south appeared to be impatient with the slow pace of the move towards independence, the north wanted a guarantee that it would not be swallowed (the modern term for it now is maginalised) in the event of independence, since the area did not have the basic infrastructure and the knowledge capital to support self-government. The threat was that it would secede from the country. The north succeeded because it got the plum position of Prime Minister in the bargain. Again, when the military sacked the first republic on January 15, 1966, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, who inherited power unprepared, made the mistake of promulgating a unification decree that sought to make the country a unitary state. To the north, it was a deliberate attempt to scheme them out of reckoning. From incontrovertible accounts available to anyone interested in the history of this county, the initial objective of the planners of the counter-coup of July 29, 1966 was to pull the north away from the rest of the country. The flag of the 'Republic of Northern Nigeria' had been prepared waiting for declaration until they were educated on the implications. If you now have the whole territory to yourself, why slice it and http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/barticles/bicycle_mans_secession_theory.htm 7/21/2008 The Bicycle Mans Secession Theory Page 2 of 3 appropriate half? Given that an independent republic of northern Nigeria would be a landlocked country, was such a move advisable? These are the variables that came into play when the reality dawned on the counter-coup plotters. The east put the threat of secession into practice when it felt its security was no longer guaranteed under a country called Nigeria. The Biafran episode is one that changed Nigeria but unfortunately, the lessons were not learnt. If the issues that prompted the war had been taken care of, somebody of General Ejoor's standing will no longer be talking about secession. Even the west that helped the north in pummeling the east and benefited immensely from the exit of eastern federal civil servants from service following the civil war had cause to threaten secession a few years ago. In the days of General Sani Abacha as Head of State, the Yorubas made veiled threat to secede because they felt the government had turned against them. The (defunct?) National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and Afenifere championed the cause then. But now that the table has turned, even the call for Sovereign National Conference vigorously championed by the south west has died down. In this dispensation, attention is on the Niger Delta and one issue that will affect and influence 2003 is no doubt resource control. The point has to be made that Ejoor's statement is not the first time somebody from the Niger Delta is calling for secession. Isaac Adaka Boro, after whom a park is named in Port Harcourt, was the first to actually declare a Niger Delta Republic. What Ejoor has done is to call attention to the worsening condition in the Niger Delta using secession as a weapon. He fought the civil war to keep Nigeria one. Therefore for him to have reason now to champion a cause he fought against more that 30 years ago means that something is wrong with us as a people. It means that we have not taken care of those issues that plunged us into a 30-month civil war. Ejoor is only calling our attention back to those issues. Everybody knows that oil exploration causes so much damage to the environment. Aquatic business is usually at zero level. If people cannot have a friendly environment and cannot engage in fishing, which should be their natural occupation given their geographical location, what else can they do? And if derivation from the federation account cannot take care of them the only option left is of course to revolt. This is what the youth of Niger Delta have been doing. The Supreme Court has ruled on resource control but the government should still do something through derivation. If the constitution says not less than 13 per cent should be paid as derivation to the oil-producing states, it only means that it can be more than 13 per cent. The fact is that nobody should treat calls for secession with so much seriousness these days because the foundation for Nigerian unity is definitely stronger than that of disunity, but Ejoor's outburst should not be dismissed. He is a respected Nigerian who is in a position to articulate the feelings of his people. Resistance to oppression is innate in any human being. That is why slaves revolted against their masters in ships on the way to the Americas and on plantations in the so-called New World. That is why our people resisted colonial occupation and 'pacification' wars had to be waged by the invaders before colonialism could be fully established. That is why nationalists fought for freedom and ultimately gained independence for us. What we now have is a situation where the elderly have now become nostalgic about the colonial era because 42 years after independence we still cannot say we have an egalitarian society. http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/barticles/bicycle_mans_secession_theory.htm 7/21/2008 The Bicycle Mans Secession Theory Page 3 of 3 In the first republic, derivation was up to 50 per cent. That was when foreign exchange earners consisted mainly of agricultural products like groundnuts, cocoa, palm produce etc that had no adverse environmental impact on the people. Instead, these export items boosted the earning power of the local people. If there is any time that derivation should be substantial to take care of the fallout of oil exploration, it should be now. The oil-producing areas are crying today. Tomorrow, it may be turn of other people because oil will not last forever. We should heed Ejoor and redress injustice that is so glaring and has impoverished a section of Nigeria. August 2002 http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/barticles/bicycle_mans_secession_theory.htm 7/21/2008.

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