Nigeria’s new ‘republics’

On August 2, 2012, one of the leaders of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Dr. Goodluck Diigbo, declared political autonomy for the Ogoni people of Rivers State. He said that by the declaration, the Ogonis were determined to enforce the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, has since dismissed the declaration, describing it as both treasonable and untenable. In the same vein, the Ogonis are clearly divided over the declaration, with a good number of them arguing that the Ogoni people never, at any time, took any decision to set up a sovereign nation.
Nigerians were yet to come to terms with the Ogoni declaration when Bakassi Self-determination Front, a secessionist group, declared self-rule for Bakassi Peninsula. To achieve this objective, the Front has set up a radio station at Dayspring Island in Bakassi Local Government Area of Cross River State. The group also hoisted a blue-white -red flag as a way of reclaiming the peninsula.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) had, on October 10, 2002, ceded the disputed Bakassi peninsula to the Republic of Cameroun. The judgment stipulates that by the terms of the 2005 Green Tree Agreement, Nigeria should, by October 2012, complete its cession of Bakassi to Cameroun. It was apparently in anticipation of this final phase of the cession of Bakassi that the people chose to take their destiny in their own hands. Dayspring Island is the only portion of the peninsula left for Nigeria by the ICJ judgment.
These are unsavoury developments for Nigeria. The state of affairs portends great danger for a country that has been at war with itself over matters of sovereignty. In recent years, groups and individuals have had cause to question Nigeria’s sovereignty with some of them agitating for a review of the terms that bind the country together. The calls in some quarters for sovereign national conference, state police, regionalism and the like are manifestations of the rejection of Nigeria’s present political arrangement.
When sections of the country rise in the midst of this cacophony of agitations to declare self rule or political autonomy, then there is much cause for worry. We may dismiss the Ogoni declaration as untenable as Gov. Amaechi has done. But we must recognize the objective conditions and realities that gave rise to the quest. Injustice and inequity are at the root of the angst in Ogoniland and elsewhere in Nigeria.
Concerned ethnic nationalities, especially those of oil-bearing areas of Nigeria, have been shouting their voices hoarse over neglect and other forms of injustice being meted out to them by the system. But not much attention has been paid to their cries of anguish. The time has come for the authorities to begin to address them so that they do not degenerate into situations that the country may not be able to handle.
The Bakassi situation is a different matter all together. Here, Nigeria is the architect of its own misfortune. Nigeria chose the path of legality over an issue that could have been resolved politically.
Having lost Bakassi to Cameroun through its own act of omission and commission, Nigeria has not done much ever since to assist those Nigerians who were asked to relocate to Cross River State from the Bakassi peninsula. By the time the final cession of the peninsula takes place in the next couple of months, the displaced Bakassi people will be the worse for it. Their declaration of self-government is therefore their own way of responding to the impending doom.
We sympathise with the Bakassi people. The Nigerian government has not done much since the ICJ judgment in 2002 to resettle them. By their latest action, the people seem to be saying that they have lost confidence in Nigeria. Cameroun, the country that has inherited their territory, has also been hostile and inhospitable.

The people are therefore losing on both fronts. For them therefore, self-determination appears to be the only panacea to their plight. This development should prick the conscience of the Nigerian government and get it to act responsibly on this matter. It is obvious that the ICJ judgment has not addressed the Bakassi dispute decisively. The government of Nigeria can therefore seek to revisit the issue with a view to protecting the interest of the indigenous people of Bakassi. Leaving them to their own devices may turn out to be an ill-wind that may not blow Nigeria any good.