Article published in The Nation Newspaper
04/08/2010
We know that the Nigerian Civil War started well before 1967, has lasted 50 years and the spoils of war have been distributed to the ‘favoured few’ by the ‘ethnic royalty’ including $1.5b oil blocks! Perhaps the final battle, started in the Niger Delta, for the ‘Complete Emancipation of Nigeria’ has continued in NASS with constitutional amendments at last and we will, belatedly, enter the 21st Century industrially, economically and intellectually triumphant. ‘Zoning’ is not a new PDP 10 year old invention to ‘appease Southerners’ for annullment and murder. Unequal ‘One way Zoning’, ‘Lopsided Zoning’ has been around for ever-making many Citizens Nigeria feel stateless inside Nigeria. Citizens Nigeria now want ‘Reverse or Restitutional or Reparaitional Zoning’, ie no zoning at all or zoning in favour of disenfranchised Nigeria, away from the North –for 38 year. What Citizens Nigeria want is, not for the North to be treated as it treated Nigeria, but adequate recovery and restitution time for the damage done. Is President Jonathan our new Field Marshal, above all Generals? Certainly he and VP Sambo are serious but can Jonathan drag a reluctant sectional political elite and a dying Nigeria into the 21st century with new voters register, free elections, power supply, modern railways and a Niger Delta solution. So far we do not seem to have enough intelligence or competence to even put 1000 library books in each school! GL J has said even if we get 40,000Mw of power we will not be ‘free’. He should raise that figure to 100,000Mw. He must champion ‘decentralise or be damned’, urging states to provide ‘power to the people’.
Power and railways can no longer be a nation-strangling. These are beyond the capacity of a zoned ethnic archaic ‘cartel’ monopoly clinging to power by ‘subjugating others’ and ‘zoning’ for power holding’s sake – a zoning that insultingly ‘zoned’ Information Ministry to a certain ethnic group for decades after the 1967-70 civil war as ‘token presence’ as ‘His Master’s Voice’. Was the insult not enough? It is time to reward Citizen Nigeria.
The new developmental definition of power is not zoning but the execution of visionionary plans for a ‘great nation and great people’ by development to catch up on ‘lost political time’. Nigeria owes Citizens Nigeria a life, a proper enjoyable decent life. Citizens Nigeria have overpaid in loyalty. Enough of suffa-head, ‘suffering and smiling’,‘siddon look’and ‘managing’. These conditions are unreal and imposed ways of coping with defeatable corruption and incompetence. Nigeria must pay up. And it is responsible, properly elected politicians – without rigging, thuggery or zoning, who must make Nigeria pay its Citizens Nigeria for their loyalty since 1960.
A review shows that the forces of retrogression have truncated our development, stunted our growth and won ‘The First 50 Years War’. They must not win the ‘Second 50 Years War’? Nigeria@50 must break free from the ‘zoned brainlessness’ and move quickly-with an elected amazing leadership- into the ‘Nigeria@50 to100’ making it a ‘A Golden Era of Decentralisation for Development’ in power, railway, road and education systems. Nigeria must get high speed 2-300kph rail. Vote for the party willing to provide it! Make it an election issue. Railway travel is safest. China, partner in the railways, has a first class 400+kph train. Are we to remain in third class coaches? Remember we were saved from NITEL’s monopoly not by government but by a technology tidal wave that government tried to limit to the elite. Remember David Mark’s remark:‘Telephones are not for the poor’. The only interest of government was ‘dissappearing’ ‘GSM licence auction fees’. Government has multimillions and Citizens Nigeria have cellphones. We still suffer ‘tariff terrorism’ but no ethnicity. Now both the boss and begger, politician and pauper own a cellphone–Hurray! Decentralise for development – railways next!
Here is more zoning. Why are police ‘instantly honest’ on checkpoint duty in the North? Fear or orders? Are they forbidden from taking money at checkpoints in the North? PHNC and NITEL were limited in who they could charge for power and telephone services similarly but could both do anything they liked in the South. Nobody objected to that zoning! Most Southerners felt they were ‘zoned’ to carry the country when they paid ‘imaginatively’ inflated federal government bills and fees to cover free services to others. This ‘Economic Zoning’ has been around since independence.
Past ethnically biased leadership, used ‘Political Zoning’ to zone Nigeria ‘permanently’ to itself has no right now to lead Nigeria anywhere. Nigeria has been ‘50 years in the wilderness’ though with Obasanjo, Nigerians felt briefly they belonged equally in Abuja. Of course your ethnically secure LGA has massive corruption and incompetence but ‘na your man de steal from you’ so you feel less raped. Federal government was ‘zoned’ to guarantee federal failure.
The North may want Nigeria, its reluctant playmate, ‘back’, to rape and rob again, but does Nigeria want the North back-a North that treated Nigeria so badly for so long, 38 years and squandered every opportunity for development? Will the North be better behaved in future? Has it learnt any lessons while ‘not on seat’ in good governance, development and decentralisation? Citizens Nigeria will not continue to agree to slaves but insist on being a partnership between the over 335, not 3, unequal ethnic groups! An aspiring or incumbent leader who understands this can save Citizens Nigeria much suffering! ZZZZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOWWAABIA must die in Nigeria@50!