Referendum; The Alternative Remedy For Ethnically ill and Warring States -By Nweke Daniel

To create the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, Lord Frederick Lugard, the governor of both the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, signed a document on January 1, 1914. It was the amalgamation of Nigeria and almost forty years later, Nigeria gained her independence. What a newborn!

The colonial administration intended to use the surplus revenues in Southern Nigeria to make up for these deficits, to run the colony (Nigeria) more efficiently, and to take advantage of the natural resources in the hinterland. Mainly, the unification was carried out for economic reasons. However, the current hostility and the animosity of the duos were brought on by the rub Peter to pay Paul’s set of ideologies that propelled the amalgamation.

 Nigeria is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world with an estimation of 371 ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo. These ethnic groups consist of several tribes enumerating up to 371 with diverse tongues, cultures, and beliefs. The several powerful kingdoms and empires, such as the Oyo Empire and the Benin Kingdom in the west, the Islamic Kanem-Bornu Empire in the northeast, and the Igbo Kingdom in the southeast, and various Hausa-Fulani kingdoms had their traditional systems of governments administered by the Oba, the Emir, and the Igwe respectively, who were traditionally elected and in some cases appointed by the gods. Like the Yoruba, the Hausa, and the Igbos, other ethnic groups had their own cultures and languages which differ from the others. It was a sub-Saharan territory of Babel.

What was Lord Lugard thinking when he slams the territory of Babel as one? Economic growth and integration of the two parallel poles with opposite directions! Were the interests of both the bride and the groom considered in this marriage, maybe he forgot that the children of this spouse would ask these questions I am asking 100 years after the treaty. Who signed, seconded, and adjourned the certificate of the Southern and the Northern Nigeria marriage on the eve of January 1st, 1914? The great hero Obafemi Awolowo was born in 1909, he was 5 years when the Treaty of 1914 was signed. Abubakar-1912 was 2 years, Ahmadu Bello-1910 was 4 years, and Nnamdi Azimiwe-1904, was 10 years when the agreement was sealed. Who mixed the immiscible and expected no violent reaction when regional interests were in line?

The failed Aburi Accord of January 4th and 5th of 1967, followed by the civil war of July 6th, 1967 that erupted the supposed independent Nigeria barely 7 years of her independence was never a coincidence, it was the result of the action of 1914, the military coup, and the counter-coup, none were coincident, they were birthed by what I will call the treaty of the union of the babel of 1914. The political, economic, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions and regional conflicts of interests were inevitable and to date, the political imbalance, biased appointment, unequal revenue distribution, discrimination in office spaces, religious differences, regional and tribal interests travails in the country, leading to the current vexation and agitation for separation and call for review of the 1914 treaty and regional disintegration of the great black nation.

After 109 years as a country, Nigerians still exhibit racial and tribal discrimination among themselves. In the current 2023 General Election, we witnessed a high level of tribal and religious politics where the West voted for the West, the North for the North, and the East for the East, and you would wonder what kept us together as a country since we hold the interest of our tribes so higher than the interest of the nation. We saw it displayed, a Westerner who dare to vote none Westerner was perceived as a threat and Omo Ale. The intimidation of the Igbo extraction in Lagos not to vote for any other party candidate aside from the APC of Ahmed Bola Asiwaju unchallenged was a high level of rape to democracy and showed how divided we are even in unity. It was enough to stir regional conflict similar to what caused the 1967 civil war. The question is, as a Nation have we been able to understand our differences and keep our boundaries and similarities to thrive, has our unity done us so good as a people, has it brought justice and equity among individuals and regions? Your answer may likely align or be indifferent to mine, but for me, amidst the troubles and conflicts of regional interest let us for once decide our fate by ourselves, let us choose our destinies, and let Nigerians decide the fate of Nigeria by referendum against the amalgamation and save ourselves the impending danger of another civil war.

To avoid certain assumptions and misinformation about my referendum propositions, it would be worth noting that a call for a referendum is not a call for war. It should not be insinuated nor connoted to be the opposite of its definition. It is an electoral device and a tool in which the will of the citizens prevails over a certain subject matter. The referendum is the solution and a remedy for ethnically ill and warring states. There have been lots of past and current separatist movements around the globe demanding the attention of the international communities. Most of these secessionist movements were fueled and propelled by injustice, inequality, political inequality, and lots of economic, cultural, and religious factors. You may ask, has a referendum ever been conducted somewhere in the world? Well, the answer is yes.

The UN Charter and Resolutions’ Chapter 1, Article 1, part 2 states that the organization’s goal is to “develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and the right of peoples to self-determination, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.”Modern international law holds that a people’s right to self-determination is a fundamental concept, and as such, the UN must interpret the Charter’s rules under this principle. According to this, people have the right to freely choose their state of sovereignty and international political status without outside interference, based on the idea of fair equality of rights and opportunities.

South Sudan declared independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, following a horrific civil war with the ethnically Arab north that lasted decades. These are only a few famous countries that acquired their sovereignty through referendums, although the list is not limited to them. The new nation was quickly acknowledged by the international community after a referendum in which nearly 99 percent of voters chose independence. Also, on February 17, 2008, Kosovo formally renounced its dependence on Serbia. In 1999, the United Nations took over the governance of the country after NATO invaded Serbia and forced its then-president Milosevic to remove his troops from the ethnically split region, and in 1993, the parliament divided Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the “Velvet Revolution,” which put an end to one-party Communist rule. It was a smooth velvet divorce.

In my opinion, it is about time Nigeria have her divorce. The multi-ethnic nationhood has failed in Nigeria amidst ethnic animosities and distrust. After the civil war, General Yakubu claimed that the essence of the war was the unification and integration of the Igbo (Biafra) into Nigeria and declared the war “no Victor no vanquish”.  It is about 53 years today, yet Nigeria is not united. This is an indication that peace and unity can only be attained by dialogue rather than intimidation and war. To continue to say Nigeria is indivisible amidst inequality, injustice, and exclusion of certain regions and excepted no agitation is like submerging a warrior and expecting him to die quietly with no struggle for survival. The Biafran endless agitation for separation and the recent Oduduwa Nation movement in Nigeria is evidence that the 1914 amalgamation was an imposition and the aim of the 1967 civil war has been defeated and the only hope to avert another civil war in Nigeria is to conduct a referendum that can either make a greater Nigeria or begot other nations.