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Averting the approaching gales

Averting the approaching gales

Sola Adeyeye

Continued from Tuesday

History has shown that whether the disintegration of a country results in beneficial or harmful outcomes depends largely on the process and mechanisms that lead to disintegration. For example, whereas the disintegration that yielded Denmark, Sweden and Norway was largely peaceful and mutually negotiated, the world is replete with tragic examples of how the disintegration of a country led to prolonged wars with the attendant calamities. Think of Sudan and South Sudan. Also think of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

For example, splitting Vietnam in 1954 into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, each backed by external foreign interests engendered a harrowing vortex of hostilities, war and widespread destruction that lasted 21 years. The tragic consequences of the Vietnam War extended far beyond the boundaries of that southeastern Asian country. Likewise, the split of Korea into North Korea and South Korea, degenerated into proxy wars between the two superpowers of the time (the USA and the USSR), with China also intervening at some point.

We all are living witnesses that more than 60 years after the split of Korea and the ensuing war, the Korea Peninsula has remained a flashpoint of the world where sceptres of war perennially dangle as eerie reminders of possible nuclear holocaust. We need not inundate you with the list of numerous separatist wars in parts of China, Burma, Iraq, Sudan and Ethiopia all of which yielded enormous casualties. Some of these wars continue as we speak having already lasted more than five decades.

As for Nigeria, if the truth be told, our republic creaks and moans from the battering gales that precariously dangle us on the precipice of disintegration. The American prediction has not come true. But we would be suffering from delusion-induced astigmatism, cataracts, myopia, glaucoma and macula degeneration if we fail to see that it is not too late for the prediction to be fulfilled.

Problems are not solved by denying that they exist. Even so, what is most important is not our recognition that Nigeria is buffeted by ferocious problems. Rather, it is our willingness to stem and avert these gales and their centrifugal forces that perennially jolt and weaken the threads holding the seams of Nigeria.

For a start, perhaps we should first convince ourselves that keeping Nigeria from disintegration is a worthwhile goal.

Look at our contemporary world. The continent of North America comprises 23 countries plus nine dependent territories none of which is landlocked. The continent of South America comprises 14 countries, of which only two (Bolivia and Paraguay) are landlocked. In fact, Bolivia became landlocked only after losing its eastern border to Chile during the Pacific War of 1879-1883. The continent of Asia comprises 44 countries of which only 12 (27 per cent) are landlocked. The continent of Europe has 50 countries out of which 17 (34 per cent) are landlocked. Four of the landlocked European countries (i.e., Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland) participate in the European Common Market thus minimising the disadvantages of being landlocked. In effect, only 13 European countries (26 per cent) suffer the consequences of their lack of access to the sea. The smallest continent, Oceania, comprises 14 countries none of which is landlocked. The continent of Africa has 54 countries, of which 16 (30 per cent) are landlocked. Because the two Island countries in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius and Seychelles) plus the (five) North African countries are not landlocked, it means that all the landlocked countries of Africa are in sub-Sahara Africa. This means that 34 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa is landlocked. Why should we care?

It turns out that the cost of transport in any country is directly correlated with whether the country is landlocked or not. Specifically, transport costs in landlocked countries are 50 per cent higher than in countries that are not landlocked. As such, being landlocked retards international trades because of the time spent at the ports of their maritime neighbours plus having to transport goods through their territories. Sundry tariffs and bribes are paid during trans-border freighting of goods to and from landlocked countries.

It is noteworthy that some of the states that constitute the USA are economically so strong that they can exist very comfortably as sovereign countries were they to separate from the union of the American Republic. If the State of California were an independent country, it would be the sixth largest economy of the world. Likewise, if Texas were an independent country, it would be the eighth richest economy of the world. Mississippi with a GDP per capita of over $32,000 is the poorest state in the USA. However, Mississippi is significantly richer than Chile and Brazil that have GDP per capita of $15,000 and $11,000 respectively. I chose to compare Mississippi with these two countries because one of them (Brazil) is the largest in South America while the other (Chile) is the richest on the basis of GDP per capital.

If we were to consider territorial size, only Niger, Mali and Nigeria are geographically bigger than Texas among the 15 nations that constitute ECOWAS. Matter of fact, Texas is geographically more than double the size of each of the remaining 12 members of ECOWAS. As if its technological, economic and geographical advantages were not enough, the USA went to great lengths to ensure NAFTA- the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico with the clear purpose of fostering a trade bloc with advantages similar to those that are enjoyed by the industrial giants of the European Union and its unified market.

Alas, unlike North America, Africa is fragmented into disparate geopolitical entities that are buffeted by the vagaries of nature and the environment. Because of the abundance of its natural resources, Nigeria is one country that should have long emerged as the true giant of Africa. If only it were prudently administered! The Republic of Nigeria should have been so prosperous that every country from Cameroon to Senegal pleads to be amalgamated with it. Yes, the potential of Nigeria is so enormous that everything should be done to avert the disintegration of Nigeria. However, if Nigerians are not willing to do all that ought to be done to prevent disintegration, then we should summon the honesty, commonsense and enlightened self-interest to meet around a well-furnished mahogany table to negotiate the conditions and terms for the peaceful dissolution of Nigeria. Rather than keep transmuting the promises of Nigeria into nightmares and horrors, let a Boris Yeltsin arise and break up our “burdensome” Republic into as many as

are peacefully negotiated.

Although I am an incorrigible believer in the unity of Nigeria, I have taken extensive time to discuss the pros and cons of Nigerian unity so as to debunk the oft-repeated fallacy that Nigerian Unity is non-negotiable. Those who tout this arrant superstition do so because of their mistaken ideology that the greatest purpose of nationhood is unity.

The truth, of course, is that whenever being “united” becomes inimical to the peace and progress of a country, its citizens should summon the wisdom and courage to peacefully disunite. The unity of any country must never be an end unto itself. Rather, it should be a tool for strength through dynamic synergism, peace through necessary accommodations and progress through voluntary cooperation. In a multi-national enterprise such as the Nigerian Republic, unity must not be canonised as an end unto itself.  Rather, it is a means to an end.

Therefore, for us to properly contemplate and solve Nigeria’s seemingly intractable problems, we must first overcome the Gale of False Assumptions about National Unity.

In this regard, let us consider one immutable and inexorable principle that unifies life. I am referring here to the very strict relationship between structure and function such that function is dependent on and dictated by structure. At all levels of biological existence, from the sub-cellular levels of macromolecules and their atomic components through increasing complexities of cells, tissues, organs, organ-systems, individual organisms, populations, communities and ultimately ecosystems, a deviation from proper structure results in the perturbations and defects of function.

Concluded

This is an abridged version of a public lecture delivered by Prof Adeyeye, Chief Whip of the Senate, at the University of Ibadan College of Medicine on July 25, 2018

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