Without a referendum, it is impossible to determine exactly who is a Biafran and we cannot take IPOB’s framing as definitive and final. But we can say with certainty that not all Igbos are Biafrans and not all adherents of Biafra are Igbo. Reading and framing the problem as an Igbo Question rather than our National Question would be too costly just as treating a boil which appears on the posterior as a ‘backside disease’ would be a grievous misdiagnosis.
Let me begin by thanking the Premium Times for providing the space for this important national question and answer session. Providing the space and participating in this debate is a noble alternative to negotiating citizenship by the force of arms or the threat thereof. I also thank all the previous contributors in the debate who have so kindly shared with us their reflections on belonging in Nigeria since the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu and the protest movement led by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) across cities and towns, especially in the South-East and the South-South geo-political zones of Nigeria.
My piece may not say much that is new, but in making this contribution, I volunteer my illiteracy to be rid for me by the next contributor. As a student of citizenship, I feel it necessary to contribute to this debate because I realise that whatever the outcome of the agitation for Biafra, it affects me directly first because my father (and all my other teachers) taught me that the South-East and South-South geo-political zones are integral and non-negotiable components of Nigeria – so I take exception to any renegotiation of the boundaries of my fatherland without my consent. Second, I am a “citizen” of the South-East by marriage and I realise that if Biafra were to become an independent country, I may need a visa to visit my in-laws, or perhaps I would qualify for Biafran citizenship and passport.
My former boss and on-the-job teacher, Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim (aka Jibo) is not the first contributor in the debate he christened the “Igbo Question” but from my reading, his piece on the subject has attracted the most response from respected Nigerians. Carefully wading into the debate, I disagree that there is an “Igbo Question” seeking resolution or an answer and I would want to propose the rephrasing of the question.
The question, really, is the “National Question”, as my teacher, the late Dr. P.A. Odofin of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria was fond of theorising. Some of the sub-questions being asked include: do we have to be Nigerians? Why? For how long? And what happens if we say we don’t want to be Nigerians? If there is anything Igbo about this debate, it is merely that IPOB has boldly stepped forward to ask the questions which have been on the mind of many, if not most Nigerians. Far from ethnicity, the Biafra agitation we see unfolding around us is not a question by or about the Igbos; it is not about determining the future of the Igbos as it is about the future of Nigeria. Here is why and how.
The context which makes the current Biafran agitation for independence part of our national headache is rooted in Section 25 (1a) of the Nigerian Constitution which accords Nigerian citizenship to “every person born in Nigeria before the date of independence, either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents belongs or belonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria”.
Framing the problem as an “Igbo Question” or even a “Biafran” Question is to say the least reductionist for it is a question that any group of Nigerians could potentially ask, and many are asking it. How we frame the question is crucial for we cannot find answers to unasked questions, and if we proceed with this ethnic phrasing of an “Igbo Question”, we would learn that should we find an “answer” or using Jibo’s framing, should we find a “resolution” to the Igbo Question, such as for example electing Nnamdi Kanu to be President of Nigeria, the independence agitations of IPOB and elsewhere would not be satiated. The factors that enable the “Igbos” or “Biafrans” to pop The Question abound in equal measure elsewhere, and no group in Nigeria has monopoly on self-determination.
Another reason why the Igbo framing is problematic is that Biafra is not equal to Igbo. In its own word, Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) are located in the “South East, some parts of South South and Middle Belt of Nigeria” and that they are “under occupation, servitude and modern day slavery under the Hausa-Fulani controlled Nigerian establishment”. Also, it is not really an agitation for the capture of Aso Rock by and Igbo person, although it is true that the candidate most residents of the South-East voted for in the presidential polls lost. What we hear from the demonstrations that it is a call for the independence of Biafra and not for the keys to Aso Rock. Furthermore, Igbo is not equal to Igbo as we are not unaware of the sub-ethnic wrangling within what is the “Igbo” household. Elsewhere I have discussed the curious distinction between the “Northern” and the “Southern Igbo”.
The context which makes the current Biafran agitation for independence part of our national headache is rooted in Section 25 (1a) of the Nigerian Constitution which accords Nigerian citizenship to “every person born in Nigeria before the date of independence, either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents belongs or belonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria”. Many observers have criticised this provision, for it did not append a list of communities recognised as indigenous to Nigeria nor does it state how our forebears could have belonged or ceased to belong in such indigenous communities.
The implication of this legal provision is that you and I are not really Nigerians per se, we are only Nigerian to the extent that the communities we trace our genealogies to are accepted as citizens of Nigeria. Failure to convincingly and without controversy trace one’s belonging and family tree to an “indigenous community” entails automatic loss of Nigerian citizenship. Therefore, in compliance with this constitutional provision, nobody wants to lose organic touch with their ethnic community and so the ethnic framing of belonging in Nigeria is default and would persist for as long as our citizenship is traceable to and hinged on belonging to ethnically organised “indigenous communities”.
…we cannot also discountenance the weight of ethnicity on our citizenship – the Nigerian state is peopled by persons who attain citizenship on account of indigenous membership in ethnic communities.
Nigeria and Ethiopia have the most advanced federal constitutions in Africa. On one extreme, Ethiopia allows federating units to pursue autonomy and even to seek independence, as with Eritrea. On the other extreme, the Nigerian constitution has federating units which are, so to speak, cast in stone. Despite demands, no Nigerian state has been created democratically since the Mid-West (1963) and no state has succeeded in creating local government areas since 1999. The inability of citizens – both as individuals and as “indigenous communities” to renegotiate the terms of their belonging and intercourse with the state has created deeply conflicted and ambivalent identities which are sometimes violent in their expressions of difference.
In the Jibo-triggered debate, a key question asked is whether or not it is right to read the civic behavior of citizens such as in the polls as motivated by ethnicity. My senior colleagues Victoria Ohaeri, Okechukwu Ibeanu and Chidi Odinkalu in their respective contributions argued against Jibo’s narrative which lumps the Igbo into an undifferentiated and unquestioning mass of people. I think this critique is valid; but in the same token, we cannot also discountenance the weight of ethnicity on our citizenship – the Nigerian state is peopled by persons who attain citizenship on account of indigenous membership in ethnic communities.
Without a referendum, it is impossible to determine exactly who is a Biafran and we cannot take IPOB’s framing as definitive and final. But we can say with certainty that not all Igbos are Biafrans and not all adherents of Biafra are Igbo. Reading and framing the problem as an Igbo Question rather than our National Question would be too costly just as treating a boil which appears on the posterior as a ‘backside disease’ would be a grievous misdiagnosis. It would not only fail to provide the needed succour, but also make correct diagnosis and treatment impossible.
PREMIUM TIMES
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