Gaddafi, the Libyan leader and
former chair of African Union (AU) recently called on Nigeria to split on
religious lines, Christians and Muslims, in order to address the endemic
clashes that have claimed many lives. This call has engendered mixed reactions
from many Africans, Nigerians in particular. While many think it is a welcoming
panacea to the Nigerian crisis, others, including this author, think otherwise.
A religion-inspired division of
Nigeria (a federal government) would never resolve the cause of the recurring
clashes; neither would it miraculously heal the symptoms. It looks appealing
and easy to suggest division and to presume that it holds the prospect for
peace. Divide Nigerian on no grounds other than Islamic and Christian ones and
you invite xenophobic attacks, deepen blatant hatred and intolerance. This will
set a bad precedent for Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. If Islam
and Christianity, which are both imported religious belief systems are
formidable forces, potent enough to split Nigeria, anything else, be it
political differences, ethnic heterogeneity can equally split any African state
or justify further balkanization of Africa.
It is important to note that,
Nigeria’s oil, which contributes about 90% of its GDP, is mined in the South,
where Christians predominate. Enugu, Lagos, Onitsa and other prominent cities
in Nigeria with huge public infrastructure, all built from Federal coffers,
from both the North and the South, are all located in the South.
At infrastructural level alone,
one can only imagine how challenging and unrealistic Gaddafi’s solution would
prove to be. If you tell a Northern Nigerian man who has established his life
and career in the South, along with his family, to leave all of a sudden to a
new destination, you are not only unjustifiably robbing him of his rights, but
also depriving him of the means to his existence. If that man decides to stay
and not leave, it is likely the flame of ethnic and religious hatred would
consume him long before he exercised the luxury of thinking twice about his
decision.
The infamous, bitter and
inhumane Korean example of 1948, where mother and child, husband and wife were
torn apart from each other, should guide our decisions as Africans in this
contemporary era.
Gaddafi’s solution to the
Nigerian crisis is rooted more in his Islamic ties with the North, and his
fundamentalist religious convictions that have little or no space for religious
freedom, than a genuine zeal for a lasting solution. If Nigeria splits, no one
would be surprised to see him supply money and ammunition to the North against
the South in the event of the slightest conflict. These and many other possible
outcomes would permanently rob the area of peace and tranquility.
As a prominent figure in African
Union, Gaddafi’s shortsighted solution is the greatest leadership failure on
his part. It dilutes and contradicts the zeal behind the drive to African
unification, where free movements of people would be a permanently entrenched
right. As a leader, and a champion of Pan-African ideals in modern day Africa,
his utterances ought to epitomize unity not disunity, tolerance, not
intolerance. The infamous divide-and-rule tactics employed by the colonialists
against Africa has done the continent no good in any way. It has rather divided
us as a continent against our unity and ourselves. That must not be repeated in
any form today.
What Nigeria needs is a way to
peaceful co-existence based on respect and tolerance as the Bible and the Quran
that they claim to be ardent followers… clearly postulate. It is hypocritical
and ironic on the part of Christians and Muslims to continue killing each other
in order to find favour with God.
Africans must come to the
conscious awareness that their African identity precedes their religious
affiliations Christianity or Islam. Their ancestors in pre-colonial Africa were
Africans and human beings long before the advent of Islam or Christianity. It
would constitute a shameful gesture to bequeath posterity a legacy of intolerance,
conflict and division based on an imported heritage. As Chinua Achebe put it
explicitly, “… He came quietly and peacefully with his religion. We were amused
at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and
our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held
us together and we have fallen apart.”
Many things bind the South and
the North together than those that supposedly separate them. It is better to
think of unity, and explore costly solutions that would last, rather than cheap
ones that would not.
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