Identity Albatross
and the Dearth of Courage
During
the last presidential media chat, when the issue of the over two hundred and
seventy abducted Chibok girls came up, the President and Commander-in-Chief of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) remarked to
the effect that upon the occurrence of the kidnap, he requested to be furnished
with the names and pictures of the victims. He was, however, told that because
of their Muslim background most of them would not ordinarily have their faces
shown, hence pictures taken. He said he would later learn from a certain list
that most of them, about 80 percent, were infact Christian. To the best of
public knowledge, the list that came out which the President probably referred
to was made available by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) as
presented by Evangelist Mathew Owojaiye, a Kaduna based northern Christian leader.
It is interesting to note that we are talking about a group of girls kidnapped
from a school while sitting for the West African Examination Council (WAEC)
examination: this means that the school should ordinarily have their records,
including passport photographs, and that since they are WAEC candidates, WAEC
should equally have their most current identity records. The president,
however, took the explanation he was given, as he himself indicated, inspite of
the fact that, to an ordinary onlooker, he only had to request for all the 2014
registered candidates of Government Secondary School, Chibok – Borno State,
from WAEC headquarters in Abuja. As it stands, nobody knows of, neither did the
president in his media chat allude to, any other list than the one made
available by CAN as at the time of the chat with him. In other words, facts
were not made available, and were not demanded for, for reasons of identity.
This piece
is not about the administrative decisions taken by the president, and their
quality, concerning information about the abductees: it is more about the
reality that has become the lot our national life in Nigeria regarding the
diverse identities that people this country and how they have affected the way
it is and has been run for a while now. In the face of the end of the Cold War with
the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism, Samuel P. Huntington,
in his 1992 American Enterprise Institute lecture titled the Clash of
Civilizations, advanced the theory that people’s cultural and religious
identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War era.
This has proven to be true as politics today is defined in terms of identity
almost globally. In the Middle East, it is Israelis versus the Palestinians,
Shiites versus Sunnis; in Iraq it is Shiites versus Sunnis, Kurd versus Arabs;
in India it is the Hindus versus the Muslims; in Myanmar, Malaysia and
Indonesia it is the Buddhists versus the Muslims; in Europe it is the locals
versus the immigrants. There is also the fact that there is generally a
contestation between Islam and secularism – or secularity, depending on who is
speaking on what. All of these different identities have defined modern day
politics around the world with very dire consequences and with huge costs to
lives and property.
Identity
politics and contestations are not new to Nigeria, and the world at large. In what
is today known as Northern Nigeria, the pre-Western colonial times were
characterized by serious identity contestations between the Muslims of
particularly the Sokoto Caliphate and the many smaller animist populations. It
continued into the colonial era until the dawn of independence when the north,
under the charismatic leadership of Sir Ahmadu Bello, had to close ranks in
order to confront the south in the oncoming national elections. New identity lines
emerged along regions through to post-independence period upon which a brutal
thirty-month civil war was fought. Lately, these regional political identities
have again emerged very strongly – if they really ever blurred at all.
Northern
Nigeria, from the 1980s, has witnessed a steady rise in identity political
contestations along religious lines. With time this has mutated along
indigene-settler identity lines, without losing the religion factor, and all of
these have sparked off violent conflicts that have continually deepened the
faultlines to precipitous points.
Unfortunately,
many northern leaders, instead of courageously finding means to positively deal
with the dangerous trajectory, have actually taken advantage of it for personal
political gratification. Because of this, reports of several commissions set up
to look into some of the various crises in the north have been swept under the
carpets and this has further worsened the situation as justice has not been
seen to have been done or truth pursued which will form the basis for
reconciliation and forgiveness. People still harbour bitterness over such
crises as the Kafanchan riots of 1987, the Zangon Kataf crisis of 1992, the
many Tafawa Balewa crises, the Reinhard Bonnke motivated killings to mention
but a few; all of these because of the lack of courage to rock the identity
boat.
The
advent of the fourth republic, while holding within it a lot of promise, also
carried with it its own share of uncertainties which include the identity baggage
and conundrum, also influenced by global events. It was therefore not
surprising that votes were canvassed for and won on the basis of such
identities as we saw in Zamfara State where Ahmed Sani became governor on the
promise of instituting Shari’a in the State if elected. Though already elected,
many other northern governors fell into the fray of Sharianization just to gain
political mileage, the consequences of which became very dire and further
precipitated Nigeria’s nationhood journey. By the way, because of the
intransigent flaw that has characterized successive elections in the country,
even declared winners have found themselves left with no choice but to always
compromise in order to win some legitimacy; therefore they have found
themselves abysmally bereft of the incentive needed to address issues and face
governance forthrightly, especially as they border on the spikes of identity,
hence driving society further into the trenches of sectarianism.
But
never, perhaps, in the life of this country has identity politics taken this
gladiatorial centre stage at the national level like now. It is made even worse
by the fact that we are currently facing a vicious insurgency and, as a nation,
we have found it almost impossible to deconstruct the simplest problem because
of our thick identity veils through which everything has come to be viewed. A
healthy debate appears to no longer be possible as one runs the risk of either
offending “one’s side” or the “other side” as one is construed not on the
merits of one’s argument but on what identity side one belongs to.
It is
against this background that, when comments such as those of GEJ on the facts
about the Chibok girls are considered – facts which are supposed to serve in strategizing
for the recovery of the girls – one cannot help but conclude that Nigeria has
not been very blessed with courageous leadership on the whole. This has been
the reason why we have not had accurate census results; this has been the
reason why we have not been able to adequately police our borders; this has
been the reason why our civil service, which is supposed to be the fulcrum of
growth and development, has continually stood in the way of anything that looks
like progress due to the lack of courage to purge it. One can go on and on.
This has been the reason why we cannot come up with facts and figures on
virtually anything, no matter how simple and innocuous, in order to guide
public policy formulation.
How
can the Commander-in-Chief claim that he was told that he could not have the
pictures of almost three hundred abducted girls, sitting for a trans-national
examination, on account of religion and then he lets it go? Whose boat is the
C-in-C afraid of rocking in this situation of insurgency? Or is he cashing in
on some identity window that the situation and the yarn must have provided him?
This is not healthy for a nation in such dire reality as Nigeria.
We
crave for bold and courageous leadership now more than ever at all levels of
government and society: leadership that will never hide behind or cower before
any identity.
Published on NIGERIAN NEWSDAY; May 2014
