Four rebellions have occurred in Nigeria since 1960 that have altered the structure of the Nigerian state. The first being the Igbo rebellion that saw Nigeria move from regions to states; the second by the Yoruba that led to the end of military incursion in politics; the third is the Niger Delta rebellion that cemented the derivation principle; and now the Boko Haram rebellion that will end the Entitlement to Power principle forever.
If we examine each of these rebellions much more closely, they have all succeeded in altering or changing some long-held belief that had previously upheld the prevailing status quo, and in the process moved Nigeria towards a more functional and adaptive structure.
The Igbo rebellion of the 1960s which was termed a failed secession bid fundamentally forced the power structure of the day to carve up Nigeria from its regional format into a 12-state structure, which in effect served to devolve more political power to those previously termed minorities who were buried deep in the regional structures.
Gen. Yakubu Gowon was right when he said that the decision to carve Nigeria into states from the former regional structure was a sacrifice made by the North to keep the country one, because under the former regional structure, the outcomes of elections would always result in Northern political control of the central government.
So, though the Igbo were defeated, resulting in over three million Nigerians dying during the Nigerian Civil War, there are people in states today exercising political authority and utilising resources simply because of the Igbo rebellion that troubled the power structure of the day well enough to devolve more political authority to others.
But for Chief M.K.O. Abiola’s decision to refuse to renounce the political mandate he received at the June 12, 1993 election, and the overwhelming support he received from the Yoruba in a bid to actualise that mandate, the Nigerian military would never have abandoned its sojourn in the politics of the country and scurry back to the military barracks in May 1999.
The effectiveness of the Yoruba rebellion and the death of Abiola in pursuit of his political mandate not only resulted in the end of military rule in Nigeria, but also witnessed the unprecedented act of an entire nation ceding to the Yoruba the right to produce a democratically elected president for Nigeria in 1999.
So, notwithstanding the fact that the freest and fairest election in the history of Nigeria was annulled, we experienced the harshness of the Abacha years, resulting in the death of Abiola in jail without realising his political mandate, the Yoruba were virtually left on their own in helping Abiola actualise his mandate. We also saw an end to military rule and the beginning of our current democratic experience.
The Niger Delta rebellion may have started when politicians in the region armed youths for use as political thugs. At some point, it transitioned into an agitation drawing the attention of the nation to the devastation, atrocities, environmental degradation, economic exploitation and poverty of the people and areas of the Niger Delta.
It was Abacha who first recognised the need for the Niger Delta states to receive additional revenues based on the derivation principle, a policy which was also enhanced by Olusegun Obasanjo. However, it was during the regime of Umaru Yar'Adua, at the peak of the Niger Delta agitation, that the entire nation bought into the need for the oil rich region and people to be adequately compensated for being the bread basket of the nation.
It was in 1914 that the British colonial administration promulgated the Mineral Ordinance Law, effectively placing all minerals including oil under the ownership, exploitation and benefits of the British Crown, and without compensating those in whose land or territorial waters such minerals were found, a practice continued by Nigeria on attaining independence, but which has now been ameliorated since the Niger Delta rebellion.
So, today, the Niger Delta states have become the highest recipients of statutory revenues through the derivation principle, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, Niger Delta Development Commission and even a President of Niger Delta extraction, a massive improvement when you consider that at independence in 1960, that Niger Delta was not even a region.
Now, the Boko Haram rebellion is probably the most intriguing and complex to situate because it is still unfolding before our very eyes. However, there is a popular proverb among my people that when you stand under a mango tree and see many mango fruits under the tree, it is not difficult to guess where the mango fruits on the ground have come from, that is the position with Boko Haram.
Following my analogy, if we take Boko Haram to be the mango fruits on the ground, what can be the mango tree from which we can say that these fruits have fallen? To do this, we have to go back to the annulment of the June 12 mandate, the Yoruba rebellion, to actualise the June 12 mandate, the decision of the military to hand over power, the decision to cede power to the South, in particular to the Yoruba, based on a power shift arrangement between the North and the South.
Obasanjo having served two terms of four years each as president of Nigeria, supposedly for the South, the expectation was that it was now the turn of the North through Umaru Yar'Adua to also be president of Nigeria for a period of eight years, an expectation which was crudely cut short by his sickness and subsequent death in May 2010.
The political crisis and resistance to the consummation of constitutional provisions which should have allowed a nation replace a sick president, that resulted in the invention of the Doctrine of Necessity by the National Assembly that allowed the Vice-President become the acting president, eventually dissipated with the death of Umaru Yar'Adua, but not the anguish and rage at the usurpation of the turn of the North at the helm of affairs.
It was in this context that Boko Haram, an insurgent Islamic group, which many believe had a record of success as the political enforcement arm of the ANPP-led Borno State Government, and which had been effectively checked through the strong arm tactics of Yar’Adua when they went viral, suddenly regrouped and resurfaced, armed in 2010 with enough resources and fire-power to take on the Federal Government in the North-East and North-West.
The rage of those whose expectations have been cut short by the non-adherence to the power shift arrangement, the death of Yar'Adua, the emergence of Jonathan, first as acting president and then as substantive president and eventually as elected president, with the possibility of his continuing as president after 2015, is what is fuelling, energising, empowering, enabling, sustaining, and shielding Boko Haram.
If we are railroaded into believing that the ongoing insecurity in parts of the North and which they are threatening to extend to Lagos, can only be addressed when the president of Nigeria comes from a certain part of the country, then Boko Haram will have succeeded in its primary and philosophical objectives and the Entitlement to Power principle would become entrenched.
- Omose, a maritime lawyer based in Lagos, wrote in via kingsleyomose@gmail.com
