April 9, 2000
Paul Ejime
PANA Correspondent
LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - Former "Biafran" leader Emeka Ojukwu has lent his voice to the growing clamour by leaders of ethnic nationalities seeking a renegotiation of Nigerian unity.
"The only partnership that endures is the partnership where all the partners are happy. When one partner is not happy that partnership will not endure," Ojukwu, who led the Igbo in the unsuccessful rebellion during the country's 30-month civil war of 1967-70, said.
His speech at the eastern ethnic nationalities forum, held in Enugu at the weekend, comes in the wake of religious and ethnic eruptions threatening the corporate existence of Africa's most populous nation.
While the minorities have been alleging marginalisation and neglect, their compatriots from the three major ethnic groups of Hausa/Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the south-west and Igbo of the south-east, for different reasons, appear dissatisfied with the way things are going.
The background is that the north, accused by the other ethnic groups of having dominated leadership since Nigeria's independence from Britain 40 years ago, would prefer a retention of the status quo under its hegemony.
But since the military annulment of the 1993 presidential election in which Moshood Abiola, a Yoruba, claimed but was denied victory until his death in detention in 1998, his ethnic group feel short-changed.
They have been relentless in their call for a sovereign national conference to determine the corporate existence of Nigeria.
To advocates of this conference, it does not matter that President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is of Yoruba extraction, is currently heading the country's young democratic government.
For their part, the Igbo, claiming undue attacks on them during the recent Sharia crisis in the north, are calling for confederation.
Ojukwu is among those who feel the Igbo are carrying the "burden" sustaining the Nigerian federation, while some enjoy, what he calls the "paradise."
"The only thing," he said, "is that that paradise is carried on our backs. And carrying that is not comfortable for us and so we must complain."
Criticising those he said were trying to stop the Igbo from complaining, Ojukwu added that "It is in fact your happiness that provokes my complaint."
Lending his support to the confederation call by governors of the five south-east states, as a way of keeping Nigeria together, he said "perhaps, it is better to look at the confederation option, if nothing else, it is logical."
He said "in a democracy nobody should refuse people full freedom of thought," adding that "Sharia, as far as Nigeria is concerned today in the way it has gone, is tantamount to secession."
The governors of Nigeria's 19 Moslem-dominated northern states decided last week to suspend Sharia whose implementation or planned introduction has provoked protests resulting in hundreds of deaths in the region and reprisal attacks in eastern Nigeria.
But that decision has not halted the raging debate on renegotiating the country's unity.