Written by Rev Sunday Adelaja
WHAT IS MARGINALIZATION?
I pray that no Nigerian tribe,
nationality or ethnic group will experience marginalization. As I am
writing this, there are nations in the world that know firsthand what
marginalization means in the real sense.
For a student of history, it is
difficult to accept the accusation against Nigeria that Nigeria has not
been fair to the Biafran nation. As I have said above, the Igbo people
and the Biafran people have occupied every political, economic and
military position in the Nigerian nation. A fact that should become a
thing of pride for Nigeria is that Nigeria was able to assimilate the
Igbo nation back into the Nigerian entity faster than most countries in
the world who went through civil war.
In most countries where there has been
civil war, the vanquished are always oppressed and marginalized for many
years after. Usually, these people groups don’t enjoy the privileges of
equal citizenship for decades after the civil wars. Even in most of the
countries that we look up to as epitomes of democracy today, things did
not go smoothly with them after their civil wars.
The country most of us like to refer to
the most as our flagship is the United States of America. Their civil
war ended 150 years ago, yet even today when you go to the southern part
of America, you still hear them call the northerners names. That is
where the name Yankee comes from. That is the abusive name the
southerners used to call the northerners. Even today there are still
conflicts, arguments and debates about the confederate flags in America
150 years later. Confederacy is what the southern part of America that
lost the war was called.
So, integrating a nation after a civil
war is a tough process. I have personally been in cities in the southern
parts of America where I have been told, northerners are not welcome in
their towns and villages. I from Nigeria was welcomed, but they were
not ready to allow those from the north to come to their land. Such is
the nature of civil wars almost everywhere, integration and
reconciliation is always a tough process. The same thing happened after
civil wars in Greece, Italy, Austria, Spain, Nicaragua, Germany,
Finland, Russia, Mexico, China, India, Great Britain, Argentina, France,
etc.
If you study the history of civil wars,
you will discover that Nigeria has become one of the most successful
countries in integrating back into the nation the secessionists. Can you
believe that immediately after the Nigerian civil war finished in 1970,
instead of the Federal Government of Nigeria imprisoning or killing by
firing squad all the leadership of Biafra, who took the nation to war,
they rather forgave them and accepted them back to a United Nigeria? In
the words of the then Head of State, there was “no victor no
vanquished.” Meaning Nigeria was not going to treat the Igbo people as a
defeated enemy, but as brothers and sisters. That was a high level of
magnanimosity displayed by the Nigerian nation.
Moreover, all Biafran people were given a
twenty pounds stipend to start their lives again. That could be viewed
as small or nothing today, but when you study other nations where there
had been civil war, you will hardly see or hear of any gesture like
that. I recently read an article written by an Igbo man in America. He
said 40 years ago the richest Igbo was twenty pounds, while today they
are prominent in the list of the richest Nigerians. What he was trying
to say is that, this is mainly due to the gifts and business acumen of
the Igbo people. While that is true, remember what I said above, that it
is also important to have the right environment. They were only able to
attain that height, thanks to the fact that the Nigerian nation allowed
it. This is normally not the case in countries where there had been
civil wars. When we are loved, we have the tendency to think that it is
because we are good, but really it is because those who love us are
good.
The Nigerian government did so much to
remove any trace of segregation from all Nigerian peoples immediately
after the civil war. The Igbo people were quickly absorbed as part of
the Federal government of Nigeria. In the western part of Nigeria, the
properties of Igbos who left to join Biafra were kept intact and later
returned to them. Soon after the civil war, the Igbos benefited
immensely from the Udoji award, which was a gesture by the Federal
Republic of Nigeria when the newly discovered oil money was used to give
Nigerians a financial boost. This provided a huge lift for all
Nigerians and the former Biafrans in particular.
Just ten years after the civil war,
Nigeria did something that has hardly been recorded in the history of
civil wars in the world. The Nigerian state decided to forgive the
initiator of the civil war itself, Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu. He wasn’t just
forgiven, he was given political pardon so much that he could now
participate in the nation’s political process. He was accepted back as a
hero and soon participated by running for political office. That is
something unfathomable after civil war. Such individuals were normally
assassinated, their relatives and families banned into exile for life,
if not for generations to come. Ten years after the civil war, the
second most powerful person in Nigeria was an Igbo man, the Vice
President Dr. Alex Ekwueme. Hardly will you ever find a more tolerant
approach in the whole world.
Some of my Biafran friends might say,
but since the civil war we have not produced a President, well if we are
talking about the Igbo people, that is true. But if I were to take
sides with the Biafran agitators who claim that the South-South is part
of Biafra we could say it has, because the South-South just produced a
President in the person of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
Let’s look at the history of the United
States of America after their civil war. Even in the so-called most
democratic nation of the world, it took another 80 years for the south
who were defeated in the war to produce a nationally elected President.
This is not counting Andrew Johnson who replaced the assassinated
Abraham Lincoln. The first person to be elected nationally was Harry S.
Truman 80 years after the war. Of course in Nigeria, I hope it is not
going to take so long, but what I am trying to say is that there are
processes that have to take place. Nigeria has done beautifully well in
comparison to these countries that have gone through civil wars.
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