What are your thoughts about the worsening security situation in the country today?
Well, the insecurity situation is very unfortunate, and it is a shame. In some way, it does not come as a surprise to me. Anybody who studies the history of societies will be able to forecast certain things. For me, the signal, pointing to where we are today, started quite some time ago. If you do a content analysis of my writings over the last 25 years, you will find very frequent references to phrases like ‘The Road to Somalia’ and ‘The Coming Anarchy.’ This is because there are a number of trends that you watch and you see where they will lead to.
‘The Coming Anarchy’ is from a book written by an American, Robert Kaplan, about 21 years ago, in which he looked at trends in West Africa and where we would be going. He identified what he termed ‘cleavages’ on the ethnic, economic and religious spheres and how these will converge in a way that will result in, potentially, a descent into anarchy in different countries in the developing countries. He specifically focused on West Africa and mentioned to Jos, Nigeria as a potential epicentre for that disintegration. Well, after I listened to Kaplan being interviewed on CNN, I was thrilled; so, I quickly ordered copies of the book and distributed it to the ruling elites at the time. Just before then, The Congo had been in a meltdown.
A CNN correspondent had done a series down the Congo River, at what was happening in the country and how those led to a state of anarchy. I looked at the way Nigeria was being governed and it was clear to me that if we do not govern more responsibly, we will arrive at where Kaplan was predicting that West Africa would go. Part of my personal reactions was to found the civil society group, Nigerians United to Resist Anarchy. Our objective was to send information to people within public authorities to look at these trends and to act in ways that can create better employment opportunities for people so that we won’t have an army of unemployed young people who will be easy recruits for nihilists and people who have a society-hidden agenda. I suggested things like religious tolerance. After a while, I got a little tired of singing these things, because it was clear that we had a political class that was driven by self-love and could not quite understand the consequences of not developing society.
There have been perennial calls by some Nigerians for devolution of powers, while the call for self-determination by the Indigenous People of Biafra and the proponents of Oduduwa/Yoruba nation have grown more strident lately. What do you think the way forward is?
Well, I think that people are venting (their frustrations). They are frustrated with the failure of the Nigerian state and so they want to go with anything – secession, devolution – to express that frustration. (They are saying) if it (Nigeria) is not working, can we find something else that works? The truth of the matter is that we have a failure in the social contract and it is a big problem.
Now, man’s first duty is to appreciate and protect the ultimate gift given him by God, which is the gift of life. To make sure that happens well, man gets together with other men….
