OPEN THE GATES.

OPEN THE GATES - RELEASE THE INMATES AND NIGERIA'S DEVELOPMENT Nigerians, as if none can read and understand, are celebrating an election that was planned and executed to result in the "CHANGEE," believing that the peaceful transfer of power from President Jonathan to President Buhari brings to an end "America's 2005 prediction of Nigeria' disintegration" in 2015. First all, there never was a 2005 U. S. Government prediction of Nigeria's disintegration in 2015; rather a U.S. NGO of retired military scholars, confusingly named U.S. National Intelligence Council, predicted that given Nigeria's religious schisms, ethnic strife and religious divisions, the country might disintegrate in 2015, if no meaningful effort is made to heal these deeply entrenched repellent factors to unity. However in 2011, five serving U.S. Air-force officers of U.S. Centre for Strategy and Technology, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, published their research f indings which predicted that if Nigeria does not deliberately work hard on clearly stated failure factors, Nigeria would start disintegrating in 2015 and finally dismember in 2030. In its 156-page report titled "Failed State 2030: Nigeria - A Case Study," the Study detailed ten factors, unlike the 2005 NGO's three factors, eating up Nigeria's unity, namely Nigeria's lack of unifying national identity, history of tribal and religious conflicts, pervasive corruption, poor national planning, uneven development, social disorder, rampant criminality, violent insurgency and terminal weak governance. The parameters of Fund for Peace (FFP), the world acclaimed  NGO on peace, security and which tracks state failure world-wide, coincided with the framework of  the five Air Force Colonels. FFP has already set up an Abuja office to monitor Nigeria's fast increasing failure indicators and advise on measures that can abort the ugly trend. No hiding the fact,  Nigeria is precipitously failing in all of the above ten failure markers. Book Haram insurgents for example, are  not just terrorists but Islamic Jihadists like ISIS, AlQaeda, Al-Shaba, Ansaru etc, who are driven by a compelling ideology based on the Quran and which ideology causes individuals to devote their lives, quite often sacrificing their lives for this dream of how society can be ordered, with paradise as compensation. USA, Europe, South Asia including Saudi Arabia,  with their sophisticated defense systems have not been able to wipe out Jihadic militancy. Nigeria cannot totally wipe out Islamic militancy. It can, like USA, Europe and Middle East contain and minimize it. The suicide bombing and other gorilla aspects of the militancy are here with Nigeria for the long haul. Worse still, the back bone of Nigeria's malevolence are Islamic Fundamentalism and Feudalism both of which are incompatible with regular democracy and are invariably in cultural or civilizational  clash with the rest of humanity. Fundamentalism is intolerant of other religions whose practitioners are usually labelled infidels, not deserving of life, property and human dignity.  Sharia Law, which is the backbone of Islamic fundamentalism is in conflict with Common Law and fundamental human rights; and virtually reduces the rights of women and the underclass to that of mere chattels. Fundamentalism dominates life in the Upper North, therefore fighting Boko Haram without addressing Islamic fundamentalism is like  healing the symptoms of a terminal ailment without addressing the main disease. Liberal Islam, as is practiced in South-West Nigeria, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore and most former Soviet Republics, now independent, appears to be the answerThe question is how far is the North-West and East ready to reform to save its people from hunger, ignorance and disease which are proportionally consuming the region at an alarming rate, much much worse than other zones of Nigeria. Most importantly, Nigeria is fake federation of over 350 ethnic nationalities put together for the purposes of serving the economic & financial needs of the North. Lord Harcourt and Lugard did not make any pretense of why and how they arrived at the contraption branded "Nigeria" and stated so very clearly in their 1913 report on amalgamation to the British Crown. The North tightened its grip on the affairs of Nigeria after the civil war in which Nigeria unapologetically killed prisoners-of-war and slaughtered unarmed civilians. A prisoner-of-war ordinance was decreed as the Constitution of Nigeria. The regional federating units were abolished and in its place a Unitary State of Nigeria was set up with a non-sensical  "indivisibility and indissolubility" provision in Section 2(1) for the over 350 ethnic nationalities who share no common values particularly with the oligarchs; and with power deliberately skewed in favor of the oligarchs, who now talk down on the rest of the country. There is no mutual respect which is the glue that bonds the differing people's in federations. The federating units are 36 minions which can,  in the face of declining oil revenue, hardly sustain the fundamentals of governance structure. The conflicting signals coming out of Aso Rock today about lopsided appointments and indiscriminate violations of the Constitution and/or the Spirit of the Constitution, derive from the fact that indeed, Nigeria has no democratic Constitution but a Prisoner-of-war Ordinance which entitles the gate-keepers to violate basic fundamental freedoms/rights indiscriminately and with utmost impunity. Geneva Convention on P.O.Ws and unarmed civilians is indiscriminately violated in P.O.W. camp, NIGERIA. The truth accepted by all political thoughts is that no Union can sustain solely for the interest of a section and that for the long-term survival of the human species in the world, cooperation, not unhealthy competition, is the way forward. The oligarchs of Nigeria want no cooperation; instead  domination is their credo. In realization that equality and mutual respect are inherent principles of all successful federations, the United Nations adopted resolutions, conventions and declarations on the rights of all indigenous peoples anywhere in the world to determine their political status, and pursue their economic, social and cultural development as means of ensuring equality and mutual respect. African Union followed with the African Charter on Human And People's Rights (ACHPR). Nigeria adopted and ratified both the UN and AU charter and/or convention/ covenants but bluntly refused to entrench the right to Self Determination in its Constitution. Instead,  the Nigerian oligarchs planted an anti-self determination and the highly offensive "invisibility and indissolubility" clause in Section 2(1) of the Constitution as an Ordinance to quarantine its slaves for oral and physical assault and battery, whenever it pleases the oligarchs. Unfortunately non- oligarchy leaders are so busy struggling for crumbs from the Masters' table that they know not why the oligarchs talk and look down on everybody.The world has seen how the right to Self Determination of the Scots in UK and Quebecers of Canada uplifted mutual respect and a sense of equality/ dignity of the minorities, thus rendering those amalgams of different peoples, more people-friendly and livable. On the occasion of my 74th birthday on this 14th September, I am calling on all non-oligarchs and minorities of Nigeria to rise and demand that the gate to Nigeria's Prisoner-of-War camp without Geneva Convention, should be OPENED and all of them released to "Equality and Mutual Respect" by demanding that the offensive "indivisibility and indissolubility" jargon in Section 2(1) of the Constitution be jettisoned and replaced with the UN & AU inspired Right to Self Determination of all federating peoples. No nation can survive half slave and half free. Those enslaved get alienated and patriotism or love-of-country escapes through the window, and is instantly and rightly replaced by anger and disloyalty. The Social Contract between State and groups/individuals in which rights were surrendered to State by the former, for welfare and protection having been broken, it is unending crises as Nigeria has it. The Holy Bible sums up Nigeria's pathetic situation in Mark 3:25 : "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand." My people, the Igbo, have been out in the cold since 1966. Any time any of the Generals who conducted the Jihad of 1966-70 is in power, the alienation of the Igbos of Nigeria, is more blatant, even though the whole South and Northern minorities, all the same, have to prostrate for crumbs from the master's table. The process of alienating Nigerians outside the oligarchy in Aso Rock is ongoing and will soon reach a crescendo. Anyone who is hoping for any balance is leaving Ina fool's paradise. As Rev.Martin Luther King learnt in the U.S. Civil rights agitation  and expressed in his biography: "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." P. O. Ws of Nigeria must accept that they are indeed P.O.Ws and demand that the camp gate must be opened for their release and the release of Nigeria's meaningful development. 

Emeka Onyesoh (Prince) 

President, Forum for National Ethos and Values (FNEV). Enugu. 14th September, 2015