Find here a post titled “Separation is not about war; it has peaceful aspect”, said to have been authored by one Aminu Sa’ad Beli, which was widely circulated on the WhatsApp few weeks ago.
The views appear to be based on widely known historical facts.
As we all know, facts by themselves are nothing but data; sometimes, according to historians, not very useful outside the interpretation given to them.
Though most nation states, especially in Africa, insist on the inviolability of their boundaries, the fact is that nation states come and go and nation states go through mutations and evolutions. It may be impossible or sheer waste of efforts to stop what may not be possible!
The post is reproduced below, read it and assess for yourself!
SEPARATION IS NOT ABOUT WAR, IT HAS PEACEFUL ASPECT.
In 1776, the USA split from the UK
In 1830 Belgium separated from the Netherlands
In 1965, Singapore split off from Malaysia
In 2002, East Timor got split off from Indonesia
In 1921, Ireland split off from the United Kingdom, and (possibly in the future) there will be secession of Scotland.
In 1944, Iceland split from Denmark with remarkable ease.
In 1905 Norway split from Denmark
In 1905, Norway and Sweden also peacefully split ways. One got the car. the other got the kids.
In 1947, the British India Dominion was partitioned into India n Pakistan. In 1971, Bangladesh secceeded from Pakistan.
In 1992-93, the two parts of Czechoslovakia agreed to each go their own way. Thus were born the Czech Republic and Slovakia after what’s been named the “Velvet Divorce”., About the same time, another kind of separation occurred, of course, in Yugoslavia. This one led to a bloodshed.
In 1965, Singapore split from Malaysia for a variety of reasons, including religious (Malaysia is majority Muslim, Singapore isn’t), ethnic/racial (Singapore has a very large majority Chinese population) and concerns over the Malaysian Bumiputra policy, which was (and is) basically a form of “Affirmative Action” for Muslim Malaysians – who make up the majority population in Peninsular Malaysia.
Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan are now separate countries.
USSR is now broken down into several countries.
I see separation as an avenue for a healthy competition for development as the case of Singapore and Malaysia, India and Pakistan, Norway/Denmark/Switzerland.
In the case of Nigeria, I am sensing a healthy competitive development among the original component part, the North/West/East each making useful progress while competing with the others.
It is not about war after all there is nothing wrong for one to decide he is no longer comfortable with the union and therefore want to opt out.
LETS GIVE PEACE A CHANCE AND SEPARATE HONORABLY.
This is worth sharing over and over again…
British named them Burma. They rejected it, restructured & renamed themselves Myanmar.
-British named them Upper Volta, but they rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Burkina Faso – Land of Incorruptible People.
-British named them Gold Coast, they rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Ghana.
-British named them Southern Rhodesia. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Zimbabwe.
-British named them Northern Rhodesia. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Zambia.
-British named them Tanganyika. They rejected it, restructured & renamed themselves Tanzania.
-Germans named them colony of South West Africa. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Namibia.
-France named them Dahomey. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Benin.
-Belgium named them Zaire. However, they rejected it, restructured & renamed themselves Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
-Britain named a bunch of people – Nigeria. They rather kill to preserve it than restructure and give themselves a befitting new name.
“It is only an animal that bears the name that is given to it by his enemy” (Proverb).
THE FUTILITY OF PRESERVING NIGERIA
My angry reaction earlier today on APC UK platform:
Most of the Diasporans here living in Europe. Can you show me one multi-ethnic state in Europe where one group is positioned to dominate the rest that hasn’t broken up?
For those who do not know, what you call ethnic groups in Nigeria are called nations in Europe.
There’s nowhere in the world where the white man accepts domination from another white man in perpetuity.
It used to be so under the Roman empire and the like. Not anymore. The Communists tried it, dividing society into capitalists and proletariats, deluding themselves that ethnicity is effectively swept under the carpet, but what followed? The Communist edifices in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the big brother, USSR, all collapsed, while the two Germans that are ethnically the same but split by communism vs capitalism were reunited. Such is the power of ethnic nationalism.
Czechoslovakia was made up of two ethnic groups, the Czech and the Slovakians. Both separated peacefully on 1st January 1993. The former is today 10.6 million people and the latter 5.4 million. Added together, they’re not up to Lagos. Yet, they split for peace. Two masters can’t be in the same house.
Yugoslavia in 1991 was 23.2 million, barely more than Lagos population. It broke into six countries same year – all along ethnic lines, namely: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
Then the big brother, USSR. It had, at least, the following ethnic groups identified by their languages:
Regional languages:
Ukrainian, Belarusian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Lithuanian, Moldavian, Latvian, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Armenian, Turkmen, Estonian
Minority languages:
Abkhaz, Bashkir, Buryat, Chechen, Finnish, Volga, German, Korean, Ossetian, Tatar & various others.
Today, your fingers will not be enough to count the number of countries that have emerged from the USSR.
Sit down there and be preaching unity in Nigeria as if you’re the kindest gentleman on earth while you have no solution to the genocide in Southern Kaduna, the illegal but officially condoned arms in the hands of killer herdsmen roaming the country, and be condemning those better informed about the fact that the country is undergoing the strains of a forced union and should be peacefully restructured or let people go their separate ways.
In Europe, the two best examples of fairly stable multi-ethnic states are the UK and Switzerland. The former is led by reasonable men who permitted regional autonomy to the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh, while the English dominate Westminster.
That’s something some of us are asking for, but you’re fighting against it in your own country wracked by ethnic crisis.
Your own people are better off under oppression of fellow black men because your people have bad leaders who can’t do better than their new internal colonisers…
