Enahoro’s ‘brutuses’

The late Chief Anthony Enahoro’s Movement for National Reformation (MNR) was a strident and cogent idea, well-neglected and frustrated by those who loved him so much in Nigeria. They are the ones rushing to Edo State to pay empty and deceitful condolences to his family. In Nigeria, we are rich with such despicable characters: they were there at midday evening in Rumuigbo on 26 April 1993 when Ikwerre spokesperson Dr Obi Wali was butchered in his bedroom. In the case of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the same characters are there to ever organise his wife’s birthdays in any of the best hotels in Nigeria. But do not forget that it was they who made sure that Awo remained the best president Nigeria never had. Go and ask the family of Pa Rewane; these characters are there supporting the family. The Aminu Kano family may today be enjoying the fat financial support from his faceless enemies who, while he was alive, ensured that his excellent ideas never saw the light of the day.

When Enahoro was alive, he put forward the idea that Nigeria should be politically restructured into ethnic states and that the peoples of Nigeria should be allowed to discuss how they wish to live together in a federal state. The sense in that restructuring was that the resources and allied occupations with which to develop Nigeria are domiciled in the ethnic groups. All that is required is for the groups to respect one another as equals, convene a sovereign national conference (SNC) where they will determine how they can live together and grant self-determination and development rights to the native peoples of Nigeria within the Federal Republic of Nigeria, thereby fostering healthy economic, social and political competition among themselves. This, I believe, were some of Pa Enahoro’s passionate ideas that were neglected, rejected and frustrated by his closest political friends, who now are gathering in the public, wearing fake sympathy for a man that languished and died labouring to be heard.

Indeed, many ideas that would have truly developed Nigeria have been so killed. Remember Obafemi Awolowo, Anthony Enahoro, Pius Okigbo, Odemegwu Ojukwu, Aminu Kano, Obi Wali, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Claude Ake, Bola Ige, Gani Fawehinmi and Fela Kuti. Compare their ideas with what Nigeria glorifies and implements today – which is better?

The simple truth is that as long as what we adopt today in Nigeria is not leading the country near true development, then the alternative may be better. To continue to neglect, reject and frustrate the alternative and thereby one way or the other killing its messengers, so long shall Nigeria continue killing themselves in Jos, Kano, Ngelzerma, Ife-Modakeke, Aguleri-Amuleri, Zango-Kataf, Zaki-Biam, Bauchi, Maiduguri, Odi, Umuechem, Ogoni, Choba, Okrika, Rebisi, Emohua, Ogbogoro, Yenegoa, Rumuekpe, Lagos, Abuja, Okene, Warri, Tivland and Idomaland. These are signs of deep-rooted socio-political issues that have not been resolved and cannot be resolved using the existing method of forced unity. Forced unity had served us to survive a civil war; after that unity, what next? It certainly is day-dreaming to see the issues resolved and true unity achieved without the consensus of the native peoples of Nigeria. To think that Nigeria can become peacefully united without consensus means that we either do not know history or we do not appreciate it.

Pa Enahoro surely would have lived longer if his ideas had at least been given national attention. This was the energetic Enahoro who was bold enough in 1956 to move the motion for the political independence of Nigeria. The over four decades of frustration of his ideas may have contributed significantly to his death. Psychologists should tell us whether or not the frustration of a man’s ideas leads to longevity of life. Those who frustrated his ideas are his true enemies, and indeed the obscure enemies of a true federal Nigeria. They are all those who ensured that his ideas never saw the light of the day, yet they are now the ones writing and publishing beautiful tributes. They are those who attended the service of songs (hearty laughs) in his honour. They are donating private and or public funds for his burial and upkeep of his family. They are those who mill around the family of Enahoro proclaiming serious sympathy they truly never had for him. They are his ‘Brutuses’. Just like Awolowo, they ensured that his ideas and he himself were killed and frustrated respectively; now they pay steady lip service to his ideas just to attract votes and popularity. To Bola Ige, they were those who danced at his grave side. To Obi Wali, they even laughed and ate at his grave side, besides dancing there.

These indescribable characters rule Nigeria; theirs is politics without politics as represented in empty posters. They belong to the top-most secret societies and cult groups in the world. They claim to be lovers of Nigeria, when they are not. They are too endeared to individual justice than social justice. They ignorantly preach diseases and measures (HIV/AIDS and reproductive healthcare) that will gradually kill and wipe out Nigerians. They preach violence or prosperity, neither of which will ever bring God’s kingdom on earth. They make suggestions (in the name of professionalism) that are not realistic to Nigeria’s problems. Their understanding of development is only to the extent of copying what other nations are doing, with no originality in thoughts and thinking. Their idea of development starts and ends in infrastructure building, when they know that infrastructure merely facilitates development and cannot be development in itself. They preach economics without society. They preach federalism without voluntarism and consensus. They preach and implement irrelevant education that manufactures unemployment in Nigeria. They have no regard for human dignity, otherwise why should their own children dress naked on the streets of Nigeria. They do virtually nothing about the steady killings of Nigerians by Nigerians. They hardly understand the basic tenets of democracy, capitalism or even socialism. They are empty heads that do not know that every good nation functions through ideas. They hate discussion, hence they encourage or fight more often. They constitute the real troubles cutting down the hands, legs and heads of Nigerians. They are the reason Nigeria is standing upside-down. They are the real challenge to the true survival of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They should be squarely held responsible for whatever happens to Nigeria.

Nigerian critical minds and well-meaning sons and daughters of Africa’s most populous nation must arise, intervene and interrogate these questionable characters of Nigeria who have kept Nigeria where she ought not to be: an underdeveloped country with huge potential for true development. Let us die today so that our children can have something called tomorrow, because to our creator, the latter is more important than the former.

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