Being the
impatient and “clever” people that we are, we have tended to always advocate
confederation whenever there was a hiccup in our federal arrangement!
George Kousoulas defines “confederation” as a
“loose association of independent and sovereign states, which goes beyond the
context of alliance by establishing some common political and administrative
organs but without setting up central governmental authorities”.
In comparing
federal unions with confederacies, Karl Deutsch reveals, inter alia, that “states often may secede from
confederacy, if their own governments or voters so decide, whereas such
secession is not permitted in a federal union”.
The European
Union is one example of a confederation, and it should be understood from the
context of the above authoritative definitions why the pull out of a member
nation, Britain being the latest example, has not been a subject of conflict or
acrimony. Britons voted in 2016, albeit
by a small margin, to pull out of the European Union and the process of withdrawal
has since commenced with the triggering of “Article 50” by the former. The Scottish referendum of 2014, also, has to
be understood within the context of the United Kingdom and the nature of laws
and understandings that guide relationships therein.
On the
contrary, the dissolution of a federal union has tended to result from some war
or conflict. The United States of
America is the oldest federal nation in the world, the founding fathers having
rejected the erstwhile Articles of Confederation which did not meet the needs
of a purposeful and dynamic nation. The
attempted secession of 11 southern states in 1860 and 1861 led to the American
Civil War of 1861 to 1865. The
successful prosecution of the war by the federalists firmly established the
indestructibility of the union as a doctrine.
In Texas v White (1869), the United States Supreme Court held that the
USA was an “indestructible union” from which no state can secede. However, the justices commented that
revolution or consent of the states could lead to a successful secession.
Almost 100 years after the American Civil War,
Nigeria fought its own “war of unity” between 1967 and 1970. The federal authorities asserted that the war
was to preserve the “territorial integrity” of Nigeria. With the “indissolubility” of the nation emphatically
inserted in the constitution, it is doubtful if the authorities will acquiesce
in any action or suggestion that directly or indirectly results in the
destruction of the Nigerian state. It is
in this regard that the referendum demanded by the leader of the Indigenous
People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and his co-agitators on the prospect of a
sovereign state of Biafra, might have fallen on deaf ears. The smart bet is that they will not get that
referendum from the Federal Government, and the principle of
self-determination, elegantly crafted in international law, has not been the
easiest of principles to invoke or implement.
However, the
agitators have an option: they could warmly support the restructuring of the
Nigerian federation, as currently being canvassed by politicians. Motives compete and contend in this advocacy;
some proponents genuinely believe that their advocacy will lead to a better and
more stable Nigerian federation, while there are those whose utterances suggest
that they anticipate that such restructuring could lead to their ultimate goal
of breaking up the federation. Beyond
mere sloganeering, the protagonists of restructuring have yet to forcefully
articulate and disseminate their agenda. Of course, some have suggested the
scrapping of the states for new regions and this suggests that they might have
quickly forgotten that some of the states were once violently agitated for by
Nigerians.
Be that as
it may, Kanu and his IPOB have said all they ever advocate is a referendum and
not the restructuring of Nigeria. The
agitators may very well end up engaging the Federal Government in a war that
would eventually decide the fate of their cause. Their leadership seems to have adopted some
stubborn and more militant posturing recently, not least in their declaration
or warning that there would be no election in any part of the South-East
states, beginning with the Anambra State governorship election in November,
unless the Federal Government authorised a referendum on Biafra.
Although
some politicians in the region have voiced their anger at the seeming arrogance
and over-exaggerated feelings of self-importance on the part of Kanu in making
that declaration or warning, it is in effecting it that the entire world will
know or appreciate how determined and prepared the separatists are in daring
the state. When Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu took on the state in 1967, he had a
united Igbo nation behind him as well as an army reasonably prepared for war;
time will tell if Kanu had got what it takes to back what would appear, on
current assumption, to be mere rhetoric and grandstanding.
Dr. Anthony
Akinola, Oxford, United Kingdom
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