The major resistance to the struggle for independence from this Lugardian entrapment called Nigeria will not come from the North, but from their indentured slaves amongst us here in the South.
These happy Southern slaves appear under three broad categorization. They essentially cut across the three major segments or strata of society –The Elites, the Middle class, and The peasants. For the purpose of this narrative, they are tagged the Petty Bourgeois, The Petty Bourgeois Contractors, and the Petty Bourgeois Slaves.
Petty Bourgeois
There is one segment of that unfortunate lot that are fighting against the move with everything in them because of the private gains they enjoy, even as serfs to their Foolani owners. They are the ones who occupy some public office and enjoy one form of government patronage or the other, and their investment in this Manor Farm is substantial enough to get them jittery over the possibility of a dismembered Nigeria. That is quite understandable; they are driven by survival instincts.
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A person like Bola Tinubu (The APC national leader from Osun State) for instance, would give up anything to ensure that the strings that bind the South to the skirts of the North are reinforced and maintained. His ill-gotten stupendous wealth was derived and is being sustained by the Nigerian warped federation. His ambition to succeed General Buhari as President would see him deploy his multibillion-dollar war chest to defend the false unity that was criminally foisted on us in 1914 by Lord Lugard and the British colonialists. He is presently in bed with every single relevant Northern association, pledging his unalloyed allegiance and should they allow him to become president come 2023, how he plans to cede more and more grounds to their already overwhelming power grip on the nation.
Tinubu is just a metaphor for several other Southern political elites who are either in one second or third-rate public office or the other (behind far less qualified Northern Muslims) and are scheming to remain in the corridors of power in the next dispensation, no matter who controls the government.
The Rotimi Amechis of this world are already in the media, chanting the praises of Buhari to high heavens, despite the fact that 90% of the Federal Government construction projects are centered between the North and Niger Republic–the ancestral home of his boss, General Buhari.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on 22 March 2021 joined the fray by declaring that breaking out of Nigeria wasn’t an option for the Yoruba nation. He made the statement while denouncing the declaration made by Sunday Adeyemo (Igboho) on the move to rid Oduduwa (Yoruba) people of the slavish federation they have lived with the Fulanis over the decades.
Also not left out in this category of petty-bourgeois class are traditional rulers
These set of unconstitutional entities are continually being used by their counterparts in government to manipulate the people, and would deploy their local influences to scuttle anything that would threaten the continued flow of their earnings. They are all taking turns to speak against the moves by their people to organise themselves towards the actuality of independence from this unfortunate union. Recently, The Oluwo of Iwo (Oyo State) has been in the news every other day, spewing insanity and casting aspersions on the efforts of Pan-Yoruba national groups, making efforts towards the liberation of their people. This is not to mention the activities of the Ooni of Ife and the conspiratorial silence that is being maintained by all other notable monarchs across the Southern communities.
The Petty Bourgeois Contractors
Again, there is the second segment of this Judas Iscariot descendants who would do anything to ensure “worn Nigeria”–The contractors to the Petty Bourgeois class.
These people are the ones who are so battered by hunger and greed that they don’t mind giving up their fathers’ burial place in exchange for a mess of porridge. The crumbs they enjoy from their contacts in the first segment above such as N-Power, BMC, etc is enough to get them to burn down anything that threatens the continuity of Africa’s largest jungle.
These are the sons of the poor who manage to rise to become heads and influential members of pressure groups such as Students Unions, Civil Society Organisations, Community Associations, Transport Unions, etc. These days they also manifest in form of social media influencers, leaders of thoughts amongst small groups.
These folks are often on the direct payrolls of their Petty Bourgeois bosses. They earn enough to keep their lives running and also sponsor chaos in case of any such eventualities that threaten the continued flow of the crumbs that trickle down to their pockets.
They serve as the eyes and ears of their paymasters, selling to them raw information about any moves the ordinary people might be made to organize and liberate themselves from the stranglehold of the murderous Nigerian State. These ones are also driven by the natural instincts for survival that run in all animals, even though in the long run, we are all diminished in our essences, because of the parochial interests that are being placed over and above the common good of society.
The Bourgeois Slaves
Then there is this third segment that defies any form of rational justification. These are folks who fight daily to survive the pangs of extreme poverty, which is a direct consequence of being born into a destiny-killing society. These ones have no access to anything that falls from the ‘masters’ table‘. They are just too happy to be alive, howbeit without the purpose of fulfillment.
They live in extreme conditions and do odd jobs just to get by daily, despite the qualifications they might have obtained. They form an overwhelming majority of the army of the unemployed/unemployable in the country. Three square meals remain uncertain for them on a daily. They live in slums and many times, die of circumstances that directly border on symptoms of a failed government. They are either direct or remote victims of police brutality or casualties of avoidable road accidents caused by bad roads. Many of them have lost loved ones to activities of bandits and kidnappers, while some others are sick without sufficient funds to access even the comatose health facilities within their neighborhoods. They borrow data to stay on the internet just to keep up with happenings around their environment.
Yet, these same folks are ready to kill and maim anyone who would dare make a move to disrupt the peace of poverty they seem to enjoy. They see their circumstances as the best that fate could offer them, despite being born into a land that flows with “milk and honey”. They believe it is the right of the Petty Bourgeois class to enjoy those benefits on their behalf, while they barely eke out an existence.
They would give you a thousand reasons why it is better to continue to serve the known slavemasters under the present system than face the risk of having worse masters under an uncertain new regime. Those of them from the South West would tell you Jagabandit would be a more benevolent slave master than Sunday Igboho could ever be, should the latter happen to emerges as a leader under a free Oduduwa land. They believe Obiano wouldn’t be as horrible as Nnamdi Kanu could be if he has the chance to actualize and lead an independent Biafran nation. All they seek is a better slavery condition rather than a future of total freedom they are not too sure about.
So, while we continue to make daily progress in our agitations, it is therefore important for us to pay serious attention to all these categories of fifth columnists among us who will do the spoiler’s job in our quest to reclaim the freedom that our fathers once lost to the marauding Fulani hegemonists and their Oyinbo partners.
We must not allow to be in vain, the labours of our forebears who gave their lives to resist the colonial masters when they came to forcibly steal and annex our ancestral lands. Now that they have left the picture and are now running the estate by their proxies from Futa Djalon, the time to reclaim our lands is now and we must be willing to give it all it takes, despite the roles of our misguided brothers.
– Comrade Duke Imevbore