Barrel of the gun

If you are not part of the steam-roller, you’re part of the road. Anonymous

        There was good news and bad news at the end of the first year of the Buhari presidency. The good news was that the nation had a fairly good idea of the magnitude of its problems. The bad news was that some citizens did not accept that the nation had enough problems. In the next year, and until 2019, President Buhari will attempt to manage an extremely challenging economic environment, threats to national security and mind-boggling systemic corruption that had stripped the nation bare. These are times that will test the capacity of the administration to engage on multiple fronts and levels. The last few weeks suggest that the administration is coming to terms with key economic management issues that ought to have been taken on earlier. Deregulation and other key reforms in the oil sector, and decisions on devaluation will remove major liabilities on managing an economy that was limping on very slippery grounds. Now Nigerians can live with an economy that is genuinely in recession, and governments can push through policies that are consistent with this reality.

The challenges of rebuilding infrastructure and institutions, sustaining the successful campaign against an insurgency that had the nation on the run and building accountability and integrity into the governance process are being compounded by new threats to national security and an economy already on its knees. Some years ago, the Niger Delta was the major threater of conflict. Peace of sorts was secured through a difficult process of engagement, negotiation and major concessions to people under arms and the communities they claimed to speak for. Guns and bombs then moved north in the name of an insurgency that had a vaguely-defined goal of defeating the Nigerian state. It was fed in part by the failure of leadership and in part by its novelty. Many varieties of breaches of internal security threatened to become permanent features of lives of Nigerians. The electoral process, never far from being hostage to violence, was increasingly becoming swamped to a point where large numbers of Nigerians have virtually given up voting and defending their votes. At this stage, it is safer to bet that a repeat election will end as inconclusive, such is the fear that voters and officials could lose limbs or lives while exercising their rights to choose leaders.

The nation faces the danger of its energy and resources being hijacked by the pursuit of solutions to multiple sources of threats and violence alone. It is important to recognize the potential damage from this danger to the capacities of a leadership that ought to primarily focus on economic reconstruction and rehabilitation. Those who are firing and bombing their ways to recognition, relevance and influence are coldly calculating their chances of tying up this administration around fighting them in much of the country as its sole preoccupation. It is not idle speculation to inquire over timing and motives, although even the most generous analyses will see attempts to frustrate a government that has set vital, strategic goals. These include the imperatives of raising the bar in the quality of governance and ensuring accountability and restitution where it has been made necessary under the law, as well as a commitment to strengthen the state’s capacity to protect citizens.

The neo-Biafra agitation has two levels. Those who believe they can violently excise a huge part of Nigeria on behalf of millions of Nigerians from whom they have no mandate are involved in treason. Many are already facing the laws of the land, and it will make no sense to encourage government to release persons who will promptly mobilize others to commit the same crimes. There is a layer behind the agitators which makes the case that more economic and political concessions to the Eastern States will destroy the case being made for Biafra. This is the layer that will say, for instance, that an additional State in the East will dampen Igbo agitation for equity. It will say more political appointments will assuage grievances over marginalization. It will insist that massive, additional investments in roads and other infrastructure will reinforce Igbo perception that Nigeria has a place for Igbo. It will even make the case that wholesale pardon for Nnamdi Kanu and his comrades will signal a willingness to tolerate and accommodate dissent from a nation that had pardoned Niger Delta militancy.

The President should engage and discuss with leaders and elders from the East who have views on dealing with the neo-Biafra agitation. Similarly, those who feel they can offer suggestions on stopping the destructive carnage going on in parts of the Niger Delta should be granted a hearing. It will be vital to speak only with people who denounce violence as an end to political goals; who believe that changes in the manner the nation is structured and run need to be negotiated; and who recognize that all sections of the country have their own shopping lists of grievances and their solutions. If there are productive alternatives to the use of force in dealing with people who have taken up arms to extract concessions from other Nigerians, they should be explored.

Where most Nigerians will draw the line is around conceding that the fight against corruption must have permanent and insurmountable geo-political barriers. Demands backed by violence which will translate into major political concessions will not be supported by most Nigerians. Cynical manipulation of familiar faultlines by very powerful people running either from the law of their legacies will be resisted. Those who will make the case that every new threat should be tolerated or bought over because the nation has enough on its plate fail to recognize the reality that this is precisely the goals of the people behind these threats.

There are many options to take up in dealing with threats, and the barrel of the gun is a poor option. There are many patriotic Nigerians from the East who recognize the danger behind the neo-Biafra adventure. These are the groups President Buhari should engage to distance mainstream opinion and millions of Igbo people from Kanu and his comrades. No one, however, should underrate the resolve of Nigerians not to yield to the barrel of the gun as the key element in deciding how we live with each other. There are also many people from the Niger Delta with the capacity to mediate and rein-in the elements destroying their communities’ only assets and the nation’s current economic lifeline. These persons need to be encouraged and mobilized by the administration, to the extent that they recognize that the only option to the immediate cessation of destructive action going on in the region is prolonged and pronounced military engagement and destruction of economic assets and the peace and livelihood of local communities.

Barrels of guns are being thrust in the face of Nigerians criminals and people who have political goals to achieve. A barrel can be neutralized by another barrel, or by other means that will render all barrels irrelevant or unnecessary. Nigerians will hope that they are not confronted with more conflicts they have to fight, and they will trust the administration to explore all avenues to resolve both old and new conflicts. The biggest battle ahead is one that involves building an economy and a nation that will address the future of young Nigerians, wherever they are. In this battle, no one should be a spectator.