Ethnic Militias and Sub-Nationalism in Nigeria: a comparative Study of massob and opc
Table 4:8 Militia Members’ Activities/Commitment
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- Table 4:9: Indicators of Militias Behavioural Responses
- Figure 4: 9a MASSOB Memberss Behavioural Attitude
- 4:2 Discussions of Findings 4:2:1 Objectives and Goals of the Organizations
Table 4:8 Militia Members’ Activities/Commitment
Figure 4:8a Comparison of MASSOB and OPC Members Activities 
Figure 4:8b Comparison of MASSOB and OPC Devotion of Time to Group Activity 
Figure 4:8c Comparison of MASSOB and OPC Received Training Type 
The questions addressing the commitment of OPC and MASSOB members to the organizations also show variations between the two groups as indicated in table 4:8. For instance, about 83 percent of OPC respondents said they were active in cultural activities which is one of the cardinal objectives of post-democracy OPC following the re-invention of the organization after the election of a Yoruba as president. The OPC has been very active in promotion of such festivals as the Osun-osogbo with the aim of saving the Yoruba culture from extinction. The case is not the same with MASSOB that has not projected any Pan-Igbo cultural agenda (22 percent of MASSOB also fall into the same category). The reason may lie with each member of MASSOB who holds the view that their commitment in the organization’s activities is to save Igbo culture which they believe would be better protected under a Biafran state. From table 4:8, we also observed that the number of our respondents who confirmed participation in spiritual activities is significant for both organizations. We have noted earlier that the OPC is mystified and believes in the efficacy of charms and ‘juju’as protection for the sometimes dangerous activities it performs including crime fighting and vigilantism. Therefore the nearly 49 percent of OPC respondents who affirmed participating in spiritual activities may not be surprising, but even a slightly higher number of MASSOB respondents affirmed participation in spiritual activities. Though MASSOB members are exposed to life threatening risks especially with security operatives, the generality of the public do not see them as a mystified organization in the mould of the OPC. If that is the case, what would be the explanation for MASSOB comparable number of respondents who claimed that they participate in spiritual activities? Eze Emmanuel Okonkwo of Okwe autonomous community in Imo state provided a clue to this puzzle when he claimed that the group disarmed a detachment of military officers that was sent to disrupt their monthly meeting at Okwe before the 2003 general elections. According to him, MASSOB members are fortified against bullets and ammunitions (Okonkwo 2007). This claim is corroborated by the pact between the MASSOB and the Egbesu, the Ijaw god of justice, which provides spiritual backing to the Niger Delta militants. The number of OPC respondents who said they participate in crime fighting is by far higher than those of MASSOB. That is 70 percent to about 13 percent respectively. The variation is very obvious. It is as a result of the fact that one of OPC’s cardinal objectives is to rid the south west of criminal elements and anti-social behaviours (Adams 2008). Towards this end, OPC members engage in activities such as guarding of streets, crime bursting, and dispute settlement among other social services. As a strategy, the OPC has used these activities to remain relevant to its micro–group (Faseun 2008). MASSOB has not been all out for this kind of activities except occasionally, such as its quest to dislodge NARTO from markets in Onitsha. Therefore, the insignificant number of MASSOB respondents compared to the OPC becomes understandable. The same with the number of OPC members who said they participate in providing security (73 percent) against 34 percent of MASSOB. MASSOB number is significant because a good number of them are in the security sub-group of the organization whose assignment is to guard MASSOB officials and MASSOB meetings (Anayo 2007, Onuegbu 2008). The number of OPC respondents who affirmed participating in actions against other groups is far higher than MASSOB-62 percent to 12 percent respectively. The difference is not surprising because there have been reports of inter-OPC clashes as well as with other ethnic groups and the police at various times (Fseun 2005:2566). MASSOB on the other hand has not been involved in as many clashes except the occasional skirmishes with security operatives. This explains why the number of OPC respondents who said they devote between 7-8 hours to activities of the organization were higher than those that chose the other range of time. For MASSOB the highest numbers are those that devote 3-4 hours which correspond to the duration of time MASSOB’s weekly meetings normally last. For OPC members who engage in vigilantism, the whole night hours could be devoted to guarding the neighbourhood while in some streets, it can last for the whole day (Fabiyi 2004). The last set of questions as indicated in table 8 attempted to find out whether our OPC and MASSOB respondents have undergone training as members of both organization given the nature of their activities. The result shows that most OPC and MASSOB members claimed that they have not been trained on use of ammunition even though both organizations have been involved in violent activities that require use of arms. However the responses from our survey indicate that formal training is not part of the activities within these organizations. Yet some form of training is still carried out by the organizations. For the OPC, about 15 percent of respondents said they have undergone training on the use of traditional means of protection. This claim is supported by Otunba Gani Adams who claimed that every member of OPCmust go through initiation before they can be fully accepted as members (Adams 2008). For MASSOB, it is about 7 percent of the respondents that said they have undergone training on use of traditional means of protection. That explains why a higher number of OPC respondents, about 17 percent affirmed receiving some form of training that protects them in combat as against 12 percent of MASSOB respondents. About 10 percent of OPC respondents said they have received training on use of arms whereas no MASSOB respondent claim to have received this kind of training. This variation between MASSOB and OPC can be explained from the fact that OPC members undertake crime fighting and vigilante activities which require the use of ammunition and small weapons (Nolte 2007). Therefore, passing through some level of training on how to handle the weapons might not be out of place. That should explain why we have a higher number of OPC members responding in the affirmative even though on a general note the number is very insignificant. Table 4:9: Indicators of Militias Behavioural Responses
Figure 4: 9a MASSOB Members's Behavioural Attitude 
Figure 9b OPC Member's Behavioural Attitude 
From Table 4:9, we observed that the behavioural responses of our respondents towards the Nigerian polical system is low and accounts for why it is easy for the people to be mobilized against the country. For both organizations, the response from our sample population shows a negative view of the country vis-à-vis their ethnic groups. However there are variations between MASSOB and OPC which reflected the ideological bents of both organizations and their professed objectives. For instance, on the question of whether secession would be favourable to their ethnic group, MASSOB respondents were unanimously affirmative on that issue, whereas a significant proportion of OPC members do not subscribe to the idea of an Oduduwa Republic over Nigeria. About 76 percent of OPC respondents as against about 24 percent felt that the Yoruba would be better off in a united Nigeria. However, a significant proportion of them are of the view that Nigeria as presently constituted is not fair to the Yoruba ethnic group. The reason why some OPC members feel that the Yoruba are having a fair deal in Nigeria may not be unconnected to the event of 1999 when the Yoruba ethnic group was pacified to produce the president of the country for eight years. When asked whether there are federal government policies that are not fair to their ethnic groups, MASSOB respondents were unanimous in saying ‘yes’, whereas within the OPC about 21 percent are of the view that federal government policies are fair to their ethnic group even though a significant majority of about 78 percent feel otherwise. When asked to list those policies, we got the following results; For MASSOB: 1. Non representation of Igbo in the federal Security Council and marginalization in security agencies. This view may not stand any more given the recent appointments of Igbo sons to head security agencies, including the appointment of Major General Ihejirika to head the most sensitive Chief of Army Staff in September, 2010. 2. Revenue Sharing policy and poor representation in public service. 3. Non-citing of federal government projects in Igbo land 4. Political marginalization of Igbo 5. Non Location of military outpost and schools in the south east 6. Discriminatory education/admission policies into federal schools, notwithstanding the federal government policy on admission based on a ratio of of 45% merit, 35% catchment and 20% educationally less developed areas. This is because Igbo speaking states tend to produce the highest number of qualified school levers, many of them are denied admission into tertiary institutions annually. 7. Infrastructural neglect in roads, rail, electricity etc 8. Neglect to tackle environmental menace in Igbo land. For OPC: 1. Federal character and Quota system. The choice of this is understandable given the fact that the Yoruba leads other ethnic groups in educational attainment. It therefore makes them the worst victim of this system in the sense that most of their qualified sons and daughters are frustrated when it is applied for recruitment and promotion in federal institutions, even though; it was originally instituted to prevent domination of one group over the others, given the disparity in local government distribution, it favours of the north. 2. Inequitable revenue sharing formula/Value Added Tax. 3. Neglect of federal roads and buildings in Lagos. 4. Imposition of quasi-unitary structure in Nigeria. These tones of responses clearly indicate why it would be easy for these people who constitute the bulk of membership of the two organizations to be easily intrumentalized by the elite of their ethnic group who are frustrated by the prevalent political configuration in the country. The dominant behavioural attitude towards the direction the country is heading shows that these people are alienated from the political process and do not feel some sense of belonging. These feelings ultimately relates to issues that have been categorized as the Nigerian national question as the root of subnationalism in the country. 4:2 Discussions of Findings 4:2:1 Objectives and Goals of the Organizations Our focus here is to identify the ideological orientation that informed the formation of MASSOB and OPC and then determine its relationship to subnationalism in Nigeria. We shall also strive to establish the root causes of subnationalism in Nigeria and the factors responsible for its metamorphosis into, the current form as expressed in the formation and activities of both OPC and MASSOB. This approach will enable us to partly dissect the main objective of this study which assesses ethnic militia and subnationalism in Nigeria. Subnationalism is the movement of peoples to "exit" or pursue independent statehood or regional autonomy within a multiethnic or multi-religious state (Kourvetaris 1996). According to Forest (2004), there are five main determinants of subnationalism which include: democratization, human rights, self-determination, modernization/development and the emergence of regional powers. Subnationalism occurs in plural societies when one sub-group advances causes against others so as to achieve outright territorial autonomy within existing nation-state or secede from that nation-state to establish a new nation (Forest 2004). Premdas (1990:14-16) identified five major factors that contribute to the development of these movements, they include;
According to Connor (1991) subnationalism are movements for autonomy or independence organized along linguistic, ethnic, religious or cultural lines for economic and political advantages. Some scholars have identified modernization as significant in fostering subnationalism in the sense that communication and increased inter-group contact reinforces, rather than weakens solidarity among ethnic groups around the world and here the model of economic competition comes to the fore as the works of Olzak 1981, Nagel 1993, Jalili &Lipset 1992 lend credence. Under this scenario, the kind of conflict that emerges is that which stems from contention for state power among communal groups in what Gurr (1994) had termed people against the state. This is so because competition among communal groups for state power produces an ethnic group that appropriates state power which it uses to favour members of its group and discriminates against other groups while dispensing state resources. The reasons behind the predominance of the ethnic group over the state was the subject of a penetrating study by Peter Ekeh in which he concluded that the problems are caused by the existence of two "publics," the state and the tribe with the tribe as the "moral" public while the state is amoral (Ekeh 1998).Therefore, "while most Africans bend over backwards to benefit and sustain their primordial publics [i.e., tribes], they seek to gain from the civic public". This creates the condition for competition between the state and the tribe in which the tribe, with its greater moral imperative, eventually wins. The commitment of loyalty to the tribe at the expense of the state ultimately leads to the inefficiency of the public sector and corruption making ethnicity the major problem of the polity. This development frequently occurs when an ethnic group emerges and appropriates the state and its resources to perpetuate dominance and sustain a skewed competition that gives its members advantage over its rivals. This relationship is what has characterized the Nigerian state which was designed to breed inter-ethnic rivalries at the onset so as to promote the interests of the colonialists that created it. We have noted earlier that political independence which superficially united Nigerian ethnic groups was unable to alter this character of the Nigerian state but instead re-inforced the texture of politics where political power was ethnicized (Nnoli 2008). This structure and form of the Nigerian state has remained unchanged, thus sustaining a relationship of inter-ethnic distrust and rivalry, breeding conflicts that has transformed into new dimensions where ethnic militia organizations that operate outside the confines of the law are now at the forefront of subnationalism (Badmus 2006). This has led to a situation where the ethnic group that controls the state uses state power and economic resources to protect the material interests of some members. The result is the institutionalization of the relationship, perpetually re-inforced by economic and political hierarchies, exacerbated by deliberate policies that promote ethnic exclusion and encourage alienation and which ultimately give rise to resistance. The OPC emerged as part of that resistance arising from feelings of injustice in the Nigerian political system. The same is the case with MASSOB though the circumstances that led to the formation of the two organizations vary. In other words, both OPC and MASSOB are manifestations of subnationalism in Nigeria. Issues of ethnic survival were frontal in the formation of the two organizations. For instance, OPC was formed to protect the interests of the Yoruba particularly the revalidation of the annulled presidential election conducted on June 12, 1993 which was won by a Yoruba man. As Guichaoua (2006) has argued, the peculiarities and dynamics that played out in Nigeria during the 1990’s were the immediate condition that warranted OPC’s emergence. But the issue goes beyond those chains of events that singled the Yoruba out as victims. The Yoruba have long seen Hausa-Fulani elite as harbouring agenda to perpetually dominate political power in the country. The point was well articulated by the founder of OPC, Dr Fredrick Faseun who stated that OPC was formed ‘to defend, protect and promote Yoruba interests’. He saw the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election as the point beyond which the Yoruba can no longer endure the assaults unleashed on the race by the Hausa-Fulani ruling elite. The OPC was therefore established to end Hausa-Fulani domination of the country. Faseun and many Yorubas see their ethnic group as the ethnic group that was at the fore front of the vanguard of the struggle for the sovereignty and independence of Nigeria from colonial rule and for establishment of a genuine federal system of government to safeguard the interests of ethnic nationalities in the country. According to Dr Faseun, it was the northern elite that systematically altered this structure and consequently destroyed the basis under which the Yoruba decided to be part of the Nigerian entity. To maintain their domination of the country, they foisted a unitary system on the country in such a way that other ethnic nationalities beside the Hausa-Fulani were relegated to playing second fiddle all of which arose from the belief that Nigeria was a patrimonial gift handed to their forbearers by the British (Faseun 2005:68). OPC from Faseun’s reasoning emerged to redress this notion held by Hausa-Fulani elites. Furthermore, Faseun revealed that the inevitability for an organization in the mould of OPC, draws from the reasoning that if the most erudite and accomplished Yoruba politician in the person of Chief Obafemi Awolowo could not be allowed to rule Nigeria and again the richest Yoruba Chief Moshood Abiola who shared religion, business and women with the Caliphate was prevented from ruling Nigeria, just because he is a Yoruba, then it will be foolhardy to believe that any other Yoruba could be allowed mount the mantle of leadership in the country (Faseun 2005, 2008). To Faseun it was resistance to these acts of injustice, that led to incarceration of Abiola and the subjection of Yoruba people to unprecedented marginalization, harassment and suffering by General Sani Abacha as Yoruba sons and daughters in the armed services, business and civil service faced systematic liquidation through executive murders (Faseun 2005). Otunba Gani Adams had the same mind set as expressed by Faseun. He believes that the OPC was formed purely to defend the Yoruba who were targets of the Nigerian state controlled by the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy (Adams 2008). And from the result of questionnaires administered, these lines of thought were validated because majority of the people, who joined OPC (68 per cent), joined the organization because they believed that the Nigerian state was not treating the Yoruba fairly (Fieldwork 2008). It is therefore, incontrovertible that the formation of OPC in 1994 was an offshoot of subnationalism in Nigeria that has often pitched Nigerian ethnic groups in competition for hegemony. The same is true of MASSOB which was founded in 1999 shortly after the country transited to democracy. Before then the perception of most Igbo people was that their ethnic group has been victims of calculated policies of marginalization and exclusion since the collapse of Biafra. This act of marginalization was meant to prevent them from rising to their pre-war status Nigeria (Ikpeze 2000). This view was not only held by Igbo people, but shared by non-Igbo observers of the Nigerian political system. For instance, Wola Adeyemo a non-Igbo columnists of Tell magazine, posits that the Igbo area suffers neglect in the sense that issues like erosion menace are not checked, industries not provided in the area, combined with the deliberate policy of non-inclusion in the power structure of the country (Adeyemo 2004:18). Re-echoing this view, another non-Igbo, Douglas Oronto expressed the same line of thought when he said thus; “If you look at Nigeria prior to the civil war, you find that the Igbo occupied the top echelons of the military, the civil service and so on. But after the war, they are no where around those cadres of leadership. It took a very long time for the Igbo to begin to demand for presidency” (Cited in Adeyemo 2004:18).
The above indicates that the emergence of the two organizations, OPC and MASSOB were manifestations of subnationalist tendencies in Nigeria which has been with the country since the colonial era, but has steadily transformed into new forms of expression as observed in the two organizations. This new form as it relates to the OPC stems from the need to create a formidable organization that can exert some form of force against the Hausa-Fulani elite using state apparatus to perpetuate their domination of the country. As a social pressure, OPC’s strategy in conjunction with other subtle organizations such as NADECO, JACON and NALICON succeeded in compelling the rest of the country to pacify their ethnic group for the injustice of the annulment of June 12,1993 presidential elections by conceding the presidency to them in 1999. Ralph Uwazurike and his followers as observers of the Nigerian political system may have felt that if a similar militant oriented organization were to be founded for the Igbo people, it will help to advance the interests of the Igbo in Nigeria. However, the objectives of the two organizations are different; the OPC believes that the country can be reformed to accord justice to all ethnic nationalities, particularly the Yoruba. This perversion that was caused by long military rule can only be achieved under a true federation, where the regions as constituent units, shall regain the autonomy they enjoyed during the First Republic. For MASSOB, a reform of the system to accommodate the Igbo is not necessary as they believe that the Igbo are hated and unwanted by other Nigerians. To them therefore, the only way Igbo people can realize their full potential is through actualization of Biafran sovereignty that can defend their interests locally and globally. On this score, there is a clear difference between MASSOB and OPC. While one believes that Nigeria can be made an equitable society with the constituent groups preserving the right to self determination, the other believed that the attainment of an equitable society in Nigeria that guarantees fair deal to certain ethnic groups is not realizable. As such, the only option for such a group is secession from Nigeria. Yüklə 1,11 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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