On February 20, the Oodua Peoples Congress issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to release detained factional leaders of the organisation including Dr Frederick Fasehun, Chief Gani Adams, and four others or face stiff resistance. When I read the story, I simply laughed. From October 2005, the Federal Government had decided in its wisdom to arrest the leaders of the principal ethnic militias in the South and charge them for treason. These included Alhaji Mujaheed Dokubo-Asari of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, Ralph Uwazuruike of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, Chief Gani Adams and Dr. Frederick Fasehun of the Oodua Peoples Congress along with some of their lieutenants. For about four months, they have been in and out of the court-room. A Lagos High Court once set Fasehun and Gani free, but the two men were promptly re-arrested by state authorities. Specific charges have been proffered against the accused persons.

The Obasanjo government, by clamping down on the leaders of ethnic militias, has made a strong statement about its determination not to brook any opposition as it sorts out whatever agenda it has in store for Nigerians towards 2007. But why would the same government which once sent a Presidential jet to bring Asari Dokubo to Abuja and treated him as if he were a visiting foreign dignitary suddenly stumble on the fresh wisdom that he poses a threat to the sovereignty of the Nigerian state? Dr Fasheun is being charged for treason but the same Fasehun in 2002 called out OPC members to stage a pro-democracy rally to defend the President when he faced impeachment threats from the National Assembly. Chief Gani Adams who previously had the image of a violent protester has since cultivated a new image as an irridentist statesman and social celebrity, with ready access to the corridors of power.

Another contradiction in the government's clampdown on these ethnic demagogues, is the restriction of the arrests to the South. The Federal Government has identified "traitors" only in the Southern part of the country. But how about similar figures in the North, the sponsors of religious and ethnic violence and criminal violators, in other circumstances, of the Constitution? What is being done is familiar: this is the same old tactics that was adopted in the Ken Saro-Wiwa case: arrest the leader of a movement, throw the rank and file into disarray, divide the country along ethnic lines and retain control. The only limitation is that this approach robs government of an opportunity to address the root causes of ethnic agitation in the country. Every ethnic militia group or religious extremist factions that have emerged in the last few years and before, draw attention ultimately to the fault lines in the Nigerian arrangement.

These fault lines can be traced to years of injustice and inequities during which Nigerian communities lost a sense of oneness. Even the most educated persons in our midst become inaccessible when their narrow ethnic interests are involved. Nigeria is defined as a nation, but it remains an atomistic society built on a foundation of mistrust. The likes of Gani Adams, Asari-Dokubo, Fasehun and Uwazuruike are products of this lack of a grand, unifying sense of national identity. By 1993, the country was so divided, the military had turned the state into an instrument of terror, the collective angst was so pronounced that every ethnic group felt compelled to set up structures to provide a balance of terror option. The militants in the South South acquired arms and ammunitions to enable them defend their territory or take on the state in the event of any aggression. MASSOB emerged to articulate the Igbo identity. The OPC made no pretensions about its readiness to defend Yoruba and Itsekiri interests.

Ordinary clashes between two individuals of different ethnic extraction soon acquired the size of inter-ethnic clashes with casualties on both sides. Why are Nigerians wielding machetes and guns against each other? Why is every ethnic group setting up an army? What has made the average Nigerian to lose faith in the state? How did MASSOB and the OPC become more influential as alternative security and justice administration systems? These are questions that the Obasnajo government needed to address. Admittedly, the Presidency organised several retreats on the issue of national security, but those meetings have not made much difference. Again, why?

Arresting the leaders of these groups, or jailing them is one response which on the surface may seem logical, at least to the extent that a case may be successfully made against them in a court of law. But mere legality complicates the politics of it. And it is not the OPC that draws our attention to this, but the other affected groups. The Oodua People's Congress, we can now affirm is the most frazzled by the counter-offensive of the Obasanjo government. The government's strategy has achieved its effect on it whereas in the Niger Delta, the arrest of Asari Dokubo has not blunted the sharpness of the Niger Delta message to Nigeria. The same can be said for MASSOB and the Igbo protest.

By isolating Asari Dokubo and parading him in court, the Federal Government has turned him into a hero. This is why when he appears in court, he seizes the occasion and plays to the gallery. He defies the Nigerian state and makes inflammatory statements in the court of law. He even wears an Isaac Adaka Boro T-shirt. The people of the Niger Delta to the last man may not agree with his methods but they understand his message. It is a message that touches their own sense of being. For every hostage that is taken in the Niger Delta, that message re-echoes. By the same token, MASSOB has not lost its bite for a minute.

As recently as December 2005, MASSOB asked all Igbos in the East to stay at home in protest against the arrest and trial of Ralph Uwazuruike and other MASSOB members. The order was obeyed. There are excesses in the operations of MASSOB and the constantly mutating Niger Delta militias but there is a grand sense of purpose, a certain psychological connection with the community, a feeling of nationalist identification. When an average Igbo hears MASSOB, he remembers the injustice that he thinks Nigeria has done to him or her as an Igbo person and the complicity of other Nigerians in that assault. When a Niger Delta man or woman sees the young hostage takers of the delta, he may decry the violence, but somewhere in his mind, he or she is likely to say: "serves Nigeria right".

The OPC used to command such feelings but it has lost its hold on the popular imagination. The seeming helplessness of the OPC in the absence of the two factional leaders is a reflection of the reductionism that progressively changed its character into a cult of personality worship and a platform for self-advancement. Originally, the movement had a strong hold on the psyche of the Yoruba community especially during the struggle for the actualisation of June 12. It was seen as the army of the Yoruba against a Northern military oligarchy which had sought to deny the Yoruba their right to the leadership of the country. The OPC like Afenifere, Idile, Agabajo owo, and other self-determination groups defined and promoted an agenda for the Yoruba in the larger Nigerian space. Its leaders wanted a re-negotiation of the national contract. This is the same organisation whose two leaders have been detained by the government, and there is no form of outrage or concern across Yorubaland. Whereas Asari Dokubo and Uwazurike are folk heroes of sorts, it is as if Gani Adams and Fasehun are answering charges of a strictly private nature which have no bearing whatsoever on the Yoruba as a group. There are lessons here for Fasehun and Gani and for all organised mass movements.

This present disconnect between the OPC and the Yoruba community is of its own making and a reflection of the failings of the Yoruba leadership under a Yoruba Presidency. The OPC had set out as a grand defender of ethnic interest, intellectually and physically if the need arose. But it soon became factionalised into not just the Gani Adams and Frederick Fasehun factions; in virtually every ward, similar factions and even intra-cell factions emerged. Being a member or leader of the OPC conferred power and status within the Yoruba community. The Baba Oodua or Iya Oodua in a neighbourhood wielded more power than the Divisional Police Officer in charge of the area. Even the police feared the OPC. But in good time, OPC members demystified and compromised themselves.

The more influence the members and leaders exercised, the farther they moved away from the original focus of the organisation. They became better known as security guards on the payroll of landlords associations or thugs for politicians. The miscreants that swelled the ranks of the body (Lateef Kopagogo's "over five million") crowded out the enlightened set that had initially identified with the OPC. It was inevitable that the government will capitalise on this to discredit the leadership. Gani Adams was once a man on the run. The Obasanjo government also outlawed the OPC.

But by far the biggest threat to the leadership stature of the OPC was its open romance at some point with the same forces it set out to monitor. The OPC made the same mistake as the Alliance for Democracy and the Afenifere. They became apologists for politicians. They fell into the trap of assuming that the tempo and content of the Nigerian debate could be lowered because a Yoruba man is in power: what the Yoruba have summed up in the saying: "omo wa ni e je o se". That is, he is our son, let us support him no matter what he does. The OPC even offered once to go to Abuja to defend the President! In 2003, the Afenifere supported President Obasanjo's second term ambition; they unwittingly destroyed their own party, the Alliance for Democracy in the process. Today, the Afenifere has lost its voice. It no longer speaks with the loudness and clarity of old.

"Omo wa ni e je o se" is a brand of ethnic opportunism which does not guarantee solidarity within the group, but which exposes the shortcomings of the group to other members of the larger community. When another man from another part of Nigeria becomes President in the future and the Yoruba suddenly rediscover their voice, others cannot be blamed if they choose to remind them of their acquiescence when their own man was in power. The Chairman of the National Publicity Committee of the OPC, Mr Lateef Kopagogo had announced the OPC ultimatum which nobody noticed (!) in a holier-than-thou manner that speaks volumes:

"...We want to make it clear that (it is not as if) the over five million OPC members in the South West, not to talk of those in other parts of the country, don't know what to do to correct the gross injustice being meted out to our leaders and members in various detention centres, but we don't want to be seen in the same light (in what light please?). However, we want to say that our patience is being tasked. Without sounding sentimental, we want to tell the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo that when some powerful forces were bent on impeaching him in the year 2002, it is the OPC President Dr Fasehun that called out OPC members in their millions to stage a pro-democracy rally in Lagos."

When all is said and done, the way forward for Nigeria is to address the root-causes of ethnic disaffection, agitation and distrust.

Robot  # 1 | 05.03.2006 02:05

This present disconnect between the OPC and the Yoruba community is of its own making and a reflection of the failings of the Yoruba leadership under a Yoruba Presidency. The OPC had set out as a grand defender of ethnic interest, intellectually and physically if the need arose. But it soon became factionalised into not just the Gani Adams and Frederick Fasehun factions; in virtually every ward, similar factions and even intra-cell factions emerged. Being a member or leader of the OPC conferred power and status within the Yoruba community. The Baba Oodua or I...Read the full article.

Vedan  # 2 | 06.03.2006 03:26

Did anyone notice that for the past six months or so when the OPC leaders have been arrested, there has been little or no clashes between Gani Adams and Fasehun factions, between OPC and Commercial drivers or Okada riders, bewteen OPC and Police etc. Even when two neghbours fight, the OPC has been knwon to descend on the one that does not have OPC connection and roast him or her alive. I had seen an entire building burnt down because it houses an OPC tenant from the wrong faction! Even if their arrest is unjust, the OPC and its leaders have outlived their usefulness. It is good riddance to bad rubbish.

OmoNigeria  # 3 | 07.03.2006 13:14

Reuben Abati is fast turning to an ethnic jingoist. If he is not talking about Yoruba, he is talking about Egba. What on earth has made this once a respected writer turn to all these mess? Is he saying OPC, Egbesu and the rest terrorist organizations are worth celebrating? I hope what someone told me is not true afterall, that Reuben Abati is embittered because he has failed to attract patronage from Abuja. So OPC and indeed Yoruba people should go and carry AK47s and rocket propel grenades because their so called leaders are answering charges. You see, these country will not cease to amaze one. The same writers calling for the rule of law are also calling for the breakdown of law and order in the society. If it's government that is saying this now Abati and his tribe of anti-government writers will cry to high heavens. And he's the same person now saying treasonable charges are not legal. Nigerian media is in a mess!