NIGERIA’S ETHNIC tensions are not being overtly replicated in Ireland, but debate is furious over a call to divide the country, say community members.
Controversial Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi recently suggested that Nigeria be split, following Christian-Muslim clashes that are also being linked to economic factors.
Waheed Mudah, chairman of the Nigerians In Diaspora Organisation Europe (Nidoe) Ireland, said the body “condemns” Gaddafi’s views, and contended that “deep-down, most Nigerians know that unity is non-negotiable”.
Mudah said “very many countries have internal problems” and that “in time it will come to pass”.
He added that the suggestion of splitting Nigeria into northern Muslim and southern Christian nations would “never work” as significant populations of Muslims live in the south, and vice versa.
Mudah, a Yoruba Muslim from Kwara State, said ethnic or religious tensions were not present among Ireland’s Nigerians.
“No. Let me tell you something – all Nigerians outside of Nigeria consider themselves as one.”
Few Hausas, who are mostly Muslim, live in Ireland, although a small population of Muslim Yorubas is based here.
Community sources say that anti-Hausa texts have been circulated to Nigerians in Ireland – who are mostly Christian Igbos and Yorubas – but no major tensions have emerged.
However, one source (who did not want to be named) underlined that bad relations between Nigerian tribes in Ireland are sometimes evident.
“People who are saying there’s no tensions between different Nigerian ethnic groups are not being honest to themselves, or they are living in ivory towers,” said one Dublin-based Igbo. “I have witnessed Yorubas calling Igbos names, and vice versa.”
The source said this interaction often involved the use of dismissively toned references, such as “that Igboman” or “Forget about him, he’s a Yorubaman”, and doubts over the “reliability” of people from a particular tribe.
Meanwhile, debate has been escalating among Nigerians as to the merits of Gaddafi’s remarks.
Dundalk-based George Enyaozu, who ran for the Green Party in last year’s local elections and is an Igbo Christian, commented: “The truth is Nigeria’s not working and it’s not going to work, It’ll take courage for people to stand up and say that this is the truth.”
He said Nigeria is divided along ethnic, cultural and religious lines, with three main tribes – the Igbos in the east, Hausas in the north, and Yorubas in the west.
Enyaozu, from Imo State and a supporter of Biafra, said Nigerians of different backgrounds in Ireland are aware of his views.
“One of my best friends is Yoruba, and they also know my political thinking. In fact, a lot of Yorubas believe in having a Yoruba nation.”
Some say Nigeria is the “creation of God”, he added, “but if Nigeria is the creation of God, why would thousands of Nigerians get killed every year [in clashes]?”
Musa Aboki, who is a Christian Hausa, said Nigeria’s chief problem is “greed”.
He explained: “The problem with Nigeria is that a group of people from each and every ethnic tribe are very selfish and greedy. We have all the resources that make it easy to make one united great Nigeria. It is better if we are united than to divide it. ”
Aboki said tensions between tribes in Nigeria were largely political, and “all these problems are based on the scour for services.”
He also wondered how a divided Nigeria could evenly distribute resources when its oil-production is largely concentrated in the southern Niger Delta area.
But Jos-born playwright Bisi Adigun, of Christian Yoruba background, said Nigerians must debate Gaddafi’s suggestion, and compared Nigeria to the doomed marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana: “It looks like a good marriage from the outside but inside they are killing themselves.”
He said it is vital for an open debate on Nigeria’s future direction, and suggested that the creation of autonomous regions could be a solution.
“It is important to sit down and discuss what are the problems – and have we actually moved on from the Biafran war?”
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, was created as a British-administered colony in 1914. Attaining independence in 1960, it erupted into civil war in 1967 after the Igbo-dominated east declared itself as the independent republic of Biafra. Over 2 million people died in the ensuing civil war.
Officials from the country’s north have dominated key government positions since the end of military rule in 1999, although acting president Goodluck Jonathan hails from the south.
