Until the lions appoint their own historian, the history of the hunt will always favor the hunters …. CHINUA ACHEBE There are 4 basic truths
Until the lions appoint their own historian, the history of the hunt will always favor the hunters
…. CHINUA ACHEBE
There are 4 basic truths upon which this discourse shall be built, the 1st is that African nations will continue to falter until we understand the power of ideas, ideologies, and ideals. Everything in existence was once an idea in someone’s mind!
That list would include the clothes on your back, the chair you are seated on, and yes, the nation in which you live. We need to birth a new Nigeria because the Nigeria we live in today was not an African idea but a British colonial ideal. We need a new Nigeria that is an African idea.
The 2nd is that a faulty foundation will never auto-correct itself just as a lie will never morph itself into truth even after the passage of a thousand years.
The 3rd truth is that history bears witness that Nigeria was deliberately crafted to function as prime deterministic chaos. This means the engineers who designed Nigeria programmed it to keep failing without falling, while they remain in the shadows. Anyone who doubts that such engineering exists should study the programmed disharmony of a double rod pendulum.
The 4th and final cardinal truth is that this present contraption called Nigeria will never be resolved without bloodshed except we do the due diligence to discover its solution algorithms and apply them. The Rubik’s Cube is another good example of a disharmonious contraption constructed in such a way that its original color balance is practically impossible to restore.
Between the mathematical disharmony and its restoration, there are 43 quintillion options. In plain language, twenty generations of good leaders in a family could try but will inevitably fail while a young person of average intelligence could solve the same problem within 10 minutes if the solution algorithms are dictated to him or her.
Behind the veneer of diplomacy, the nations of the world who know these truths are not expecting much from Nigeria. The Nigerian being of African stock is classified as emotive, intuitive, unscientific, and incapable of critical thought.
This is why the leading nations of the world are not at all surprised that many Nigerians are seeking the future in the past! Here again, the Holy Book supplies us with a sound example because the Hebrews that gained freedom from their Egyptian bondage kept longing for a return to captivity every time they faced hardships as it is truly difficult for a broken people to carry the responsibilities of freedom.
True freedom and liberty come with responsibilities that nations who have been subjected to slavery, apartheid, segregation, or colonial rule can hardly muster. International observers believe that it would take a miracle for a nation such as Nigeria to find her true destiny without going cap in hand to the master nations that designed her chaos.
Well, that miracle has arrived and the tip of its spear is named Yigba! Thanks to the modern tools of the digital world that have brought artificial intelligence and deep learning within the grasp of the African world we have been able by God’s grace to retrieve some of the algorithms that otherwise are concealed in the colonial archives of foreign nations in amaze of classified and declassified documents.
The first speaker introduced the subject of an African initiative of Non-Violent communication, this is one of the algorithms that will allow us to revisit the tempestuous past and put closure to thorny issues like the Biafran war. It is obvious that the concept of Biafra like all mental constructs will live forever.
In a similar vein the mental construct of the Oduduwa Republic, the Lower Niger Delta, and other longings can be refined, deconstructed, expanded, and even be improved upon towards the day of reconciliation and inclusion as a step forward in the building of a new nation.
There are roughly about 387 cultural nations in Nigeria, with about 120 of them in the historical South of Nigeria. The divide-and-rule strategy that has lingered till date is one of the forces of disintegration in the soul of Nigeria that has to be deconstructed to make way for progress.
Our Project Yigba is probably the first intangible, non-violent tool that we are deploying into the polity to pave the way for a new nation. Project Yigba is based on a Bond-and-Unite principle that has already proven its worth in the Hausa-Fulani construct.
Our Yigba provides an umbrella for the common interests, needs, and desires of all the cultural nations that hitherto were programmed to fight among themselves. At this point, we may need to explain that Yigba is not an acronym as some would think. It is a seminal expression of unity and original word with a deliberate African twist of the tongue.
We decided to create an original, never-expressed-before word to capture our collective because any other alternative would have provoked the dissensions programmed into the Southern mix of cultural nations. On a lighter note, I recall that the late Odumakin and I had a little disagreement over this when he intoned that Igbayi sounded more acceptable.
My retort was that I was aware of the fact that Igbayi in language meant “these days”! Such a move would definitely have triggered the dog fights programmed into the Southern cultural nations.
Running possible scenarios we dare say that Yigba is one of the possible directions that our African territories would have gone in its own steam if the Arabs and Europeans had not made any interjections but this is a moot point.
Again we would like to press home the point that Yigba is an indigenous African construct based on Non-Violence that was created on the Re-Think Nigeria platform to serve as a retardant to the hate speech, strife, and intolerance that is accelerating the spread of terrorism and bloodshed across the nation.
At this point, we would like to reiterate the fact that Yigba is just one of the algorithms that will help us on the journey towards a new nation.
One of the greatest advantages of such algorithms is the fact that it unites and bonds without altering those identities of the cultural nations involved.
We can see from the Hausa-Fulani construct that is about 200 years old that no single Hausa man has ever become a Fulani on that platform and not one single Fulani has changed into a Hausa person.
It is intangibility that has served to strengthen their ties, amplify their common interests without interfering with their identities.
Yigba has just started out on its learning curve but this gives us the assurance that the Ibibio members of the Yigba do not have to entertain any fears that they would be absorbed into the Igbo or the Edo cultural nations.
Learning from the counsel of HRH Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai who “Nations are only as successful as their younger generations, and achieving success is a national responsibility, not limited to governments only” we want to emphasize that Yigba is all about the best future available for Nigeria.
We want all Nigerian youths to accept the fact that the best future will never be found in the dunghills or prisons of the past, rather the greatest future will always be a function of creativity, innovative leadership, and disciplined execution.
“When you face a challenge that demands a solution or a decision, you have two choices – you can either emulate the example set by others or use your creativity and intelligence to formulate a new idea.”
This again is another counsel we imbibed from HRH Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai. We will learn from the past but our best future from initiatives like Yigba. For us, this is the beginning of a journey, not an end.
We harbor no illusions that there will be obstacles on our way to the new nation, we know there will be hindrances from without and within but we believe we shall succeed.
We want our fellow citizens to accept the fact that Nigeria had liberation heroes but no founding fathers. In the words of admission of one of our heroes past who said “It is incontestable that the British not only made Nigeria but also hand it to our whole on their surrender of power. But the Nigeria, which they handed over to us, had in it the forces of its disintegration.
It is up to contemporary Nigerian leaders to neutralize these forces, preserve the Nigerian inheritance, and make all our people free, forward-looking, and prosperous.” We are praying that Yigba will be a ground on which we can discover those that will help all of us to bond and unite until such patriots will arise as the founding Fathers that our heroes past prayed for.
The three instructions we can cull from those wise words quoted are that Nigeria must first be reprogrammed by Founding fathers, then restructured by statesman before attending to the economic engineering that will benefit the average citizen.
Project Yigba is an exercise in the reprogramming of Nigeria towards the new nation of our dreams. Project Yigba is largely an initiative from non-state actors and we believe that this is an advantage that must be exploited before the next phase of the political restructuring.
We believe that Project Yigba is a small African step in the direction that Zik of Africa and Kwame Nkrumah dreamed of, it’s a substantiation of what Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela craved in their hearts and we have no doubt that M. L. King Jnr, W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey would have been overjoyed to see this development.
Neither the future of Nigeria nor that of Africa will be found in the prison of the past. The best future for all nations and our continent will ever be a function of creativity, innovative leadership, and disciplined execution.
Oladimeji Peter Thompson aka Orakles.
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