AKIN Fapohunda is a chieftain of the Yoruba sociocultural-cum political organisation, Afenifere. He said so himself. He also claims membership of a shadowy and suspect political group which he called Coalition of Indigenous Ethnic Nationalities. He claimed that he was a representative of the indigenous peoples of Nigeria embodied by this fly-by-night group. What he did not say, at least not publicly, was that he had the mandate of the Yoruba nation in his new line of business.
This Fapohunda caught my fancy, and probably the attention of many other Nigerians, last month when he forced himself into the Nigerian media headlines with his snake oil merchandise. He was zealous. He dropped names including that of Nigeria’s President, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He spoke about the urgency of his mission. And why it could not wait. For him Nigeria would be a goner if his restructuring proposal was not adopted immediately and implemented zealously. He strutted around town like the proverbial snake oil merchant. The way Fapohunda went about his new business some three weeks ago, he surely will turn out to be worse than a snake oil salesman.
An online entry says snake oil is a term used to describe ‘deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam. Similarly, snake oil salesman is a common label used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of some valueless or fraudulent cure, remedy, or solution’. It has to be noted that for over three centuries, and even up till today, some merchants have marketed products that they pass as cure all remedies. In Igbo we call such products ‘ogwu nnu oria’. In Europe and the Americas where the term was popularized centuries ago, ‘snake oil used to be sold as a cure-all elixir for many kinds of physiological problems.
Providing further insights, Wikipedia says that ‘Many 19th century United States and 18th century European entrepreneurs advertised and sold mineral oil (often mixed with various active and inactive household herbs, spices, drugs and compounds, but containing no snake-derived substances whatsoever) as snake oil liniment making claims about its efficacy as a panecea’ for all ailments. These merchants were merely masking addictive drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, alcohol, and opium -laced concoctions or elixirs and sold them as medication or products for healthy living.
The ‘snake oil’ and the snake oil salesman are fitting descriptions of the eight-region restructuring proposal and its merchant Fapohunda. Like a fake snake oil, the proposal has no active ingredient (buy-in by real stakeholders); lacks efficacy (contains many loose and hanging parts); cannot be implemented (because it is rigged and riddled with brazen fraud); is unacceptable (because it enjoyed neither transparency nor wide consultations). Now let’s take a peek into (the contraption is so dreadful that it deserves only a furtive look) aspects of the bogus document that the sole vendor said he was on his way to submit to Tinubu last June 14th.
In his proposal Fapohunda’s Southern region will comprise Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, and Cross River states with ‘optional inclusions of the Annang, Effik, Ekoi, Ohaji/Egbema, among others. His ‘South Eastern region’ will consist of the existing Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states. Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo and Ekiti states will form the Western region. And then the ‘Yoruba-speaking people in Kogi state, the Igbomina people in Kwara state, the Itsekiri of Delta state and the Akoko- Edo people of Edo state could be ceded to the Western region.
Then there will be a Mid-Western region comprising Edo and Delta states which could incorporate the Anioma people. He proposes an Eastern Middle Belt region which would include Northern Cross River, Southern Kaduna, Southern Borno, Adamawa, Benue, Kogi, Plateau, Nasarawa and Taraba states. Do not be disconcerted by the mental gymnastics imposed by the Fapohunda eight – region trash because there will also be a Western Middle Belt region made up of Southern Kebbi, parts of Kwara and Niger states, while the North Eastern region will be composed of parts of Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, Jigawa and Yobe states. Kaduna, parts of Kebbi, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara states will form the proposed North Western region. There we have the eight -region proposition of Fapohunda. He then proceeded to mumble some things that he probably believed sufficiently explained his weird cartography. The traditional, cultural and linguistic affinity and religious practices of the various nations in Nigeria that he arbitrarily lumped together counted for nothing in his mumbo jumbo. As Nigeria is, it has not known peace from the whimsical creation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates and their subsequent amalgamation in 1914. This no brainer proposal by this man who identified himself as an Afenifere chieftain will only make a bad situation worse. In spite of his best efforts, Fapohunda’s insane plot will not serve any section of the country any good, not even his Yoruba nation.
Since we are incapable of reading the intentions of Fapohunda and his co-coup plotters, we will make do with the devil in the details of his so-called eight -region document that may indeed have been submitted at the presidency for consideration. As we wrote in this column last week, and we have been consistent about it in the past one year, the Tinubu regime cannot be trusted. It could spring the document on Nigerians as submitted or after modifications for ‘debate’ as the basis for restructuring of the country. Then it will, as we say here, be too late to cry because the head would have been cut off. The claim by the National Assembly (NASS) that it has not received anything that resembles this vexatious document should be disregarded. We do not have a national assembly. We do not have a national parliament. Our NASS is an MDA (ministry/department/agency) under the Executive branch of the regime of Tinubu.
In addition to the incoherence of the eight -region document, there’s yet another thing that will not escape the attention of even the most casual reader of Fapohunda’s restructuring proposal. Virtually all his proposed new regions got communities excised from other areas and added to them bar one – his imaginary South Eastern region. The current South East region is known to have less number of states- five. Other geo-political zones have six states each while the North West zone has seven states. In Fapohunda’s brainless contraption, the South Eastern region will not only retain the five states but some communities will be excised and awarded to another strange region with which they will have little or no affinity. One such community that was proposed for excision is Egbema. Before the Biafra – Nigeria civil war (1967-1970), Egbema was largely one harmonious community in the heart of the Igbo nation. And it bears crude oil. Biafra was defeated in that war and the winners were determined to emasculate and castrate the losers. So Egbema was carved into two unequal halves and the part with substantial deposit of crude oil was ceded to Rivers state. So we have Egbema in Imo State and the same Egbema in Rivers State. To be sure, it’s not unusual to have one community divided between two states but the history and experience of the Igbo-Egbema is not the same with other communities in similar situations.
More than 50 years after Egbema, another one is loading. And from the same geographical space called Imo state. Ohaji is close to Egbema. Often the two communities are usually referred to as Ohaji/Egbema. The eyes of the winners of the civil war are on Ohaji. And the reasons are obvious. The idea in Fapohunda’s restructuring is that Ohaji should be excised from Imo state which will be part of their South Eastern region and then awarded to their new Southern region comprising Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Bayelsa states. Ohaji as a prize is immense. And so to further the castration of the Igbo, Ohaji must be taken away by all means.
To demonstrate the centrality of Ohaji to the viability and relevance of the Igbo nation in the scheme of things today and for the foreseeable future, we will here highlight why the scramble for that troubled community is intense. Ohaji is already one of the hot spots of insecurity in Imo state. And it for a reason. Crude oil extraction and exportation is going out of fashion. This is not to suggest that oil will vanish from the global economy overnight. The world’s appetite for crude oil will endure for decades. But there’s no doubt that more and more people are becoming increasingly sensitive to the deleterious effects of crude extraction to the health of the earth and humanity. And generally on the environment. So there’s a noticeable growing pivot to more environment-friendly alternative energy sources. This is where natural gas comes into play. And this is where Ohaji becomes key to the future of Imo state, the Igbo nation and indeed Nigeria. Going by the last known and verifiable check, Ohaji is sitting on 4.3 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas. Some commentators claim that Ohaji sits on 200 trillion cubic feet or 70% of Nigeria’s reserves of 300 trillion cubic feet of gas. The community also has over 215 million barrels (Mmbbis) of condensate. You can see why Ohaji has not known any sustained period of peace for some years.
An online entry about this time four years ago reported that one of the largest greenfield gas condensate development projects was being undertaken in Ohaji, Imo state. It would have the capacity to produce 600 million cubic feet per day. The report said that the project involved the development of Ohaji South gas and condensate field and the Assa North field. The two fields combined were expected on completion to produce 600 million standard cubic feet per day (Mscfd) of gas which is the equivalent of 2.4 gigawatts of electricity – sufficient power to serve millions of homes. Going by projection, the Assa North/Ohaji South Gas Project (ANOH) was expected to have been completed by 2020 and to start producing ‘between three and 3.4 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day by the end of that same year.
Ohaji is a potent and inevitable game -changer in Nigeria’s evolving future energy mix. So the talk of its possible excision from Imo state and donation to another region outside Igbo land is deliberate and orchestrated. It’s part of the crippling of the Igbo nation, a part of the country that the former president, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s affliction, once described as a ‘dot in a circle’.
Will the Igbo political and governing elite allow Ohaji to become another Egbema? ‘Onye iberibe anaghi ama mgbe ekechara nku ukwa’. The imbecile does not know when the commonwealth is being shared. The scrambling and partitioning of Nigeria is in full steam. But the Igbo are no imbeciles. I pray I am not wrong.
