Nigeria Content Online

A
very interesting drama is being played out in the US state of Arizona
as we speak, and the causes and effects of this drama will reverberate
on a global scale, especially in the coming decades as populations
grow, and resources become scarcer.

You see, Arizona’s
budget deficit for 2009 was $1.7 billion which was one of the largest
in the US. As of June of this year, the unemployment rate is 9.6% and
rising. Governor Jan Brewer’s administration is also the largest
employer by far in the state, the second largest employer in the state
happens to be Wal-Mart with 17,343 employees as at 2008 from a
population of almost 7 million. This paints a pretty bleak picture for
Arizona’s prospects, and the state government has chosen to go down the
well worn path of xenophobia.

Immigration has
always been an issue of contention wherever it rears its head. Indeed,
history is full of cases of a failing government blaming the easiest
targets for its failure, and appealing to the innate xenophobic
sentiments in all human beings to explain away its failures.

After the First
World War, Germany was hit by a major depression. Part of the cause of
this depression were the murderous penalties imposed by the
‘victorious’ allies at the end of the Great War. In Germany of the
time, saving for the future was an exercise in stupidity as the price
of bread for example topped a million marks in soaring rate of
inflation never before or since. People needed someone to turn to, and
only one person appeared to make sense of all the rubbish that was
happening. He said, “blame the Jews, blame the foreign powers, blame
everyone else but us,” and the people listened. In 1933 the man swept
to power, and by the time he was bundled out by a combined effort of
world powers twelve years later, close to 60 million souls had been
shuffled screaming and kicking off the mortal coil.

Throughout
history, leaders have conveniently used the scapegoat of the foreigner
to explain away their inadequacies. The Russian Tsars did it, Napoleon
did it, American leaders were fond of doing it (1891 comes to mind),
Nigerians have done it (within our little ethnic enclaves, and who can
forget the Ghana-must-go fiasco?), and now the Arizonans are toeing the
same line.

However, what
concerns me is the line about Nigerian enclaves. You see, for too long
in this country, we have let the dangerous part of immigration in our
relatively new nation (internal immigration) fester for a long time
with no attempt whatsoever to contain it. I as an example, having been
born and spent a greater part of my life in Edo state, cannot claim to
be a citizen of that state. I have to go a few miles east in order to
exercise one of my major democratic rights, the right to stand for
office and be voted for.

Nigeria would have been a much better country if people we allowed to indigenise in whatever state they chose to settle in.

It is that
indigene-settler dichotomy that has brought us to this precarious
position on which we stand, and we have already seen the manifestations
of this madness in Jos. People who have lived in Jos for close to a
century are still not thought of as coming from there, with the result
being that periodic fights break out over the control of resources
which are getting scarcer and scarcer.

This problem is
only going to get worse in Nigeria over the next decade or two, and we
are already seeing the signs of what will happen in the furthest
regions of northern Nigeria. Look around you in Lagos, and indeed all
over the south of the country. The Fulani herdsmen who used to come
down South only in the dry season are here almost all year round
nowadays. They are not seen by the locals as being one and the same (we
are all from Nigeria), but as foreigners, so periodically, fights break
out and people die.

You see, as a
result of a triple whammy of bad policies by inept politicians and
desertification, the north of Nigeria is gradually shutting down. The
Sahara desert is inexorably moving south in the core northern states.
As is usual, we have no policy in place to check it. Where there might
be a policy, it exists only on paper. Northern Nigeria if this
situation continues will be unable to feed itself in another decade or
two as land is eroded away. Populations will move southward in search
of more habitable climes. That would bring more of them in contact with
those people who they are already fighting in the Jos area, and some
from both sets of people will move even further south to escape the
fighting that must break out.

On going further south, they would meet even more conflict.

Think this is an apocalyptic scenario? Consider that in another
decade we should be knocking on the 300 million population mark…