Introduction
Benue State has been embroiled in
a bitter conflict in the last year which has continued to unleash huge losses
in lives and property across its perimeter. This land is the home of Tiv and
Idoma nations respectively for thousands of years. As part of a sacred geography leading from
the 8o North (Makurdi) southwards and east of the Niger, it forms
part of a unique consistent reality that deserves a better treatment
considering its place in the wider leaking geopolitical umbrella i.e. Nigeria.
Definitions
Geopolitics is not just the
interplay between geography and politics, it goes beyond mere references to
political processes imported under duress to satisfy opportunistic elite and
gullible populations. Gertjan Dijink referred to geopolitics as the assessment of geographic conditions
underlying either the power (security) of a particular state or the balance of
power in the global configuration of continents and oceans. Those who
ignore geography do so at their peril. The point is power, the struggle for
power which no one gives up without a fight.
On our subject, it is easy to
modify the reality in territorial reconfigurations with Nigerian State and the
implications and motivations behind such changes. Benue State or the territory
has a spatial history in the process of Tiv/Idoma Nations → Southern Nigeria →
Northern Region → Benue – Plateau State – Benue State. Sections of its
territory moved between Nigeria and Cameroun before 1960. Nevertheless southern
Nigeria from 8o North formed a consistent geopolitical entity
sheltered more than 75% by maritime envelope against the opposite looming
continental/inland/hinterland reality.
In a geopolitical reality
conditions of viability and consistent security are driven by centripetal forces while instability,
insecurity, disunity and non-cooperation are dominated by centrifugal forces. Where centrifugal forces dominate, the leaders
are mostly pretenders and mercenaries who oversee ambitious and questionable geostrategic policies often ignored by
populations over time. Centrifugal forces is the term adopted for driver of
Nigeria’s deformity & injustice.
Evolving Positions &
Assignments
Given the spatio-temporal
impositions on the Tiv/Idoma nations since Nigeria came into existence, it is
fair to conclude that their location, unique characters and capabilities
counted against them for any geopolitical mind. In addition their leaders are
simple mercenaries till the present. The British exploited these variables by shoving
them from South to North locking them down to an intergenerational spatial
lockdown as a minority. Centrifugal forces placed her territory in a stand-by
mode where it is dominated by fear although given to feigned value and
substance. Of course Joseph Tarka played along! Considering the time these
nations experienced wider global interaction to the present, her economic
development is abysmal.
As Nigeria took her place in the
wider African Shatterbelt area, a
bastion of instability in the compression
zone due to consistent internal disequilibrum; Tiv/Idoma nation where assigned
undertaker roles. As Nigeria exploded naturally post-independence, they were mobilised
to defend the state and contributed most in the machine that industrially mowed
down their immediate southern neighbours 1967 – 1970. Unity of bipolar world
played its part at the time.
With a fancy name of Bread Basket in the post Nigeria-Biafra
War era; the anticipated reform, revitalisation and innovation of the space as
the unique strategic food producer of the world never coughed. Rather the likes
of the committee chairman accepted to bury Abandoned Property with more
questions than answers in 1979. Another undertaker acting for centrifugal
forces no doubt! Apparently the political realities over time continued to
drift with poor physical footprint and diminishing economic uplift suggesting a
waiting game. More people continued to leave than enter the Tiv/Idoma space,
with limited infrastructure to sustain her potential as sustained value
generator.
Harvest & Method
The return of civilian dressers
to Nigeria’s power machine accelerated a new order. It is fair to state that
Benue State mercenaries never sought rapprochement with their southern
neighbours, record doesn’t exist of a viable understanding with the Yoruba
nation while dividends of their subordinate investment to their northern
neighbours remain questionable. Their clinical execution of State assignments
deserves them a better deal, while centrifugal forces played for time.
When time came, a low intensity
pre-emptive conflict opened up against Tiv/Idoma nations destroying, killing
and maiming. Nothing is held sacred by the unknown (self-organised) aggressors
but the victims are the defenceless men, women, youth and children up and down the
nations. If it were a declared ‘war’, these unfortunate nations never heard the
announcement. Blood is flowing unstoppable in the lands with Makurdi confused
and Abuja indifferent. Media reports are measured. Yaoundé is not involved, it is
totally an internal affair of Nigeria. The justice system is dazed & ill.
Tiv/Idoma elite including
mercenaries and pretenders are either disinterested or shell-shocked like
generals incapable of strategic vision. Their reported reminder to global powers
reads frustration. Certainly Benue State is reconquered for a new assignment!
Consolidation of 2nd colonisation! Where Tiv/Idoma nations insiders in Nigeria?
Uncertain Future
One day blood flow of the
innocent will stop, in the meantime the youth and able are emigrating in large
numbers. Instability and insecurity has descended on the Tiv/Idoma nations for
at least 2 more generations. The currency of their geopolitical allegiance is damaged
beyond repair, so the new leaders in the remaining youth must come up with a
new reconfiguration rather than another imposed gambit. There is power struggle
for the soul of Tiv/Idoma nations, for her rich land, her natural resources and
her strategic location. Who will rewrite their new history, aggressor or
victim?
Conclusion
Will the winner consolidate in
Benue State or rather play for time in a march to the sea? The latter is quite
a geopolitical scenario easy to dismiss by basket mouths! How could a maritime
culture be rapidly dismantled in the 21st century by continental
apparatchiks backed centrifugal forces? Look again at history and geopolitics
for the living to hold the fort and the dead to rest in peace.
