By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
The novel coronavirus is exposing the fragility of our sense
of nationhood and accelerating the shredding of all pretenses to national unity.
This started more than two weeks ago when the Kano State government “deported”
a man who tested positive for COVID-19 to his home state of Jigawa—in
contravention of both common sense and well-established conventions.
As the chairman of the Jigawa COVID-19 Task Force by the name
of Abba Zakari pointed out on April 17, “The procedure is that wherever a sample is taken for
testing, the result, positive or negative, belongs to that particular state
where the sample was taken from.”
There is, in fact, no
example anywhere in the world where countries deported foreigners in their land
because they tested positive for COVID-19. But in Nigeria, federating units are
openly pathologizing and “deporting” citizens without any consequences.
Note that Kano and Jigawa used to be the same state until August
27, 1991 and are, in fact, culturally, linguistically, and religiously
indistinguishable. Were Nigeria to split, Jigawa and Kano would be in the same
country. As we say in Nigeria, if a crocodile can eat its own eggs, what would
it not do to the flesh of a frog.
No one of consequence in the Nigerian commentariat or in northern
Nigerian political circles condemned Kano State government’s dangerous and illegal
act. Neither the Arewa Consultative Forum nor the Northern Elders’ Forum, to my
knowledge, have denounced the Kano State government.
The Kano State government also opened the floodgates for the
recriminatory “deportations” of almajirai in Nigeria’s northwestern states by
first “deporting” more than 1,000 children to their home states. Apart from
being unconstitutional, it is aiding in the spread of the virus.
This is particularly troubling because Kano is emerging as
not just the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria, it is also
now the super spreader of the virus in the north. It was no surprise when it came
to light that 16 almajirai “deported” from Kano to Kaduna tested positive for COVID-19. We can only imagine what is happening elsewhere.
The Rivers State government has joined the fray and is also
going to “deport” almajirai to their states of origin. “We have also directed
the Commissioner of Social Welfare to round up and deport all vagrants,
including the almajiris, to their states of origin to protect our people from
the threat they present to the transmission of this pandemic,” Governor Nyesom
Wike said on April 27.
The Osun State government on April 27 also signaled its
intention to “deport” northerners in the state, like Lagos State government
attempted in August 2019 decision. The Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor of
Osun State by the name of Adeyanju Biniyo was reported to have said northerners
were "sneaking" into the state and that "all Northern Youth who
had escaped into the state by hiding in trucks" would be fished out and
deported.
Recall that in 2019, the Lagos State government also accused
northerners of “illegal mass movement” into the state. In an August 31, 2019 tweet, the Lagos State
government announced the "Arrest of illegal mass movement of Okada riders
to Lagos from the North jointly coordinated by the State Commissioner for The
Environment and Water Resources, Mr Tunji Bello and his Transportation
counterpart, Dr. Abimbola Oladehinde."
The Zamfara State government is so far the only state
government I am aware of that expressed outrage over the planned “deportation”
of northerners in Osun state. It said it is “disheartening
that Osun State will take the path of isolating assumed outsiders and
segregating what should be a common fight by all Nigerians."
The Zamfara State government’s statement was predictably met
with widespread scorn because of its hypocritical selectivity. It never expressed
similar outrage when the Kano State government “deported” hundreds of almajirai
on account of COVID-19.
In fact, the Kaduna State government sensationalized Nigeria’s
countries-within-a-country absurdity on April 28 when it closed its “borders” and
arrested 100 people “hidden inside a truck coming from Kano, and several others
smuggled from Lagos by a trailer conveying goods to Kano,” according to ChannelsTV. No government, as far as I’m aware, has condemned this.
Since states are not sovereign entities, they can’t have “borders.”
What they have, according to the Nigerian constitution, are “boundaries,” which
they, in fact, have no jurisdictional competence to police. Only the federal
government can, under certain circumstances, impose limits on freedom of
movement within the country.
States can also not “deport” citizens of one state to
another. Deportation means the expulsion of people from one country to another.
It’s both semantically and legally impossible to “deport” citizens of a country
within their own country. That’s both an abuse of the English language and of
the constitution.
Chapter4, Section 41 of the Nigerian Constitution
unambiguously states that, “Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely
throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria
shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom.”
Although I resent the almajiri system, which is basically
unconscionable child abuse that needs to stop forthwith, no state government
has any right under the constitution to “deport” anyone, including the
almajirai, to their home states.
That state governments talk of “borders” and initiate “deportations”
of Nigerian citizens while the federal government continues to pretend that
nothing unusual is going on is all the evidence you need to know that Nigeria
has not even started the process of, nor is it even interested in, becoming a
country.
Yet, one of the most tediously sterile clichés among Nigeria’s
political elites is the notion that the country’s “unity is settled and non-negotiable.”
First, as I’ve stated in previous interventions, nation-building is never
“settled”; it is always in a state of negotiation and renegotiation. To proclaim
that something as potentially fleeting and as emotion-laden as “unity” is
settled and non-negotiable is to betray profound ignorance of how nations are
built and why nations collapse.
Second, unity is never a given and doesn’t spring forth from
the idle fantasies of a country’s self-interested elites. It is consciously
sowed, watered, and nourished by equity, justice, consensus-building, deliberate
healing of the existential wounds that naturally emerge in our interactions as constituents
of a common national space, and by acknowledging and working to tend to our
ethnic, religious, regional, and cultural fissures.
The Nigerian political elites are not prepared for such hard
work. They merely want to wish “unity” into being by glibly mouthing it. That
is why the federal government isn’t bothered by the “deportations” of Nigerian
citizens within Nigeria. Of course, the usurpation of its powers, not to
mention the blatant violations of the constitution, by state governments doesn’t
bother it, too, because it doesn’t border on the sharing of national resources.
