Split of India and Birth of Pakistan, Is History Repeating Itself in Nigeria?

14 August, 1947, saw the birth of the new Islamic Republic of Pakistan. At midnight the next day India won its freedom from colonial rule, ending nearly 350 years of British presence in India.During the struggle for freedom, Gandhi had written an appeal "To Every Briton" to free their possessions in Asia and Africa, especially India.The British left India divided in two. The two countries were founded on the basis of religion, with Pakistan as an Islamic state and India as a secular one.

Whether the partition of these countries was wise and whether it was done too soon is still under debate. Even the imposition of an official boundary has not stopped conflict between them. Boundary issues, left unresolved by the British, have caused two wars and continuing strife between India and Pakistan.

In the build up to the separation which some aptly described as the surgical separation of India, the chief campaigner for a purely Muslim state called Pakistan had been quoted as saying that India was never a united nation but merely a geographical area carved out for governance by the colonial masters.

Twenty years after that historic split of India, civil war breaks out in a country hundreds of miles away from India. The war which was dubbed 'Biafran war ' started seven years after the colonial leaders departed the country. Though some would argue that the warlord who led the faction that wished to secede had a personal agenda, the popular outcry at the time echoed that in India before the split i.e. that the geographical area named Nigeria was a creation of the colonial master and not a true nation with inhabitants who wilfully decided to come together.

Of course the split of India did not go without hitch. Once the decision in favor of partition was made, the parties next faced this nearly impossible task of fixing a border between the new states. The Muslims occupied two main regions in the north on opposite sides of the country, separated by a majority-Hindu section. In addition, throughout most of northern India members of the two religions were mixed together - not to mention populations of Sikhs, Christians and other minority faiths. The Sikhs campaigned for a nation of their own, but their appeal was denied.

The border was drawn right down the middle of the province, between Lahore and Amritsar. On both sides, people scrambled to get onto the "right" side of the border, or were driven from their homes by their erstwhile neighbors. At least 10 million people fled north or south, depending upon their faith, and more than 500,000 were killed in the melee. Trains full of refugees were set upon by militants from both sides, and all the passengers massacred.

India and Pakistan were to go on to fight over Kashmir, a dispute which still rages on today, Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan in 1971 and the region has continually been in the news ever since for the wrong reasons.

After the civil war, Nigeria remained as a country and the authorities in an effort to forge a united people declared at the end of the war that there was 'no victor and no vanquished'. Efforts were made by the state to gradually integrate the 'rebel' Igbo tribe into the new Nigeria. It is debatable whether that has ever been achieved.

The country profited from oil wealth in the 70s and like most African countries, its rulers continued to squander proceeds from its vast oil resources. The oil came from the coastal states (referred to as the Niger-delta states) whose citizens later found their voice and began to seek recognition and greater share of the oil proceeds.

Different groups sprung from the Niger-delta states all agitating for more funds to be spent developing their region especially after the devastation caused by oil exploration companies. A few of the groups became militant adopting tactics ranging from kidnapping of oil company workers to blowing up of oil installations.

All this while the country made up of over 250 tribes, an artificial creation initiated by former colonial powers which had neglected to consider religious, linguistic, and ethnic differences struggled with power sharing between the three dominant ethnic groups.

In the same period inhabitants of the regions that produced the oil and a few other tribes hitherto relegated to the background when leadership of the country was discussed also began to agitate for recognition.

The country had experienced numerous military coups between independence and her 40th anniversary with the army generals from the northern part of the country being the major beneficiaries. It was the worst kept secret that leadership was an opportunity to enrich self and channel the bulk of state funds to developmental projects in one's part of the country.

When politicians came to power, a quota system of governance was written into most political party's constitution but with the growing number of ethnic groups from the south seeking to be part of the power sharing arrangement, the northern neighbours who had become accustomed to power had to wait longer to take control of the country's wealth. This new arrangement was not welcomed by some northern elite.

To complicate issues further, religion which has always been a volatile subject in Nigeria continually sparked conflict especially in the northern region of the country.

The northern region has alway been predominantly Muslim while the south have more Christians with both regions having their fair share of pagans. However, the dichotomy is never that simply because a large number of Christians reside in Kaduna state as well as a few other north-eastern states.

In the southeast, the population is predominantly Christians while a good mix of Christian and Muslim faithful can be found amongst the Yoruba tribe and their Benin cousins.

With free movement of its citizen especially traders, it is not uncommon to find people of varied faith in the most unlikely of places.

Some northerners in Nigeria have somewhat practiced Islam distinctively in comparison to their counterparts in the south. If a fatwa was declared by a cleric in a distant Muslim nation, the Muslims in the north are more likely to act on that order. Often the Christians in their midst bear the brunt of these attacks.

Over the years scores of Christians have been brutally murdered in the north of Nigeria by fanatics and as the authorities in Nigeria failed to decisively deal with the scourge perpetrators of the act got bolder and eventually were infiltrated by terrorist groups.

In 2002, a fanatic group calling itself "Boko-Haram" emerged from amongst the vast network of Nigeria's savage Islamic militias, determined to conquer all of Nigeria, seize its oil wealth, and impose sharia on the entire population, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. "Boko-Haram" means "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language and expresses the group's visceral hatred of all things modern, Western, and non-Muslim. Boko- Haram leaders have expressed solidarity with al-Qaeda, explicitly rejected the Nigerian constitution and democracy, and demanded nation-wide implementation of Islamic law.

The group has gradually gained recognition globally through planned attacks on property and killing of Christians. Notable amongst the attack is the bombing of the UN building in Abuja the capital city of Nigeria. The group has used the occasion of the Christian celebration of Christmas day to draw attention to it in the last two years. The last of which resulted in the death of dozens of Christian worshipers on Christmas day in 2011.

The religious group subsequently issued an ultimatum for Christians to leave the Muslim dominated northern Nigeria and it has been reported that the group is demanding a Muslim state.

This declaration by Boko-Haram and events in the history of Nigeria in the last 45 years in my view bizarrely mirrors the period before the split of India.

The immediate future portends great danger for Nigeria if the lawlessness and anarchy of today is allowed to continue.

The experience of both India and Pakistan should serve as a wake-up call to the danger that lies ahead even if the geographical area somehow survives a separation. The future promises even greater danger not just for the citizens of Nigeria but for the world. This explains why the west especially the United States and Britain are monitoring the situation closely.