Nigeria crackdown on separatism leaves signature development projects on the fringes
Nigeria is pursuing a renewed crackdown on separatist groups in the country’s south. The Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, was arrested last week to continue a trial that was disrupted in 2017 after he skipped bail. The federal secret police, State Security Services (SSS), also raided the home of another separatist leader Sunday Igboho last week in an attempt to arrest him. Meanwhile, crucial macroeconomic reforms are in fringe territory as key decision-makers focus on stemming professed political threats.
Significance – Bandwidth
Nigerian authorities say Kanu’s IPOB is responsible for acts of sabotage that have occurred this year around the southeast where the outlawed group is based. There have been deadly attacks on police stations and facilities belonging to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In that time, a new separatist movement has developed in the southwest – inspired by Igboho and involving previously obscure groups such as Ilana Omo Oodua.
The mainly ethnic Igbo IPOB in the southeast and the mainly ethnic Yoruba secessionists in the southwest are unaffiliated, but appear mutually opposed to the Hausa/Fulani ethnicities in the north, which is President Muhammadu Buhari’s home region. For this, the Buhari administration views these groups specifically as threats to his continued stay in office and has consequently stepped up to suppress their activities. Police put down a Yoruba Nation rally in Lagos last weekend. This is happening in the wider context of suppressing public dissent considered to be anti-government (See our recent notes on the Twitter ban and #EndSARS).
The overarching strategy here is the use of ‘federal might’, which in Nigerian politics refers to a process where a sitting president or their appointee weaponises a federal government institution against a political opponent. One instance is ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s (1999 to 2007) use of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to coerce opponents. Now, a northern-led presidency applying federal might against southern secessionist leaders has further stoked political tension. A group of governors of southern states met yesterday, and they published a list of resolutions indicating displeasure about the deadly raid on Igboho’s home and the ‘selective criminal administration of justice’.
The Buhari government’s devotion to containing these perceived political threats limits its bandwidth for pursuing macroeconomic reforms and programmes. This is because decision-makers with the most influence over the administration’s policy priorities, such as justice minister Abubakar Malami, are also the ones currently at the forefront of dealing with the described threats.
Nigeria has been dealing with high unemployment and inflation coupled with slow economic recovery, all of which predate the Covid pandemic. An Economic Sustainability Plan was published in July 2020 to tackle these problems, and the core proposals for a one-year timeframe included (a) cultivating at least 20,000 hectares of new farmland in each of 36 states, (b) beginning the construction of 300,000 new homes and (c) installing five million solar home systems. One year later, the implementation of these core proposals has mostly inched on the political fringes and has fallen behind targets.
Outlook – Pace of reform
Political tensions, especially over ethnic relations, are likely to persist in the buildup to general elections now less than two years away. Should this occur, the government may be increasingly slow to apply policy responses for revamping the macroeconomic climate, while political capital is chiefly devoted to defusing anti-government sentiments. Buhari is serving out his final term, so the impending transfer of power will add another layer of risk as ethnic interests weigh on policymaking.
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Image credit: Michael Dziedzic, lazycreekimages
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