Rohingya: Lessons From Myanmar (Burma)

History is a ready teacher for those who wish to learn from it. In its storehouse are the foibles, fatuities and glories of individuals and nations. But like George Santayana rightly argued, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

And given the nature of man, histories continue to be repeated with dire predictable outcomes for humanity as a whole. If lessons had been learnt, the unfolding Rohingya tragedy will have been averted.

In the past few years, the world had played Tom and Jerry on the condition of the Muslim ethnic minority in the largely Buddhist country. The unfortunate aspect of it all is that even Muslim majority Bangladesh has not considered it a priority to make accommodation for those who share the same faith with the country, even if it is not politically expedient.

The ill-fated situation has led to the Rohingyas being a stateless people; with no hope of a homeland of theirs in the foreseeable future!

As the untenable situation persists, thousands of Rohingyas are without any sort of future. They are denied access to the basics of life; no education, no medicare, no infrastructures in the dingy corner they have been consigned to by the Myanmar authorities. Such is the terrible fate faced by a people no less than their Buddhists’ overlords.

Pinned to the wall by the intransigence of Naypyidaw, the Rohingyas have resorted to raising a militia, the only resort usually opened to the oppressed.

Their adoption of violence has left thousands vulnerable with bodies being pulled from the River … as they unarmed look for way out of the madness of armed struggle.

Here in lies the dilemma of a people in need of justice and the lesson for Nigeria. As the decibel of agitations for restructuring reaches fever pitch and the strong-headedness of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government not to listen to the clamour for a conversation about the future of the country, Nigeria like the Rohingyas stands at a crossroad of history.

If the Rohingyas had resisted the temptation of armed struggle, perhaps the present tenuous situation will have been averted as the United Nations continue to pressure Naypyidaw to do right by them.

But the equation has changed with some of those concerned by their plight being ambivalent with the attacks and killing of some members of the security forces of Myanmar.

In Nigeria, as the clouds gather ominously, the most telling is the inertia of the Federal Government to deal with those who issued quit notice to fellow citizens, while on the other hand it is insisting on arresting Nnamdi Kanu and his band of followers over the call for a referendum on the status of Biafra.

Nigeria is not in a Catch-22 situation like the Rohingyas. What Abuja requires is the political will to deal fairly and squarely with all those threatening its corporate existence while also creating the room for a national conversation on Nationhood. But to ignore the imperatives of socio-political evolution is to play the Ostrich on a matter that requires urgency of time.

Now, if the federal government pushes ahead with its plans to arrest Nnamdi Kanu, it will set the stage for a confrontation, the prospect which is littered with blood, pain and, perhaps, a fracturing of the Nigerian federation. 50 years after the Civil War which claimed more than 3 million, mainly Igbo, Nigeria walks the crimson road.

Will Nigeria and Nnamdi Kanu learn from what is transpiring in Myanmar? If the Nigerian government pushes the Indigenous People of Biafra to the wall with the arrest of Kanu and using strong armed tactics against the IPOB, is there a possibility of an armed struggle? If Nnamdi Kanu truly loves the Igbo as he espouses, can he tamper down on the rhetoric and seek a middle ground in his quest for an independent homeland for the mainly Igbo people of the South East?

One only hopes history will not repeat itself as the lessons with the Rohingyas in Myanmar shows.