Share Group Politics Editor, KUNLE ODEREMI, examines the rationale behind the varied calls for self-determination that have continued to dominate most political discourse across the country. In its 107 years history as a country, Nigeria is going through, perhaps another most grueling period. A seemingly protracted political instability, which has been patched all along, has snowballed into near seizures and other frightening threats to the health and wellbeing of the world’s most populous Black Country. Grave issues surrounding the whimsical 1914 amalgamation of the hitherto Northern and Southern Protectorates constitute its Achilles’ heel. Outcry and denouncement of the lopsidedness, aggravated damage and subjugation of the majority of the main stakeholders by a clique favoured by the colonial masters that railroaded the tie persist. Those landmines subsisted in the subconscious of the stakeholders as they negotiated with the British colonial masters on independence for the fragile amalgamated geographical entity. Thus, conspiracy and treachery engineered and orchestrated by the ruling class at the national level soon thrown the country into a season of upheavals. They came in phases. First, it was from the oil-bearing coastline of the country, where 27-year-old Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro of the Nigerian and an ijaw ethnic stock struck in declaring a sovereign republic on February 23, 1966, with himself as the head of state. He justified the adventure on perceived wave of injustice being meted to his people. He had declared in address to his people: “We are going to demonstrate to the world what and how we feel about oppression.” He added: “Remember your 70-year-old grandmother, who still farms before she eats; remember also your poverty-stricken people; remember too, your petroleum which is being pumped out daily from your veins; and then fight for your freedom.” With such radical message, no fewer than 150 volunteer soldiers reportedly became part of the then the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) to pursue the agenda for self-governance just six years after Nigeria secured independence from the British colonial masters. But the dream was aborted only after 12 days by authorities.