This, indeed, is a damning, complex and thought-provoking question that may be agitating so many minds. It is, to say the least, such that may be making so many Nigerians sleepless but yet many a Nigerian has not got the guts to ask it in public, particularly in the face of the so much political nuisance as we have seen in Nigeria in recent times.
To proffer answers to this burning question, I would prefer to answer it from bottom up, that is, from society to state. What then is a society? A society, in a simple political thinking, is an association of human beings living independently in a particular area. This further suggests a whole complex relation of man to his fellow human beings. In addition, however, it is the complicated network of groups and the institutions expressing human association(s) such as the family, the church or mosque, the trade union, and so on, which influence social life but do not owe their origin or what have you to the state.
In the society, therefore, members do not necessarily belong to a common religion, ethnicity or having customary or cultural ties, or even share a common language but yet happily live together in the geographical territoriality. A society does not necessarily have any concerns about sovereign belongingness or where political power lies in its domain. It is said to be a loose state, which depends, primarily, on mutual understanding and agreement among its members. A society is not bound by a common law, except it becomes imperative that certain legal conditions be introduced for the sake of its peaceful living as a result of its territorial concerns. Most legal conditions in a society are temporary, as there is usually no permanence in the legal framework guiding the affairs of the society. At best it is daily, weekly, monthly or yearly happy living as the society moves from stage to stage.
What then is a nation? A nation in a simple definition is said to be a body of people who feel themselves naturally linked together by way of origin, share common ties, believe that they can live happily together, and are not satisfied when they are disunited and cannot tolerate subjection to people who do not share these ties. Some of such ties they share are same language, culture, religion, occupation, territoriality, culinary patterns, and general nationality embedded in their ethnicity, that is, the Yoruba nation, the Ijaw nation, the Igbo nation, the Hausa/Fulani nation, the Beriberi nation, the Anang/Ogoja nation, the Efik/Ibibio nation, the Tiv/Igala nation, etc. A nation cannot necessarily be a state because it does not have the features that a state has, such as a declaration of independence for the people of the state, a force known as its army for the defence of its people and territory, a sovereign as its head to superintend over the affairs of its people and its government except in some cases their kings and chiefs, etc. A nation is less loose than a society primarily because of its ethnic ties, which the people will vehemently resist if anyone tries to tamper with it. This may not be so in a society. Over time, therefore, it has been very possible to equate statehood with nationhood as anytime a people struggle for political recognition, it has always been along the line of their ethnic affinity, which borders more on their national belongingness than their merely being in a common society. For example, the Ijaw are clamouring for their Niger Delta Republic, since 1958. The Igbo too are agitating for their Biafran State since 1967. The Yoruba too are asking for their Oduduwa Republic, intermittently, etc.
What then is a state? A state, as it is said in political philosophy, is defined as a politically organised body of people inhabiting a defined geographical entity with an organised legitimate government. The state, in this respect, as it is understood even in international law, is entirely free from external control. The power of a state is also guaranteed with coercive power to secure obedience from both citizens and aliens. A state, ordinarily, is different from empires, kingdoms, chiefdoms, or merely nationalities, etc.
The state and its features: 1. The state remains a permanent feature. It is said that, as a necessary condition against the backdrop of democracy, governments change many times but the state remains. 2. A state has a defined territory with a limit to its size. It must have clearly defined boundaries, separating it from others, which will necessary include features like waters, mountains, forests, airspace, etc., making up the state. 3. Though government is not a permanent feature because of the state, it still remains a very significant feature because it is a machinery set up by the state to administer the day-to-day affairs of the people of the state vis-a-vis the government. 4. The sovereignty of the state is another feature of the state that is very significant.
The supreme power to make decisions and enforce same on the people is with the state. It is in that vein Rousseau, in his Social Contract Theory, expounded the basis of popular sovereignty, while Thomas Hobbes advocated that sovereign power must not be limited by natural law. Another political philosopher, Grotius, emphasised sovereignty, that is, the independence of a state from external control. 5. Population is a very important attribute of a state. For an area to be called a state, there must be a given number of people making up the entity otherwise called the state. 6. It is imperative to say that the recognition given to a state internally and externally is what makes it the state. A state must be recognised by its people without any element of doubt. That recognition should be extended to it by international bodies such as ECOWAS, in case it is in West Africa, also that of the African Union and, by extension, the United Nations, the European Union and as many independent states as possible on the global scene. These and more are the attributes of a state.
Now, we come to a big question: where does Nigeria fall, state, nation or society? From the analysis above, Nigeria grew past the stage of a society since our British colonialist moved Lord Lugard from East Africa to Nigeria as the governor of the area. From then on, from my critical look of the political development of what later became Nigeria, it became a nation. By 1912, when we were still a nation, through the governance and leadership under Lord Lugard, about £70,000 was given out as grant to Northern Nigeria through the customs of Southern Nigeria to sustain it. That is perhaps the first signal that the North was going to be pampered over the South in dealing with what later formally became Nigeria in 1914. As it was, Nigeria merely remained a nation up till 1953 when the agitation for independence through the parliamentary efforts of young Anthony Enahoro and others.
This, in the process, culminated in the independence conferences and others, one of which was tagged the Willink’s Commission of 1958 and 1959, where the very basis of Nigeria’s independence was crafted. But it was not to be because of the arrogance of our leaders who did not see the minorities and their protestations regarding the independence of the nation as something significant, and also felt that it did not matter as such issues would be surmounted even after independence. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s seemingly mature and soft heart was taken to mean weakness and so he was deceived and disowned. Obafemi Awolowo’s radical disposition was regarded as being wicked so he must be punished. And so all kinds of allegations were heaped on him, even things he never knew how they happened. The opportunity of treatisation, that is, that two or more people of different ethnicity and what have you need to sit down and discuss terms of how they would come into forming a new nation, taking into account their benefits and sacrifices, without which it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to align with people whose ethnic and other aspirations you don’t understand was lost in the mentality of those in the leadership of the nation.
That is what has become of Nigeria. Nigeria was not negotiated and so it became a lost state. It was nationally “cooked in the squat,” so, no matter its age, 59 years in existence, it only remains a nation, crawling. The North keeps controlling the centre because of the political abnormality in our making the centre. The political zones and the Federal Character Commission were not respected because of the same political shenanigans of the North. The three arms of government in a supposedly federal state such as Nigeria have not been respected. The legislature has been intimidated, harassed and tamed to impotence. The judiciary has been stripped naked in public and flogged without telling them their offence. Happily, though, the executive is the end all and the master of all. The different arms of the military are under the control of the North because of the head put there. Even the petroleum industries have to be controlled by the head of the junta called the Nigerian state.
Just because there was no attempt on how to treatise our state at independence as a result of our leaders’ hurry to fix it, the already known treaty kingdoms, such as Kosoko/Dosumu’s Lagos, Oba of Bini’s Kingdom, Bonny Kingdom, Opobo Kingdom, Okrika Kingdom, Itsekiri Kingdom, Nembe Kingdom, Calabar/Ogoja Kingdom, Igbo Kingdom (in particular, the Arochukwu, etc.), Isoko Kingdom, Akasa Kingdom, Tiv Kingdom, Nupe Kingdom, Beriberi Kingdom, etc., who surrendered their suzerainties, were ignored and independence seemingly granted to the Nigerian nation while they were still relishing in their city-state suzerainties. When even the Ijaws sent Harold Biriye Esq. to the Willinks Commission to speak on their behalf telling the colonialists about their grievances, no one was ready to listen to them. The Tivs too did the same through a very renowned school teacher, Joseph Tarka, it was the same treatment. Now, their people are still kicking and the centre is bleeding, disowned by everybody except the people who conscripted it, the Hausa/Fulani.
Nigeria still remains a nation because nobody believes in it. The little restructuring, as agreed in a conference of all the political zones of the state, is rebuffed because the Hausa/Fulani don’t like it. It is whatever they like that must happen!
And we keep on crawling. Nigeria, how old truly are you that you are still crawling?
• Anga could be reached on 08064315962