The commemoration of Nigeria’s independence ought to be a day of celebration and a day of laughter and merriment but unfortunately, that day of feast and joy has inadvertently been turned to a day of weeping and lamentation, a day of mourning and of rumination over our self-inflicted woes caused by bad and visionless leadership at all levels of government in the country of riches yet the poverty capital of the world. Nigeria at 61 which ordinarily would call for a grand celebration with choice wines, assorted menus and loud music has invariably become a day of dirge, elegy and melancholy.
In spite of the gloom and darkness that Nigeria has become, courtesy of uninspiring, parochial, clannish and nepotistic leadership, we can however use the occasion to reflect soberly on our tortuous journey to nationhood and how we have fared so far and come up with viable alternatives or pragmatic options for moving forward as a nation or peacefully part ways as separate entities. We have come to this conclusion simply because of the delusion and pretension that Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable or that Nigeria is one indivisible and indissoluble country.
The falsity of one Nigeria has been overtly unmasked and exposed in such a way that they become so glaring to all Nigerians that our so-called unity is nothing but a ruse to hoodwink and control gullible Nigerians and ardent believers of this amorphous, ambiguous and deceitful one Nigeria concept. One Nigeria should have been a fine concept if all Nigerians are treated equally with the same rules and set of laws. One Nigeria concept would have been acceptable if all Nigerians are treated as equal citizens with equal stake in the Nigerian enterprise or project. One Nigeria would have been the glue that binds us together if there is no first class and second class citizens.
Our experience in the past 61 years has shown that Nigeria is far from being one country in the true sense of the word. The oneness of the country has been at a great advantage to only one section of the country, the North, and at the detriment of the South. In view of the obvious contradictions of our one Nigeria, we make bold to assert that one Nigeria is something that would have been, perhaps a dream project or an ideal concept which is yet to be concretized or actualized. In its absence, we have several Nigerians and different conceptions of Nigeria, the Ogbanje and Abiku country that keeps going and coming without any stabilization. Before going further in this article, let us clarify too that before the advent of slave trade and colonial rule, there was no one country known as Nigeria. In the absence of Nigeria, we have some of the ethnic nationalities that were later coupled together as one Nigeria by British imperialists.
The marriage of the Northern and Southern protectorates by the colonial soldier, Lord Frederick Lugard in 1914 gave birth to the new amorphous nation christened Nigeria, derived from River Niger and which when interpreted means the people of the Niger area. Unfortunately, that colonial name which is meaningless and does not define us as a people came from the mistress of Lugard, Flora Shaw. Even before independence, some of our nationalists and founding fathers did not share the one Nigeria vision or see Nigeria as real. The late statesman and leader of Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo described the country as ‘a mere geographical expression.’ And since inception till date, Nigeria has remained a mere geographical expression. It is yet to become a nation or nation-state in real and true sense. Nigeria is one country not loved by its prodigal children and our so-called leaders. Nigeria is neither our father nor our mother. We treat Nigeria as nobody and can trample on it at will. We only recognize Nigeria and become Nigerians during football and after such euphoria we go back to our ethnic conclaves and cocoons and become ethnic champions and deploy religion and politics when they serve our interests best.
Late Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa saw Nigeria in the same vein as Awolowo. Sir Ahmadu Bello believed so much in the North than the pan-Nigerian project. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe had the pan-Nigerian and pan-Africanist vision at the onset. But when he was uprooted from Western Region on account of the infamous or famous carpet crossing saga in Western Region, instead of maintaining his pan-Nigerian posture, Zik came to Eastern Region and Eyo Eta was sacrificed to pave way for Zik to assume leadership of government in the region. This is probably where our journey to being Nigerians and play pan-Nigeria politics was truncated and ethnic or regional politics was enthroned. Till today, we are still reaping the ugly effects of the birth of ethnic politics in Nigeria.
Every day, we are becoming more and more aware of our divisions and differences and even making conscious efforts to entrench them. Therefore, at independence Nigeria was not one but a tripod contraption of North, East and West. While NPC held power in the North, AG was in charge in the West and NCNC in charge of the East. Before becoming a republic in 1963, the contraption morphed into four regions of unequal size and number of representations at the federal parliament such as the North, West, Mid-West and East. NCNC was also in power in the Mid-West before the bubble burst in 1966. The arbitrary division of Nigeria into four regions of unequal size and with the North being larger in terms of size and political representations from start conferred on it undue advantage over the rest three regions put together. That imbalance is why Nigeria is still where it is today. We shall come to this theme much later. Our founding fathers in a haste to remove the British colonialists hurriedly agreed to form a federation instead of going their separate ways as North, East and West. We recall that the nation’s independence was unduly delayed because the North said they were not ready. But when eventually Nigeria got independence, it was the Northerner that became the Prime Minister instead of Zik who spearheaded the independence struggle. Being a nationalist, Zik accepted to be a ceremonial president for a country he fought for its independence. Before independence, the issue of citizenship, indigenes and settlers or non-indigenes were not critically evaluated or settled. The issue of power sharing was not well enunciated or incorporated in the constitution. What was uppermost in the minds of our founding fathers was to kick out white rulers and replace them with black rulers. Unfortunately, some of the black rulers are behaving worse than the colonial masters. Therefore, Nigeria at 61 is not yet uhuru as Jomo Kenyetta espoused. Our macabre dance to nationhood was eloquently dramatized by Wole Soyinka in his play to celebrate our independence as A Dance of the Forests, where the feast was disrupted by unforeseen forces of evil.
It was really a dance of demons in the forests of Africa’s most populous nation. Chris Okigbo in his prophetic poems on war warned of impending bloodshed in his Path of Thunder while Chinua Achebe predicted war and chaos in his political novel, A Man of the People. In the novel, he wrote that a coup might be followed by a counter coup and it came to pass. With a coup and counter coup, Nigeria was torn asunder by a 30-month fratricidal war between Nigeria and former Eastern Region, Biafra. The damage caused by that war is still with us. Although the war was fought over 50 years ago, it is still raging all over the country with bloodbath everywhere. Let’s use the occasion of our independence to honestly talk about our future existence as a nation. It is time for us to resolve all unsettled matters such as power sharing, fiscal federalism, state police, referendum and many others and put them in our constitution since some of us want all aspects of our daily living to be entrenched in the book. Let’s resolve too to stop wasting more years and squandering of resources and the future of unborn generations. Instead of celebrating our failure, let’s reflect on the journey so far and make useful amendments.