Fulani herdsmen attack and kill …
Tribal clashes in Lagos…
Pro-Biafran’s agitation to secede…
Pastor’s wife brutally murdered while…
Igbo’s agitate that the most relevant offices went to the…
President advised to ignore CONFAB report for it is engineered to only favor…
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Recently, I have subjected myself to retrospective reflection following the events that have sadly become everyday happenings in the nation. My use of the ‘the’ article instead of ‘our’ in reference to this nation is not just grammatical preference … but an intentional action in light of my recent dwindling conviction that this nation is truly ‘ours’. I hope to establish that I write this with no ethnic leanings, no secessionist propaganda, not to spark a controversy or question efforts of anybody or group, no political affiliations or inclinations whatsoever, but with the intention of analyzing our current dispositions and what might be have become obvious but ignored and also voicing a personal observation resulting from my reflection.
They say that the fate of our future lies in our past and a recent look into the prior and post independence years has deposited a fatiguing question about the future of this nation. I would not attempt to recount the many facts of the period. I think it unnecessary seeing that it is a narration already well known to many albeit understood by a few; a privilege I don’t assume to have. There’s the personal pain, anger and sometimes resentment — which I try to fight off, that wells up whenever the talk, reading or thought of the formation of Nigeria by the colonial masters over a century ago comes up. Sometimes it proves futile trying to justify the fact that the bringing together of the disparate parts that is today Nigeria was an effect of an intention as unattractive as the greed for power, control and material possession. It bothers me that an action that took place those 102 years ago without seeking our opinion or even considering the value of it, has today become a scourge that has repeatedly proven just as unmerciful and worse than any would have foreseen.
Two peoples, different in every noticeable respect and conviction were married for a reason that would never justify what effects that be today. I consider it morally despicable. I want to add that this union was against their will — these regions, but then I’m led to believe that in those days they really didn’t qualify as beings worthy of wishes. What has led to the continuance of this union is beyond me, but I think it right to believe it has nothing to do with patriotism or even if it did then, it doesn’t now.
I read an era by era, administration by administration account of the history of Nigeria written for academic purposes. For those who are willing to admit, from the period delegations of power and political responsibility started shifting from the colonial masters to the conjoined ‘brethren’, the evidence of a stark divergence in convictions, allegiances, and compromises had began to surface. It is a continuing wonder to me how the obvious incompatibility of this regions were unnoticed or if noticed, ignored. I believe that an assumption that the motives of the colonial masters then was no more for the wellbeing of the colony than it was for the wellbeing of their interests or otherwise the disparities between the northern and southern parts of the colony would have been addressed — really addressed.
It wouldn’t be right to assume that they did not know this concatenation would have dire repercussions neither would it be correct to claim they didn’t realize how disagreeing this couple was and would be. Their differences were too obvious to miss; the welcome of foreigners by the south as against the resistance of the north, the ready compromise of the south as opposed to the fundamentalist adherence to dogma and creed by the north, the post- sir Hugh Clifford’s constitution’s creation of region based political parties; parties that were supposed to represent the heterogeneous population but were conspicuously ethnic centered — the Northern Peoples congress(NPC) for the north, the Action Group(AG) for the west and the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) for the east. There exist other instances of the evidence of their differences but that digresses from the direct intention of this write-up.
The young nation post-independence perhaps had more grasp on the attainable as they opted for federalism as the system of government and remained so until ironically, an Igbo General brought the nation under unitary rule which would consolidate what chief Obafemi Awolowo described as the worst punishment done to the south by the colonial masters — amalgamation with the north. His mindset was that it was the solution to the political crises that had degenerated to violence and tribal clashes.
I say again that I am more convinced that the current mindset of a ‘One Nigeria’ has a whole lot less to do with patriotism and tolerance than it has to do with retaining economic interests. This though, is only a personal opinion and I would appreciate it being understood to be just that. I would then put forth the question that has driven my inexperienced mind to fatigue in the recent days: is the drive for ‘One Nigeria’ a journey grounded on hope that things would work out or is it just that we have refused to look at the facts and accept the hard truth they preach? Have we all chosen to make our abode in the fabled fool’s paradise by thinking there would one day materialize a point of convergence where the diversities would suddenly come to a compromise?
I don’t suggest what solution would be best for the average people, I don’t even pretend to know, but I think a good place to start would be for us to quit looking at things from the point of view of the entity itself (one that has been predicted to fail even by its most extolled creators) and start looking from the point of view of the welfare of the people that make up this entity. After all is said and would be said, I think we can still be brothers without being hinged at the waist and without pretending to tolerate or understand the convictions and tenets of one another.
Long live the people of Nigeria. May we find peace.
-This was a blog post I wrote in 2016
