30th September, 2010
Barely 24 hours to the 50th independence anniversary, the issue of Nigeria’s unity and its numerous challenges have continued to retard the nation’s progress, writes EROMOSELE EBHOMELE
President Goodluck Jonathan sure knows how to catch the interest of Nigerians through his page on facebook, the social interaction site on the internet. As the country celebrates its 50th independence anniversary, he recently posted: “Nigerians unite.â€
But within 10 minutes after the message was sent, hundreds of his fellow countrymen asked him several questions bordering on his rationale for the message. While some told him that the country was only united in pretence, others noted that the current state of the nation had gone beyond seeking unity from the poor while the rich continue to build their empires on the corpses of the former. Some even reminded him that the failed portion of the Benin-Ore road had already divided the country because of the nightmare faced by travellers. Others told him that if at 50, the citizens of the country still had no hope, there was no need to preach unity.
Dubbed ‘a mere geographic expression’ with over 250 ethnic groups and an estimated population of 150 million, the country’s predicament, or progress as those in government would want to believe, began as an experiment in 1914 by Lord Lugard, the British head in charge of the administration of the country. Fifty years after, the 32nd largest country, located on a total area of 923,768 km2 and comparable in size to Venezuela, has continued to crawl, following the lack of visionary leaders. There is lack of infrastructure, efficient electricity supply, etc.
The country has witnessed a civil war between 1967 and 1970 (which lasted for about 30 months), six military coups in three decades of military rule, a grudging form of national growth and development in the midst of institutionalised corruption and mismanagement of public funds, religious and ethnic strife resulting in a people who have been cowed into total submission by a ruthless and corrupt ruling class.
Richly blessed with both human and natural resources, Nigeria is sadly fighting a battle to save itself. This was part of a damning report by the United States in 2004, which postulated that the country was only buying time as it had 15 years from that period to break up.
Since then, prominent citizens of the country have been drumming that same warning. Several times, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka had maintained that the nation was sitting on a keg of gunpowder. “Nigeria is living at the moment in a state of self-deception. It is still a colonial society; this time a product of internal colonialists,†he told TheNEWS magazine this week.
The break-up almost manifested due to the mishandling of the illness and later the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua. His handlers had almost torn the country apart with the way they manipulated and misinformed Nigerians while blackmailing the current President who was then his deputy.
Despite the fact that the country is the sixth largest producer of crude oil and a major exporter of oil to the US, it has continued to rely on fuel importation, causing the former World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz, to declare that the country had lost $300 billion within 40 years since independence.
Supporting the huge doubt over the country’s unity, former Attorney-General of the Federation in the Second Republic, Richard Akinjide, who sees Nigeria as a very complex country, said sometime ago that the amalgamation was a fraud.
“Our problems did not start yesterday,†Akinjide claimed. “It started about 1884. Lord Lugard came here about 1894 and many people did not know that Major Lugard was not originally employed by the British Government. He was employed by companies.
“He was first employed by East Indian Company, by the Royal East African Company and then by the Royal Niger Company. It was from the Royal Niger Company that he transferred to the British government. Unless you know this background, you will not know the root causes of our problems. The interest of the Europeans in Africa and indeed Nigeria was economic and it’s still economic.
“In 1898, Lugard formed the West African Frontier Force initially with 2,000 soldiers and that was the beginning of our problems. Anybody who wants to know the root cause of all the coups and our present problems, and who does not know the evolution of Nigeria would just be looking at the matter superficially.
“Our problems started from that time. And Lugard was what they called at that time imperialist. A number of British soldiers, businessmen, politicians were very patriotic. But I must warn you; they were operating in the interest of their country. Lugard became a Lord,†he said, adding that between 1898 and 1914, he sent a number of dispatches to London which led to the Amalgamation of 1914.
“The Order-in-Council was drawn up in November 1913 signed and came into force in January 1914. In those dispatches, Lugard said a number of things, which are at the root causes of yesterday and today’s problems.
“The British needed the railway from the North to the Coast in the interest of British business. Amalgamation of the South (not of the people) became of crucial importance to British business interest. He said the North and the South should be amalgamated. Southern Nigeria came into existence in January 1900. At the Centenary of the fall of Benin, I wrote a piece in a number of papers but before I published the piece, I sent a copy to the Oba of Benin. So when Benin was conquered in 1896, it made the creation of the Southern Nigerian protectorate possible on January 1, 1900,†Akinjide stated.
He said part of the dispatches by Lord Lugard was that “the North is poor and they have no resources to run the protectorate of the North…they have no access to the sea; and the South has resources and have educated people.â€
He argued that what was amalgamated was the administration of the North and South and not of its people, adding that this was the source of the problems.
While the Federal Government has earmarked about N17 billion for the celebration of the country’s golden jubilee, the citizens have vehemently protested, saying there was nothing to celebrate. They mentioned the endemic corruption, lack of progress in all areas of the country’s existence, inept leadership mediocrity as the country’s problems. Some even said the country has all the symptoms of a failed state, adding that we are just buying time.
For example, the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, speaking on the amount earmarked for the celebration recently said Nigerians would have been happier if part of the money was spent on infrastructure development citing the failed portion of the Lagos-Benin road as needing emergency solution.
According to Professor Soyinka, those in support of the celebration have lost their memory of the history of the country’s predicament. He added that the people of Nigeria are living in an emergency. He cited several problems affecting the country and counted himself out of the celebration.
Also speaking on the state of the nation, Odia Ofeimun in a recent interview lamented the diminishing state of education, attributing it to the failure of the nation’s leaders. According to him, the country’s leaders have continued to give its citizens poor education in order to render them perpetually poor.
“All those who we thought would win the Nobel prize in Physics or Chemistry, many of them took in religion. And that’s where most of them are today, with decayed brains. And because their brains are decayed, the generations that came after them are all living in decay,†he lamented.
Dr. Agwu Amoguo, National Coordinator of Individual Liberty Network of Nigeria, an NGO stated that, “Nigeria presently is under a critical level of economic and social deprivation, even in the midst of abundant natural and human resources. The current official statistics released by the Federal Office of Statistic shows that the national poverty rate is 70%. This is to say that 80 million people in Nigeria live on less than $1 a day! It is quite alarming to have two-thirds of the country’s population critically poor.
“Since 1975, we have seen different poverty programmes – or slogans? – in Nigeria. We have watched all of them fail one after the other. In fact, a former president of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Babanginda, declared publicly that the ‘Nigerian economy has defied all known economic theories’,†he added.
However, one Nigerian does not toe this line of argument. He is Mahmud Jega. According to him, “maybe our roads today are not up to standard, but which standard are you talking about? You see, up until 1974, the trip from Jega to Sokoto through Tambuwal and Shagari, which now takes about 75 minutes, used to take a day and a half, if you were lucky.
“That was until the Gowon regime tarred the road in 1974. Now, Birnin Kebbi is only 32 kilometres away from Jega, and these days motorists cover the distance in about 15 minutes; but in 1970, it took the better part of the day to make the trip. As the lorry chugged along that road, it took several hours to reach each of the major landmarks, the three bridges at Ruwan Kanwa, Basaura and Langido. I was amazed to discover in later life that the Ruwan Kanwa bridge, which in those days was so difficult to reach, is only three kilometres away from Jega.
“The trips to Birnin Kebbi were not made easier by the lorries and drivers of those days. All the lorries were Austin, Morris or Commer. In 1970, there was only one taxi cab in Sokoto, which had on it the inscription Be Patience [sic]. The only other intra-city commercial vehicle, which plied the route from Kasuwa Yar Dole to Farfaru, was a small Commer lorry driven by Alhaji Umaru, better known as Alallaba. It was so slow that children could run and overtake it..â€
Jega mentioned several other areas the country had improved, including in health and telecommunications.
He concluded by sayings anyone who still thinks that Nigerian roads are too pot-holed, its communications too slow, its people too sick and its entertainment too boring, that person should please go back to 1970.