How The British Planted The Seed Of Disunity In Nigeria
May 30, 2014


Election rigging

In the 1950s there were three dominant political parties in Nigeria: the Action Group (AG) in Western Nigeria, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in the East and the dominant Northern party, the Northern People’s Congress.

While the AG and NCNC were nationalist parties that fought for independence, the NPC, established and funded by the colonial administration, didn’t want the British to leave Nigeria.

In fact, when the first motion for independence was moved in the National Parliament in 1953 by a Southern politician, Anthony Enahoro, the Northerners acting at the behest of the British objected. “Northern rulers distrusted the Southerners more than the British colonisers,” said Harold Smith, a British colonial official who blew the whistle on his country’s manipulation of the elections that led to Nigerian independence.

According to Smith, who in his book Blue Collar Lawman detailed how the British manipulated the pre-independence elections of 1956 (regional) and 1959 (federal), said the country’s fate was sealed already on Independence Day in 1960.

“The 1959 election became a mockery because the outcome – Northern domination of Nigeria after independence – was assured before a single vote was cast,” Smith writes in his autobiography, for which he could not find a British publisher because of its explosive content. “The British loved the North and had arranged for 50% of the votes to be controlled by the Northern People’s Congress.”

Smith writes in his 1987 book: “A major proportion of the politicians who made Nigeria notorious for corruption after independence were selected by the British before independence. The politicians and leaders and men of eminence not chosen were often honest, trustworthy and responsible people. Why were these people not brought in him by the British? The answer is that the British needed people they could control. They sometimes selected crooks whom they knew they could control after independence.”

Thus Nigeria was granted independence in a state of conflict because the foundation of its democracy was deeply flawed. It is no wonder, therefore, that barely 7 years after independence civil war broke out in the country.



One country, different nations

The colonial policy of divide and rule has also had a sustained impact on development in the country, leading to wide regional disparities.

The indirect rule, also known as Anglo-Fulani alliance, “fossilised the feudal structure, confirmed the repression by the privileged Emirs and their appointees, prolonged the inability of the North to graduate into the modern world,” writes Frederick Forsyth, the famous English author, in his best-selling The Biafra Story about the Nigerian civil war.

“In the sixty years from Lugard to Independence the differences in religious, social, historical and moral attitudes and values between North and South, and the educational and technological gap, became not narrower but wider,” writes Forsyth.

The UNDP observed in 1997 that the regional disparities in Nigeria are among the worst in the world. In its Nigerian Human Development Report 1997, it said: “A ranking of the Nigerian states by Human Development Index (HDI) puts, for example, the Edo and Delta states (in South Nigeria) on top with an HDI of 0.666 while Borno (in North Nigeria) has an HDI of 0.156. Were Edo and Delta states constituted into a separate sovereign country, their ‘nation’ will rank 90th in the world – relatively high among the medium-level human development countries – while Borno as a separate polity would rank lower than any other country in the world at 182nd position. The states with low HDI are concentrated in the North… The picture presented is clear: It is [one of] wide disparities in HDI (i.e. education, longevity and income) between the South and the North.”

What future?

Fifty years after the departure of the British, Nigeria is still divided along the Muslim North and the rest of the country.

The introduction of the Islamic legal code Shariah in twelve Northern states ten years ago against the express provision of the secular Nigerian constitution has increased the difficulty of building a national consensus.
Is Shariah about religion? Soyinka says no. “It is about its cynical manipulation by political forces made desperate by the erosion of a hegemonic power base,” said the Nigerian intellectual.

The struggle to establish a sustainable democratic system based on equity, against the resistance of forces that are the beneficiaries of the existing conditions created by British manipulation, is the greatest challenge Nigeria faces today.



By: Adebola Adeoye

This is an interesting read. It is appropriate to say then that the Igbos and Yorubas got the short end of the 'Project Nigeria' stick right from the onset and i think working together of the two tribes, is what will actualize the aspirations and desires of both of them in this contraption called NIGERIA.

after knowing and reading these revelations the south west still desire desperately to continue with one Nigeria! ...this always baffles me

More like how the British created a fake nation and called it their Ni.gger Area. Of course, unity of Nigeria never and can never exist because the "country" itself is illegal and fake

Only ediats are proud of Nigeria.

The perpetual mutual mistrust is for the benefit of the western world

One thing is sure: one day, Nigeria will either become one or separate. Nobody will prevent it from happening.

http://www./harold_smith/autobio.htm. I stumbled on this book by Harold Smith and i think it is something we should all read.

I hate the mention of Britain

layorhaja:
This is an interesting read. It is appropriate to say then that the Igbos and Yorubas got the short end of the 'Project Nigeria' stick right from the onset and i think working together of the two tribes, is what will actualize the aspirations and desires of both of them in this contraption called NIGERIA.

The south west have nothing in common with the igbos. The only solution to this hate is to let both live in separate countries!!

GreyLaw:
One thing is sure: one day, Nigeria will either become one or separate. Nobody will prevent it from happening.

Actually nigeria can never be one. So it will be better separated.

GreyLaw:
One thing is sure: one day, Nigeria will either become one or separate. Nobody will prevent it from happening.

Actually, nigeria can never be one. So it will be better separated.

TheKingdom:
More like how the British created a fake nation and called it their Ni.gger Area. Of course, unity of Nigeria never and can never exist because the "country" itself is illegal and fake

Excellent comment but how many nigerians are ready to face this truth?

dmz1:
after knowing and reading these revelations the south west still desire desperately to continue with one Nigeria! ...this always baffles me

Many yoruba people today have given up on nigeria. Believe me friend, a large percentage of yoruba today have no problem with the disintegration of "niger-area" At least the few once i have met.

After almost 60 years we are still recounting the tales of our self-inflicted destruction.

Okay, let's agree that the British caused us these much woes, shouldn't we have right the wrongs after almost 60 years.

Why do we keep on in blame game when the future is set to be brighter than now?

Nigeria! Think and move forward, positively.

For how long will you lament over flimsy excuses?

Our greed and Evil-mindedness is the cause of the prominence of our difference. Otherwise, the difference would have thinned out if we really love others as we love ourselves.

Leave those slave-takers out of this, put the blame on US, you can put the blame on me.

Fu*k*d up country

U cannot have Nigeria and speak of unity

British came only to do what they know how to do best, ie: create CONFUSION and chaos

Nigeria = Confusion and chaos

Britain created Nigeria

Nigeria is the problem not disunity

PatriotTemidayo:
For how long will you lament over flimsy excuses?

Our greed and Evil-mindedness is the cause of the prominence of our difference. Otherwise, the difference would have thinned out if we really love others as we love ourselves.

Leave those slave-takers out of this, put the blame on US, you can put the blame on me.

Since we don't really love ourselves, let us all go our separate ways...why don't you all want to go your separate way? I don't understand this unity begging from the one nigerianist... Yorubas and Hausa fulanis learn to stand on your own, you have over grown, haaba

yorubaisevil:

Since we don't really love ourselves, let us all go our separate ways...why don't you all want to go your separate way? I don't understand this unity begging from the one nigerianist... Yorubas and Hausa fulanis learn to stand on your own, you have over grown, haaba

Let me tell you one simple reason why we can't truly love ourselves;
PEOPLE LIKE YOU.

Yes! You're such a hatist, if there's ever any word as such.

Imagine the trash you just wrote.

You're so self-involved and tribalistic that your sense of value is so neutralized beyond titre value.

Someone asked about why we are so divided and you're here talking Sh*t about why Yoruba and Hausa don't want to let you people go.

Ask yourself this simple question;
Just how many of your top elite and leaders really want to leave Nigeria or support Biafra Agitation?

Even your leaders, who evidently are heavily invested in all Nigerian states and regions, with colossal businesses and properties don't seem to have any push or zeal for this agitation.

Take your fight up with them first and then come back to fight external enemies like the Yoruba and hause.