IS NIGERIA “REALLY” A COUNTRY?
By Nathaniel Amroboraro,
200 level,
Department of English Language,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
nathdactivist2050@gmail.com, +2348163205216
I plead your indulgence not to hastily give me the affirmative for an answer because I am not trying to be inconsistent with Chapter 1, Section 2 of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. Rather, let us put our prejudices aside, take some time out and take a bird’s eye view at the “not too beautiful” circumstances that has surrounded our Country in the past one hundred years of its existence. For that has provoked the thought in the minds of several of the above question.
I really cannot say literarily, that Nigeria “is” or “is not” a Country. But, I have a thesis which you would join me in analyzing. Here is the thesis- “IS NIGERIA A COUNTRY?”
If it can be proven in the affirmative by me or you, then we can say with all sincerity that but in the case of the negative being true, then we can also with all sincerity call for the freedom of secession of whoever, whatever wishes to.
We are going to be analyzing our thesis from different perspectives.
Firstly, is looking at our thesis from the pre-amalgamation era.
Most of Nigeria’s problems can be traced to the fact that the 1914 amalgamation by Lord Lugard, was purely for administrative convenience.
Before then, the two protectorates lived as distinct and separate entities, not having much in common. No account was taken for differences in culture, religion, tradition, and way of life and for that matter the wishes of the people so rudely submerged. After all, the inhabitants of the protectorates were colonial subjects, and so, it was left to the master, to do as he pleased. This single colonial fiat has been the source and fountain of Nigeria’s persistent crises of nationhood ever since.
Thus, the Federal government’s plan to throw up a big centenary of this forced merger, next year, is bizarre and ill-advised. Of course, the act of drawing up arbitrary boundaries and creating new state territories are not such a unique thing to Nigeria. As a matter of fact, the whole of modern African States were created in exactly the same fashion at the Berlin Conference of European powers in 1885. They sat around a long, round table with the boundary-less map of Africa in the middle, and started carving up the territories into choice names: Cameroon (Land of Shrimps), Gold Coast (land of Ivories), Upper Volta, Kenya, Mali, among others. That is how modern African States acquired their identities. It is a painful part of African history. That is why no one proposed the centenary celebrations of the Berlin conference in 1995. The 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria was an unfinished business from ‘berlin 1885’. It therefore defies logic that right-thinking Nigerians would want to turn this into a cause celebre.
Why do we want to spend a trillion naira bringing out dance troupes next year to celebrate the centenary of an amalgamation, which to all intent and purposes is a legal infamy? Why do we want to celebrate a major cause of tribalism?
I think you should provide an answer to this.
The pre-colonial era offers us another incisive perspective, even as we look at the same thesis over again.
I vividly recall that sunny afternoon, when the motion for self-rule was moved by the late Chief Anthony Enahoro, during the 1953 Constitutional conference held in Lagos. The response from the Northerners led by the then Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was “as soon as practicable”. Thus, these people were not ready or Self-Government.
I suppose they were not yet prepared to be independent, because of the freebies they were enjoying from the colonial masters.
Do not so soon forget that during colonialism, if you should kill a White in the South, You are in danger of the tribunal, but if that same incident or worse should occur in the North, you are as free as any other person on the surface of the earth is.
Now, how can you call a territory with conflicting code of conduct?
Before you answer that, also consider the 1999 Constitution.
The Nigerian 1999 Constitution in its preamble, reads “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria having firmly resolved to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign Nation under God, dedicated to the promotion of inter-African solidarity, World Peace, International Cooperation and Understanding:
“And to provide for a constitution for the purpose of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our Country, on the principles of freedom, equality and justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the unity of our people,” “Do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution:-“
Permit me into taking some time in assessment of the above, preamble to the Nigerian Constitution (1999).
Who were those who actually assented to that Constitution?
You know, a sample of Ghana’s Constitution of 1992 was made available to all within the territory of Ghana, for their comments/criticisms on the constitution, before its adaptation. So, Ghana can rightly say, that they all have resolved to.... But not in the case of Nigeria, where a few ‘nobles’ sat down to draw up a Constitution they are yet to fully implement.
There’s still a trace of this in the Nigeria of today.
Chapter 4, Section 33, Sub-Section 1, states that everyone has a right to life and no one shall be intentionally deprived of it save in the execution of a court sentence.
But again, while the criminal code upholds this, the penal code does not. Islam permits its followers to kill a fellow follower if he renounces Islam.
I still cannot comprehend how both laws have been able to run side by side, because Chapter 1, Section 1, Sub-Section (3), states, “If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.”
I believe, that even the blind would be able to see clearly from the above, that Nigeria has ‘NEVER BEEN A COUNTRY, IS NOT A COUNTRY AND MIGHT NEVER BE A COUNTRY,’ if Lord Lugard’s prediction, is to be deemed as accurate.
I believe with every bit of sincerity attainable, that NIGERIA IS NOT A COUNTRY BUT A CONSORTIUM OF DIFFERENT SOVEREIGN NATION-STATES, held together by the greediness of the Colonial Masters.
Since, we have now come to this reality, let us therefore allow each party go its own way and peace take the center stage.
Or better still; let a sovereign national conference decide our fate.