₦airaland Forum

I just got him, who knows his breed

INDEPENDENCE never worked in NIGERIA but days of blaming our past and present leaders are gone . The main question now should be what have we done to change the narrative? We have to redefine independence for ourselves and fight for our independence that is based on REVAMPING the mind-set of we NIGERIANS ( NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS ) in order to be truly independent from bad and corrupt leaders. According to popular Nigerian artist BURNA BOY “we need to build a NATION our children and generations to come will see the same way we see the western nations today” .

ARE WE TRULY INDEPENDENT?
On the 1st of October 1960 , Sir ALHAJI TAFAWA BALEWA said “ we are grateful to the British officers who we have initially known as MASTERS and then as LEADERS and finally as PARTNERS but forever as friends ”.

Taking a look on this well articulated statement . If this be true, how is it that after 50 years of this so called partnership we have noting to show for it . NIGERIA cannot boast of any major achievements apart from being the world's poorest region . Its no new story that NIGERIA is the highest producers of crude oil in AFRICA and the 13th in the whole world and still one of the world leading if not the highest importers of petroleum products. This crude oil was found in NIGERIA as far back as 1956 but till date we don’t have any refinery in NIGERIA.

One will be right to ask “ before we came in contact with the British and other westerners how do we feed the hungry mouths? ” this is because today the feeding of NIGERIA so much depends on importation. The answers are simple and straight forward. Our colonial masters encouraged only the farming of cash crops to provide raw materials for their industries and discouraged the cultivation of food crops . This has left us where we are today. One would wonder why they say we are still partners.

Moving away from economic partnerships. Looking at the political structure that was left behind by the colonial masters for us which will require that we observe our journey after we got the so called INDEPENDENCE. It can't be totally wrong to say that INDEPENDENCE was a total disaster .
Lets take a look at the leadership train after independence.
ALHAJI TAFAWA BALEWA ---murdered
GENERAL AGUIYI IRONSI ---murdered
GENERAL YABUBU GOWON ---overthrown
GENERAL MURTALA MOHAMMED ---assassinated
GENERAL OLUSEGUN OBASANJO ---handed over
ALHAJI SHEHU SHAGARI ---overthrown
GENERAL MOHAMMED BURHARI ---overthrown
GENERAL IBRAHIM BABANGIDA ---annulled June 12 election and stepped down
CHIEF ERNEST SHONEKON (interim) ---overthrown
GENERAL SANI ABACHA - (died under questionable circumstance )
GENERAL ABDULSALAM ---handed over to PDP. 1999

Looking at this chain of events you would see we clearly have a problem. Therefore the question now is what is the problem? . All fingers will point at our so called founding fathers ( i.e. those that brought about the INDEPENDENCE as we know today) . We may say that they where so carried away by the quest for power or their selfish interests to enrich their personal pockets just as the BRITISH.

They should have asked themselves some basics questions before embarking on the journey of independence. e.g. what structure do we have to rule these country after the BRITISH leaves? . The mistake started when they initiated political parties along ethic and religious planes, and the results where seen by 1966.

Looking at the first set of leader they gave us . Most of them already had being allegedly involved in corruption cases yet the British government turned a blind eye to it , people like Dr NNAMDI AZIKWE’s involvement in AFRICAN CONTINENTAL BANK . OBAFEMI AWOLOWO and the Coker commission of inquiry and many others. According to a colonial government “ were a UK minister to be involved in a series of transactions, the result which public funds where used to support an institution in which he was directly interested, he would be forced to retire from public life. ” Having known all these, we ask; why did the British allow them in GOVERNMENT? Why did they not interfere in terms of setting up a steady and liveable state before leaving us?. It's wise to argue it from the view that they had economic benefits from NIGERIA and total independence will not be of their best interest.

Can a nation build a strong structure without a strong foundation ? It was clear we had little or no foundation as a country . The little we have is built upon corrupt and selfish leaders. This is because right from the start, the so called leaders never had the interest of the people in mind on gaining INDEPENDENCE. If they did, they would not have continued ruling with the same system the BRITISH did. They even made it worse to favour them more. The leaders we had were direct result of a well calculated training they got from the BRITISH masters . And till date we are still having the same results.

Looking at the NIGERIA we have today, where we are unable to produce enough food to feed ourselves because we still farm the way our BRITISH masters taught us to. We still build our roads with the same mentality of how our master did for us . We still teach the same things they told us to teach in our schools, the list goes on…

INDEPENDENCE never worked in NIGERIA but days of blaming our past and present leaders are gone . The main question now should be what have we done to change the narrative? We have to redefine independence for ourselves and fight for our independence that is based on REVAMPING the mind-set of we NIGERIANS ( NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS ) in order to be truly independent from bad and corrupt leaders. According to popular Nigerian artist BURNA BOY “we need to build a NATION our children and generations to come will see the same way we see the western nations today” .

Nowenuse:
Just as oilPUSSY told you firstly, a revolution can never work in a multi ethnic and multi religious country like Nigeria, because it would be instantly 'tribalized and religionized'.

Only a renowned or renowned groups of Hausa fulani muslim youths can lead a revolution right now against Nigeria because they are the ones ruling. A revolution lead by others would be played down as grievances because their own people are not in power and such a revolution can never get National acceptance.

Any revolution with only regional/tribal/religious acceptance can only lead to a civil war!

No one is planning a revolutionary movement the same way they did in the pass will will to war . My dear nonviolent revolutions are the new deal . It has happened in Egypt why not in NIGERIA?
Take a look at Revolution For Societal And Political Revamping (@RRevamping): https://twitter.com/RRevamping?s=09

ImDStar:
I think at this point, every hands must be on deck and no room for I am north I am south, the suffering is general.

Nobody must bring in political interpretation of this movement, if you know you can't contribute to it on a neutral ground, it would be better to just read comments.

Anybody that says Nigeria is on the right track must be very very gullible, so there is need for total shutdown of this country to send a strong message to this stupid and useless leadlers.

Plz Take a look at Revolution For Societal And Political Revamping (@RRevamping): https://twitter.com/RRevamping?s=09
From there you can send us a mail

Optional09:
i only recognize the revolution lead by Omoyele Sowore all these other revolutionary are political actors who are aiming at distracting the nigerian people

We all know that he cnt do it alone

https://www.instagram.com/revolutionalrevampers/
https://twitter.com/RRevamping?s=09
Follow us on any of our social media handles

A CALL FOR A NON VIOLENT REVOLUTION.

It's high time we took up our responsibility of our country . We say we practice democracy which should be built on the rule of the majority. Its no new news that NIGERIA is the world's poverty capital. Which means if democracy was to be followed duly, the poor people should be in power since we have more poor people .

But ,in NIGERIA what do we see? Same family being in power passing political positions from father to son as if its a hereditary allocation. Where only the rich can contest for political positions . And they have successfully polluted the minds of the poor making us feel that we can never do any thing about it .

This is a call on all the positive minded still concerned with the state of affairs of NIGERIA. And hungry to make a positive change. This is a great nation left under our care by mother nature . We can't continue making excuses That NIGERIA is a failed STATE. So therefore “Why should I be the one to kill my self over her ”.

But it should be useful to remember that almost every great we know today and admire today upon a time in their history had very hard times. And these nations became this way because of the way they handled or reacted to the situation. During these tough times they took a positive action (REVOLUTION) .

We call for a non violent REVOLUTION on all aspect of the government. Holding it accountable of its short comings . And subsequently take over the government.

aremuforlife:
7
Your motives are good.
But we have a problem of public enlightenment.
I believe we are start by making it known that irrespective of our tribe's and religion, we are all facing the hardships and insecurities togethers.
They need to be a public sanitation without affiliating to any political parties.
The orientation is not there, people need to know that we are facing collectives problem, nobody is exemption.
The elites have their ways of survive leaving we the vulnerable to suffer.
And the funniest things is that we are more than them and yet we are always afraid to challenge them and ask for record.

That why we are starting up this movement #revolutionalrevampers.
Its not a political party . Just a group of like minded Nigerians who still believe in NIGERIA and are willing to work to achieve it

dlondonbadboy:
Major General Chukwu kaduna led a revolution, and hausa-fulani called them tribalist and that led to the first civil war. Let's keep calm, a second civil war is on the way..

No body is calling for a war

aolawale025:
Nigerians don't share any homogenous factor. To spun a revolution.

We do.
The suffering we share is enough

aremuforlife:
What are the guideline for the revolution?

A CALL FOR A NON VIOLENT REVOLUTION.

It's high time we took up our responsibility of our country . We say we practice democracy which should be built on the rule of the majority. Its no new news that NIGERIA is the world's poverty capital. Which means if democracy was to be followed duly, the poor people should be in power since we have more poor people .

But ,in NIGERIA what do we see? Same family being in power passing political positions from father to son as if its a hereditary allocation. Where only the rich can contest for political positions . And they have successfully polluted the minds of the poor making us feel that we can never do any thing about it .

This is a call on all the positive minded still concerned with the state of affairs of NIGERIA. And hungry to make a positive change. This is a great nation left under our care by mother nature . We can't continue making excuses That NIGERIA is a failed STATE. So therefore “Why should I be the one to kill my self over her ”.
But it should be useful to remember that almost every great we know today and admire today upon a time in their history had very hard times. And these nations became this way because of the way they handled or reacted to the situation. During these tough times they took a positive action (REVOLUTION) .

We call for a non violent REVOLUTION on all aspect of the government. Holding it accountable of its short comings . And subsequently take over the government.

Donmedra:
we are leaders by nature and can't be intimated.

Same blood flow through by vein
Let other tribe carry their own wahala.

Nigeria is not united and can never be

Funny of you to think that way .


We just have to drop these ethic arguments you are from the best tribe no problems.
But was our fault that we dnt belong to these tribe?

Donmedra:
Bla bla bla, I only care about my Benin tribe.

Don't give a Bleep if the rest of Nigeria burn

Brother we feel your pains.
But a quick question . how sure are you that yu are BENIN by tribe?

You where just told and you believed .

BuhariAdvocate:
Don't call for war please.

We dnt believe a fight can be won with war.
We are calling for a non violent revolution

Its obvious that the only thing to save NIGERIANS now is a political revolution .
Expecting a change from these same leaders and system is a total waste of time .

THE BUSINESS THAT BECAME NIGERIA .

They thought of a name to call her . “THE SLAVE COAST ,CENTRAL SUDAN” but for a long time was called “A PROTECTORATE OF THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY”. It stayed that way for some time. A name was gotten for the great river Niger. From the phrase NIGER-AREA, and this was coined into the name we know today as NIGERIA.

From the onset, this institution was not targeted at developing or improving either the region or the people of the region. For most part of the 19th century the ROYAL NIGER COMPANY (a trading company) enjoyed a monopoly along this region (NIGERIA ), during this period of time the company traded more on slaves. It didn't take longer for the company to discover the unprofitable nature of the trade, invariably this drew their attention to a more lucrative businesses which was centred on COCOA, PALM PRODUCT & GROUNDNUTS exportations.

The British government saw this ROYAL NIGER COMPANY as an avenue to take administrative control of this region, since the company was already grounded in there. €865,000 today’s (€46,407,250 ) was allegedly paid to THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY to buy up this PROTECTORATE. And most of the administrative heads of the company was absorbed into the government as rulers of the region in subsequent times.

After the PROTECTORATE was sold, the story of colonialization began . As most people will say colonialization is economic in aim, monopolist in orientation, political in justification and military in action. Obviously the people of the region was faced with the trivials of having little or no control of the administrations of their land. All the powers was in the hands of the QUEEN .

Taking a look at the economical implications of colonialization in Nigeria, In terms of Trade, NIGERIA became dependent on the British market which was the reason that made the colonial government discourage the production of food crops and encouraged only cash crops for export to ensure a cheap and steady supply of raw materials to British industries. In those times, this trade was for a long time done by batter and these raw materials were exchanged for substances like dry gins, mirrors and many other irrelevant items . Even when money was brought into the picture, the currencies were designed by them and imposed on NIGERIA. Wisdom on their part, in an attempt to secure their interest, a ban was placed at around 1917 on exports to any other country other than THE UNITED KINGDOM.

Consequently, with the abundance of all the raw materials, the colonial masters ensured that no attempt was made in setting up any production plants to process these material to finished products in NIGERIA. They equally successfully made NIGERIA a dumping ground for their own finished goods at a very high price.

In terms of infrastructures, taking ROADS as an example it was alleged that the locals funded the building of most of their internal roads . While the colonial government built only roads that will facilitate their trading activities. Same intents were also carried on in the railway system.
Conclusively, this article is not designed to advocate hate for the British, rather to be a travel down our history lane for it is of utmost importance that we know the journey of our own beginning. Additionally, this essay points at our weaknesses and ignorance and how not to fall for the same mistakes again, for NIGERIA was never set up as a country, It was a white man's business. To move forward, we have to drop the entire system and build up a nation ourselves. A birth of a country designed by it's people void of colonial influence.

For anyone interested in the idea in the last paragraph of the article, you can follow Revolution for Political and Societal Revamping on it's various social media platforms