By Tonnie Iredia

In the last one month, I have been far more excited about being a citizen of Nigeria than before. Thanks to President Goodluck Jonathan who is set to organize the building of one model city in the country. According to the President, the new city will be better than Abuja and it will not experience power outages. It is this announcement that has lifted my spirit high.

A few months before now, I was greatly depressed by a publicized Centenary celebration plan – an arrangement by government to celebrate 100 years of Nigeria’s existence. Incidentally, the model city is to be known as ‘Centenary city’-a title which substantially mellows down my excitement. Since the word ‘Centenary’ depresses me while ‘Model city’ excites me, this article therefore gives me a golden opportunity to appeal to our President to forget the Centenary celebration but build the new city and give it a better name.

On January 1, 1914, the British merged the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria. Why should we celebrate it? To start with, the amalgamation- another word for merger was not voluntary, that is, it was not the wish of the people. In fact, they were not consulted at all; rather, they were forcibly brought together to satisfy a selfish British economic interest. The story was that Britain like other European countries came to Africa in search of mineral resources. What became Nigeria was one of the places she annexed.

In order to stop others from having access to the mineral resources of the territory she had to effectively occupy the place and administer it. Stingy Britain however did not wish to spend its tax payers’ money to develop the colony, so she evolved what was known as the “colonial self- sufficiency policy” by which every colony was made to develop itself. Southern Nigeria at the time was relatively rich and the British colonial governor, Lord Lugard decided to merge it with the North so as to have enough revenue to run both protectorates as one.

100 years later, Nigeria is yet to overcome the evils of amalgamation. The merger of the people into one country without their consent explains why integration has been for us, an illusion. Hence, Obafemi Awolowo was apt rather than being unpatriotic when he described Nigeria not as a nation but as a ‘mere geographical expression’.

The forced amalgamation, particularly its lopsided demarcation accounts for our unending crave for state creation.  The concept similarly explains why we run a peculiar federation whose components are not allowed to develop according to their varying capacities. Our intense acrimony over revenue allocation can also not be distanced from the same false start.

It is also the fore-runner of the federal character principle that some people in authority use till date to oil the negative wheels of ethnicity and tribalism. Most importantly, the amalgamation put the people of Nigeria into a strange family where there is mutual distrust and suspicion. Instead of statesmen, we have only local heroes of Afenifere, Ndigbo Arewa etc. A President from the South must pick a Vice President from the North and vice versa. If one of them is a Muslim, the other must be a Christian.

For the same primordial consideration, Nigeria is still run till date on the basis of state of origin rather than state of residence. For longer than makes sense, we are unable to have an accurate census because the figures are usually manipulated by each group to undo the other. The same fate has befallen the efforts to have a viable voters’ register and a functional national identity card system

However, those who feel that dwelling too much on the centrifugal factors in our federation is a wasteful exercise have a point. It is indeed time to put those dark spots behind us and move ahead by taking advantage of the resilience of our people to create a great nation. At the same time, it is harmful to remind us of negatives by celebrating the root of our dilemma. Thus, the forthcoming centenary celebration is superfluous. Those in favour of it need to know that before October 1, 1960, Nigeria was not a nation but a colony.

In other words, the planned centenary celebration can only mark colonization and not nationhood.  It is also likely to validate the anomaly of old in which African history was seen as European activities in the continent rather than the achievements of the Sokoto Caliphate or powerful empires in places like Oyo and Benin as well as great men like King Jaja of Opobo. We must in earnest remove from our history fallacies such as that Mungo Park discovered River Niger when it was the local inhabitants that showed him the river!

What we should celebrate is the day of our freedom and not how we were conquered.  Thus, we should reverse the trend of the last 3 years of ‘low-key’ celebrations on October 1- our real day of celebration. It is also wise to occasionally celebrate the end of the civil war which re-established Nigeria as one entity. It will dissuade posterity from future fratricidal wars.

More importantly, we should continually celebrate good governance. As a result, President Jonathan should ensure that the proposed model city is a reality.  It can be called ‘Goodluck city’- a name which reminds us of our development and not conquest. All state governors should do same by building one new ultra modern city in every state. The city, as envisaged, should neither be a bore-hole town nor experience power failure. Being a public/private project, the people will claim its ownership with pride. It should have everything in a modern city.

It should be better than Abuja where people pay for parking their vehicles anywhere, although there are no official parking lots.  In the new cities, there should be no multiple taxation; such as ground rent, tenement rate, development levies, refuse disposal fees etc on one property as we have now in some cities . If so, the new cities will be a source of joy and inspiration to all Nigerians.  To celebrate them daily will for all times be more beneficial than marking forced amalgamation.