By Ochereome Nnanna
Independent Nigeria was meant to be a country of unity in spite of diversity. It was supposed to be a country where, “though tribes and tongue may differ in brotherhood we stand” as our former National Anthem posited. The earliest political parties formed in the Lagos area, including the Nigerian National Development Party, NNDP, the Nigerian Youth Movement, NYM and the National Council for Nigerian and the Cameroons, NCNC, all had the same vision of an independent Nigeria united by a strong common bond of citizenship.

The NCNC, in particular, which had Dr Herbert Macaulay as it first National President, and was later succeeded by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, was the most prominent national political party with members drawn from across the country. That was the situation until Chief Obafemi Awolowo formed the Action Group, AG, with a view to controlling his tribal enclave, Yorubaland, and moving from there to attempt to annex other parts of the country in his ambition to emerge as president.

The Action Group single-handedly dismantled the NCNC’s grand nationalist vision through the historic “Carpet Crossing” incident in the Western Regional House of Assembly in 1952. It was from Awo’s successful tribal card, which he used to seize power in his ethnic locality from a national movement that other emergent local elites in all parts of the country started copying in the name of asserting their “ethnic nationalities”, a fad that is very popular in oil-rich Rivers and Delta states.

The second leg of the grand conspiracy to derail the common bond of the nation took place in the North. Northern Nigeria was founded ideologically as an Islamic empire by Sultan Uthman Dan Fodio. When the British colonialists overpowered the Caliphate, it allowed the empire to continue to run along its ideological principles and structures under the royal commission of the British Crown.

President Goodluck Jonathan flanked by Vice President Namadi Sambo (4th right) and the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on the National Conference, Dr. Femi Okurounmu while other committee members watched shortly after the inauguration of the Committee at the State House, Abuja. Photo by Abayomi Adeshida.

It was not surprising, therefore, when the Northern political elite led by the Sardauna, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, decided to shun the national movement (NCNC) and create a political party specifically dedicated to his grandfather’s empire (Northern Nigeria). The North maintained the attitude of isolating itself from the rest of the country until it was sufficiently empowered to take over the entire country and run it, more or less, as an Islamic state. In other words, the North’s original and subsisting basis for peace and national unity is that it must be in control.

That is why Northern politicians and elite behave the way they do: what some people describe as “born-to rule mentality”.

The Awoists introduced tribalism into Nigerian politics. But the Arewaists came with Islamic imperialism dressed up in regional garb. Arewaism hotly forbids tribalism, even though it is driven basically by tribalism since the Muslim Fulani tribe, with their ideologically annexed Muslim Hausa sidekicks, insists on being in the driver’s seat both in Arewaland and Nigeria as a whole. So, to Arewaism, the open mentioning of tribe is abhorred the way a cult group strictly forbids the open disclosure of its core, guarded secrets.

With the nationalism of Nigeria beheaded at the altar of Awoist tribalism and Arewaist Islamic imperialism, Nigeria was reduced to rubble of ethnic fiefdoms slugging it out in the internecine tussles for the economic and political wealth of the nation.

Today, it is normal for a Southerner to tell you (for example): “I am an Ijaw man before being a Nigerian”. But a typical Arewa person will not put it quite that way. He would castigate the Southerner for being an ethnic jingoist, forgetting that his own Northern fundamentalism (Islamic imperialism) is no better. Both are simply two sides of an ugly coin because they are inimical to the emergence of a united Nigeria.

A Nigerian is a Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw, Tiv or Arewa Muslim and others, before being a Nigerian, but that is only to the extent that before Nigeria was amalgamated, they existed in those forms. If Nigeria disintegrates, those identities will remain.

But since Nigeria was amalgamated, won independence from colonial Britain on the same day, came under one federal constitution (and therefore common citizenship), speak the English language as the common lingua franca, use the same currency (Naira and Kobo), live under a single flag, National Anthem and National Pledge; are under the rule of the same laws; are maintained from the same oil-fed Federal treasury and have fought a war costing millions of lives to remain one Nigeria – the old argument in favour of tribal or regional primacy is soundly defeated. Nigerians are now first of all Nigerians before being whatever they were born or indoctrinated into.

The reasoning is simple. If you commit murder, you will be arraigned in court and sentenced to death. The judge will not ask whether you are an Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba or Muslim/Christian because the Constitution and legal system, which bind us all, do not know anything like those.

Nowhere in the Constitution are the tribes of Nigeria recognised for any purpose whatever. The Constitution only recognises our states and local government areas. It does not see us as Muslims, Christians or animists. It does not care what “ethnic nationality” we ascribe to ourselves. The time that the tribes were the landlords of Nigeria vanished with the British conquest and imposition of their imperial rule on their colony, which they christened Nigeria.

The tribes are no longer the landlords of Nigeria. Rather, they are now the subjects of Nigeria. Nigeria owns the tribes within it. No tribe can assert its independence on Nigeria or defy its statutes. The Nigerian army will come knocking if the Nigeria Police is unable to dissuade such adventurism.

We must approach the up coming National Conference armed with this knowledge of the relative irrelevance of tribes and religion and choose our delegates based on viable and constitutionally acceptable criteria. That is what we will address in the second part of this essay next Thursday. It will dwell on how to choose the conference delegates.

Oduah: What a pity!

IT is so sad seeing one of the best ministers in the President Goodluck Jonathan cabinet at the mercy of a lynch mob due to avoidable indiscretions. How I wish this scandal did not crop up! Oduah’s tenure in the Aviation Ministry has been unrivalled by any since Nigeria’s independence, in terms of vision which has driven the structural reform and modernisation of our airports.

Whatever happens to her, I will never forget Stella Oduah’s magic touch which compares only to the assets that Economy Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; former Power Minister, Prof Barth Nnaji; Agric Minister, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina and Investment Minister, Dr Olusegun Aganga, have brought to transform the nation.