By Douglas Anele

Penultimate, week, the country’s ruling elite led by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan held the centenary celebration of Nigeria as a single geopolitical and economic unit. From media reports, about twenty-eight heads of state or their representatives attended the event held in Abuja. As a bona fide Nigerian citizen who knows that billions of naira must have been spent for the occasion, it is pertinent to ask pertinent questions, answers to which would help clarity the propriety or otherwise of the celebration.

To begin with, how did Nigeria come into being? Given the colonial calculus of British imperialists that motivated the creation of the country in the first place, can we say that the end justifies the means after a century of experimentation in nation building? As a corollary, can any Nigerian sincerely claim that the country’s chequered history justifies the huge sum that the federal government expended on the centenary project?

What criteria did government officials use in compiling the list of honourees at the occasion? What precisely is the significance of the celebration to the suffering masses? Must we continue with the North-South dichotomy bequeathed us by Lord Lugard or should we construct a new geopolitical architectonic that is more synchronous with a multiply pluralistic society such as ours? Is it rational to claim, as President Jonathan and his predecessors proclaim, that Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable?

Now, the history of how our colonial amalgam came into being in 1914 can be easily ascertained from any well-written book on Nigeria. There is consensus among historians that the amalgamation process was put in motion by British imperialists to serve the economic and administrative interests of the colonial power, Britain. Hence, in terms of fundamental motivation, an external force, British imperialism, dictated the emergence of Nigeria.

The consent or approval from indigenous ethnic nationalities and communities that later constituted the country were completely unimportant and irrelevant to Lugard and his cohorts, in keeping with the logic of colonisation. The question now arises: what is the core principle or logic of colonisation as a historical phenomenon? Answer: colonisation entails that the colonising power feels it has a natural right to manipulate, cajole, intimidate and exploit the colonised community as it pleases.

Therefore, In consonant with the broader framework of European colonial policy of divide and rule, British colonial administration in Nigeria, in the early years of the 20th century, had determined to unite the administrative units they created for centralised control. In addition, the use of British taxpayers’ money to run the economically and educationally backward Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was repugnant to Britain, which meant that coupling the North with the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria was a pragmatic solution to the funding problem. Remember, Southern Nigeria had prospered largely from its agricultural resources and from revenue brought in from customs, part of which could be used to offset administrative and sundry expenditures in Northern Nigeria.

Of course, geographical, historical, economic, socio-cultural and political connections between the diverse pre-colonial communities favoured amalgamation. Thus, the answer to our first question is; Nigeria, like several countries of Africa, was an artificial creation of British colonial adventurism in the continent. By creating a single geopolitical entity out of the conglomeration of putative nation-states, Britain killed two birds with one stone: she was able to get cheap raw materials (including cash crops) for her bourgeoning industries and ready markets for the finished products.

Our second and third questions revolve around justification for the centenary celebration with respect to the origin and historical development of Nigeria. In otherwords, given that Nigeria was founded by British colonialists to serve the interests of Britain, and the fact that the promise, at independence, of a united, strong, prosperous and egalitarian nation that would be the pride of black people worldwide is still unfulfilled a century after amalgamation, is the centenary celebration worth it?

Before we tackle that question, it is necessary to point out that, naturally, the amalgamation policy, despite bringing together in one country diverse peoples connected by some of the factors identified earlier, did not and could not have bridged the religious, linguistic, and socio-cultural faultlines or differences potentially toxic to the idea of One Nigeria.

Even before independence in 1960, centrifugal forces in the form of inter-ethnic rivalry and suspicion, religious dichotomy and political dissension had reared their ugly heads in Jos and Kano riots of 1945 and 1953 respectively. Similarly, the regional elections held between 1953 and 1959, together with the federal elections of between the same period, were marred by rigging, intimidation, and winner-takes-all mentality.

Accordingly, with the approach of independence, prominent politicians deployed virtually everything they had to extend political control beyond their usual political ecologies. Given that scenario, the hope that at independence the acrimony and deep divisions among the most influential politicians, which also reared up during the constitutional conferences held in London before October 1, 1960, would abate and be replaced by unity among the political elite did not materialise.

In fact, departure of the “common enemy,” the British colonial administrators, seemed to have worsened matters. Obsessive quest for control of political power, and by implication the country’s economic resources, spiralled out of control. Indeed, it was in a political atmosphere thick with corruption, mediocrity, pernicious ethnic and religious parochialism, nepotism and impunity that the first military coup was staged on January 15, 1966. The second coup was even more devastating; it was quickly followed by pogroms against Ndigbo living in Northern Nigeria and the Biafran war, the most devastating threat to the very existence of Nigeria.

Overall, military interventions in politics had had a detrimental effect on the evolution of effective and efficient participatory democracy. The political experiments of 1979-1983 and 1999 until date clearly demonstrate that Nigerian politicians have not really learnt appropriate lessons from our crisis-ridden political past.

Democratic culture is yet to take root in the country: all the negative elements in pre-independence and pre-civil war politics are still very visible in the political firmament. Unfortunately, the repercussions now are more troubling because of the complex dialectical interplay of political, economic, ethnic and religious factors whose roots are traceable to both the intended and unintended consequences of the amalgamation.

In a nutshell, then, despite the modest political achievements made in the last one hundred years, Nigeria is still far away from the concept of “giant of Africa” in the real sense, as envisioned by the founding fathers of Nigerian nationalism.

But some historians and members of the Nigerian establishment who benefited, and are still benefiting, from the system believe that Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, late Sadauna of Sokoto, was wrong in describing the amalgamation as a mistake.

TO BE CONTINUED.