By Obadiah Mailafia

THE Gulf of Guinea bore the brunt of the trans-Atlantic commerce in human souls that went on for 300 years, from the 16th century to the 19th century. While the Arabs and Fulanis were raiding the North, the Europeans were wreaking havoc in the South. Glorious kingdoms were weakened, if not destroyed: Benin, Oyo, Kwararafa, Nok, Kanem-Borno and the Hausa City States. When slavery was no longer viable it was replaced with ‘legitimate commerce’. Lagos was annexed in August 1861 and before long the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria was established. In the North, the feudal Caliphate established by Sheikh Usman Ibn Fodiyo barely a century earlier, was brought down by a British expeditionary force in 1903.

The name “Nigeria” was invented by a woman of questionable virtue, Flora Louise Shaw, who later married Frederick Lord Lugard. Although she supposedly coined the name from the River Niger, it rhymes more with the derogatory word “Nigger”. We are, therefore, “the Land of the Niggers”. Nobody was consulted during the 1914 “Amalgamation”. It was done to save money for the war effort. In 1960 the British left behind a warped federal structure which Dame Margery Perham, a noted authority on colonial administration, described as a fragile “tripod”. The British wanted power to remain permanently in the North as their only guarantee of continuing influence.

Nigerians are a highly intelligent, enterprising lot; a self-confident people. Some of our cultures date back to Pharaonic Egypt. Like Archimedes the Greek mathematician, all that we need is a place to stand and we will move the world. Our population is forecast to reach 410 million by 2050, just behind China and India. We have considerable natural resources endowments; with a land and climate that is conducive to agriculture. We have potential to become an inner-directed technological-industrial power.

There is a secret trans-Atlantic project to destroy Nigeria and truncate her promise and destiny. It is a part of a grand strategy to keep our glorious continent as a mere source of raw materials while breaking the spirit of Black people throughout the world. In America today, there are more Black men in prison than in college. We are the people without a history; an invisible race, with no mind, no soul, no hope and no future.

Nigeria’s emergence as a world power will change everything. That’s why they fear and hate us so venomously. That’s why they condemn us as a nation of thieves and scammers. Bechir Ben Yahmed, the Tunisian publisher of Jeune Afrique, a publication known for links with French intelligence services, has campaigned for Nigeria to be kept outside the international information highway. American think-tanks have been in the habit of prophesying our future doom. One of their war colleges uses our country as the model for its war games exercises in managing failed states.

Barack Obama was one of the worst things that ever happened to Black people. Apart from his whirlwind shallow lectures on good governance, he did nothing for our continent, unlike Bill Clinton and the two Bushes. During his time in office Obama blocked all sales of our oil on American shores, depriving us of more than 25 of our traditional market; at a time when we were facing a major recession. He also blocked the sale of arms to our government; denying us the wherewithal to confront Boko Haram. The man was hell-bent on strangling us and bringing our country to ruin. And each time State Department included Nigeria on his African safari, we are told, he would strike it out with a red pen.

In Europe, they have placed a secret embargo on our non-oil exports. When Nigerian palm oil and yams are taken to Ghana and repackaged, however, they gain free entry into EU markets. And they would not take a definitive stand against the genocidal herdsmen militias. Meanwhile, their pharmaceutical companies continue to sell killer drugs and baby formulas to our people. An international agent from Liberia was paid to fly all the way from Monrovia to infect millions of our people with the dreaded Ebola virus. He was only stopped by Ameyo Stella Adadevoh and her heroic medical colleagues in their clinic in Lagos. Only God knows whatever stratagem they will come up with next.

Imperialism works through shadowy agents whose role is to block the wheels of economic and political development. A foreign whore who used to call herself the “mother” of the Niger Delta gangsters was behind those who held our economy by the jugular for years. I would not be lachrymose for the rather overrated Moshood Abiola. He was a foreign agent. Some of those agents have ruled Nigeria while others have occupied sensitive posts in the military, interior and foreign affairs. Some are not even Nigerians. This is why they have been so contemptuous of our national interests. These self-same people have kept our borders wide open to allow killers to come and indiscriminately slaughter unarmed, defenceless people.

Boko Haram started off innocently enough as a bunch of village thugs in Maiduguri before metamorphosing into a deadly terrorist group networked to Al Qaida, ISIS and Al Shabbab. Together with the herdsmen militias, they are sponsored by shadowy international interests hiding out in military bases in our neighbouring countries. They receive air covers from satellites in outer space; with access to drone technology and logistical support by way of military helicopters and night vision equipment. The real game plan is to foment an ethno-religious war that would spell doom for our country.

The late elder statesman Maitama Sule once narrated what a European leader once told him and other Nigerian leaders when they were sent as emissaries to canvass support for the government during the Biafra war: “….Let me tell you, we do not care about you, all we care about are your resources, if we could get robots to exploit your resources for us to develop our economies, we would not mind a lot of you being eliminated. But you Nigerians are a peculiar case, you have the population, resources and we know your resources more than you do know about them.

“All you need in Nigeria is about a fairly long period of say 10 to 20 years; you will be able to make it. You will become a very strong economy, will join the economic powers; but you need this period of uninterrupted peace. But we would not allow you because if you have this period of peace and stability, you will use your brains and Nigerians have got brains; you will work hard and you are hard working people, you will exploit your resources and you have them in abundance and you will develop your economy.

“And developing your economy needs a market, you have no problem looking for a market, Nigeria’s population alone will serve the market; in addition, the entire West Africa region will be your market. And if that happens, you will be a thorn in our flesh, we would lose our source of raw materials because you will be using them in your factories, we would lose our market because you will be the market and also get other markets in West Africa. So even after your civil war, we would create one problem after another so that you may not enjoy peace and stability that will enable you to develop and become such a strong country”.

We live in a treacherous world. We must fight for our place under the sun. And before we run amok and start killing fellow Nigerians, let’s pause for a while and think! The New Nigeria will be led by enlightened leaderships that understand the meaning of history and the sheer gravity of our world vocation and our high and noble destiny.