By SUNNY IKHIOYA 

Amongst the irredeemable damages caused by our colonial masters in Africa was the indiscriminate drawing of boundaries without recourse to shared values, cultures and languages. Strangers were forced together as one, and true integration has remained difficult until today. It should be why the challenges of African countries had remained insurmountable until today. It is so because the groups that have benefited from this arrangement want things to remain the same. 

But, how can things remain the same with faulty foundations. This is the cause of ceaseless wars across Africa, from Rwanda to Congo and even our country, Nigeria. All the parameters used in managing our country right from independence are based on faulty and deliberately distorted statistics. The population census, border delineation, income-wealth distribution and others. If we continue to deny the truth and continue with the lies, we will never be able to get out of our problems. 

Today, population alone does not confer advantage over others. Factors like education, science, technology, transparency and good governance do. Take a study of countries like Singapore, Taiwan, and UAE, just to mention a few. Highly populated nations  will implode at some point. At the rate the US is going, soon there will be no peace there. Without peace, there cannot be progress. Let us choose the path of truth, transparency, equity, and justice, and things will be okay for this country. 

I was reading a review of the late Richard Akinjide’s comments on Nigeria. He was a principal participant in the First Republic of this country when he served as a minister. He also served in the Shehu Shagari administration in the Second Republic as the Attorney General of the Federation. When such a person comments on the history of our nation, it is important that we take notice. 

This country can never grow on the foundations of injustice. Those days are gone forever. A serious government that wants to change the trajectory of this country must begin with correcting the distortions. Nigeria is an agglomeration of different ethnic nationalities, each with its distinct features and identity. Each of them must be allowed to exercise their rights genuinely without any religious and ethnic coercion. Each one must be recognised on its own. 

This is Akinjide’s comment on how Nigeria came to be where it is at the moment: ” When the amalgamation took effect, the British government sealed off the South from the North. And between 1914 and 1960, that’s a period of 46 years, the British allowed minimum contact between the North and South because it was not in the British interest that the North be allowed to be polluted by the educated South. That was the basis on which we got our independence in 1960 when I was in the parliament. I entered parliament on December 12, 1959. When the North formed a political party, the Northern leaders called it the Northern People’s Congress, NPC. They didn’t call it Nigeria’s people Congress. That was in accordance with the dictum and policies of Lugard. When Aminu Kano formed his own party, it was called Northern Elements Progressive Union, NEPU, not Nigerian Elements Progressive Union. It was only Awolowo and Zik who were mistaken that there was anything called Nigeria. 

“In fact, the so-called Nigeria created in 1914 was a complete fraud. It was created not in the interest of Nigeria or Nigerians but in the interest of the British. And what were the structures created? The structures created were as follows: Northern Nigeria was to represent England; Western Nigeria like Wales; Eastern Nigeria was to be like Scotland. In the British structure, England has a permanent majority in the House of Commons. There was no way Wales can ever dominate England, and neither can Scotland dominate England. But they are very shrewd. They would allow a Scottish man to become Prime Minister. They would allow a Welsh man to become Prime Minister in London, but the fact remains that the actual power is rested in England. That was what Lugard created in Nigeria, a permanent majority for the North. 

“The population figure is also a fraud. In fact, a British Colonial Civil Servant who was involved in the fraud was trying to expose it, but he was never allowed to publish it. The analysis is as follows: If you look at the map of West Africa, starting from Mauritania to Cameroun and take a population of each country as you move from the Coast to Savannah, the population decreases. Or conversely, as you come from the Desert to the Coast, right from Mauritania to Cameroun, the population increases. The only exception throughout the zone is Nigeria. Nigeria is the only Zone whereby you go from the Coast to the North, the population increases, and you come from the North to the Coast, the population decreases. Well, geographers, anthropologists, and population experts draw your conclusions.”

The conclusion is very simple to reach. The figures were all manipulations of the British. The question next is: Do you expect these lies and manipulations to exist in perpetuity, given the way the world is advancing in education and knowledge? The answer is no. Things have changed, and the dynamics can not remain the same. The nomadic Fulani herder now knows that the present circumstances require that he remains in one environment to tend his cows and not be moving from one place to the other, destroying people’s farmlands. He needs a secured place to do this, but he needs to negotiate on peaceful terms with the land owners and not attempt to take it by force. The usually illiterate bottom of the rung Hausa indigenes are now becoming educated and finding understanding of their roots. They are becoming agitated about the way that they have been turned into second class citizens in their own land. 

The Middle Belt people of Benue, Kogi, Kwara, and other states are still wondering why they should be referred to as Northerners when they have their own identities. So are all other minority ethnic groups across the country subsumed under the suzerainty of bigger ethnic groups. Everyone wants her own identity. 

Our challenge today is to make each ethnic group thrive on its own without the bullying of any big power and to allow justice and equity reign under the transparent supervision of a Nigerian Federal Government. But can we pull this off in Nigeria? That will be our El-dorado.

• khioya wrote from  http://www.southsouthecho.com