No nation has ever excelled by instigating one section of its population against the other. Internal cohesion is an essential ingredient of popular mobilisation. In a society torn apart by perpetual contestations between the entitled and the tolerated, the stage is set for a multiplicity of destinies. So, while the rest of progressive humanity is busy conquering the environment and initiating programmes to lessen the burden of unborn generations, an atavistic contraption like Nigeria limps on one ethno-religious foot.
Many student activists of the 70s have found themselves asking if this was the Nigeria they hoped to see in their old age. Were all the risks taken against the brutal military dictatorships worth their weight in positive outcomes? Those fantastic plans to help propel Nigeria to line up among the nations of the first world — not unattainable to those who are not scared of dreaming — how come they now look like the effusions of a febrile soul?
The attraction of a united Nigeria in the eyes of the British colonialists was administrative convenience. They couldn’t be bothered if Shango had anything to do with the deity at Nri or if Dan Fodio didn’t have anything in common with Oba ovonramwen. They needed a united market and a united source of diverse raw materials. But they were realistic enough to concede that the new creation would not endure unless each segment had a measure of freedom to achieve its fullest potential within the larger whole. Thus, they midwifed a parliamentary constitution.
If Nigerian politicians had not put themselves before the nation, the independence constitution would have endured. But they didn’t. The pieces of the implosion of 1965-66 are still being picked all over the country today.
So, when anyone speaks as if glamorising the first republic, it is as if that person has elevated lying to a fine art. But, with all its warts, the first republic had many things to teach us as we grope in the darkness of centrifugal tendencies urging us to return to the womb of the primordial days before time was born when man was beast to fellow man.
It has become customary that every discussion about the expansiveness and inclusiveness of pre-Independence politics in Nigeria must include the tenure of Umaru Altine, a Sokoto-born Fulani, as mayor of Enugu. Today, would a Sokoto indigene relocate to Enugu and marry an Igbo lady named Esther and rise through the political structure to become mayor?
The first republic may have had its many problems, but it has so many things to teach us about inclusiveness as a tool for achieving cohesion in a diverse polity.
One of the most stimulating papers I have read on the subject is Prof. Yemi Osinbajo’s “Creating A Homeland For All: Nation-Building In A Diverse Democracy”, delivered at the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). As always, I insist on focussing on the message rather than the messenger. Whatever your view about Osinbajo’s stewardship as Buhari’s vice-president, you can’t deny the man’s brilliance and humanity. I therefore find some of the dismissive comments on social media regarding this serious issue, puerile.
Unless we subscribe to the nihilist philosophy of those who believe that the way out of the Nigerian conundrum is a shooting war or a dismemberment of the present structure by all means fair or foul, we ought to be deploying our cerebral faculties to thinking out a solution to the ethno-religious monster that has held Nigeria hostage and whose ugly face dominated recent electoral contests in various parts of the federation.
Osinbajo used personal anecdotes to illustrate his point that our resort to ethnicity and religion is usually self-serving and that when the chips are down, we don’t care where help comes from; what matters is that we get what we want. If only the political elite would be a little less selfish, perhaps we could begin to mould building blocks of cohesion.
The VP told the story of his recent surgery to illustrate his point that tribe and tongue and religion don’t figure in our calculations when we need to get something related to life and death done. There he was in July 2022, about to be anaesthetised. The thought that crossed his mind at that moment was that he was absolutely at the mercy of the surgeons, the paramedics and anaesthesiologist around the bed. One was from the North, some from the Southeast, the head of the team was from Delta, some were Muslims, and some were Christians. Indeed, he suspected that one of them was an atheist. But all that did not matter. The important consideration was that they were the experts.
“When we make the decisions that affect our lives and those of our children the most, somehow we are able to ignore tribal or religious prejudices”, said Osinbajo. “The pilots who fly our planes, the teachers who teach our children in school, the soldiers and other law enforcement agents who put their lives on the line for our safety every day, the members of our national football team, we don’t care where they are from so long as they can perform. This is the attitude we must adopt always to build the nation of our dreams”.
In a departure from the usual practice of senior government officials calling a spade by a cognomen, the vice president donned his ivory tower mortar board to make a well reasoned analysis of the factors militating against national cohesion. Many objective analysts would agree with his contention that we do ourselves great disservice when we reduce an election to an ethnic census.
He highlighted a particularly embarrassing case: “A popular female food blogger and YouTuber called Sisi Yemi, a Yoruba woman took to her verified Twitter handle to say, ‘My husband and I were not allowed to vote, they said we look like Igbo people. I can’t believe this!’”
Osinbajo argues that neighbour is turned against neighbour when the forces of primordial division and polarisation are harnessed for the sake of electoral gain. He however draws particular attention to various forms of bigotry that are no less lethal but which are transmitted and effectively mainstreamed by the media and other social forces.
“The association of whole ethnic communities with certain types of criminality which amounts to the wholesale criminalisation of an identity and the habit of tarring groups with the misdeeds of individuals are deeply problematic .…When individuals, no matter how many they may be, do certain things, it is so easy for us to simply criminalise an entire tribe of people because of the actions of a few. We have done this sort of profiling of a few people in so many ways, such that when you ask someone, ‘who is doing this?’, the response would be, ‘it is people of this tribe…’”
Many analysts had predicted that the recently concluded 2023 elections would be decided by the youths who commanded about two-thirds of the votes. Even with all the glitches that attended the exercise, there is no doubt that young people came out massively to make a difference and that anyone fighting against their resolve to take back their country through the ballot box is only hitting his head against a concrete wall. The overwhelming dominance of young people in Nigeria is already a fact of life.
According to the VP, “Increasingly, we see that the heart and face of the new Nigeria is socio-culturally hybrid, appreciative of the cultural diversity of our society, attuned to his culture but also blessed with an inclusive, cosmopolitan outlook… We saw a lot of that in the politics of this past election cycle, a lot of young people simply chose how they wanted to vote and many of them disregarded old primordial allegiances and in many cases, tribe.
Diversity is the imminent future, says Prof. Osinbajo. “Common citizenship based on a cosmopolitan worldview has become the standard for societies across the world”, he says. “But there is still a tension that exists between this new Nigeria and the old Nigeria as understood by a generation that is much more accustomed to political mobilisation on the basis of identity.
The VP insists that, “What is at issue is not and has never been our diversity but our capacity to manage it with a sense of fairness, equity and justice. The richest nations in the world are those that have learnt how to attract talent from various places and harness diversity as a driver of growth. The politics of division and tribalism can only breed poverty and strife.”
Since inclusiveness is so critical to development and stability, can the incoming government roll out measures to make Nigeria truly a homeland for all? Will it?
I hope it will.