Nigeria, a product of compromise by our founding fathers who as representatives of the dominant groups in a nation of some 300-odd nationalities at different levels of cultural development, envisioned a nation where even though “tribes and tongues may differ, will grow in brotherhood”. Unfortunately this was replaced by our soldiers’ blurred “vision of a good society which became more elusive, the closer they came towards it” (Robin Luckman).
For close to 60 years after the collapse of the first republic, we have done everything except retracing our steps back to where the rain started to beat us. Our successive leaders have never been short of lamentations during our independence anniversaries about missed opportunities, unfulfilled promises, abuse of rule of law, disrespect for human lives and mindless savagery by those who infiltrated through our borders and of course corruption and economic strangulation.
As a mark of departure, President Tinubu during this year’s anniversary, five days back, spoke of his commitment to “public sector reforms to stabilize the economy, direct fiscal and monetary policy to fight inflation, encourage production, ensure the security of lives and property and lend more support to the poor and the vulnerable”. His goal which is not markedly different from the unfulfilled hopes of his predecessors is a nation “where the abundance and fruits of the nation are fairly shared among all, not hoarded by a select and greedy few and a Nigeria where hunger, poverty and hardship are pushed into the shadows of an ever fading past”. Unfortunately his invocations like the lamentations of his predecessors are all but symptoms of our crisis of nation building.
But once again, the occasion of our 63rd independence anniversary provides another unique opportunity to interrogate where we are coming from. This has become imperative since over 70% of our people including political actors, journalists, partisan youths masquerading as EndSARS crusaders visiting violence on public properties in Lagos and the self-styled ‘Obidients’, a euphemism for unthinking and intolerant mob who see only what they want to see.
Nigeria, prior to the imposition of the British colonial rule and carving of it into a conglomeration of states, had over 300 ethnic groups with each of the ethnic groups maintaining a different and independent system of administration.
The British, who according to Pa Ayo Adebanjo during his last Saturday interview by Channels TV conquered Nigeria as different groups; amalgamated the north and the south in 1914 and for ease of administration, institutionalised a unitary system. The West through its leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo had raised an objection on the ground that Nigeria is “a mere geographical expression and not a nation in the sense of the Welsh, the British or the French. And because by nature, the Yoruba of the West are federalists, he had canvassed for a federal system where each group would develop at its own pace without interference from others. The northern hegemonic power wanted a confederal or a federal system they could control, perhaps to enable them create a home for fellow stateless Fulani across West Africa or as feudal lords, sustain their strangle-hold on the middle belt minorities that served as mercenaries during Uthman Dan Fodio’s conquest of the Hausa states. The East wanted a unitary system where landlocked Igbo nation that like the Jews thrive in other peoples land would operate without restriction.
The British who believed it was their presence that had prevented a disastrous descent into a turmoil of warring groups, consolidated federalism through various constitutional engineering starting with Sir Hugh Clifford 1922 Constitution which abolished and replaced Lugard’s Nigerian Council with a new Legislative Council and an Executive Council; 1946 Richards Constitution which entrenched principle of regionalism by formally recognizing three regions as building blocks for a federal system; McPherson Constitution which created central House of Representatives with 68 members from the north and 34 each from the east and west; the 1954 Lyttleton Constitution which marked the beginning of direct elections to both the federal and regional legislatures in Nigeria and the Independence Constitution which consolidated a federal system with a Prime Minister and a Governor General representing the Queen of England.
The 1963 Republican Constitution was a wholly Nigerian affair without the supervision of big brother Britain and it turned out to be the beginning of our nightmare. The constitution stripped the judiciary of its independence while the government granted itself power to declare state of emergency.
The Sardauna had nothing but disdain for Awolowo who he believed was trying to undermine his authority in the north while Zik had an axe to grind with him for his role in derailing Zik’s ambition to rule the West in 1952.
But for Zik, Awo’s incarceration was a pyrrhic victory as the crises over the 1962/63 disputed census, the constitutional crisis that followed the massively rigged 1964 election proved beyond any doubt that Nigeria was a “mere geographical expression”.
It has since become part of our history that the January 1966 military coup which substituted our federal system with a unitary system was masterminded by Zik’s sympathisers in the military while the July 1966 counter coup was a vengeance coup by young northern military officers protesting the selective killing of their political leaders and senior northern military officers. The northern military officers and their civilian surrogates that have been in power for the greater part of our post-independence years midwifed the 1979 and 1999 constitutions, federal only in name but unitary in reality with 68 items in the exclusive list and without a residual list.
As we celebrate our 63rd Independence anniversary, President Tinubu has expressed his commitment “to stabilizing the economy, fighting inflation, encouraging production and ensuring the security of lives and property as well as lending more support to the poor and the vulnerable”. All these can hardly be achieved under a blurred vision that has remained elusive even as his predecessors played the ostrich in the last 53 years.
If we don’t know where we are going, we should at least remember where we are coming from. As Punch editorial of October 1 warned: “Nigeria should stop its precarious existence and take the right choice of restructuring into a true federation with the 36 states as federating units. US think – tank, Brookings Institution, put it strongly: “Sometimes, nations face a stark choice; allow regions to federate and govern themselves, or risk national dissolution.”