Olakunle Agbebi who practices law in the Lagos Metropolis analyses the state of the republic…
National conference venue
Events that occurred in the last 100 years (since Lugard’s amalgamation) have made certain things very clear. No one among the nations and language groups that constitute the present day Nigeria was consulted prior to the amalgamation exercise. Except perhaps for Lugard’s superiors in the British colonial service who gave approval, this was Lugard’s initiative for the convenience of the colonial administration. At that time it did not matter what the different people felt that because they were under subjugation. Any dissenting voice would have been crushed by force of arms. The administrative convenience was the focal point of the exercise and it was carried out by the colonialists. This policy generally guided everything that was done by the British colonial government. One only needs to look at the railways to see. The rail lines running from Kano to the coastal towns of Lagos and Port-Harcourt were done for the extraction of cash crops and minerals (coal from Enugu) for export by sea to the industries in Britain. They were not designed for the transportation of people.
What therefore appears incredible in the Nigeria that I see today is that not only have we carried on with this imposition, we have chosen to treat is as sacrosanct and untouchable and have even gone on to celebrate a warped structure that has cost innumerable lives. The very sad reality is that we have failed at every opportunity to speak the truth and hence the lie continues to poke us repeatedly in the eye. We wince and bear it and then lie again. It is only the truth that will liberate us from this inheritance of problems and shame.
We are not one people. The words “unity and faith, peace and progress” on our national crest remain there for all intents and purposes. They do not form our national motto. We have consistently acted out the very opposite in every sphere of our lives. In fact digressions from the words on the crest are the rule and not the exception. Our people actively propagate disunity, they thrive on division and at the slightest opportunity are given to violence to determine disputes. They rarely settle disputes by dialogue. The fact that we have not made any progress except in the very negative things does not need elaboration.
And so what is the truth?
The truth is that we are deeply ethnic in nature. Everyone seeks the protection and advancement of his or her ethnic cause alone. We have however proceeded, always goaded by the same colonialist who set up this warped national structure, to act as if we are homogenous and to adopt systems of government that have been perfected in homogenous societies. They will not work for us. I have heard people venting opinions on whether it is the parliamentary system of government or the executive system that will work for us and I simply find it amusing. Have we not tried those two already? And where are we 64 years down the line? Still caught between the same models of democratic government that have failed.
Please refer to the speech given by the coup plotters on January 15, 1966. You will find in that speech a catalogue of evils against which the misguided young men were complaining. That coup was against the parliamentary government that was in place at the time. Strangely, you may note that the same evils which were outlined then, continued to be outlined in all succeeding coup speeches and unfortunately are still present with us today. The failure of government to keep its own part of the bargain in the social contract, the total breakdown of the health care system (hospitals becoming mere consulting clinics), kleptomania among the political class etc. One might even be tempted to add that these evils have multiplied in astronomic progression but then again we must look at it all in the context of the values (both monetary and societal) at the time.
For me the disintegration of Nigeria is not an option yet. We now have a common history and having lived together, have formed some sort of uncomfortable bond. It will be extremely simplistic and most unrealistic to say that dividing along language lines will be the solution. That will never work. Even among language groups and ethnic nationalities there now exist divisions which may not be easy to address. We must however go forward recognizing our differences, accepting them and factoring them into our system of governance such that they do not remain the albatross that they have become to our
