… you shall not go to Mecca ,
oh Nomad, the road
you have followed
leads to Turkistan
(…admonition of the strayed Nomad in an Afghanistan
village where no compass existed and
information on the correct track to
the Holy City was provided
by only agents and guides
employed by local lords)
By
His Excellency
Chimaroke Nnamani
Governor of Enugu State
Nigeria
---------------------------------------------------------------
2006 First edition of annual lecture series of the
Westerner Newspapers Limited
Banquet Hall, Premier Hotel,
Ibadan, Oyo State
Nigeria
Thursday, August 31, 2006
PROTOCOLS:
My sound greetings, again, to this famed city, Ibadan . If I am
allowed the literary license of giants like our own Wole Soyinka,
please permit me to say iba, to the makers of modern
Nigeria who sojourned here and moved on; to the foundation elements
of Nigerian intellectual tradition, who started and instituted the
Ibadan expressive assertiveness from the University College; and to
those heady starters and finishers of the mainstream arguments on
Nigeria and her tumultuous trip in nation making.
Iba oo.
Today, I seize the second opportune time to come to appreciate,
first hand, the trends of political thought in Ibadan, and as I said
in the 2003 edition of the June 12 lecture, which I had the special
privilege of giving here, the blossoming of great minds, either
associated with the premier University of Ibadan, or the
pre-colonial military as well as the strong traditional political
families, have continued to be registered as firm textures of our
national political and social interests.
As I stated then, and which I maintain, Ibadan cannot escape us;
being then formed as the second largest African city, second, only
to Cairo , Egypt .
Although so many Nigerian towns and cities are keenly vying for
upper reckoning, I can restate my earlier position that Ibadan
remains a curious reminder to us all of the promises of the polyglot
agenda conceived at the evolution of Nigeria . Born of outpost
military depot; fed of deep traditional heritage and nurtured
through thick and thin, it rode the crest of the promises of
multi-cultural fermentation and blossomed in its current
sub-cultural varieties.
Rising as a very important military and administrative headquarters,
long before colonialism, Ibadan possessed great qualities of a
junction town, pre-positioned as the checkpoint of that highway, if
either of the North or seaward south was to be accessed.
Although this is my second lecture trip to this all-important
Nigerian town, I still look forward to the hill point where the
legendary John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo set the enchanting prose and
poetry of
an Ibadan
that was running splash,
of rust and gold;
flung and scattered,
among seven hills;
like broken china,
in the sun.
Ibadan held out the torchlight, perhaps for us all; just as Kaduna
and Enugu did, in approximation or aggregation of varied values, and
by its openness, Ibadan gainfully suggested ways for the development
of multi-cultural societies, until such uniqueness was nearly blown
to smithereens by heady actions of temperamental players in our many
vitiated national schemes.
As the legendary Gabriel Okara, I crave the opportunity of ascending
the hilltops to sup of the ariel view of that:
broken china,
with scattered,
aged, tin roofs;
… of yet a disorderly setting,
in its cohesive stretch.
Besides the national apprehension of yet another truncation of
programmes of national stability, of which Ibadan is expected to
play its own card well, we stand to reckon and indeed hold the city
accountable for the gains or otherwise of the ferocity of the South
Western literary stamina, which has ridden the tenacity of a
stubborn media culture. Can we forget the fact that modern African
Literature was born right here, with writers like Clark, Christopher
Okigbo, Chinua Achebe and others, who gave our nation the first
intellectual teeth? As I also held in my last trip in this good
city, the baffling survival, even at the doorsteps of some wishes
for terminal accidents, imposes a strong sense of duty on this
culture of mind, if only as an assurance for unstoppable future
strides.
I must confess to you that I have yet to alter my earlier view that
the greater national debate, or the more marketable poise for
national conscientisation – for now and perhaps for the future -
resides somewhere between Ibadan and Lagos, where it is only certain
that the reading public are more duty bound to leave some valves of
survival for emerging institutions of the mass media.
In saying this, as I did last time, I am not pretending that the
literary culture, the buoyancy of the media and the boldness of
social mobilization, are the exclusive preserves of the sons and
daughters of Oduduwa. I am not even saying that the sons and
daughters of Oduduwa, alone, drive these; much as I cannot even
pretend to ignore the reality of the admissibility of the culture of
the native people, of others’, and the very accommodating and
healthy cosmopolitan tradition of most host communities in the old
West of Nigeria.
At the moment, I still maintain that the very difficulties imposed
on the Nigerian political society by the inadequacies of programmes
of political transition that are fraught with the dangers of
inter-ethnic, inter-institution and inter-belief conflicts, posed
some damaging challenges in the attempt at cohesion and eventual
integration of a multi-ethnic nation which, as ours, is in hunger
for unity of purpose and direction.
But aside these, today, I must admit to you that in the course of
the seven years and so months we have practiced democracy,
rudimentary as some may argue, that there appears on the sharp edge,
a dimension far more threatening to the nation than anything else,
as it has so deeply eaten into the system.
But even as we contemplated these vital experiences, going by the
urge to speak out on something else, it became imperative to seek,
once again, the vital links on which our nation state would be
anchored and for which onward national drive would ride.
The final decision, for me to be in Ibadan today, was like a running
battle between my staff and Mr. Clement Ige, the anchorman for this
programme; whom I have since come to associate with large reserves
of organizational abilities. We have together tinkered with matters
more experiential to us as a nation and such others, which appeared
to hamper cohesive national journey from a wholesome realization.
But each time, we had to contend with the viability of some topics
at a season when it became fanciful to urge that which defined our
dissimilarities. And indeed, arising from the conceptual philosophy
of The Westerner newspapers – to report other
cultures to the Yoruba and Yoruba culture to others - we could
not help but grab the suggested topic, but with a single modifier –
challenge – which we know really contains the questions yet
to be understood, appreciated and harnessed for craved national
trip, in fuller designation and re-designation of our nation state.
Of course, we are all witnesses to the order of advent of European
colonialism and the subsequent pattern of colonial administration,
which imposed on some Nigerian peoples, a tough challenge of
appreciating multi-national configuration, against the erstwhile
experiences of mono-cultural settings, which prevailed prior to the
age of Salisbury’s European conquest of Africa .
And in the case of Nigeria, the challenges imposed on us by the
simple setting of a national signpost that was devoid of a conscious
effort of the reigning order at stimulating a proper national
feeling, left in its wake some kind of nostalgia for the overrun
empires and kingdoms, princedoms and principalities, which many of
us were not told, had, indeed, faced their own problems of scenic
implosion as colonialism banged on the doors.
Large, imposing and furious as the Sokoto Empire was, and challenged
on its own turf by the intransigent Bornu Kings who insisted that if
the purpose of the 19th Jihad was to impose Islam, their areas
should be exempted on account of a full realization of the tenets of
the practice. In the same vein, those other territories, south of
the sub-Sahara and in the Benue Basin , could not understand why it
had to be any person’s business how they conducted their
relationship with their gods.
In any case, in so many accounts, they had shown that they were
prepared to stand their ground and call the bluff of the invading
Jihad’s army, which was not prepared to seek their opinion on how
their societies would be set and run.
But even as these last stands were being taken, the fabulously rich,
powerful and imperial Sokoto, was not contemplating any dialogue
with people they knew harboured enough resources to augment the
aridity of the region it took off from. As Elizabeth Isichei argues,
the die was cast, and one thing had to give. It was either
the peoples of the Benue Basin or present day Middle Belt accepted
the authority of Sokoto or they be crushed by the famed advancing
military machine of the Sokoto empire.
As these raised storms; as thick dusts of previous wars were still
hanging in the air; the north-to-south western version of the Sokoto
annexation programme had been underway and the Yoruba could not help
but contend with a mugbamugba war, at which the splintering
native generals reversed themselves and ironically confirmed the
strength and suzerainty of Emir Abdulsalami in Ilorin, an appointed
princely envoy and outpost king in service of the powerful Sokoto
regime.
We remember very well that prior to these explosions, empires rose
and fell in the Yoruba world. At a time, it was the turn of the
massive Oyo whose imperial might had had to battle the spiritual
clout of Ife, even as its might was strongly questioned and
virtually overturned by the famed Benin Empire. Indeed, while we
leave core historians, as the students of our Festus Ade Ajayi,
here; to settle which of these two powers was supreme at some time,
the impact of Benin came so strongly in European expeditionary
documents that it was not known whether it was a case of an Empire
over an Empire or one among other empires in one huge, striding,
polyglot territories. That is, wherein our latter-day Lagos ,
although identified as Eko in Benin Empire, in various European
explorers’ epistles, appeared to sit on the soils of Yoruba land,
erstwhile territorial claims, of Oyo Empire.
One conclusion we can reach today is that perhaps, the deciding
point that stood stronger and reigned over the others, would not
have taken long in coming, if not the interruption of the European
conquerors of the age of Salisbury, who arrived, albeit
victoriously, on a different military clout and clime.
But even as contentious as the claims, in that region is, the
peculiarity of the pattern of incursion into the eastern axis of
Benin, towards the occidental banks of the Niger, was such that it
was not certain whether this had been by emissarial liaisons or
military conquests. But what rules out military conquest was that
whereas the clusters of settlement between the Empire and the
immediate western bank of the Niger exhibited some elements of Benin
political practices, they remained segmented village settings with
unmistakable Igbo traditions. Neither strictly annexed to nor
accordingly acceding to a centralized, large suzerainty. Rather,
they remained patches of minor kingdoms, contending with the
republican equivalences of the moderated Igbo consensus settings,
east of the Niger .
Of course, in reviewing the poise of the Sokoto military machine,
set in the yet undecided battles raging in the Middle Belt region,
no clear hint of the Jihadist sweep would have been expected in
taking long, in coming, through the thick vegetation of Igbo land,
among the other rain forest and mangrove regions of present day
South East and Niger Delta.
Nevertheless, it had its own kind of marauding suzerainty headed for
eclipsing the entire territories in the early 19th century.
Rising from its nucleus in Aro Chukwu, the Ibinu Ukpabi
Deity had armed the Aros with some awesome oracular might, such that
nearly, every part of Igbo land was being forced to accept this
suzerainty or face extinction – usually by a trip to Igwenga - the
city of disastrous memory, known then as point of no return,
for the beleaguered peoples of that region. Thus, the battle had
been set and the peoples torn among themselves in the summons and
menacing beckoning of one of Igwekala of Umunnoha,
Agballa of Awka and Nkwe or Owhe of Isuama, among
other emerging deities, which had been devised to contend with the
unrelenting menace of the Aro and his Ibinu Ukpabi.
Largely, as Nigerians, we easily identify these major pre-colonial
theatres of military, cultural and political actions and contests,
as our basic entities, nay regions. We also, usually, argue our
cases of distinctiveness on the grounds of such tumultuous eras, if
only to amplify our desires for centripetal or diffuse values in the
administration of our emerging nation state.
Of course, we have ready justifications in the regionalization
exercises of the then amalgamated Nigeria , in the births of
Northern, Western, Eastern and later Mid-Western regions.
In other words, at once, we had been children of our history as we
had been undecided members of newer settings whose eventual
structure and configurations we still argue had yet to be decided on
our affirmative actions.
And each time we reach for the nostalgia of the old kingdoms and
empires, we refuse to acknowledge the reality of those historical
junctures when on cession and final annexation in 1859, 1860 and
1861, Lagos colony and the adjoining Yoruba countries, came under
the forcible suzerainty of the British. It took just another 14
years, as pronounced in the Colonial London Gazette of June 5, 1885,
for the declaration of the Niger Districts,
unapologetically – that is whether you like it or not – as having
come under the gracious protection of Her Britannic Majesty.
The setting of the series of annexation, pacification, conquest and
intimidation of the other territories came in no less violent but
firm resolve of the British authorities to insist that its arriving
political and military order, would neither tolerate nor invite the
opinion of the local people, as typified by the admonition of
gladiators like Sir Ralph Moor, who never minced words about the
might of the imperial order in his threat never to brook any
opinion. By way of sounding out his uncompromising posture, he had
roared, November 14, 1901, that the natives must be made to
understand that the government is their master and is determined to
establish in and control their country.
Of course, expectedly, this kind of challenge posed by a supposed
visitor who saw no gains in inviting the opinions of bickering
natives tended to undermine the initial impression of selves as held
by the indigenous peoples and naturally, tests of might had to be
conducted.
Now, you can understand the mindsets of those who resisted the Sir
Moors of this world. Control our land? Standing tall, huge and
sufficiently imposing in physique, the Ezza man in present Ebonyi
State , yelled, in 1909. O bu elu, o bu ala, (military
supremacy comes only in the order of the sky above and the earth
beneath – which are undefeatable) followed by we, the Ezzas,
in the order of might in battles. So, we shall not bow to your
authority. Of course, they were ruthlessly conquered and many
of their able bodied men carted off to the tin mining pits in Jos to
permanently replace the natives who had, in their turn, been carried
off to serve in various far away sectors of the raging First World
War.
In the far North, the kicking, yelling and repeated refrain of
kasarmu ce – this land is ours - was not enough to dissuade the
likes of Moor.
And, if not just amused, having been confident of the toughness of
his weapons of conquest, he was neither perturbed nor impressed by
such sneers and cries as iro, ili mi ni, no, in my own
land; for the individuals in Abeokuta or Eewo, ile wa ni yi!,
no, this is our land. His conquering forces took territory after
another in the old Yoruba world, and the rest, as they say, is
history.
Somehow, if this rugged usurpation, manifested in the arrogant
disposition and proclamation of the likes of Moor, were taken into
account in our often-recited histories, it then becomes a wonder why
the question of attaining a credible pacification and political
homogeneity is argued to have failed or been unfinished. Even in
application of international law of conquest and cession, the
success in forcibly knitting of these scattered territories into one
administrative setting, sustained in exercises of integrative
regimes, can be enough claims in having fully annexed, possessed and
knitted the areas in question.
But in repeated urges for return to the past, albeit in their
splintered, undecided boundaries, we, somehow, reduce it all to the
national foolery, which Count Haeder Jodl had strongly contemplated.
According the famed scholar cosmopolitan cultures, if a people
should ignore the reality of their history, hitching for the
pretension of a would-have-been compact state, which has yet to shed
its pristine bickering and divisiveness, such people would have
displayed an unpardonable political laziness of which the new
foundation for the evolving state should pass them by.
Of course, as Jodl holds this view, he accepted that whereas most of
native African and Asiatic settings had effectively established
nationhood, with ever expanding, if not perpetually contentious
frontiers, the idea of effective states were more than mirages
before the brand introduced by colonialism. And in the attempt to
flee from euro-centricism of which western scholars had been
endlessly accused, he accepted that …in Africa…in particular,
the relationship between nation and state, where the later existed;
between government and society, and between culture and politics,
were entirely different from what they had been in England, France,
Germany, etc. He has, therefore, the concluded that whereas the
first generation of colonial administrators missed the deeper
elements in building unified states, with multiple nations, therein;
they had played for the safety of dividing the people to secure safe
harbors, where their interests would be least threatened.
Indeed, what Jodl’s analysis realizes is like the setting running on
the conclusion of William Crocker, the British anthropologist, who
saw no hope of homogeneity for the emerging Nigeria nation, which
had been declared by his predecessors who conducted the conquests,
and pacification of the decade before he arrived. He said in 1929,
it would be a long time before there can be any hope of
effective nationalism in Africa crown colonies because there is
little to build any homogeneity of feeling…upon what Europe or the
great Asiatic groups have had, experiences such as the influence
extending over centuries of common corpus of beliefs and loyalties.
To bring his worries to a head, Crocker lamented that if you
walk along a straight line merely a hundred miles or so in the then
emerging colonies …you traverse peoples and cultures which for all
their similarities, scarcely touch on a single point down at bottom.
This had obviously run against his experience of Europe where,
according to him, you…find, amidst all the diversities, the
common stamp of Greco-Roman civilization and Christianity.
Elsewhere, when I had to take up some of these issues of national
cohesion and simple direction, I contended that Crocker and the
pessimistic others, including our national and regional pundits, had
missed the hint that while Bornu was yet to settle with Sokoto;
peoples of the Middle Belt set in heady battles to stave off the
Sultan’s army; Abdulsalami of Ilorin was also still contending with
Onikoyi.
About at the same time, the entire Kings and generals in Yoruba land
were reaching for the jugular of one another, betraying and
subverting one another; just as the Ibinu Ukpabi, Igwekala,
Agballa and the other deities, in the South East and Niger
Delta, could not settle the supremacy question. Again, it was the
same time the Princes in Benin Court contented themselves with
celebrated liaisons with the damsels of the Igala Kingdom and West
Niger Igbo, some resulting in intense military conflict.
Against this background, I dare ask, are we not indebted to our
analytical mind to the effect of realising that there was a massive
gap of a Julius, Augustus and Justin, Ceaser; a
Peter the Great, a Napoleon, a William the
Conqueror, etc; before the Europeans came, and so could not
have had any such great Asiatic civilization or common stamp of
Greco-Roman civilization and Christianity.
Quite all right, we should accept that preceding questions of
pre-colonial territories and peoples were raised, hotly contested;
battles peaked in their ferocity, but were yet not decided as
European conquerors swept through.
We must also take into account the fact that as we missed out in the
romanisation of that era, we did not have the chances of
any russification. This, we all know, manifested in the
sweeping of Eastern Europe into the Communist regime and values of
the recent past. In this, the forebears of the
milito-westernising influences of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO) and the counterpoise of the eastern bloc in the
Warsaw Treaty Organisation (WTO), created their own brands of
continental and quasi-global consciousness, values, state networks,
a sort of homogeneity, that prevails till date.
Elsewhere again, I did state that indeed, much as it would appear
attractive to claim that the absence of these icons or impelling
forces in Africa, nay Nigeria, was the tragedy, which brought about
the current flight of a feeling of oneness among us, the eventual
conquest of the vast territories, running in one British Colonial
administration, for decades now, had erected sufficient anchors for
the ship of nation state to berth.
Granting that the results still appear debatable, we know that there
have been very strong attempts to erect a common feeling,
particularly in the areas of Christianity and Islam. Yes, we readily
argue that these had failed woefully because of their faulty
execution. We readily state that the chances of these religious
tendencies got bogged down in ethnic group identifications as each
assumed that religions or denominations introduced in their areas
had peculiar relevance and appeal to its distinct people and
culture. Against that background, the peoples saw the other
religions or denominations, in some cases, as incompatible with
their values. That is not minding the fact that these religions were
all completely alien but had adequate urge to be imbibed as
representing the ascribed aspirations of the peoples.
As it was with early Christian evangelisation, in advent of
colonialism, Islam, which ought to have taken deep roots in the
entirety of the current North West - that is the old Sokoto Empire –
as well as North East –the old Kanem- Bornu Empire – arrived no
uniformity. The Kanuri, who believed that they were intensely pious
in application of Islamic values, could not readily succumb to the
claims of greater piety or purifying intentions of the Sokoto
Hausa/Fulani, who advanced on a military might fanned by the embers
a Jihad.
Even in the Middle Belt, embracing Christianity, which appeared as
the refuge of the heavily harassed peoples, was fitful as it took
roots alongside colonialism. It could not attain any form of
universalism for the region, as it was itself mired in skirmishes of
various denominations. The Catholics could not see any oneness with
the Anglican, just as the Methodists viewed other denominations with
disdain, although they all profess Christianity. But haven’t we now
confirmed that in most cases, these denominational battles
represented the tussles for supremacy among the European powers –
France , Germany , Canada , Italy , etc, with the Catholic version;
England with the Anglican version; America with many other splinter
interpretations.
Thus, religion, which elsewhere was a cultural binding force - what
with the accompanying factors of commerce, claimed
civilization and education – with its integrating values,
actually fell short of what was required to give the internalisation
of national consciousness and dominant ethos. Of course, this is
sufficient reason to contend that an unconsciously designed social
regime shot down an exercise that would have resulted in national
integration, such that would challenge our repeated return to
interests in far gone kingdoms and empires.
I take it for granted that my views on harnessing ethnic values are
well known, having been previously well stated. I take it for
granted too that it is appreciated that I belong to the school of
thought which accepts that much as so many mistakes had been made in
attempts at erecting a nation state, it is more appropriate to
consider that we may have passed the stage of coming from the
inside to the outside – unbridled divergence, against the other
view, coming from the outside to build the inside –
conscious convergence.
In holding this view, I am not unaware that some scholars and
politicians firmly hold that this may amount to putting the cart
before the horse. But, then, mine rides on factors deriving from the
foregoing historical analysis.
Perhaps, in the course of this discourse, I would make myself
clearer. It is at this point that I will consider the term
regionalism in the terms of word-meaning and political application.
According to the New Webster’s Dictionary of English
Language, a region is…a large part of space, land, sea
or air which has certain distinctive characteristics, e.g. boundary,
temperature…space surrounding a specified area (…surrounding an
organ of the body). In its political application, we can
strongly argue that if we rely on the colonial creations, such areas
carved into definitive administration areas, and which
possess a history of wholesome inclusion since modern
administration, can lay claim to the status of a region.
We can as well push so close to it the argument that our native
regions transcended these modern regions as what we have today
amounted to balkanizations of erstwhile indigenous regions in favour
of modern colonial types. But such position must wait for us to
settle the unresolved conflicts predating our own colonialism. Take
for instance the unsettled theatres in Ibadan and Oyo; the Benue
Basin challenge; contending oracular influences in Igbo land; among
others. The Ibadan , Oyo, Eko (Yoruba) theatres ate so much of Benin
as the Ilorin front was being lost completely to Sokoto’s outpost
King, Abdulsalami. The Deities and the other forces gained so much
in the deep forest zones, while they lost massively, first, to the
Oyo/Ibadan axis, and later, to Benin .
Further North, it is not certain whether it was Sokoto or Bornu ,
which lost out, or gained much, in the erection of the vast Northern
region of Nigeria . What was clear was that the grandstanding of the
peoples in today’s Middle Belt had to be swept into the waiting
embrace of Sokoto, as the large modern region was created without
their opinion heard out on the matter.
In sustaining the eventual pacifications which mounted the glue for
soldering the subsequent colonial creations, Nigeria ’s political
development has yet to depart so much from the principles arising
from earlier exercises, and as such more factors underlining
federalism naturally had to follow, to assuage such areas of Nigeria
claiming emasculation.
But even as this has been the case, what we initially thought
represented erstwhile regional distinctiveness has been assailed by
further authentication of claims that these formations neglected
erstwhile native settings. Minorities arose from within these
regions, leading to the birth of states and clans, and sub-clans
have further agitated for distinctive identities, if only to impress
pre-colonial dissimilarities with neighbours or sister groupings.
There are these groups of cases for our illustration: The Eastern
region, which was carved in provinces, ran an expanse of territories
from the coast to Igbo heartland in the East and North. There was,
at Nigeria inception, a Central province which rode from the
Northern and Western-most tips of the Niger Delta areas to as far as
such Igbo heartland areas as Udi, Awka and Nsukka.
By the then colonial arrangements, these were initially carved into
districts before they became divisions within the provinces. The
incorporation of Onitsha and Asaba divisions into the Benin
Province, for some scholars, looked like some deliberate attempt at
ensuring that in the then emerging Niger Protectorate, the Igbo
areas merely constituted peripheral sections (divisions and
districts) serving the long standing traditional Benin
aristocracies, as well as the emerging cosmopolitan tendencies, of
the era.
That way, people from the then Nsukka and Udi divisions, (that is
the whole of the present day Enugu State ); Aboh (one third of the
present Delta State ); and Awka (over one half of the present
Anambra State ), had to appeal to a Warri - based administrative
suzerainty.
In the southern Igbo areas, it was argued that colonial chicanery
caused Owerri division, (the whole of present Imo State); Umuahia
and Aba (the whole of the present Abia State; Abakaliki (the whole
of the present Ebonyi) and Diobu (present Rivers State), to be glued
to traditional and modern values dictated from Calabar.
It was equally argued that these only went to prove that the people
were consciously designed to banish their heritages, even as the
colonial masters pretended to apply local institutions in
governance. But these areas were reported not alone in their claims
of travestied national and regional structuring, of which the
emerging Nigeria State could not have heeded, but raised in the
consciously to seek autonomy, if not view the entire exercises as
suffocating contraption.
In the North, the struggles of the United Middle Belt Congress, UMC,
were driven by the perception that this region, which effectively
kept the invading Fulani Jihadists at bay, had now been forcibly
included in an arrangement where the peoples claimed they were the
clear minority and inferior participant.
Even in the West, the political actions of the Osadebey political
clan were clearly to effect changes reflecting the West Niger Igbo
people’s reunification with their kit across the eastern banks.
But in reality, if the opinion of the old sections were not invited
in the creation of colonial regions, the staying skirmishes induced
by sub-regions, quasi-ethnic groups and clans/sub-clans state, have
so far forced exercises in repeated reordering, thus, becoming
impossible to argue for a return to old configurations.
This was eventually to reveal, as we shall see shortly, that such
strong factors of occupation, interactions, influences, learning
and eventual adaptation, truly produced a classical case of cultural
grafting, political knitting and leadership hybridism which, if
gainfully explored, assures steady rise in national cohesion; but
viewed from the reverse point, appears almost distinctive, short on
originality, quasi-cosmopolitan in use and basically clarion-like in
the hands of ethnic/regional swift dealers. Surprising as this is
treated with levity, it has become our nemesis in reaching cohesive
national integrative process, and tended, more to, refreshing
pristine political genres in compelling latter-day political
compromises, concessions, exchanges and interchanges, other
dealings.
However, in holding both positions, we are, indeed, affirming the
reality of Nigerian history, replete with efforts at enthroning some
sense of national feeling or consummation of effective pacification
and unification. What appears an issue is which comes first.
At least, the political experience, though harrowing, of Nnamdi
Azikiwe, in his bid to institute a national political struggle under
the aegis of the National Council of Nigeria (and Cameroon)
Citizens, NCNC, which sought to take control of Western Regional
government business; which, tried to erect an egalitarian political
following, against well tested aristocratic oligarchy, in the North;
and which suffered such fatal blows of divisive colonial
confrontation; but good progresses, even though it had to,
eventually, be soaked in well-crafted ethnocentric
responses, a well-tested style that was the ready tool of the then
threatened British colonialists.
Indeed, the erstwhile attempt by Nnamdi Azikiwe, which never
operated those ethno-powered obnoxious principles, had yielded an
extension of national patriotic instinct on whose platform an Umoru
Altine, from deep North Sokoto , was elected the first Mayor of
Enugu and a Dr. Balogun as the Mayor of Port Harcourt – two Igbo
dominated modern metropolis.
In the same vein, we must admit that such nationalistic flame was
not only spotted in Sa’ad Zungur, Abdul Razaq, Adeniran Ogunsanya,
Aminu Kano, Solomon Lar, McEwen and many others, but also fully
exploited in a latter-day development where the patriotic zeal of
Ogunsanya had to come into decisive play in the effort at
reintegration of Ndigbo in the immediate post- Nigeria-Biafra war
Lagos.
But the success-result in tragically undermining the birth of a
truly national political contiguity, as the colonialists did, was
only a chance lost which, as we know, brought the good in Nigerians
in bringing about and achieving the competitive regional governments
that we had just before the disintegration of our entire national
system, between 1964 -1966. In fact, riding the crest of distinctive
inclusion, in an emerging national order, the regions embarked on
programmes, which easily propelled Nigeria into the fast developing
club.
As reported, the cocoa plantations of the West, the groundnut
pyramids of the North, the palm oil and kernel in the East, emerged
as stimulus, for erstwhile docile economies and the stage which was
set had promised good results in bountiful political harvests, if
only the emerging post-colonial elites had the right idea of how a
competitive federal state should run. It was of course the failure
to fully build on the competitive gains of this kind of regional
structure that deliberate actions in negation emerged on the hints
of earlier values of divisive ethnicism.
Remember, as I said earlier, this was consciously induced by the
threatened colonial order, just the same way it caused a split among
old Indians into India and Pakistan, and later, India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh. What were at issue then were not the integrative
possibilities of Nigeria but matters and actions steamed by
frightened colonial agents, who successfully, though unfortunately,
hinged their planned transition on games and tantrums of individual,
which, in turn, got celebrated by the elite as regional or ethnic
differences.
But if the practices of colonial administrators did so much
disservice as this to colonial of their Queen the Majesty, the
chicanery of postcolonial expatriate employees was worse. Right
before the unsuspecting eyes of our pioneer indigenous leadership,
elements in competitive regional development were to be exploited by
these desperate expatriates who sought jobs in the various regions.
If you remember, the regions ran separate services, as the states of
these days, but in the cases of the departing days of colonialism,
exercises in Nigerianisation were confronted by the reality of
retaining Europeans and Asians in posts that could not be
immediately filled by local hands. There was this practice in which
regions maintained recruitment outposts in London and these,
unfortunately, offered the Europeans the field to fully manipulate
Nigerians. A European seeking employment in the Northern Regional
service, but got repudiated could get the same employment offered to
him in the Western Regional London Recruitment office. On arrival in
Nigeria , this European had his mind made up against the North. It
could be in a case with the East, or West, or even against the
Federal Central Service. So, there was a beehive of European
manipulative activities, such that were also manipulative of the era
of first military government, and added to the precipitation of the
civil war.
Of course, as it were, these foreigners were not competing on
matters that could be of benefit to the various areas of Nigeria but
merely to pay back to some regions or play to their
individual fancies, to suit the personal interests of the white
staff.
Ordinarily, the emerging indigenous elite should have filled these
gaps posed by this missing link, but as shockingly revealed in our
history, the hypocrisy and opportunism, I dare say, exhibited by the
elite of that era, simply firmed up the birth and foundation of the
obnoxious perception which set to torpedo the gains of competitive
regionalism.
The challenge, afterwards, then had to be, the revival, or in the
absence of one, the enthronement, of national ethos, on which an
integrative foundation would stand for a nation state in the making.
This, you may not believe, proved recoverable and affirmable in the
various adventures of the military in our national body politic.
That is, strictly speaking, in terms of building the sticking glues
for a modern nation state, from little, if not from nothing.
I am certain that many of us here would wonder what I thought could
be appreciable in dictatorial military regimes, regimes that were
clearly violent and uncompromising, in styles. One first hint, with
the benefit of hindsight, was that, whereas the opportunity of
sowing the seeds of conscionable national feeling was aborted in the
artificially created political condition of ruthless ethnic
competition, some institutions, whose composition was structured as
non-negotiable, happened to be in place to manage, even if
not-so-impressively, the craved, though repeatedly aborted, national
consciousness.
Of course, we cannot ignore the fact that the higher level of
indoctrination, especially in getting Nigerians to turn against
selves, was more among the political class. We are aware that the
feeling of ethnic pre-eminence, or ethnocentrism, became far more
diffused among the civil society, such that the emerging elite –
steering media leverages - saw no more than ethnic interpretation in
matters, which should have been resolved on objective conditions.
It was not, therefore, surprising that whereas the highly
sophisticated civil society demanded what were considered elements
in equity, they unfortunately wore the garb of ethnic persuasion.
Where the elite identified such points that were strong enough to
wrest concession from the various federal administrations,
especially under the military, what appeared on the horizon was
unbridled ethnicism, especially such portrayed in languages
typecasting regimes and individuals as representing individual
sections of the country.
It is, of course, the response to these that is of much interest to
us here. Predictably, the military had dug in on the mantra of
federalism, which then had to become the refrain of those who should
not be seen to be opposed to the birth of a glued, integrative,
Nigeria .
Remember that we come from a background of unsettled national
questions before the arrival of colonialism. Remember also that as
the colonial order set in motion its perceived regional
delineations, it, at the same time, appeared to have injured some
sections of the country. And as we set to correct the anomalies
perceived in British colonial creations, we are faced by further
shouts of blue murder from the sidelines – the
ever-emerging clans of minorities. As one of my staff who has this
diction of the typical expressive Lagosian saw it, go, no go;
tanda, whoside?
The question I shall pose in response to this is, should the nation
wait, or bicker, or implode? Your answer, onward march, is
the same with mine. And this appeared to be what the military
pursued in earnest.
We are aware that the much realized, in the Greco-Roman
civilization, which appealed so much to Crocker, et al, and the very
gains of Russification, NATOnisation, WTOnisation and even
the exploits of currently ranging multi-national corporations, which
are building nations without frontiers - are hardly based on well
rehearsed and fine-tuned agreements in the whole universe.
Certainly, it was on account of these that the military, which
assumed uncompromising stance, though done with much of human
frailties, easily signposted the icon of federalism as the
result of a well integrated polity. Federalism is defined
as the principles…of foundation supporting the characteristics
of the agreement between states, to unite, foregoing some
sovereignty but remaining independent in internal affairs.
No doubt, it is easy for us to latch on to the supportive phrases of
…principles…of agreement and independent…internal affairs.
Personally, I have no quarrels with these, either way. Indeed, I
stand by the provision that such principles of agreement and
independent…internal affairs help in bringing about the
knowledge of gainful variety in our polity. More so, I have remained
a steadfast fan of Petrarch who sounds it loud and clear that
sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
But in fully examining the values of Nigerian federalism, especially
rising from the experiences in harnessing the values of
independent…internal affairs, I personally get confused with
the possessive and particularistic pattern that the national (or is
it regional) elite had considered to be the evolution of the system
they operated. As I said, earlier, I have no quarrels with holding
strong regional or ethnic views. It is understandable that such
protests, which attended the unification constitution (Arthur
Richard’s) in 1943, were like responded to in the Oliver Littleton
Regionalisation Constitution of 1953.
I have no quarrels, either, with pursuing well-studied regional
programmes, especially such that would arm the individual within the
group to be better equipped to compete in the global Nigerian arena.
Such firmed the foundation on which the healthy competition of the
regions in the 1950s and 60s were enacted.
I do not even hold a view against such positions, which insist that
if Nigeria had to commence on proper political development, it must
begin by acceding to programmes, so far not exclusive interests, of
the region. That is good. But that has to sail on the wings of a
cultivated federally powered national attitude of which the first
strong appeal would be the reposing of confidence in an individual
or group in places outside the ethnic origin.
This was where Azikiwe stood as a celebrated pioneer. Ahmadu Bello,
Obafemi Awolowo, Aminu Kanu and others also made their initial
forays, with individual successes for their different regions. But
this is where the person and stature of a national personage, Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo, first as a military ruler and later as a
committed democrat, stand in this analysis.
Initially coming on the scene as a well-instructed divisional
commander under some superior officers, he emerged on the broader
national scene on an image that was not initially appealing to
people of his own region of origin. That image, which in a narrower
ethnic setting, appeared to have held him constrained for the
assignments he set to tackle, were easily swallowed by a national
stature which needed no further definition than in the widespread
national confidence reposed and sustained in him.
As a military head of state, his programmes in the expansion of the
Nigerian airport system, the universities, the highways (express
roads), the polytechnics, the petrochemical industries, the
iron/steel industries, the sense of equity, equality and fairness
and the perpetual strive to be seen to be working for the advantage
of the length and breadth of Nigeria all put together, gave birth to
a leadership figure capable of inspiring the right kind, as well as
level of hope, for the emergence of a federal nation state.
More importantly, these were done in the same decade he played the
pivotal role in ending the Nigeria-Biafra war, earning the
opprobrium or envy of erstwhile colleagues, who nearly succeeded in
causing a perception of his person as a hater of one regional group,
especially the leading ethnic group that stood on the other side in
the unfortunate war.
In the second coming, Obasanjo has, as usual, exhibited the same
high sense of general well being to the entire Federal Nigeria,
leaving no one in doubt that the idea of a nation state was not far
fetched but would indeed be hinged on having led Nigerians,
exhibiting, in the main, an adequate behaviour of trust and interest
in equal treatment of the peoples.
Once again, the institutions of higher learning are beginning to
wake from slumber of indirection and neglect of decades; just as the
airports, which had been previously blacklisted across the world,
had resumed their steady handling of major air traffic. Again, the
roads he built, which had to wait for 20 years, 1979 – 1999, for his
return, to get repaired, are receiving a facelift. Same is the case
with other institutions such as the military, police, prisons and
even such erstwhile contentious practices as revenue sharing.
Of course, while not contesting that such attributes which propelled
an Obasanjo as our beacon for erecting Nigeria as a federally fitted
nation state, were borne of his familial pedigree, but what is clear
is that his personal development as a professional soldier, grilled
to act decisively, trained to keep a straight face and equipped to
rein in on others to achieve cohesion and following, must have
formed the major foundation for erecting a leadership quality suited
for the Nigeria of the on-going era.
This is not saying, by any means, that Nigerian federalism was
brought about by the military; and not, of course, by Chief Obasanjo
alone. But, here, I stand to be counted as one supporting a position
that even as the institution could not master the nuances of
managing varieties of moods, especially with the presence of vocal
elites, it was traditionally fashioned out to rein in on the system,
with the hope of inducing such following on which national cohesion,
as in the stamp of common corpus…or national ethos, would
stand.
In holding this view, I understand that I strongly risk an
interpretation of my position as standing democratic logic on its
head. I want to quickly say that I am not. Rather, I hold the view
that indeed, for the Nigerian federalism to achieve the results
expected of it, the efforts at the centre will have to stand far
superior to those at the regions since we know that the regions in
themselves are equally conglomerates where distinctive, of course,
narrower interests, equally compete. Just as it obtains elsewhere,
federalism reigns and reins in on the rest which may be regions or
states where minorities, where cultures and where quasi-cultures and
clans/sub-clans will continue to rise, especially on the feelings of
overtaken, though rigorous and outspoken, elites.
Remember, when we started this discourse, I did state that there are
great values in the argument of proceeding from exclusive regional
attitude to an all-inclusive federally integrating polity. Such
plank is one on which foundation, the conceptual philosophy of
The Westerner Newspaper, is built. I did accept that such
principles on which the agreement for inclusion in the federal
polity were strictly stated, that is in the event of seeking the
best from each region, for the benefit of the broad national polity,
appeals to me.
Yet, I have every reason to contend that the evolution of national
political culture, the possibilities of an integrative society
capable of holding out for all, providing effective institutions for
protection for all, and in growth and development beyond local
nuances, as well as in ensuring equity, fair play and balancing of
ensuing competing interests, cannot be realized where there is no
force of intervention and reining in on possible predatory
tendencies of some sections.
Having been in government these seven- years- and- so months, I have
come to appreciate the gains of variety induced even in states where
supportive programmes of the Federal Government, though not in any
way superior in conception and execution than such developed in the
state, conferred on the environment the pleasure of seeking
alternatives as may be induced by simple perceptions. Take for
instance the subtle competition between Federal and State
universities in any particular State. Whereas it may be easy for
State governments to alter the running of programmes of the State
university, the presence of a seeming more independent university of
the posture of the Federal university may force better attentions,
as such would result in faculties, independent of that State
government, embarking on actions that compel conformity with the
“standards”.
Consider also the result of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)
Scheme, in which regional/State governments now live the pleasant
experience of hosting young graduates from states/regions other than
theirs. These have brought about such integrative cultural behaviour
as inter-ethnic/state/regional marriages, contacts and networks,
which, in turn have furthered national evolution.
Sometimes, these may be quite difficult to appreciate or accept,
especially coming from our insistent position that we had yet to
contribute to the fine points of agreement in our nation making. For
me, there is no going back on the position that the pattern of
commencement of this nation was well executed. I also argue, for
reasons already articulated, that everybody needed not to be there
when the agreement was drawn. And that is, while I insist that there
are yet rooms for improvement, only dependent on the will of the
individual or group, to support a forward thrust, anchored on
inclusive principles as against exclusive regional or sectional
interests.
Indeed, if you would pardon me, I wish to use this opportunity to
sympathise with the individual who is still exclusive in the wake of
globalization, which rides on the clear principles of
stakeholder driven democracy, free enterprise and information
technology. My sympathy is that, whereas such individual may
waste precious time in digging in for exclusive attention, the fangs
of international competition will disenfranchise him/her, if not
fully prepared and attuned to a more fluidly competitive globe on
rampage.
Initially, and as I stated elsewhere, scholars on the trail of the
invisible billionaire – Daniel Ludwig and pal, the unassailable oil
king – John D. Rockefeller, had wrongly assumed that these were
the kingpins of modern day economic imperialism surging into the
world from the United States of America. They had anchored their
conclusion on the entry and seizure of the Latin American businesses
by these powerful magnates, who neither brooked any form of
resistance nor tolerated debates.
The world had then envisaged that as in the futile dream of
Alexander the Great who reached the riverbank and was disappointed
that there were no more territories to conquer ahead of the
Mediterranean; and as the derided Napoleon pleaded to be shown more
territories to subdue, these pioneers of big business-across-borders
would fail in due course. In that regard, they had seen no
possibility in the Wendell Willkie prognosis of one world,
which Jacques G. Maisonrouge declared, we are inexorably pushed
to.
Well, in the last two decades, it has been confirmed that where
Napoleon failed to create a world originating from France; where the
Czarists failed to build the perpetual eastern empire, and the
British rule over the wave crumbled as Communist International and
Middle East insurgence fully challenged the principles of pax
Americana; vision, dreams and actions of a few
individuals have created a globe of entrepreneurial unification. At
the last count, these, such as Royal Dutch Shell, Amoco, Texaco,
Exxon, Chevron, and General Motors, and the
telecommunication giants, among others, which were the personal
initiatives of creative and strong individuals, have far outstripped
states and nations and have gone ahead to create their own statuses
as international (non-state) actors, with ‘citizens’ drawn from all
over the regions, states and the entire globe, and for which weighty
decisions on water, food, housing, education, roads,
electricity, security and such other necessities, are made
daily.
Such motivation, which is offered by these giant businesses and
their worldview, and which is subsequently extended to
partakers, has had to influence the proliferation of global
citizens whose fatherland is gradually turning into the
conglomerates. These may all go to show that the ethnic or
regional man, who has not hastily constructed a profitable
nation state, risks the failure of such an infirm nation state,
which cannot motivate and reassure. It will be such, which the
emerging conglomerates far out-weigh in reach, impact and striking
power and which will not evoke some sentiment, let alone any
patriotic zeal, anyhow, in the enterprising man.
I am not in any way stating that our emerging nation state
should halt its integrative development. Neither am I canvassing the
immediate imposition of such high voltage job competitions that go
with globalization. What is clear to me, as I maintained in one of
my previous lectures, is that in more ways than imagined, the
traditional loyalty of a people, especially such anchored on
shifty territorial grounds, would soon become as flimsy as such
preachments which ignored the development of man for actions to have
the basic things of life readily on his table.
But then, it is our hope that our great nation state, made of the
various groupings, but ready to be fully wielded into the most
striking economic force, via the running democracy of our time,
would be on the steady rise, and for which we shall say, as in Enugu
State:
To God be the Glory.
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University of California Press; Berkeley, California; 1979
(edition).
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3. Nnoli, Okwudiba: Ethnic Politics in Nigeria;
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4. Usman, Yusuf Bala: For the Liberation of Nigeria
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Ltd, London ; 1980.
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2003.
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…the Tiv and Yoruba Experience; Nok International
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Pre-and-Post Independence Nigeria; Choba, University
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2001 ed.
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