Prior to his arrival on our shore, there was no entity called Nigeria. Nigeria was a creation of Lord Fredrick Darnley Lugard’s administrative convenience as coined by his mistress who later became his wife Flora Shaw and endorsed by Her Majesty’s Government in Great Britain.
Lugard had earlier experienced indirect rule in India where he previously served as colonial administrator.
Unlike India where the three musketeers of Mahatma Gandhi, Pundit Nehru and Subbas Bose had restructured their colonial heritage by creating provinces along linguistic affinity which decisively, cemented their federation with attendant dividends as largest democracy in the world.
Nigeria and its founding fathers were unable to wean multi-racial and multi-ethnic country into a veritable polity that could have ushered in progress and prosperity that hosts largest population of black people on earth. Lugard must at this critical and pitiful time resurrect from sepulchre to rebuild the very house he created in 1914.
Why did our early musketeers Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello Rabah and Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo not bothered to build a rainbow coalition at independence in 1960 to lay a solid multi-ethnic democracy for Nigeria? Perhaps if it had happened, the unfortunate crisis leading to the fall of the First Republic in 1966 might have not occurred due largely to “gross intolerance” of one another by the leading political gladiators of the period due to their political amateurism!
The Five Majors that terminated the first republic were stigmatized as “Igbo irredentists” paving way for 30 months unfortunate civil war (1967-1970) ignited by the same Igbo that murdered Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (Prime Minister), Ahmadu Bello Rabah (Premier Northern Region), Samuel Ladoke Akintola (Premier Western Region) and other senior military officers of northern extraction for mere sentimental reason far away from logic.
The civil war could have been avoided if there was effective leadership to douse the tension. It cost Nigeria over three million lives on both sides of combatants. Imagine three million lives in this generation to pave way for the stability and sustenance of the federation.
One continues to wonder what really stopped the Yakubu Gowon administration from allowing the Igbo their Biafra Republic excluding the Niger Delta Region that was not part of the secession. The Igbo nationality could have been allowed to opt out of the federation for their separate country for the safety of Nigeria. If that had been done, Nigeria could have been a better country devoid of fake drugs, hard drug peddlers and fake motor vehicle spare parts etc.
Nigeria if not for the unfortunate civil war, was at par with the Asian Tigers at independence time but the Asian Tigers had long left us behind to join the league of industrialized nations.
Although, we had a second chance since 1971 upward to redeem the battered crisis of a civil war, General Gowon who was fortunate to have prosecuted the civil war successfully through a coalition of star and tested political geniuses of the period of all divides could not mid-wife our post-war economic prosperity in spite of his chorused 3Rs of Reconstruction, Reconciliation and Rehabilitation. He pandered and floundered to the amorous park of office visiting capitals of advanced countries with his alleged jab; “Nigeria’s problem is not money but how to spend it” such that by the time end of his global jamboree, the military foot soldiers who advised him that “1974 was unrealistic” for return to civil rule terminated his reign on July 29, 1975 while he was attending OAU meeting in Kampala, Uganda.
Imagine a General Gowon building on the success of the civil war by equally engineering a return to civil rule with ideological inclined political parties with Abraham Lincoln’s logic of inclusiveness, tapping all shades of talents into the cabinet.
Gowon’s administration could have been our most ideal closure to military oligarchy against the arrivals of Generals Murtala, Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha and Abdulsalam! At the dawn of present republic in 1999, an Obasanjo presidency that could have been a welcome relief and succor against many years of military ‘locust’ became an albatross on account of his own African Big Man syndrome, acting like an emperor of Nigeria, crowning and dethroning governors, party chairmen including traditional rulers as if his tenure was inelastic.
He undid his own reputation and witnessed the funeral of his image as the first African military leader to willingly hand over power to civilian in 1979 by his “Third Term Gamble” which he surreptitiously engineered and coveted by the Mantus, Zwanginas etc but timely aborted by genuine democrats led by Senator Ken Nnamani and Ghali Umar Na’Abba in the national assembly supported by some powerful politicians of substance! With Obasanjo as a ‘democrat’, the world needs not rebuke the Hitler of Germany, Mussolini of Italy, Mobutu Seseko of Zaire, Marcias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Gnassigbe Eyadema of Togo, Paul Biya of Cameroun, Ja’afar El-Nemeri of Sudan, PelRavi Reza of Iran, Francois Tombolbaye of Chad, Idi Amin of Uganda, Jean Bedel Bokassa of Central Africa and Sani Abacha of Nigeria!
As we reflect and introspect to locate where exactly the rain started beating us as Nigerians and Nigeria, the image of the founding father, Lord Fredrick Lugard resurrects in an analyst’s mind! Will Lugard rise up from the grave to salvage the nation of his own creation? Various theories have come up for discourse on colonialism and its aftermath.
There are some pundits who opine that Nigeria got independence too early without much stress. There are equally many who believe that Nigeria is a work in progress that there must not be a time limit in our journey to growth and development. There are equally racist theoreticians that Africans whether in Nigeria or any African country has no date with modernization and civilization, particularly with Francis Fukanaya hitting at the “end of history” and that “American will be the last man”.
But Chinese and other Asian tigers are proving the Fukanaya theory wrong on all fronts from either contemporary challenge in economic industrial revolution and technological advancement.
Deng Xiaoping of China since 1979 brought a new model of development to modern China by bringing over 800 million Chinese out of galloping poverty within few decades! Lee Kuan Yew did similar miracle in Singapore, a tiny island with no mineral or forestry resources caught up with its Japanese giant in record time. How about the recent industrial power bases in South Korea and Malaysia?
The past 64 years of Nigeria’s nationhood behooves on contemporary leadership in Nigeria across the political divide to wake up and reflect on the wasted opportunities, chart an ambitious and action packed blueprint for the present and future generations to build a prosperous multi-ethnic nation like no other in this global world and within limited time lag! The challenges of security flashpoints—-Boko Haram, bandits, herdsmen conflicts, secession agitators, climate disasters, abject poverty, cyber-crimes and all are insurmountable.
Leadership matters; Bola Ahmed Tinubu as president, must be ready to commit “class suicide”. He, by leadership example, should show the light and let all Nigerians discover their way towards mutual progress and prosperity if he has the wisdom and intellect
Two, government teams at all levels need a coalition of interests, employing the best brains from opposition parties, civil society, and interest groups including Labour and other professional unions to march forward the nation to progress not the present masquerades enjoying political appointments with shallow minds and mal-functional brains.
Lord Fredrick Lugard cannot rise from his grave but with sound and effective leadership and paradigm shift from the lethargic past to a new horizon that is unselfish but people-oriented, Nigeria’s falling house will bounce back to our delayed heritage but only with the right people in leadership not the crooks, trick and fraudsters that we presently have.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
