By AYODELE OKUNFOLAMI
AT the twilight of the holy month of Ramadan, President Muhammadu Buhari said at a gathering that the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable. This comment by the president comes after he had said he would not even look into the report of the 2014 National Conference. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had also made similar statements recently.
So much has been said about the unity or otherwise of Nigeria. Calls for Sovereign National Conference and constitutional reforms have not ceased since the British initiated the (un)holy amalgam in 1914. The government on its part has not given up on enforcing the harmony of Nigeria with various schemes like the National Youth Service Corps, establishment of Unity Schools, Federal Character principle or zoning, quota system, NTA and Radio Nigeria jingles etc.
Unfortunately, beginning with the pogroms, the bloody civil war and the endless ethno-religious riots, Nigerians have seen true and lasting unity only on the map. Nigerians remain xenophobic. These have painted the future of the largest black nation grey. Foreign experts had even predicted we won’t be in existence beyond last year. The voting pattern of elections does not even help matters as it exposes our “Christian South” and “Muslim North” fault lines.
True nationhood entails that one has the same psychological and cultural security anywhere he finds himself within the geographical space called Nigeria. Let me explain further. If I’ve lived all my youth in Okitipupa, I should be able to enjoy the same media and religion relatively if my career takes me to Mubi. I shouldn’t worry about my children’s standard of education or association if I’m transferred from Kazaure to Ikot Ekpene.
Mindful of these and the other primordial sentiments of religion and region, how can we ensure that our ever growing nascent democracy becomes a full grown immortal soldier that can achieve the dreams of our founding fathers?
Commendations must go to successive administrations for maintaining the unity and continued existence of the country. Military, political, social and even constitutional interventions have helped our survival. The tenacity of the Nigerian spirit has stubbornly ensured that we remain one.
A closer look at the diagram will expose our consistent differences, mixed metaphors and fears as a people. Government decrees and policies have only ‘forced’ us together. And, for how long will we depend on “divine intervention” to remain one? The cheapest way to succeed is to imitate success. We ought to emulate the examples of the rightly named United States of America and European Union. Both sides of the Atlantic are as complex as we are with various ethnic groups and languages yet have together progressed peacefully without individual units losing their cultural identity and uniqueness. How did they achieve this bond? The answer is “development”.
It is under-development that has continued to separate us. Bridges, for one, join communities. Good road network will make a better amalgam than what the British did in 1914. Effective transportation will move goods from the rural areas to the urban centres, ensuring that coming to town doesn’t mean losing our meals.
Railways create melting pots. It is integrations like these that make us think Suleja is in the FCT. It is incorporations like these that make us unaware of where Sango ends and where Ota begins.
Approaching two decades of telecommunications has even reduced these distances by just a dial. The longer the second Niger Bridge remains a project and not reality, the wider the void between the West and the East will be. As long as Boko Haram and cattle rustlers continue to make lives insecure in the north, the 1914 amalgamation will continue to be questioned. When petroleum products go on to be ferried by tankers instead of pipelines, it will take days instead of hours for the South to connect the North. Is it not embarrassing that Lagos to Accra is getting shorter than Lagos to Kano? If those husky signals we call FRCN News continue to be relayed from Abuja, “uniting the nation” will only end on the lips of the newscaster, it will never permeate the suburbs the broadcast was intended for.
Education opens and shapes the human mind. The insecurity in Nigeria can best be solved by educating the nation’s crude minds, not by guns or states of emergency. Demographic findings have confirmed this. Schools should be deliberately put up, funded and well equipped in every nook and cranny. Nothing stops an oil producing nation like ours from having standard universities in every local council area. Why would a rural community lose its best brains if it can adequately educate and retain them? As a matter of fact, educated minds speak the same language and, therefore, erase all borders.
Healthcare must be on the front burner of every government. One should be able to get adequate primary healthcare anywhere he is in Nigeria.
With available, reliable and affordable electricity, only massive agricultural projects will differentiate a village from a town. Jobs would be available everywhere and not only in Lagos. Haven’t we realised that unemployment lowers a person’s self-worth and happiness while also heightening depression? Little wonder, our youths prefer watching foreign matches to their own state-owned clubs in our local league.
It is developments like these on all fronts that have made Europe and America the same in thought and action. They identify with each other at times of crisis as we see in terror attacks and times of triumph after the Iron Curtain was torn asunder.
What I expect from President Muhammadu Buhari is to fast-track our development. He should take his eyes off the non-essentials and ensure the implementation of the 2016 Budget. Under his strict supervision, all these developments and more will be attained quickly. With the socio-economic problems of Nigeria solved, the nation can be better re-negotiated, re-mapped and knitted not just in geography but in our hearts.
n Okunfolami writes via ayodeleokunfolami@ yahoo.co.uk