By Abia Onyike
NIGERIA recently celebrated her 63 years as an inde-
pendent state, having gained independence in 1960
from Great Britain. Nigeria is actually a Berlin State,
created as a result of the Berlin Conference of 1884-
1885. The European powers, in their scramble for
Africa, arbitrarily partitioned the continent amongst
themselves. Afterwards, a process of forceful amal-
gamation of Ethnic Nationalities took place in 1914,
bringing together the Northern Protectorate, the
Southern Protectorate and the Lagos colony to form
Nigeria. Then she went through another 86 years of
direct colonial rule by the British Crown before inde-
pendence was granted in 1960. The problems of the
Nigerian state today are the same type of crises faced
by Berlin states, generally, namely: lack of autonomy
for the Federating units and the Ethnic Nationalities.
But the Nigerian case is a bit more unique.
The resources of the country, mainly the oil and
gas resources are located in Southern Igboland and
the Niger Delta territories. But the Lugardian state
was organized in such a way that those from whose
territories the resources are produced are impover-
ished while the resources are used for the develop-
ment of the other regions and other interests based
outside those territories. Britain created the Anglo-
Hausa-Fulani ruling alliance first from the period of
indirect rule to date. The stumbling block to national
development is as a result of this nebulous state for-
mation which is quite difficult to explain. It suited
the Anglo-Saxon powers who commissioned Freder-
ick Lugard, a mercenary soldier of fortune, to put up
such a terrible state formation. It also fitted the eco-
nomic interests of Britain and the nationalists who
fought for Nigeria’s independence never questioned
the nature and character of the Lugardian state. Why
did the nationalists not reject the arrangements
introduced by Lugard? They did their best in the
various constitutional conferences, but according to
Basil Davidson, the “nationalists may have become
impatient for the fruits of power” and were prob-
ably anxious to avoid delays in the march to inde-
pendence. It was part of the Blackman’s burden to assume that acceptance of the colonial state structures
and its terrible internal logic was the only available
escape from colonial occupation and domination.
63 years of self-rule has not led to genuine na-
tional development in Nigeria. The economy is still
backward and dependent. Our resources are largely
siphoned to service foreign interests from 2015 till
date when the Hausa-Fulani-Yoruba ruling alliance
consolidated its hold on power, things have grown
from bad to worse. The domestic currency has de-
clined tremendously with an exchange rate of more
than N1000 to one dollar. The economy has gone
topsy-turvy with the removal of oil subsidy, while na-
tional security has become unpredictable. The edu-
cational and health institutions are still nothing to
write home about, hence our rulers still prefer travel-
ling overseas for their health checks just as they send
their wards abroad for quality education. Is that not
a shame for leaders of a sovereign nation to indulge
in such practices? In spite of these socio-political
maladies, the Nigerian leaders continue to wallow
in corruption and self-aggrandizement. The severe
problems of Nigerian federalism appears completely
abandoned. The demand for the reconstitution of
the Nigerian state either through a Sovereign Na-
tional Conference or a Constitutional Conference
has been jettisoned. Even in the face of violent in-
surgencies threatening to overrun national security
architecture, nothing serious is coming from the po-
litical class except the old warn-out semantics which
Nigerians are tired of. Islamic terrorists in the North
are fighting to impose an Islamic state while the agi-
tation for self-determination is still raging in parts of
Southern Nigeria. Instead of creating platforms for
serious political or constitutional reforms, the rulers
behave as if nothing is happening. Sometimes, those
in power assume that nothing will happen, in so far
as they are looting the public resources to their taste.
The Nigerian leaders are also fond of asserting that
Nigeria is indissoluble. Nothing mega (Igbo: Noth-
ing will happen).
But they forget that Nigeria is only 63 and yet
wobbling as it is. The federation is functionally cha-
otic and crisis-ridden. The Roman Empire which is
regarded as the greatest in history and antiquity, existed for 2,200 years and still ceased to exist. It was
founded in 753 B.C. as a city state before it expanded
into a big empire with its territories covering several
parts of the world. In 1453 A.D, the Arabs conquered
its Eastern capital at Constantinople (present-day
Istanbul, capital of Turkey). Even the Ottoman
Empire in the Balkan parts South-East Europe also
collapsed and later resuscitated as the Federation of
Yugoslavia which was ruled by Marshall Josip Bros
Tito. The federation lasted for 62 years and collapsed
shortly after Tito’s death. Even the Soviet Union
which sprouted from the Bolshevik revolution of
1917 disintegrated into sixteen independent states
in 1991 after 72 years of existence. The Czechoslo-
vakia splitted into two republics, namely: Czech Re-
public and Slovakia. What of the state of Carthage,
located on the Eastern side of the Tunisian Lake, in
present-day Tunisia? It was one of the most power-
ful trading hubs in the ancient Mediterranean. It
was eventually destroyed by the Romans during the
third Punic war in 146 B.C. It was liquidated with its
population with its rubble buried under the Medi-
terranean Sea.
In the case of Nigeria, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, has
warned against the arrogant disposition of boastful
Nigerian leaders who believe that Nigeria is indivis-
ible or indissoluble. Nwabueze argues that a state
which originated from such “monstrous circum-
stances of arbitrary partitioning” from the Berlin
conference and the 1914 amalgamation cannot be
indissoluble. For instance, we are into 24 years of
civilian democracy in the 4th Republic, yet the po-
litical class has done nothing to get rid of the 1999
Constitution which was imposed by the military
establishment. That constitution is not a people’s
constitution. The point has been made that the Con-
stitution was written by an obscure right-wing legal
scholar, Prof. Auwalu Yadudu, who was a legal con-
sultant to the military-bureaucratic oligarchy which
ruled Nigeria from 1970 to 1999, with the exception
of the four year period of right wing civilian dic-
tatorship headed by a member of the pro-military
Hausa- Fulani ruling class, Shehu Shagari.