That is the reason why I am writing what I call The Alternative History Of Nigeria today, in as few words as my editor will allow me to get away with.
Now the history. It is on record that Portuguese sailors had been to this part of the Nigerian territory down south since around 1444. Lagos is a Portuguese name, meaning Island. The Brits retained that name. In the North, the proximity to North Africa and Arabia meant that region of Nigeria was under the Islamic Civilisation, then headquartered at Constantinople – present-day Istanbul. The Islamic civilisation preceded the Western Civilisation, and so, it could be said that parts of the North of Nigeria – in the context of the 18th and 19th Centuries, were ahead developmentally, when compared with the south of Nigeria, most of which was under the African civilisation. Before the advent of the British, the Portuguese, Spanish and French merely sailed to distant nations to quickly plunder and return home. The British people – already disadvantaged in Europe due to inclement weather and servitude (by Scottish, Irish and Welch) under the Monarchy – were the first to start settling down en masse in foreign lands where they had gone to forage for greener pastures. The British thus became the most dispersed of peoples, seeing as much as 40% of their population emigrate between the 17th and 19th centuries.
Most of British explorers who came to Africa initially, were desperately poor and hardened. Therefore, it is naïve to expect them to have behaved like gentlemen. Most whites were also racists in those days – it was the only thing to be! The British empire became great in reaction to the ‘advancement’ of its rivals – Portuguese, French and Spanish – when the British Monarchy granted to all British Pirates and Buccaneers to ‘go ye into the waters’ and seize goods from returning Portuguese and Spanish plunderers, in the name of the Queen or King, and share the loot with the Crown, in a process then known as PRIVATEERING. So all the bellyaching and blaming the British for amalgamating Nigeria is useless. In those days, there was but little emphasis on human rights. The white man still meted open injustice against his own type, how much more some black, largely primitive people in some foreign land! Heck, in most of Europe, they still hung witches and blasphemers up till a century ago!
The Project That We Know As Nigeria Today, Was Started By Mr. George Goldie As A Business. George Goldie, from a reputed family of smugglers in the Isle of Man, England, came to this territory around 1850 and swore ‘to paint River Niger to the Nile RED, on behalf of the Queen’. Goldie it was who later employed Frederick Lugard, who was then working in Buganda (present day Uganda). Lugard had a reputation as a brutal atheist. Goldie’s business, later called Royal Niger Company (and now transformed into UAC Plc), was engaged to bring in wares from England to sell to our locals at usually uncontrolled, exorbitant prices, while that company – like the East India Company before it – looted a great many local resources which the native people of present-day Nigeria knew little about.
The Royal Niger Company obtained what is called a Charter from the English Crown around 1886, but after encountering much competition from the French and Germans especially in the north of Nigeria (part of present day Niger Republic and the northern Cameroon), Sold Nigeria To The British Government For A Princely Sum Of £865,000 On The 1St Day Of January 1900! That history is usually not told to us, but it is out there in the open. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Niger_Company
So, Nigeria, its peoples and its resources were sold like a goat at the beginning of the last century. And there is nothing we can do about that historical fact. What the British did to us – including ‘amalgamating incompatible nations’ as many Nigerians say, is nothing compared to what they did to other peoples, even themselves. The English were exceedingly brutal to the Irish people, who were the first they colonized in the 17th century, in what they called ‘a civilizing mission’. The Irish people became bitterly split till date, between Catholicism (original Irish who preferred the Roman Empire), and Anglicanism (many of whom are descendants of English men who were sent by the English monarchy to conquer and ‘civilize’ the Irish). The Queen of England faced serious protests when she visited the Republic of Ireland last year. It is on record that while the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were still functional, most of their guns were sent from the Boston Police Department, most of whom are Irish.
Australia was also a country created by the English, where mostly convicted Irish and Scottish criminals were sent to go and serve out their term will under English Lords and Admirals in the 18th century. Long and short, it is a dog eat dog world and we must move on and make the most of our realities.
What about Nigeria’s 1914 amalgamation? Is it any coincidence that 1914 was the beginning of the First World War? It is logical to think Nigeria’s North and South regions were fused for the administrative purpose of packing many of our ancestors to the warfront to die. Same was done during the Second World War. We don’t care about our history, hence we live in a whirlwind where history repeats itself in our lives.
Also, Nigeria’s independence, as well as for other colonized countries, was not won by nationalists alone, but by the strategic move of the United States to take over global hegemony from the British and French. The USA was therefore at the forefront of the independence struggle after the Second World War. Since most of the initial settlers in the USA were castaways from Olde Brittania, they probably saw the World War 2, as an opportunity for indirect revenge, refusing to join in, as the Germans pounded England. It is rumoured that American companies still traded with the Nazis – that Rockefeller’s Standard Oil (now Exxon Mobil), fueled the German fighter jets – the Luftwaffe). By the end of the World War 2, Britain owed about $26billion to the USA, and was forced to devalue the Pound Sterling before being loaned more money for reconstruction. That Marked The End Of The British Empire, as countries moved their foreign reserves away from the Pounds Sterling into the Dollar, since that requirement by the USA resulted in the loss of 50% of the value of the Pound. So the USA deliberately and systematically killed the British Empire!
A proper understanding and contextualization of our history is important in order for us to determine the way forward. Most Nigerians I talk to, start history from the point in which they were wronged. If we must be truthful however, we must bring every perspective to the table.
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