The retrogression of Nigeria did not start in 2015. It started in 1914 when the incompatible entities of the Southern and Northern Protectorates were unfortunately merged for effective administration by the colonialists. It is important to note here that this merger was not done for the good of the peoples of these regions but to reduce the costs and personnel needed to run the conglomerate, and maximise their exploitation agenda.
The exposure of Nigerians to poor quality education is historical. It dated back to the colonial era when blacks were not deemed fit to have equal education with their white counterparts. They were exposed to substandard education and poor leadership training. Thus, the majority of those who led the struggle for self-governance were not holistic in their plans. They agitated to replace the colonialists in the management of their country’s affairs without the blueprints of how they intended to run the country to be bequeathed onto them.
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Due to their unguided quest for freedom, they presented themselves in manners that made the colonialists manipulate their marked weaknesses. They fought dirty among themselves home and abroad before the people they wanted to expunge.
Their quest to gain independence as they saw in Europe, America, and Asia and their impatience compelled them to reject and request for new constitutions and leaders. Thus, boring lists of Governors-General and colonial constitutions inundate the country’s political history.
From Lugard, Clifford, Richard, Macpherson, and Lyttelton’s Constitutions, to the Independence Constitution of 1960, the nationalists confused the colonialists more in their unprepared quest for independence.
Unfortunately for them, the British government barely prepared them for leadership roles. The “Nigerian educated elites” were not allowed to contribute directly to the affairs of their country. Thus, upon the granting of independence, the Nigerian independence fighters were unprepared to govern. They were short of the expertise to run a vast and diverse entity bequeathed onto them.
More importantly, the nationalist outlook worn by this group of independence fighters was merely peripheral. They had no national interests deep inside them. They only came together to fight a common enemy.
Before independence, it was evident that national interest was not a top agendum of the independence struggle. The earlier call for independence was rejected by a group among the nationalists. Shortly after independence, ethnic politics became widely pronounced with each former protectorate canvassing for its interests. In less than six years of independence, the military took over power from the divided nationalists. This was to become a recurrent phenomenon in the political history of Nigeria till the Fourth Republic.
From the foregoing, it can be deduced that the impatience trait in today’s Nigerians is hereditary. The reasons for this are not far from the poorly structured inherited education system and poor leadership training Nigerians were exposed to.
The nonviolence and unsophisticated approach of the nationalists in securing independence from the British has been the source of today’s neo-colonialism. The activities of the multinational organisations which are agents of neo-colonialism and the direct interference of the West in the internal affairs of Nigeria are evidence of the nonviolence and unsophisticated termination of the unwholesome relationship that existed between Nigeria and the British monarch.
Violence scholars have valid arguments on the importance of violence in the advancement of human society. Many of the breakthroughs which science and technology have brought to mankind today are products of a violent era. These were initiatives that came up during warfare and rivalry among today’s developed nations, that were aimed at helping them to have upper hands against their adversaries. From naval power, airpower, transport, and logistics, communication and information technology, ordnance, among other discoveries which are used today to ease the day-to-day activities of man.
In the same vein, nations that gained their independence through violence severance of their relationship with their colonial rulers enjoy unfettered freedom from their erstwhile masters than those whose independence was negotiated like Nigeria. The United States of America will quickly come to mind. Many with a layman knowledge of history will not know that the United States of America was once a colony of the British monarch. Not only did the Americans revolt against British rule, but they also fought a war of independence and severed their relationship with the British monarch violently. Today, the United States is not associated with the British Commonwealth of Nations. She is also the most powerful country in the world (courtesy of the Second World War). China will also come to mind in this instance.
The development of Nigeria is delayed by the large ignorance of many Nigerians which birth their historic impatient nature. Nigeria is too vast and diverse to be run as a centralised country. If Nigeria must develop, she must give her federating units some reasonable amount of power to act independently. It must be decentralised. This is what is known as restructuring in some quarters.
Another alternative is that the area occupied by modern day Nigeria should be disintegrated into countries that will be made up of people of similar culture and geography. Thus, only two options are available to kick-start Nigeria’s progress. It is either decentralisation or disintegration.
If these are known, understood, and implemented by Nigerians, especially those who find themselves at the corridors of power, with some level of patience, we will begin to trail the path of greatness.
Lawal writes from Lagos
