A bungled centenary, almost

Most of the arguments regarding the events suggest that the attainment of 100 years of the continuous, sometimes bumpy, existence of Nigeria as a nation is a remarkable milestone that should be celebrated. Of the many challenges that the country had to face during this period, the most traumatic was the 30-months civil war that […]

Most of the arguments regarding the events suggest that the attainment of 100 years of the continuous, sometimes bumpy, existence of Nigeria as a nation is a remarkable milestone that should be celebrated. Of the many challenges that the country had to face during this period, the most traumatic was the 30-months civil war that erupted soon after attainment of self-rule from Britain.
There were many who were opposed to the idea of celebration when it was broached, arguing that it ignored the fact that the people of the area that eventually came to be known as Nigeria had interacted and inter-married among themselves, and that had they been left alone, Nigeria as a country would have come into being anyway. The fear was also expressed that the entire event would be a wasteful jamboree that the country could ill-afford.  
In spite of such misgivings however, marking the centenary as a significant development in Nigeria’s march to nationhood was fitting and appropriate.
But how was it handled? The impressive gathering of dignitaries from all over the world certainly put Nigeria at centre stage, at least for the duration of the event. The occasion was opportunity to proclaim Nigeria’s ability to remain a concrete and a veritable reality in spite of the many daunting challenges it has to surmount, including the ongoing bloody insurgency, which was claiming lives even as the occasion got underway. It was an acutely unfortunate timing, but it further reinforced the notion of Nigeria’s indivisibility and invincibility and continuous growth even in the face of a determined extremist group bent on mindless violence.  
Even so, the drawbacks of the entire centenary event were not difficult to discern. An obvious one is that it was an elitist show with hardly a thought for the participation of the majority of Nigerians. This was why most Nigerians did not feel that event concerned them and went about their affairs as if they were not part of it. The non-involvement of Nigerians in what should have been used to illustrate how far they had come on the journey to nationhood became a jamboree for those in power, and others connected to it. Evidence of this can be seen in the list of those invited to receive centenary honours.  There are people in that list who should be behind bars; but their names made the government’s honours list, and citizens must now suppress their anger against, and clap for, them. This use of power for ends not at all ennobling has unfortunately come to be identified with this government.
A case can also be made about the dearth of any meaningful intellectual input in the whole ceremony. Commemorating Nigeria’s centenary provided an opportunity for a detailed and incisive intellectual interrogation into what many call Project Nigeria. The Festival of African Arts and Cultural (FESTAC) which Nigeria hosted in Lagos in 1977 was a spectacular event; but an indelible aspect of it was the intellectual sessions captured in the colloquia on issues that pertained to Africa and Black peoples across the globe. A similar occasion, with the potential to leave such indelible memories among generations of Nigerians, should have been part of the centenary celebration.  The events that culminated in last week’s official commemoration of 100 years since the amalgamation left much, too much, to be desired. That’s because the government spent so much, but focused on the wrong parameters of what should be the appropriate lessons of the last hundred years.