Nigeria: Giant in a wheelchair?

Increasingly, I have become suspicious of such commentaries, believing that they did not issue from sincere hearts but were rather products of political correctness and excessive self-censorship. I know that celebration in its various forms and colours is wired in our genes as Nigerians:  in many funerals in the country, rooms are created for entertainment […]

Increasingly, I have become suspicious of such commentaries, believing that they did not issue from sincere hearts but were rather products of political correctness and excessive self-censorship. I know that celebration in its various forms and colours is wired in our genes as Nigerians:  in many funerals in the country, rooms are created for entertainment – whether from musicians, comedians or from the fabulously dressed. Among practising Christians, many go on ‘thanks giving’, to express gratitude to God for one favour or the other received even if they are simultaneously overburdened by other challenges of life. So why are we really afraid of using the word ‘celebrate’ when referring to our independence anniversary? Why do we need to emphasise that it must be an occasion for ‘self-reflection’? Are our media – print, social and broadcast – not filled daily with reflections on the Nigerian condition?  
Since I often find myself swimming against the tide, I was tempted to title this piece, “Time to Celebrate” and to really celebrate the accomplishments of the country so far.  
A pertinent question to ‘reflect’ on as the country celebrated 54 years of independence from colonial rule yesterday is how far have we come in the journey of fashioning a nation from the agglomeration of nationalities that were forcibly brought together in 1900 when the Royal Niger Company sold its territories in Nigeria to the British Crown for 860,000 British pounds? The ceded territory together with the small Niger Coast Protectorate, already under imperial control, was formed into the two protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria, which were subsequently amalgamated in 1914.
Nigeria has really come a long way since the colonial creation of the contraption it called Nigeria: there have been several constitutional conferences – starting from the Littleton Constitution of 1922 up to the Justice Idris Kutigi-led 2014 National Conference, which was inaugurated on 17 March 2014 after nearly five months of deliberations, and which submitted its 21-volume report on 21 August 2014 to President Jonathan. In-between,  there have been various other efforts to give a sense of belonging to the constituent parts of the federation, to help fashion a sense  of ‘imagined community’ from the different nationalities that make up the country. Notable among these were the formal embrace of federalism by the country’s founding fathers as a mechanism for creating ‘unity in diversity’ among the ‘federating units’ and the doctrine of the ‘reflection of the federal character’. The latter was to ensure that the predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups is avoided in the composition of government or in the appointment or election of persons to high offices in the state. Other measures put in place to help create a sense of oneness among the disparate nationalities that make up the geographical expression called Nigeria include the setting up of the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) scheme in 1973 to complement the earlier creation  of Federal Government Colleges where bright and promising young pupils were posted to federal schools outside of their home states and  the creation of  more states largely to address fears of domination by minority ethnic groups and to bring ‘development’ closer to the people . There was also the creation of the Federal Character Commission in 1996 to “implement and enforce the Federal Character Principle of fairness and equity in the distribution of public posts and socio-economic infrastructures among the various federating units of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” The defunct National Party of Nigeria introduced the principle of zoning to effectuate the operation of the Federal Character principle. The principle was borrowed by its incarnate, the PDP.
Remarkably the various efforts to fashion a sense of nationhood seems to have stalled, if not now mired in crisis. It is difficult to know when this crisis in nation-building really started, though it is obvious that the prolonged period of military rule in the country contributed a lot to it. The various military regimes embarked on policies that led to a lot of bottled-up feelings.
The level of the crisis in the country’s nation-building is such that any solution fashioned to address the problem quickly becomes part of the problem.  Distrust – not just in the government but among the constituent nationalities – is very deep. Any solution recommended for any challenge – from declaration of state of emergency to help fight the Boko Haram menace to creation of more polling booths to make it easier for people to vote – have to be filtered through ethnic and religious prisms. Among the constituent nationalities, there is a heavy burden of institutionalised sectional memories of hurt, injustice, distrust and even a disguised longing for vengeance.  Virtually every part of the country feels it is ‘marginalised’ and there are concomitant groups calling for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (a euphemism for a meeting to discuss whether Nigerians want to continue to live together as one country or not).
The crisis in the country’s nation-building interfaces with the crisis of underdevelopment to create an existential crisis for many Nigerians.  For many people, a way of resolving the consequent sense of alienation is to retreat from the Nigeria project and construct meanings in chosen primordial identities – often with the Nigerian state as the enemy. This de-Nigerianisation process complicates the challenges of finding solutions to the crisis of nation-building. There is no individual or institution with sufficient legitimacy across the fault lines to mediate among the various nationalities that make up the country.
Where do we go from here?
Nigeria is lucky that the unprecedented crisis in its nation-building is taking place at a period of unprecedented afro-optimism. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s (often regarded as the lost decades for Africa), today, six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. Nigeria, seen as the next economic frontier, has benefited massively from this wave of global afro-optimism. It has been included in the MINT emerging economies (MINT is a neologism referring to the economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) and in the Next Eleven ( eleven countries – Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey, South Korea, and Vietnam – identified by the British economist Jim O’Neill in a research paper on December 12 2005 as having a high potential of becoming, along with the BRICs economies, the world’s largest economies in the 21st century). The country recently became Africa’s largest economy and the 26th largest economy in the world. On the economy therefore, though most Nigerians do not seem to feel it, if the plethora of foreign endorsements is anything to go by, the economy is growing well, if not doing well.  This means in essence that Nigeria’s problem is largely ‘politics’. It is how we can resolve the crisis in the country’s nation-building.
In my last week’s column, I called for the insertion of a generational referendum, say once in every 30 years, in our constitution, so that nationalities that want to opt out of the union can do so. I believe this will be a better creative way of dealing with the current de-Nigerianisation process, where it appears we have Nigeria but with only few Nigerians.
My personal opinion is that the idea of declaring that discussion about the unity of Nigeria is a ‘no go area’ to successive constitutional or national conferences is counterproductive as it only helps to romanticise the hush-hush agitations for independence.  How do we know if those agitating for separation in our country are truly reflecting the wishes of the people they claim to represent or merely presenting their personal agendas as the views of the people? Another advantage of a generational referendum is that it will force the country to be fair to all its constituent parts, knowing that those that feel marginalized may opt for independence during a referendum.
Since several policy measures have been used to pacify irredentist forces to no avail: why not given them a once-in-a life time opportunity of testing the popularity of the cause they espouse among their own people?
As the country turned 54, let us celebrate our successes – our unique skill in perpetually hanging on the precipice without tripping and our economic successes despite the political challenges. Despite the rapid de-Nigerianisation process, we also celebrate true Nigerians like our soldiers who daily lay their lives as they battle the Boko Haram challenge in the Northeast part of the country and Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh who gave her life so that the Liberian Ebola carrier, Patrick Sawyer would not unleash the dreaded virus on all of Nigerians.