Nigeria’s Centenary: What Next?

PreambleThe original text of this series, which will be run for four weeks, was delivered as a Keynote at the 7th Annual Conference of the School of General Studies Kogi Polytechnic in March 2014 being the institution’s offering to the nation’s centenary celebrations. The issues are still rife, even as the national Confab proceeds in […]

Preamble
The original text of this series, which will be run for four weeks, was delivered as a Keynote at the 7th Annual Conference of the School of General Studies Kogi Polytechnic in March 2014 being the institution’s offering to the nation’s centenary celebrations. The issues are still rife, even as the national Confab proceeds in Abuja. As I said at the occasion, I share the intellectual ferment that your Faculty relishes to ensure that this annual Conference of the school continues to blossom at times like this when little attention is granted works of academic and intellectual discourse, since so much energy (human and material resources) must be spent dealing with matters of politics and governance designs.
Most especially, the theme of this conference cannot be more rife and apt, given the fact that we are paying a critical revisit to the core essence of national being as a nation and a people in search of cohesion, coherence and essence. This is coming a century after we were balkanized, dismembered and re-assembled with no reference to culture, language, sociality and history. Now, the fact that we remain as a united nation is the sole reason why the government of our country decided that there should be some celebration. It is also a cause for reflection and refraction on the future of our country, its challenges and its way forward.  What is the next century going to mean for our people? Together, intact or otherwise? How will it transpire that the twenty-first century become the African century, in terms of advancement, growth and development? This, in my view, is the raison detre of this Conference.
Basic Questions; Basic Thoughts
Is it worth it commemorating and celebrating the Nigerian centenary—the 100 years of the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates? There continues to be fierce debates over this issue of the welding together of Nigeria by Lord Frederick Lugard on January 1914. Let us first of all recall that the Presidency considers the event important and thus initiated the celebration project. The argument has been, not just on whether the amalgamation should be celebrated but also whether there was any amalgamation at all in any serious political and socio-economic consideration.
In any event, all that is now history, since the Federal Government has gone ahead to celebrate and commemorate the event, with lavish, pomp and pageantry—an exercise, or exercises which culminated in some African Heads of State holding a Summit, social cultural entertainment of food, music and dance, and a ceremony of centenary honours of some one hundred people—former Presidents, dead or alive, outstanding Nigerians of notable merit and exploits and some infamous characters, by any yardstick or judgment.
The strongest point justifying the commemoration from government’s evaluative standpoint is the very essence of our nationhood, our unity in diversity as an act of destiny. Waxing theological in his commemoration speech, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan averred; ‘I have often expressed the conviction that our amalgamation was not a mistake. While our union may have been inspired by considerations external to our people; I have no doubt that we are destined by God Almighty to live together as one big nation, united in diversity’
This is, no doubt, an affirmation, through political theology with inherent contradiction of the historical determinism and predestination of our nationhood, necessitating our ceremonial splash. There are many discernible minds, who will not stand with the President on this matter, given the fact stated by himself that the amalgamation was carried out through factors extraneous to the peoples that were welded together. Amalgamation, if therefore really was amalgamation, was forcibly conducted without consultation and without toleration of any dissenting voice. Amalgamation laid the solid foundation for colonization with all its negativity—including its repressive strategies, cultural devaluation and value and identity distortions.
Two factors cannot be ignored in the uncritical justification of commemoration of the centenary of the amalgamation. The fact that the President conceded to have the national dialogue is a submission to the dynamics of history and the inevitability of change. If it is important that we reconstruct our geo-polity, re-examine the very basis of our nationhood and national existence, then we cannot be celebrating with relish, gusto and fanfare, the very exercise we are questioning. Secondly, as the commemoration was going on, hundreds of lives, including the lives of dozens of innocent children were being snuffed out in Yobe, Adamawa and Maiduguri through the guerrilla war being waged on us by Boko Haram insurgency and horrifying terror. Watching President after President commiserating with our President at the Summit, the pathetic paradox of the celebration becomes daunting. Then, of course, the awards and honours. There is, no doubt, good justification for honouring our heroes, living or dead—those who have made significant contributions to the building, growth and development of our nation, but there is the widely held opinion that this must not be done indiscriminately and without separating the corn from the chaff,  heroes from villains, saints from devils, the virtuous from the vicious; lest the awards and honours lose its value and credibility. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka rejected the award with caustic and acerbic qualification. The families of Fela Anikulapo, Gani Fawehinmi and MKO Abiola rejected the honour for articulated misdeeds of government to their departed loved ones being honoured. The inclusion of General Abacha was roundly condemned. To be fair to the President, the justification for his inclusion on account of his financial and economic management at a time of scarce revenue is apt and credible, but it ignores the depravity and dehumanizing activities of the dictator, whose regime was largely regarded as a reign of terror in its own right, which cancels out his ‘good deeds in a large measure.
The most decried of all the award is the ones allocated to Queen Elizabeth of England and Lord Lugard, the author and finisher of the amalgamation, both profiled by Akinlotan respectively as ‘the first representative of the thieving and conniving metroplole’ and  the second as a ‘highly contemptuous and colonial master whose deplorable objectives ignored our pride and feelings.’ He perceives as a mockery of nation, which honours those who have raped it.
(Concluded next week)