Nigeria at 50 and Beyond: a Case for World Conscience

By Iyken Nnanedu

The developed countries must encourage Nigeria and other African countries to display responsible leadership that accounts for their actions. This is an attribute of democracy, which involves strict adherence to the constitution of the country involved. Sectional domination of all the strategic positions has never helped development in any country. Any person or group of persons gaining from such should better know that such gain is only momentary. Sectional domination has given yield to high rate of corruption, wastage in human resources, and unnecessary bloodshed among other crimes.

The ultimate aim of practical politics is attainment of power. One thing about power is that it carries certain obligations and responsibilities. The initial aim of the seeker may be to serve. Power is supposed to be used as a latent weapon for development and growth, if well managed, but never for destruction. Power is transient and must never be seen to be localized to any section. Otherwise, that system that provides the platform for the welder of such power will one day collapse and disintegrate into its component parts. Therefore, any person or group of persons suggesting or supporting sectional domination is simply encouraging the collapse of that system and should be held responsible for such.

The Nigerian politicians and their militarys old game of business-as-usual looting of resources meant that development is better gone forever. Same goes for the sectional military coup coming to the rescue of its civilian government, using constitution drafting and state creation as means of diverting attention for consolidation until the environment is once more conducive for its civilian government.

However, in Arthur Nzeribes Nigeria: The Turning Point, he says that leaders must know that politics or leadership is a serious business that involves millions of people. They must, therefore, recognize the significance of seriousness in policy making and must not toy with lives of these millions by altering the sectional domination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499049695

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Copyright © 2014 by Iyken Nnanedu.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-4970-1

                eBook            978-1-4990-4969-5

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgment

Chapter 1 Nigeria At Independence-First Republic

Chapter 2 The First Coming Of The Army

Chapter 3 Nigerian Civil War

Chapter 4 The Second Republic

Chapter 5 The Second Coming Of The Army

Chapter 6 Power Manipulations In Nigerian Leadership System

Chapter 7 Development Under The Army

Chapter 8 Some Of The Tribes That Make Up Nigeria

Chapter 9 The Problem With Nigeria

Chapter 10 A Country Where People Survive In Style

Chapter 11 Random Thought: The Fourth Republic

Chapter 12 Damaging Effects Of Corruption

Chapter 13 As We Enter The Twenty-First Century

Chapter 14 Any Solution To Nigerian Complex Situation?

References

DEDICATION

I wish to dedicate my proposed book to my late parents, Pa G. Nnanedu and Ma A. Nnanedu, for the opportunity they offered me in passing through educational system and moral upbringing.

PREFACE

The developed countries must encourage Nigeria and other African countries to display responsible leadership that accounts for their actions. This is an attribute of democracy, which involves strict adherence to the constitution of the country involved. Sectional domination of all the strategic positions has never helped development in any country. Any person or group of persons gaining from such should better know that such gain is only momentary. Sectional domination has given yield to high rate of corruption, wastage in human resources, and unnecessary bloodshed among other crimes.

The ultimate aim of practical politics is attainment of power. One thing about power is that it carries certain obligations and responsibilities. The initial aim of the seeker may be to serve. Power is supposed to be used as a latent weapon for development and growth, if well managed, but never for destruction. Power is transient and must never be seen to be localized to any section. Otherwise, that system that provides the platform for the welder of such power will one day collapse and disintegrate into its component parts. Therefore, any person or group of persons suggesting or supporting sectional domination is simply encouraging the collapse of that system and should be held responsible for such.

The Nigerian politicians and their military’s old game of business-as-usual looting of resources meant that development is better gone forever. Same goes for the sectional military coup coming to the rescue of its civilian government, using constitution drafting and state creation as means of diverting attention for consolidation until the environment is once more conducive for its civilian government.

However, in Arthur Nzeribe’s Nigeria: The Turning Point, he says that leaders must know that politics or leadership is a serious business that involves millions of people. They must, therefore, recognize the significance of seriousness in policy making and must not toy with lives of these millions by altering the sectional domination.

In Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests, he suggests the need for an occasional pause for thought. In the case of Nigeria, what a better time than the occasion of independence and the start of a new cycle? On such occasions, instead of total absorption in celebrations and whitewashing their history, Nigerians should face the truth, the whole truth, about themselves. Then with a mixture of hope and trepidation, they must move into the uncertain future.

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, he says that if the center could no longer hold together, then things fall apart.

The Nigerian Armed Forces must know that they are not Nigeria themselves but part of it, and so does any person or group of persons within it. Hence, they must be subjected to the rules of law as will be provided for in the new constitution free of their manipulation. They must not take advantage of having the monopoly of violence provided to them by taxpayers’ money to blackmail the rest of Nigerians into submission.

In a modern world where every serious country is tending toward efficiency in all its human endeavor, the Nigerian situation will not be a case in isolation. The name giant of Africa will only be justified and meaningful in terms of achievements toward technology, development, and responsible leadership. It must never be the other way around. This I believe as we are now a hundred years from a forceful amalgamation of Southern and Northern Nigeria and already into the twenty-first century, which is the beginning of a new millennium.

Iyken Nnanedu

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Iyken is indebted to a large number of people and colleague s whose formal and informal discussions contributed a lot in writing this book. In particular, my gratitude goes to the following: Dan Mosa P. Omekam, Leo Okechukwu, Anthony Emengo, Azubuike Ejem, Musa Ladan, Luis Kayode, and Sam Onukwuru, among others, for going through the manuscript—criticizing it, applying some corrections, and offering pieces of advice and information. I also read a lot and made use of information obtained from journals and books—some of which I mentioned in the reference. Any omission is regretted and will be corrected in the future edition. My special thanks go to Mbanefo Onyeabo and Chioma Chude for contributing in producing this work.

CHAPTER 1

NIGERIA AT INDEPENDENCE-FIRST REPUBLIC

Nigeria is a country located in the west coast of Africa. It shares common boundaries with Chad and Niger Republic in north, Cameroun in the east, and Benin Republic in the west. It has the largest concentration of black people on the planet and the largest population in Africa. Its population is over one hundred and fifty million; hence, they call it as the giant of Africa. It covers a land area of 923,768.6 sq. km.

Nigeria is where people survive in style. Otherwise, one tends to become crazy.

Nigeria became a country by forceful amalgamation of its southern and northern parts by its British colonial master in January 1st 1914. This singular action made it a colony of the British Empire as a result Nigeria became part of its wealth. The rest is now part of history.

Let us not waste much time on whether we like this singular act of forcing us into becoming part of its colony or not. If one considers the fact that minerals exploration and exploitation started since ages with the knowledge of petroleum and its exploration later, you could not blame an organized group that used what it had to obtain what it needed. Instead, one blames our forefathers for the easy and too comfortable life they were living then—minimum effort at agricultural input to the so -called maximum output. They were living polygamous and ostentatious lives and fighting lots of internal wars rather than combining their efforts to develop, defend, and repel any external aggression.

Well, let us take consolation in the fact that almost every country in the world had suffered one form of colonization or the other, even to the extent of enslaving themselves. The United States of America, for instance, fought a bitter war for independence with its British colonial master. It had almost lost all its states, but the war was encouraged by some of its courageous generals led by George Washington and some foreign aids, mainly from France. Eventually, it won the War of Independence, even though the land of the United States of America was drenched with a lot of its citizens’ blood. America also fought and won the Civil War. This is an example of what sheer courage and determination could achieve. It is now at the pinnacle of power and the leader of the world. They really worked very hard for it.

The whites are even more brutal to themselves than to the blacks. One still believes that they would have used their fellow whites in forced labor during the Industrial Revolution. However, for the mere fact that a black man’s skin is more resistant to the harsh effects of winter, hence the slavery of blacks since more supply could be obtained from the continent. If you think otherwise, take for example what happened during the first and second world wars. What happened in Bosnia, part of the former Yugoslavia, and Chechen in Russia? What happened in the communist enclave of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) and other East European countries?

Despite all these, we may accuse our colonial masters of bringing in their missionaries to change some of our ugly attitudes in life. This of course made the environment conducive enough for them to stay and continue with whatever assignment they came for.

However, what beats one’s imagination were the very colonial masters who brought in missionaries to enlighten our fathers and teach them a better way of life were the very people who negotiated, manipulated, and rigged an unpopular party least prepared for independence, the Northern People Congress (NPC), into power. Simply because they wanted to maintain their control over Nigeria, even when the said party’s religion was different from their own. This singular act would have sharpened the instinct of other progressive parties to unite and wrestle the power from the colonial masters and their NPC stooge at all costs to form a national government or allow the whole system to disintegrate rather than this type of compromise that has crippled the development of the rest of the country.

In 1944, Chief Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe with Harbert Macaulay and other nationalists founded a party, the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroun (NCNC). While Macaulay became the national president, Azikiwe became the national general secretary. In 1946, Azikiwe was elected the president of NCNC upon the death of Harbert Macaulay. It was really to the credit of Nnamdi Azikiwe and his detribalized politics that NCNC consistently won elections in the west until the unfortunate Western Nigerian House of Assembly episode of 1952, when the opponent, Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Action Group, pulled what may be seen as a political master stroke that converted Nnamdi Azikiwe’s apparent victory into a devastating defeat, thus the origin of tribal politics.

Disappointed, Azikiwe returned to the east, his region of origin, and repeated what was done to him in the west to replace the government of Eya Ita. Before this time in 1952, a southerner would win and lead a government outside his region of origin.

In 1959, Nnamdi Azikiwe and his NCNC party were needed to break the deadlock in the Federal House of Representatives between the Northern People Congress (NPC) and Action Group (AG) from the south. Azikiwe went for NPC. He said that if a southern coalition would have emerged, a development would have divided the country. Some of his critics disagreed with him, arguing that the nature of the geography of the country would have prevented the north from breaking away in the event of a southern coalition and that the north would have been landlocked had it tried. They insisted the coalition between NCNC and NPC, which eventually led the nation into chaos. A similar thing happened between Azikiwe’s Nigerian People Party (NPP) and National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in 1979. It was believed to be an offshoot of NPC. This alliance later ran the economy aground. His critics said that this method of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s alliance with parties, whose policies were different from his own party’s ideology. His over compromising as opposed to his party’s set goals and principle of political compromise as opposed to rigid adherence to set goals. However, Azikiwe, in his own defense, saw himself as a political realist who must contend with facts on the ground.

The NCNC attracted other nationalists—Adeniran Ogusanya, Chief Green Mbadiwe, Dr. Akanu Ibiam, T. O. S. Benson, Dr. Micheal Okpara, chief R. B. K. Okafor, Dr. Ken Orizu, and so on—both at its formation and after.

At independence, the most popular party in Nigeria, NCNC, was manipulated out of power in favor of the NPC party under Sir Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, a party from the north. NPC had been clamoring for the postponement of independence for the reason that the people from the north were not yet ready for such. NPC even threatened to break away if the independence was granted, hence the concession. Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, rather than going to the center to assume the leadership as the prime minster, nominated one of his trusted disciples to take over leadership at the center and remained in the northern region to ensure that the rigging and voting pattern were maintained.

What happened could easily be articulated and put together. Initially, the NPC ruling party from the north was assumed, with the aid of British colonial masters, that the population in the northern region was far more than that in the east and west-southern regions put together. This was debunked when one considers that the population density in the north was less than twenty persons per square kilometer