Why Nigeria May Never Be a Great Nation: A country adrift with visionless leaders

By Kehinde A Aderibigbe

"Why Nigeria May never be a Great Nation" takes the reader through the early formation of the country and how things went wrong from inception. It discusses how the British decision during the amalgamation of northern and southern Nigeria was based on se

• Language: English
• Publisher: Faceless Author
• Release date: Oct 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087986364

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WHY NIGERIA MAY NEVER BE A GREAT NATION

A country adrift with visionless leadership

maybe it’s time for the world and Africa to move on

By Kehinde Aderibigbe

Copyright © 2021 by Kehinde Aderibigbe

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Table of Contents

BACKGROUND 1

Chapter 1: Designed to Fail 20

Chapter 2: Treasonable Leadership 30

Chapter 3: Why Nigeria May Never Achieve Greatness? 39

Chapter 4: Nigeria the Broken Country 52

Chapter 5: Equity and Fairness 78

Chapter 6: Nigeria, A Leaderless Nation! 83

BACKGROUND

Nigeria is a country where competency is the last consideration or requirement for success, a country where mediocrity rains supreme in all facets of life and GREATNESS seems infinitely replaced by FAILURE."

In the 60 years since independence, the Nigerian leadership space has been dominated by 2 groups.

The first and most dominant group is intellectually deficient, corrupt with a sense of feudal ownership. This group dominates the military, generally seeks control and power, and they are mainly northerners.

The second group is intellectually savvy, educated, but highly corrupt; this group provides cover for the first group to gain access to governance and corruption. These are primarily southerners.  Collectively they form what I described as a criminal oligarchy, generally referred to as cabals, in Nigeria. They have dominated the political landscape since the start of democracy in 1999.

By actions and practice, the first group has claimed ownership and control of Nigeria, mainly northerners. The second group, mainly southerners, abandoned any sense of responsibility to their constituencies and instead focused on competing for any position that the north might acquiesce to, including personal gains, wealth, and the opportunity to have a role in governance. As elections approach, you will find members of the southern group jostling/negotiating for power and begging for positions in government. The less qualified northern counterparts strut with poise, confidence and, on occasions, boldly claim its merciful intent to share power either with the southwest or southeast region of the country, therefore dividing the southern vote so it may conquer both. Nowhere is this arrogance more in display than in the Senate where the Fulani president of the Senate Lawan willfully disregards senate votes and use his gavel to call votes in favor of issues he supports regardless of the obvious vote of a majority of the senators, somehow, he convinces everyone to accept his sole decision, overriding a majority senate vote.  The lack of aggressive and hostile rejection of this behavior has empowered the Fulani Senate President to repeat the same three times in the last two years extending the Fulani destructive display of arrogance in Nigeria to the legislative bodies.

Nevertheless, both groups abandon their political differences to share in the looting and mismanagement of the country whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Any outward display of disagreement or differences between the two groups is blurred at night when they get together to loot the country.

All successful deals and businesses in Abuja are concluded in the dark of night and after midnight when the loot is shared before most government contracts and agreements are concluded or executed.

Nigeria is made up of more than three hundred ethnic groups with three dominant groups, the Yoruba, Hausa, and Ibo, all held together by sheer force and the threat of war should any one of the three seek independence.

Nigeria is faced with two problems and the root causes are the reasons the country may never be a great nation. First is the government has failed woefully to meet the aspirations and expectations of the people, and two, it has failed to provide security of life and property to the average citizen. These failures have resulted in vocal demands for disintegration and separation by several ethnic groups.

To understand Nigeria and why it is failing woefully, one must understand the structure of governance, quality, and motives of the leadership, including the relationship between politicians from the various ethnic groups. The history of the nation’s failures can be directly linked to the creation of Nigeria by the British, subsequent military disruption of civilian governance, and corrupt politicians who are using democratic processes to circumvent the rule of law.

The British acquired the territories now known as Nigeria from a commercial operation that exploited the territories for financial gains. The territories were originally recognized as the northern and southern protectorates. It was at the urging of Governor Frederick Lugard in 1914 that the two territories were amalgamated into what is now known as Nigeria. The British, however, did not do this for the benefit of the people but to offset the financial losses it was experiencing in the northern protectorate with the profitable southern protectorates. This amalgamation of the different ethnic groups into a country has created internal tension and competition, which persist today. Hence why the different ethnic groups defend and protect corrupt politicians to the detriment of the country.

The military caused the stop-and-go democracies the nation experienced for decades until it finally imposed a terrible constitution on the nation, disguised as a democracy. Many argue that the constitution itself is fermenting agitation for separation. Several of the military dictators (I referred to them as dictators as most came to power by coup and forceful takeover of government) and politicians who created the environment for a failed state are still alive and are witnesses to the failed society they engineered. Most are very wealthy, wealth acquired from embezzling monies or assignment of national resources to themselves, families, and friends. When the military removed itself from power in