1914, 2014

“You don’t have to agree with me, but it is quicker.” Anon

Two references were made to two ends of a century of the existence of the Nigerian state last week. While delivering the first Sir Ahmadu Bello Foundation Memorial Lecture last week, Professor Ibrahim Gambari referred to the enigmatic remarks of the late Sardauna regarding the 1914 amalgamation. The Premier was quoted as referring to the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates as “the mistake of 1914” which was haunting the nation as it planned to decolonize as one entity. It is a statement that has haunted the history of a federal state that had been subjected to every test for survival, and which is still having to respond to the most basic questions over its integrity and future.

The second reference to the century, 1914 – 2014 came in the form of announced plans by the federal government to build a new city adjoining Abuja to commemorate the centenary of the amalgamation. The city will be one of the many activities which the nation will organize to celebrate a century of co-existence of people, cultures and faiths that will make a very interesting case study on capacities of nations to fritter opportunities, and astound cynics and skeptics just by surviving.

The amalgamation of the southern with the northern protectorates in 1914 was informed by the need for economy in the management of colonial territories. It had, like all actions of the colonial power, nothing to do with the wishes or interests of the people in the territories. Indeed, many parts of the colonial territory which became Nigeria were still in the process of being conquered and integrated in 1914. Nonetheless, the two parts were brought under a unified administration, but run substantially as autonomous entities. Basic economic infrastructure informed by the need to bolster internal trade and exports began to define a future nation, but colonial policies created almost insular federating units. Thus the amalgamated protectorates became administered as three basic regions, with the power of the colonizer, commerce and western education increasingly defining the character of a future nation.

Colonial policy encouraged the emergence of a north under the influence of a conservative British colonial administration and modified versions of its traditional values and institutions. The western region developed under an aggressive pursuit for the export of agricultural produce and western education. The culturally more egalitarian eastern region developed without the limiting influences of traditional authorities and with a popular acceptance of western education as a key vehicle for social mobility. Ethnic minorities were deliberately subsumed under regional arrangements that made more sense as a tripod, although much energy was consumed by the periodic upsurge of resistance from groups that resented subservience to favoured and larger groups.

The Nigerian state achieved independence after protracted negotiations that raised suspicions and resentment among the elites in the regions represented broadly by three ethnic groups. While the nation as a whole saw October 1^st 1960 as a major landmark, and few people questioned the wisdom or utility of 1914, the three regions had built up considerable political distances from each other, and the primacy of the tribe precluded the emergence of a consciousness and a character that was distinctly Nigerian. The institution groomed to represent the soul and cohesion of the Nigerian state, the military, soon burst the bubble when it staged a coup that had all the makings of a sectional agenda. The tragic events that followed this coup, including the civil war, have been used many times over to revisit the value and utility of the amalgamation.

With two years to go before the centenary of that amalgamation, the voices which question the value of continuing with what 1914 put together are louder than ever. The Sardauna never amplified his lament over the mistake of 1914; but many people, including northerners, have given it their own impetus. The camp of those who see 1914 as a monumental mistake is bursting at the seams. They include many irredentist movements such as MASSOB, elements of the I.Y.C and others in the Niger Delta, Yoruba groups which include many intellectuals and politicians, ethnic minorities who bear deep scars from the domination of bigger groups, insurgencies such as Jamaatu Ahlil Sunnal Liddawati Wal Jihad (a.k.a. Boko Haram) who want to live only under Muslim constitutions and state, and any variety of fringe groups who want a radical restructuring of our federation to accord ethnic groups substantial autonomy.

By the time the nation comes round to actually celebrate a century of togetherness forced upon it by colonial imperatives, the campaign for the 2015 elections will be in full swing. All the skeletons of a nation with a lot of baggage would have been exposed. The far north which is predominantly Muslim will quite possibly be isolated from other parts of the region when religion and ethnicity would have been lighted up as political commodity. Ethnic minorities will justle for space and salvation against large, traditionally-dominant groups; and it is conceivable that the new century will be marked by the most challenging threats to the continued existence of the nation.

By 2014, the voice of those who will sing in praise of a nation that has survived some of the most trying challenges will hardly be heard. Those who will plead that the next century should start by resolving to create a nation of citizens, not tribes, settlers and indigenes are not likely to be heard. Those who will roll out statistics and evidence of a richly-endowed nation with the potential to lead the world if it can curtail corruption and install good leaders are not likely to have front seats during the celebrations.

But it does not have to be this way. The amalgamation of 1914 has created a nation that must survive, because its failure will be an unmitigated disaster for everyone in it or near it. If the British made a mistake in 1914, Nigerians should correct that mistake by building a nation that addresses, at the most minimal level,  the most basic of the needs of all its citizens, which are to live in peace and enjoy the benefits of their toils and the blessings of God. The only mistake worse than 1914 will be to abandon the belief that Nigeria can be made to work, and work well.