Nigeria is a distant country
Our country, Nigeria, is a distant land
to many of its citizens.
I do not know when we lost it, but I know the
country was not always this far away from the people.
It is true that
someone once referred to it as a mere geographical expression.
But it
was an expression the people felt part of and showed it in various ways.
I say so because I have lived long enough in this country to know it.
And for that older era of the glorious past I did not witness, I have
read about through authentic historical documentation.
We did not lose the real Nigeria in one
day.
We lost it in a gradual process that lasted several years.
There
is no doubt that the de-Nigerianisation of the citizens has been
exacerbated and fast-forwarded by modernity.
In this age of freedom and
the ease with which we can express such freedom, especially through the
social media and even deceive unwary compatriots, individualism can
easily overshadow the communal.
And in the face of a weak central
authority, many citizens have drummed up allegiances to ethnic and
regional authorities and sentiments.
More than a century ago, there was no
Nigeria; a place so called, I mean.
What we had were pockets of people
in pockets of settlements across the land.
They interacted as
individuals, as families and as clans, in peaceful co-existence.
Conflicts often arose and were resolved with minimal stress.
Some
conflicts however got protracted over time but that did not stop the
communication and interactions.
Although the people lived as individuals
and families, there was always something that brought them together –
the common good.
The need to maintain and sustain common facilities and
wealth and to guarantee the safety of all necessarily brought everyone
together willy-nilly. So, the interest of the clan often trumped
personal interests.
The people congregated in public spaces
to agree on the advancement of their homesteads with people trading off
their personal interests and comfort for communal goals.
People did not
always interact and work together because they loved to.
Sometimes, it
was simply because, those were the persons they found themselves living
with, in the same settlement or locality; so they just had to live with
the reality.
In fact, there were no large ethnic
groups as we have them today. The very idea of the present large and
seemingly oppressive ethnic groups, were later-day creations through
interactions and eventual fossilisation.
Historians will tell us that
what is now called Yoruba, previously existed as different peoples like
the Ijebu, Egba, Oyo, Ijesha, Ekiti. It was the same with the present
expressions like “Hausa-Fulani”.
Perhaps, the fossilisation into the
present major ethnic groups started out as relationships of convenience
to ward off external aggression or to stand up against opponents for
access to economic advantages.
It must have been similar to the very way
we today hear of expressions like “Niger Delta”, “South-South”, “Middle
Belt” or “North Central”, mentioned as if they were a unified, coherent
and single ethnicity or people. At best, they are relationships or
marriages of convenience.
Over time, these ethnic nationalities
had become so used to interactions with others that they even had names
and descriptions for each people they interacted with.
The advent of the
colonialists and the administration of the lands and populations they
met only helped to accelerate interactions and cohesion among Nigerian
ethnicities. The colonialists did not create or force the interactions,
as some people try to assert.
The intercourse among these groups already
existed prior to colonisation.
What the colonialists did was simply to
facilitate the fusing in order to guarantee them ease of administering a
‘conquered people’.
Why people deride the amalgamation of
what had become the Northern and the Southern Protectorates into a
single country called Nigeria in 1914 still beats me.
This is because I
hardly hear people complain about the fact that even the two
protectorates mentioned above were also artificial creations of the
colonialists.
Pray, by what agreement did the Yoruba, Igbo, Efik,
Ikwerre, Urhobo, Ibibio, Annang, Bini, Bekwarra and Ijaw etc.
of
southern Nigeria agree to be grouped into the Southern Protectorate or
the Nupe, Hausa, Igala, Birom, Fulani etc.
agree to form part of the
Northern Protectorate? These ethnic nationalities were not consulted no
doubt. But they worked harmoniously until relationships went sour.
From all accounts, on the emergence of
an amalgamated Nigeria in 1914 and even after the attainment of
Independence in 1960, Nigerian people were more united than they are
today and the allegiance to a single country was also higher than now.
The struggle for Independence saw the working together of citizens from
the different nationalities that make up Nigeria.
The country then also
reflected the interesting mix of citizens.
It was such that people of
different ethnicities found themselves living peacefully anywhere in the
country and carrying out their livelihoods.
The civil service, even at
the regional levels, was populated by citizens, not necessarily
indigenes.
That was how my late father, of Efik extraction, could serve
as teacher in different schools in what we now know as Niger and Kaduna
states, under the employment of the then Northern Regional Government.
Fast-forward to today. State civil
services hardly employ “non-indigenes”.
Even where new states are
created, the new states are forced to send the civil servants to their
states of “origin”, whether or not such is convenient for the workers.
Even a woman who marries across the artificial boundaries of states is
often left in the lurch by being discriminated against in both her state
of “origin” and where her husband is from.
Even if state civil services do so, one
doesn’t expect the federal civil or public service to also
discriminate.
Unfortunately, the work force of most Federal Government
establishments reflects the location of the office.
The gravest of such
anomaly is in the federal universities where efforts are made to ensure
that the vice-chancellors are “indigenous” to the states of location.
Thus, we no longer have the pleasure of seeing an Eni Njoku as the
vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Kenneth Dike in University
of Ibadan or Emmanuel Ayandele in University of Calabar.
Even the
admission processes make it difficult for non-indigenes.
We are
therefore inadvertently raising ethnic and regional leaders and
academics in place of nationalists.
This is because we focus too much on
“indigenes” as opposed to “citizens”.
Even the constitution focuses on
that in the appointment of public officials such as ministers.
And because Nigerians are more likely
to access benefits on account of their “indigeneity” rather than of
their citizenship, there is a convenient slip into our ethnic cocoons to
assert self.
The country therefore remains a distant land we go to
fight over opportunities and bring home to our ethnic and regional
homesteads.
And whenever citizens get into the national stage, those
from their ethnic and regional backgrounds remind them that they are
occupying the slots of their ethnic locality, thus expecting them to
work for those sectional interests, while holding a position in trust
for the entire country.
We need therefore to a country that
emphasises what it means to be a citizen rather than indigene of
component units. To do so, the centre must promote inclusion of all
citizens.
There must be equality and equity in the way resources are
accessed and used.
The country must protect every citizen, wherever they
are located (within or outside the country).
This would not happen
suddenly but we need to start somewhere.
It would happen when we have
selfless leadership with pan-Nigerian view, not leaders who emerge on
account of “zoning”.
While hoping for that, we also need to raise a new
set of citizens who see Nigeria as their own country, not a place they
resort to only for opportunity while holding allegiances wholly to their
ethnic nationalities.
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