NIGERIA: DESIGN TO FAIL

 

NIGERIA: DESIGN TO FAIL

Nigeria is designed to fail. None of the founding fathers were saints. Neither Awolowo nor Azikwe or Balwa can be excluded from this failure. They were consumed by the lust for power and control of the Federal apparatus. What they have in difference was how the power was to be used, for personal, for ethnic and or for national objectives.

The love for power and domination like the love for freedom and self-preservation is inherent in every man. Thus, while we may not completely blame them, the truth is none of the trio could be said to have acted in the best interests of the entity called Nigeria. They acted out of fear as against out of conviction. They wanted to preserve themselves, and at best preserve their ethnic identities. At the end, what they bequeathed to the coming generations was a nation designed and destined to fail.

Forget the mistake of 1914, the nationalists of the pre-Independence had opportunity to rewrite the story and engrave themselves in the sound of history but the mutual suspicions, personal rivalries cum fear of domination of one ethnic over the other made them not to take critical decisions that would have placed the nation at an enviable height.

I’ve read My Odyssey by Dr Namid Azikwe. I’ve read Alhaji Tafawa Balewa biography and countless biographies of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. I’m currently reading his self-authored biography of Awolowo titled: Awo. My conclusion from all my readings, hearsays and conjectures over the years is that the trio and their contemporaries were at each other necks on who control the Federal Government at Independence, so they vehemently try to outwit one another in this rat race. In this vein, we have an amoeba federating states.

Balewa for instance wanted to protect the North and seize the control of power at the centre at all cost, because he perceived the Southerners made of the East and the West regions as more sophisticated with the possibility of the duo or either of them usurping the opportunities for themselves at the expense of his own people. Thus, he stood his ground by resisting every moves and attempts that will give either of the regions an advantage over the North as sentimentally perceived by him. Azikwe saw Awolowo as his chief opponent that must crushed or courted to his own and people advantage.  Awolowo believed if his unity through Federalism cannot be achieved, then, the preservation of his own personal estates and regions are best held on to and jealously guarded. The North through Balewa used Azikwe and Awo as prawn for achieving its inordinate ambition of preserving the North and maintaining an overarching hegemony over the West and East.

Has anything changed really? Nothing has changed. Despite the demise of these trios, the succeeding leaders have continued in their steads. The North has consistently and continuously courted the East and the West to his own advantage at will, yet the leaders of these regions have always fall victims of this game because of personal ambitions and interests of the leaders from the respective regions.

The difference between the founding fathers and the succeeding leaders is that the previous were more virtuous and less selfish compare to the present. They were also consumed by the love for their people. In the present arrangement, majority of the leaders are consumed by their personal interests. So they have and will continue to fail to do the needful.

The truth is Nigeria cannot work with this present socio-political and economic arrangement. We are only buying time, this House we stand under will fall and it will be to the peril of all – the North, the West and East if I may retain those nomenclatures despite their blurry identities in recent time, due to balkanizations into States and continuous agitations by the minority entities.

We don’t have a ‘United States of Nigeria’, what we have is a ‘Disunited States of Nigeria’ with political, social and economic amoeba structures. The Nigeria political and economic elites know this truth but because they think they are profiting from it, none of them is prepared and bold enough to rock the boat. The structural integrity of the Nigeria State is faulty and it is time, it is pulled down or reinforced with concrete beams, otherwise, it will soon fall like a park of cards.

Nigeria is not working and it is not working for all. It is not working for that little Leah Sharibu from Dapchi. It is not working for that Chiamaka Chukwudi girl from Aba or for Ajoke Ojo from Owo. They are all victims of circumstances. Let us leave the commoner alone. It is not in the best interest of Nigeria for the entity to remain as it is presently constituted for the Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna, Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State or Hope Uzodima of Imo. Yes, it is not in the favour of Obaseki of Edo, Ortom of Benue or the Governor of Plateau for Nigeria to be as it is, no matter what they think they are benefiting from the present arrangement.

There is need for urgent national surgical operation to reshape the destiny of this country in terms of real restructuring. When Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart in the ‘70s; he was merely being prophetic as if he could glean from the grave to see the present status quo, he might have sought for an apology to re-title his Nobel award winning novel, except we want to nickname the present political and economic realities of our dear nation as Things Has Fallen Apart.

 We can still raise the structures before the fallen structures become debris and wastes if those in the helms of affairs will seize the bulls by the horn. The past and present leaders alive have roles to play by calling a spade a spade and taken decisive actions urgently. There is need for roundtable frank talk on whether Nigeria should be or not to be. If to be, what manners of political and economic systems are best suited for us. Who knows if the lost glory can be redeemed?

God Bless Nigeria!