The first fact that I would put forward is the very formation of our country, Nigeria. Since inception, there have been cracks along certain fault lines that the creators of this nation did not put into proper consideration, and once the foundation is faulty, the whole structure will definitely be problematic. The truth is that Nigeria is not yet a real nation. Nigeria as it currently is, is a country that comprises of nations, many nations in fact. It is an insult to describe the component nations in Nigeria as “tribes”. The Hausa/Fulani is a nation, the Yoruba is a nation, the Igbo are a nation. Even some of the peoples that we call minorities in this country are nations by their own rights.
By the most recent statistics for example, the population of the Yoruba peoples of SW Nigeria is put at about 33 million people! That is the combined population of Denmark, Norway, Scotland, Holland and Belgium all put together! If that is shocking, how about the Hausa/Fulani who are put at about 42 million people? Plus the above 5 European countries, add the populations of Austria and Bulgaria, then you have the population of the Hausa/Fulani peoples of Northern Nigeria!! A combination of 7 different European nations!! Now tell me, how can you call Denmark a nation of Danes, Sweden a nation of the Swedish, Holland the nation of the Dutch peoples and all these countries after their nationalities and now call Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo “tribes”? It simply does not add up. It is funny how the European colonial masters left all the individual countries of Europe alone when many of them like the ones mentioned above are not more than the population of a single state in Nigeria, but came to amalgamate entirely different nations together here in Africa.
Two, these nations that constitute Nigeria, are mostly entirely different from each other in all forms and ramifications; different cultures, different outlooks, different languages, and to a large extent different majority religions! Hence it required a strategic plan to forge a nation out of them, however no such plan was put in place rather than just jumbling them together in a shaky, non-concrete fashion called amalgamation, and then calling them one nation.
Three, from the beginning, these individual nations have existed in mutual distrust! That is the truth!! And this distrust does not exclude any of them. The Yoruba dined and wined with the Hausa, and vice versa with the Igbos, but they never really trusted one another as such or saw themselves as one. They all fought a common enemy in the British for independence from colonial rule. And even though they fought together this common enemy, they each had their individual agendas tucked away in the corners of their nationalistic hearts, Nationalistic, towards their indigenous nations rather than the larger Nigerian nation. This fact is evidenced by the first motion of Independence moved in 1953 by Sir Anthony Enahoro; it was opposed by the Sardauna of Sokoto, as he argued that the North was not ready. This shows the clear pattern of separate individual agendas in the whole gamut of the clamor for self rule in those days.
The mutual distrust among the nations came to the fore and highest level in 1966 in the event of the January 15th 1966 coup in which five Igbo officers killed the most influential and most widely loved Northern leaders at the time, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Prime Minister of the federation Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and 3 Key top Northern military officers including Brigadier General Maimalari, Lt Col. Abogo Largema and Colonel Kur Mohammed. Chief S L Akintola, a Yoruba was also killed in the process, but it is my opinion that the Yoruba nation as a whole did not react in pain or vengeance over this because Akintola was never generally loved by the Yoruba; the Yoruba had always preferred Awo’s leadership to Akintola’s and Awo was in jail at this time. Akintola had always been viewed as a stooge of the North in Yorubaland. This marked the beginning of an intense and deep running ethnic bitterness, hatred and belligerence in Nigeria. If the situation could have been brought under control and the damage repaired, everything fell to pieces in the Northern Counter Coup of July 29 the same year, when Northern military officers, led by Col Murtala Mohammed and Lt Col T Y Danjuma planned a bloody coup d’etat that saw to the killing of over 200 Key officers of Igbo origin including then Head of State, Gen JTU Aguiyi Ironsi and several others who were not officers. By this time, the damage done in the distrust and bitterness between the nations had almost reached a point beyond repair. The weeks and months following this saw a thorough cleansing of Igbos in the North and ultimately led to the bitterly fought Biafran civil war.
These stories, with all the complex wrangling and maneuverings that characterized those days might sound like irrelevant and distant history, but the truth is that, the consequences of the events of those days have snowballed into what we see today, where almost every action, posting, statement is mostly first viewed with the “ethnic” mirror by most Nigerians before its real content is examined and given a chance.
What majority of us call “tribalistic” is not necessarily the fault of the people involved. The scheming and maneuverings of individual people in Nigeria to wrest control of power and resources towards their “ethnic” and indigenous constituent nations within the larger Nigerian state, is nothing but what I would describe as a rivalry of nations. These peoples are nations, well endowed with their own brains, nationalists, noblemen, warriors and all manners of personalities.
I believe that the failure of generations of our fathers in confronting these brutal facts which are still very much around is the major failure of the Nigerian state, and we are paying for it in great ways with the monumental loss recorded in ethno-religious conflicts that occur mostly in the North up till today. We have been living in self denial as a people who seek to forge a new nation out of previously existing ones. We have differences, which cannot be denied, however our differences should not necessarily become divisions, or used to pursue divisive ends. But this has not been the case. We usually cry and condemn one who is not one of our own when he does wrong, but when one of ours does the same thing, we seek to protect such a one.
The scars of bitterness in Nigeria run deep, very deep. The gulf of distrust has widened. We play and mingle with each other, but at the slightest provocation, we are at daggers drawn. We cannot continue like this if we want to live in a peaceful nation where justice reigns and everyone feels protected and secure in any part of the nation no matter the ethnicity, nationality or religious inclination of the person.
It is up to this generation to begin to seek ways of forging a better and greater union amongst ourselves. We must return to embrace the age long principles of forgiveness, justice, truth and love. We must sit down and talk. Not with the aim of fostering more disunity or tearing the entire Nigerian entity apart, but talk with each other and together form a plan to move forward in togetherness. To forge a path of national healing, to seek justice and not vengeance, as it is said in Yoruba language, “Af’oro y’aro ii j’oro tan” which simply finds its equivalent in the English version which says “An eye for an eye will only render everyone in the city blind.”
Lastly, the issue of corruption and its attendant consequent ravaging poverty which is the situation of over 70% of our people needs to be addressed. This is because poverty incubates bitterness and hatred. It not only incubates it, it exacerbates it. Like they say “an hungry man is an angry man”. If these lines are diligently and sincerely pursued, I believe we can reach a place of healing and true unity and nationhood someday soon.
We love Nigeria; we could never have another nation, and therefore we must make her work, we will make her work.
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