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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn contrast, it is difficult to come across any\nlong standing observer of Nigeria, (including, strikingly, members of the\ninternational community who are, with merit, given to harbour very low and\ncritical opinions of African leaders) who would not have something good to say\nof the cosmopolitan and accommodating first Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir\nAbubakar Tafawa Balewa. For that matter, the coup makers of January 1966 were\neven said to exercise remorse on the need to eliminate him. The two sample\nremarks I have given are intended to serve as standard testimonials to the\nperception of Abubakar as a noble leader. One is from W.F Gutteridge-who comes\nacross in his book, \u2018Military Regimes in Africa,\u2019 as one of the most\noutstanding commentators on the crisis that has held Nigeria prostrate since\n1966. The second is a 1958 Time magazine editorial on Nigeria. \u201cWhen a man of\nthese qualities, proffers an opinion, as he candidly did in the quote above,\nfriends and foes are obliged to take his reflections quite seriously and as\nmade in good faith. If, therefore, the scrutiny attributed to him above, is his\nhonest opinion, where is the need to seek scapegoats for similar reflections\ntypified in Balewa\u2019s disposition and to which Pan Nigerian remedial measures\nare proffered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sir Francis Cumming Bruce was the incumbent\nBritish High Commissioner to Nigeria in the uniquely fateful days, weeks and\nmonths of 1966. In that capacity and more than any other individual, he was\nresponsible for persuading the North against secession. Of his encounters with\nCumming Bruce, the frontline British journalist in Nigeria in the late 60s, Walter\nGould revealed \u201cCumming-Bruce was able to persuade the Emirs that secession\nwould have been an economic disaster\u2026As Cumming-Bruce stated: \u2018But it wasn\u2019t on\nthe face of it easy to get them to change, but I managed to do it overnight. On\na second meeting with Cumming-Bruce he greeted me with the comment: \u2018I\nsometimes wonder whether I did the right thing in keeping Nigeria together\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly bitten with buyers remorse, the neo\nLugardian establishment pundit, Anthony Kirk Green, soberly reflected, \u201cThe tragedy\nof 1967 is that many of its seeds were not, as is often claimed, sown in\nOctober or even July 1966, but in the 1950s or, as some see it, in 1914 or\nmaybe in 1900 itself.\u201d And in his memorandum that crystallised from the 1957\nLondon constitutional conference on Nigeria, the Secretary of state for the\nColonies, Allan Lennox Boyd, regretted that \u201cthe North fears and dislikes the\nmore educated Southerners and if they were not economically bound to the\nFederation would be glad to be quit of it. The tribal divisions that remain in\nNigeria are so deep that the unity and stability of the country cannot yet be\ntaken for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its 1958 editorial, the Time magazine captured\nthe scene at the London conference on the independence of Nigeria in 1957 with\na sense of foreboding, \u201cUnder the great chandeliers of the Lancaster House\nmusic room, where Chopin once played for Queen Victoria, the Premiers (Nnamdi\nAzikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo) bickered, shot insults back and\nforth like poisoned darts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the British pioneering historians on\nNigeria, Michael Crowther warned that \u201cAny country is, in a sense, an\nartificial creation. In the case of Nigeria, however, union was so sudden, and\nincluded widely differing groups of people, that, not only the British, who\ncreated it but the inhabitants themselves have often doubted whether it could\nsurvive as a political entity\u201d. Hacking back to the roots of Nigeria\u2019s\ndysfunction, namely British colonialism, Walter Gould reasoned that \u201cIt could\nbe argued that if Cumming-Bruce had not interfered, Nigeria would have\nfragmented into several states, possibly as a confederation, in the style\nproposed by Ojukwu, and most importantly war would have been avoided. However,\nCumming-Bruce was only extending British policy that had been formulated in the\nrun-up towards independence: that Britain\u2019s investments will be best protected\nif the country was left to run in a \u2018safe pair of hands,\u2019 those of the Northern\nrulers\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tragic irony of British colonialism in\nNigeria is that, at one and the same time, it was the creator of the country\nand the inseminator of the incurable virus afflicting Nigeria. No one invested\nin the rancour and ill will plaguing Nigeria, including the very act of\ncreating the country, more than its British patriarch. And in this act of\nperfunctory cruelty, Frederick Lugard and his women (Flora Shaw and Margery\nPerham) were unsurpassed. As the holy book entreated, If the foundation be\ndestroyed, what can the righteous do? \u2018This is how Lugard described the baby\nthey had given birth to in a letter to his wife on 9 December, 1916: \u201cThese\npeople here are seditious and rotten to the core\u2026 the people of Lagos are the\nlowest, the most seditious and disloyal, the most prompted by pure self-seeking\nmoney motives of any people I have met.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Extrapolating from Nigeria and taking off from\nwhere her lover left off, Margery Perham seconded: \u201cThe dealings between\ntropical Africa and the West must be different. Here, in place of the large\nunities of Asia, was multicellular tissue of tribalism: instead of an ancient\ncivilisation, the largest area of primitive poverty enduring into the modern\nage. Until the very recent penetration by Europe, the greater part of the\ncontinent was without the wheel, the plough or the transport animal; almost\nwithout stone houses or clothes except for skin, without writing and so without\nhistory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhat echoing Tafawa Balewa in lucidity, I\nwould never have thought of Isaac Adaka Boro, he reasoned that \u201cThe attitude of\nthe British to the Nigerian problem suggested that their handing over to\nNigeria a political set up of total democratic imbalance and contradictions was\nsatanic and a calculated trap to overwhelm the country with disastrous\npolitical upheavals. Surely, their reasons would be that they were reluctant to\nleave the country and were only forced out by political pressures of certain\nambitious citizens of the country\u2026What all lovers of peace and equity would\ntell them was that they made a mess of Nigeria and owe a profound apology to the\ndemocratic world at large.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the master himself, Chinua Achebe,\nillustrates \u201cThe rain that beat Africa began four to five hundred years ago,\nfrom the \u2018discovery\u2019 of Africa by Europe, through the transatlantic slave\ntrade, to the Berlin conference of 1885\u2026that controversial gathering called the\nscramble for Africa\u2026which created new boundaries that did violence to Africa\u2019s\nancient societies and resulted in tension prone modern states\u2019 Chinua Achebe in\n\u2018There Was a Country.\u2019 In Peter Ekeh, Nigeria ultimately lost one of the most\noutstanding Nigerian pandering intellectuals, \u201cNigerian affairs have reached a\npoint which calls for the invocation of an olden distinction between the State\nand the Nation. A State is the organisation that runs the political affairs of\na country, with its rulers and its bureaucracy. The people themselves and their\nhistory and cultures, their mores and ethical lives, constitute the Nation.\nWhen the social and political affairs of a country are well managed by leaders\nwho are responsible and are respected by the people, there is a congruence\nbetween the State and the Nation. In such circumstances, there is no need for a\ndistinction between the two. Sadly, Nigerian affairs compel us to separate the\nNigerian Nation from the monster that has emerged as the Nigerian State.\nIncreasingly, the Nigerian Nation is being victimised by the Nigerian State\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We lately learned from Fareed Zakaria, \u201cAccording\nto the Migration Policy Institute, 59% of Nigeria immigrants aged 25 and older\nhold at least a Bachelor\u2019s degree, that is nearly double the proportion for\nAmericans born in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is also more than the proportion of\nimmigrants from South Korea, China, the United Kingdom and Germany. Nigerian\nimmigrants also get high scale jobs, 54% of them are in largely White-collar\npositions in management, business, science and the arts than barely just 39% of\npeople born in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zakaria cited the preceding excerpt from a new\nAmerican Research report which revealed that Nigerian immigrants in the United\nStates made more than $14 billion in 2018 and paid more than $4 billion in\ntaxes in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zakaria meant the Nigerian country profile as\nrebuke and exposure of the ulterior motive behind the inclusion of Nigeria in\nthe new list of countries whose citizens are banned from seeking immigration to\nAmerica by Donald Trump. From the report, it is self-evident that if\nachievement orientation and merit was the determinant criteria for admitting\nimmigrants to the USA, Nigeria should top the list of desirable immigrants\nrather than condemning the country to the ranks of persona non grata. It is\nproof positive that, unencumbered by the virus of British ill will which gave\nbirth to Nigeria in the first place, those citizens who answered to Nigerian\nnationality, are of equal merit with the best of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Akin Osuntokun \u201cSince 1914, the British Government has been trying to make Nigeria into one country, but the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds, in their religious beliefs and customs and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[184,185],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-akin-osuntokun","tag-tafawa-balewa-and-other-prophecies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/towncryyers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/africa-colonialism1503597158846_aspR_1.662_w615_h370_e.jpg?resize=615%2C370&ssl=1\")
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